Where last we left Jason Bourne (Matt Damon), he was living in a secluded location with his new girlfriend. The Bourne Supremacy picks up where the Bourne Identity left off: Jason Bourne is a professional killer, a member of the Treadstone Group, who no longer remembers his identity. It turns out that Bourne is a perfect scapegoat for another murder, and it's not long before an assassination is pinned on him.
And that's the awkward thing about this installment in the Bourne series. Bourne's reason for involvement in the plot is basically summed up as "it seemed like a good idea at the time." Fortunately, Bourne slowly unearths information about his own past amidst the machinations of FBI, European assassins, and the Treadstone Group. Unfortunately, professional "bad guy" character actors play the bad guys. I guessed the twist upon his appearance. Hint: look for the slimy political type who has no reason to go along on the mission but gets told to do so anyway.
There are other problems: one of my pet peeves, the blurry memory cam. Bourne's done some very bad things in his past missions, the missions he supposedly can't remember, and the director decided to tell us by having Bourne remember through echoing, blurry shots. They get old, fast.
The trademark gritty fighting scenes are all here, including insane car chases (more like a series of car crashes), the clever turnabouts that you never see in other spy movies, and plenty of fisticuffs. Bourne Supremacy doesn't do everything right, but it has street-level action down perfectly.
By the end of the film we learn Bourne's full name. But that's a cop out: the Supremacy is more about Bourne proving that in the past he was never a very nice guy. That's hardly news.
Bourne Supremacy feels more like an episode in a series than a movie. Bourne fans won't be disappointed, but the rest of us will have to wait until the third installment comes out on DVD to see Bourne develop beyond an amnesiac killing machine.
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