The Bourne Supremacy

Title : The Bourne Supremacy (109 minutes)

Genre : Action (PG-13)

Rating : **** (out of 5*)

This Weekend I Watched...
In "Bourne-2", Jason gets framed; and the GF from Bourne-1 gets offed in the first five minutes. From there on, it's non-stop action; as the CIA and its crack squad of assassins try to stop one agent who can't remember his past, can't remember to use a passport other than the one that says "Jason Bourne", and can't remember to disguise himself when he passes through customs and under surveilance cameras.

What's To Like...
Same as the Bourne-1 : the action is first-rate; the locations are picturesque (I want to go to Russia!); and the chase scenes are breath-taking. It is rumored that the primo car chase here was done in Moscow, cuz that's the only city that would allow its major streets to be
blocked off for the movie-shoot.

The action is more believable this time around. No more flying-carpet-down-the-stairwell foolishness.

What's Not To Like...
Lots of people griped about the hurky-jurky camera work. In watching it on TV, this wasn't a problem. But I can see where it would be irritating to watch it on the big screen.

I'm not quite sure why anyone would frame Jason Bourne. Wouldn't that be like framing James Bond? Or maybe Carlos The Jackal. You can do it, sure. But why? About all you accomplish is to get a p*ssed-off killing machine not on your tail.

The Bourne Redundancy...
I have come to the conclusion that there are several "movie" occupations that are out-and-out death warrants. One (seen here) is to be the still-living GF of the hero from the previous movie.

Another is to be the detective-hero's male partner. Especially if you're old and near retirement, or young and think you know it all. You can be sure that the bad guys are gonna take you out to send a message to the hero. Hey, villains! You wanna send a message? Take out the hero!

The third is anyone on a team of action heroes who surreptitiously betrays the team. Even if he gets away with the treachery; God, or some demon-spawned monster will make him pay for his bad karma.

Speaking of monsters, the fourth "goner" is any black guy on a team of heroes that's fighting aliens, predators, man-eating sharks, and/or gummi bears. If yo' is black, yo' is gonna be somebody's snack.

Last but not least is anyone who is fat or ugly. Good looks equates to good fortune. Bullets seek out blubber. Calamities seek out cellulite.

Just once, I'd like to see a movie where someone in any of these "loser categories" actually survives while the hero/damsel/good-looking white boy suffers an untimely and early demise. (*)

But I digress. The Bourne Supremacy offers absolutely nothing new from The Bourne Identity, other than female counter-hero revealing Jason Bourne's real name (David Webb) in the final three seconds of the movie. But repetitiveness is not necessarily a bad thing, if the initial movie was quite fine. So we'll give this four-stars, same as Bourne-1, and be happy that the middle episode wasn't the usual weak link of the trilogy.

(*) : Okay, there was one instance where the handsome male lead died off rather quickly. The captain of the ship in Aliens-One. I think his name was Dallas, or something like that. You knew Sigourney Weaver was gonna be the last survivor. But I kinda thought Captain Dallas would be the second-last.