Bourne Supremacy

Starring: Matt Damon, Brian Cox, Joan Allen, Franka Potente, and Julia Stiles
Directed by: Paul Greengrass

Matt Damon interview

Bluntly speaking? Bourne Supremacy's tag line, "They Should Have Left Him Alone" is so completely apropos for this particularly puzzling sequel. Not one to use clever cliché driven opening phrases in the BluntReview, anyone worth half a Sir Conan Doyle Club Membership would have caught the tongue-in-cheek cryptic foretelling message the faceless folks in marketing had sent. Therefore I felt obliged since these heroic people risked limb and comfortable pension plan to warn us. I say warn us 'cause this film bites the big rotten Bratwurst - with roasted onions and stanky beer mustard - and this oh-so-clever tagline says it all.

Story goes…Jason Boure, oopsie - meant Bourne (Matt Damon), is finally relaxing-ish in a faraway location. He's happily cohabitating in a beach view bungalow with Marie (Franke Potenta) and livin the ex-CIA-like soldier lifestyle; hangin' ten yet perpetually looking over his sun-kissed shoulder for an enemy, his semi-automatic at his hip.

Viola. Faster than you can say, "Get me some cigs from the packy" The emotionless bad guy has arrived, and he's hunting Jason pelt this season.

After a been-there-done-that crowded Indian street fair chase scene Jason finds himself thrown back into the "biz." He'd warned them about bothering him. But no, they had to go steppin' into his space and ruining his crib an' sheet.

So we spend the next coupla hours being bombarded with fancy spy routines and car chases. The first film, Bourne Identity, was refreshing, interesting and surprising. Dare I say thrilling? Here in stark Johnny Cash vs. Geddy Lee-ish contrast, Bourne Supremacy manages to bore one to whale-tears as the bad guy is instantly recognizable (so much so you'd think even the film's "super smart" good guys would pin the tail on the capitalist…), the secondary badskinik who's Russian (naturally), is also a cellophane villain poured from recycled Hong Kong plastic, and to top off this cash-cow sequel-from-hell, wads of spy-like techno speak is whipped at you at speeds that would make Michael Schumacher shiver! Even the "car chase" surely meant to out-do Bourne Identity's chase scene (which is up there in film history's top ten), actually manages to end up a semi-spoof of themselves it's so stupid.

Schnitzelpange Matt Damon's super svelte-n-bulging body doesn't warrant forking out hard earned payola for this bloated hodge podge of cliché-y action film scenes. Sure Matt's apparently put down the Kelly's Roast Beef trailer demands and switched to wheat grass to get that utterly captivating physique, but he seems a tad (read: elsewhere) disheveled mentally. Maybe it was his conscience working out the financial demons vs. the soul's knowledge of bringing a poodlepoo script to market?

And for those thespian hierophants that noticed the blue-blood names Brian Cox and Joan Allen? There's nothing worth a silly snort in this two-hour crapitini fest kids. Onward. Chris Cooper's lucky they killed him off in the real version, err, I mean the first film.

Snack recommendation: Dinner on the way to another film, perhaps I, Robot?