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Title: The Bourne Supremacy

Cast: Matt Damon, Franka Potente, Julia Stiles, Joan Allen, Brian Cox, Oksana Akinshina

Director: Paul Greengrass

It would seem that the success of The Bourne Identity came as a surprise to many. Damon and Affleck inseparable it seems at times, indistinguishable to some and insufferable with it all. Yet from that, Matt Damon emerged as surprisingly effective in the first adaptation of Robert Ludlum’s Bourne novels. Damon took on the part of Jason Bourne, CIA killer with amnesia, who fights his way out of his past and across Europe.

With the start of The Bourne Supremacy, Bourne has shacked up in Goa with the German girl he met in the first film. However with false evidence planted at a bombing in Berlin, and an attempt on his life, Bourne finds himself forced to take action. This sets up a conflict, the CIA wanting to know why Jason Bourne is fighting them, and Bourne wanting to know why the CIA think he is doing anything at all. in the process each side tries to trap and trick and outguess the other.

With a different director in charge The Bourne Supremacy has something of a different feel to it’s predecessor. Greengrass taking a more kinetic approach – particularly evident in the camera work and choreography. The upside of this is the sense of drama that comes from that. The downside is that the fights, choreographed by the same guy that did those in Fight Club, don’t come across as well as they should – a fact evidenced by comparison of the scenes in the film with those in the “making of”, which has been shown on TV as a promotional tool.

While the director may have changed, The Bourne Supremacy retains a surprising, and admirable continuity with The Bourne Identity in the form of the cast. Matt Damon of course reprises his role as Bourne, but his girlfriend is also played by the same actress as in the first film – Franka Potente, a German actress, who gained world attention from her role in the film Run, Lola, Run, which was apparently a big influence on the approach to The Bourne Identity. Additionally Julia Stiles and Brian Cox both reprise their roles as CIA agents involved with the Treadstone project which created Bourne originally.

The cast is rounded out, and to a large degree, driven by, Joan Allen, who plays the role of Helen Landy. The head of the CIA department who se operation Bourne has supposedly interfered with, setting off the events of the film. Her role as up and coming and determined, while failing to grasp the gravity of the situation being a major propellant of events. Another nice touch in casting is the cameo by Oksana Akinshina, a Russian actress who played the lead in the film Lilya 4-Ever.

As an adaptation of a novel, there are always going to be some differences between Ludlum’s material and the actual film. A cursory glance at the summary of The Bourne Supremacy novel should make some of the discrepancies very much evident. However allowing for the nature of Hollywood to provide some distance, or in my case, never having read Ludlum’s novels, one can find the Bourne films to be reasonably strong action films – well conceived and executed.