The worst kind of sequels are often follow-ups to surprise hits. With pre-designed franchise pictures, everyone involved knows there's going to be a sequel; you don't make Spider-Man without planning for Spider-Man 2. But surprise hits often find studios scrambling to make unwarranted and ill-conceived sequels that serve no purpose other than an attempt to cash in.
Although it boasted a big star (Matt Damon) and plenty of action, 2002's The Bourne Identity was a modestly budgeted thriller that was not expected to become the highest-grossing film of the year for Universal, nor the top rental of the following year. Identity was a wonderful, smart and stylish thriller, a step up for director Doug Liman, who'd previously worked on hipster comedies Swingers and Go. It captured the international flavor and cool sophistication of '70s thrillers like Three Days of the Condor, and showed that Damon could bring dramatic heft to an action-hero role.
It wasn't necessarily a film that called out for a sequel, nor did it seem like it was designed with one in mind, although the Robert Ludlum novel upon which it was based was the first in a series of three. Liman and screenwriters Tony Gilroy and William Blake Herron changed so much from the source material that they'd need to craft an entirely new story for a sequel, anyway.
That's essentially what's been done with The Bourne Supremacy, although Liman is out as director and Gilroy is now the sole screenwriter. Taking only the barest of elements from Ludlum's second book, Gilroy and new director Paul Greengrass have come up with a sequel that, whatever its actual motivation, doesn't feel like a studio-mandated cash grab, but an organic continuation of the original, both in content and style.
When we last left him, former assassin Jason Bourne (Damon) had cut his ties to the U.S. government and settled down with German girlfriend Marie (Franka Potente). Supremacy finds the couple living on the coast of India, their quiet lives shattered when a mysterious assassin (Karl Urban) shows up targeting Bourne. The U.S. government also is back on his tail, as Bourne has been framed for two deaths in a botched operation in Berlin headed by Pamela Landy (Joan Allen). Back on the run, Bourne is pursued across plenty of picturesque locations, expanded from the European locales of the original to include India and Russia.
British filmmaker Greengrass, whose breakthrough was 2002's Bloody Sunday, a naturalistic recreation of the 1972 massacre in Northern Ireland, brings an immediacy to the film while maintaining Liman's sense of style and place. While the Bourne of Identity was confused and searching for answers, the Bourne of Supremacy is single-minded and determined, seeking out his tormentors with vicious and intense force, and Greengrass' jittery, hand-held camerawork brings out the uneasiness of Bourne's state of mind. Some of the humor and sense of fun that Liman brought to Identity is missing, but the story's darker tone calls for a more somber style.
Damon, too, is more intense, and his excellent rapport with Allen is reminiscent of the Harrison Ford-Tommy Lee Jones relationship in The Fugitive. Unlike Chris Cooper's Conklin, the first film's villain, Landy is not evil, just a committed law enforcement officer who will do whatever it takes to get her man. Allen is marvelous as a character who is the very definition of steely, and though she and Damon never even share the screen, their phone conversations alone are riveting and suspenseful. Brian Cox returns from Identity to fill the more conventional corrupt government official role as Ward Abbott, former head of the program that made Bourne the stone-cold killer he's trying to no longer be.
Supremacy lacks the love story that humanized Bourne in Identity, although his desire for revenge is emotional in a different way, and Damon pulls it off nearly as well as Uma Thurman in Kill Bill. Greengrass also goes about 20 minutes longer than he should, and while the ending contains an exciting car chase, it can't rival the first film's, and comes too late to impact as strongly as it should. Once Allen drops out, the film loses some of its power, but it still manages to tie up strongly and leave things open for an adaptation of Ludlum's third book. At least at this point, the filmmakers know they're in franchise territory.