Many (many) years ago, I read Ludlum’s novel The Bourne Identity. I enjoyed it, but not quite enough to read the sequels, or others of Ludlum’s works. I didn’t see the movie when it came out, either, but it was well-recommended, and always on my “Jeez, I’ll have to borrow that from someone” list.
Well, I did (in exchange for dog-freeing duty). And — well, heck, I’m glad I did. Quite a decent — if sometimes eerily low-key spy/action/suspence flick.
Matt Damon is a bit too baby-faced for the role, but he does it well nonetheless, exuding both bewilderment and ruthless earnest in the same breath. There are some nicely humorous bits, and some nicely serious bits, and some decent action, and a bit of emotion, all of it far less in-your-face than the Hollywood genre would normally indicate, and thus all the better for it. If you like spy movies, action movies, conspiracy movies, you’ll almost certainly like this one.
Nothing profound here. It’s a bit frothy, though slick as such. But, what the hell, it beats a lot of other films in its genre. And if I could get a bit of that atmosphere in my IDC game, I’d be a happy GM.
Now I have to go dig the book back up again. And hope that someone I know picks up the sequel movie …
I just saw “The Bourne Supremacy” last night, and enjoyed it more than I expected to. Matt Damon can actually act, and as he gets older he gets more interesting-looking (I don’t find him particularly attractive).
This story has some actual character development in it, too.
The jittery camera is a tad overdone, but it does give the action sequences a sense of bodily presence.
I’ve yet to read a review of Supremacy that doesn’t mention (negatively) the jittery camera work. Hrm.