Chris Deacy

The Bourne Supremacy (Paul Greengrass, 2004)

I must confess to not liking this sequel as much as Doug Liman’s ‘The Bourne Identity’ from two years earlier. That film gave us a hitman with amnesia, piecing together fragments of his past while seeking revenge on those who tried to kill him. It balanced action with psychology, drawing us into Bourne’s fractured mind.…

Chris Deacy
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I must confess to not liking this sequel as much as Doug Liman’s ‘The Bourne Identity’ from two years earlier. That film gave us a hitman with amnesia, piecing together fragments of his past while seeking revenge on those who tried to kill him. It balanced action with psychology, drawing us into Bourne’s fractured mind. ‘The Bourne Supremacy’, by contrast, leans heavily on logistics, surveillance, and relentless action.

Paul Greengrass directs this time, and his style is unmistakable: the camera is always moving, the editing razor-sharp. The technique is dazzling, but it comes at a cost. Characters and settings flicker past in seconds, leaving little space to breathe. The gritty realism of the locations, with its dirty streets and rancid apartments – a far cry from James Bond’s glamorous landscapes – grounds the story, but the effect is oddly hollow.

Unlike Bond, who represents state power with suave one-liners and global reach, Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) doesn’t even know which side he’s on. With no memory and no allegiances, he is forced to fight alone. The problem is that the film rarely lets us into his head. Apart from a late, poignant moment when Bourne visits the daughter of a couple assassinated in the first film, we get little reflection or context. His few conversations with Joan Allen’s CIA operative are clipped and functional, and it is as if all the dialogue and exposition have been stripped away, leaving only the mechanics of pursuit.

Yes, the film works on a technical level – the handheld immediacy, the propulsive editing, the anti-Bond grit. But it feels curiously empty, echoing Bourne’s own memory loss. We’re left with a lean, efficient thriller that delivers the thrills but sacrifices depth.

3 responses to “The Bourne Supremacy (Paul Greengrass, 2004)”

  1. MarkStayWrites Avatar
    MarkStayWrites

    I love this movie. I saw it in the West End on its first run and the car chase in Moscow go a round of applause. People talk about how these movies influenced Daniel Craig’s Bond series, and they refer to the shaky cam and intense action. But it’s the scene at the end when Bourne goes out of his way to apologise to the daughter of the people he had killed that makes this one stand out for me. I remember thinking, “Bond would never do that.” And then of course he went on to be a more touchy feely Bond. I think that’s the scene that Eon saw and thought: we need to up our game.

    Liked by 1 person

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    1. Chris Deacy Avatar
      Chris Deacy

      Brilliant, thank you Mark. I really wanted to like Supremacy more than I did – on paper, it has all the ingredients that should have made this a captivating thriller. As it happens, it is one of the last films I saw at the cinema in Wales before leaving for Kent in 2004, and so I relished the chance to see it again on the big screen last week. Everything you say is spot on – for some reason I just couldn’t get into it in the way I could with its predecessor (my review of Identity is so much more positive!). Really appreciate your insights here!!

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      1. MarkStayWrites Avatar
        MarkStayWrites

        I think Identity holds up as the better film as time goes on. It stands alone as a story, whereas Supremacy and Ultimatum are two halves of a whole. But hats off to Greengrass for taking Liman’s movie and building on its style and innovations.

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