Damon is back as a man haunted by a past he can't remember

01:00 AM EDT on Friday, July 23, 2004

BY MICHAEL JANUSONIS
Journal Arts Writer

The man-on-the-run adventures of Jason Bourne, a CIA assassin with a bad case of amnesia, were such a hit with audiences two summers ago in The Bourne Identity that Matt Damon as Bourne is back for more in The Bourne Supremacy.

Despite the title, The Bourne Supremacy does not reign supreme over its predecessor as it tries to repeat the excitement. At best, it only comes close.

If you haven't seen the first big-screen version of Robert Ludlum's novel, you might find The Bourne Supremacy an intelligent story about the intelligence agency, although some things in this convoluted thriller may be confusing at first.

Bourne turns into a one-man army in an attempt to clear his name after being set up as the fall guy for a murder, and the robbery of a $20 million CIA slush fund in Berlin by a team of Russian thugs.

He becomes the prime focus of CIA spy Pamela Landy (Joan Allen), who thinks all the evidence points to him and wants to use Bourne's capture as a springboard for her own career in the agency.

Brian Cox returns as a mysterious and cautious CIA chief who resents Pamela's intrusions onto his turf.

There's a lot of running around and more than one big chase sequence as The Bourne Supremacy leapfrogs across the globe, from India to Berlin to Naples to Amsterdam to Munich, back to Berlin and then on to Moscow and New York City.

But we've seen Bourne do his Spider-Man routine up the side of a building in the first film. And the rampaging car chase sequence -- this time along the streets and through the auto tunnels of Moscow, with Bourne in a stolen taxi being chased by a killer and the police -- was more excitingly done in The Bourne Identity. Then, with a young woman passenger, Bourne drove a Mini that careened through the streets, and even down the staircases, of Paris.

In The Bourne Supremacy, British director Paul Greengrass, taking over for Doug Liman, favors lots of frantic hand-held camera work and rapid-fire cross-cutting, so that often it's hard to focus on who is doing what.

Although Bourne has great instincts and lightning moves, the nice things about the Bourne movies, and about Damon himself, is that he seems an Everyman who could -- and sometimes does -- get injured when performing a death-defying stunt.

So when he jumps off a bridge onto a passing barge with a thud in this film, he limps away.

The plot itself is a throwaway, though -- about a Russian oil czar who sets up Bourne and wants him killed to divert attention and . . . well, I don't know. Who cares?

Much of the central focus of The Bourne Supremacy is Bourne's attempts to uncover his past life, although we've been down that road before in The Bourne Identity.

"Who was I?" he asks plaintively as he also tries to figure out why some people are trying to kill him and why others have made him the fall guy in a murder.

It leads him to a dim recollection of his first assassination assignment, re-staged in flashback. This allows him to straighten up a loose end from that case in a late, touching moment.

Allen makes a good foil, however, inquisitive and bright. She doggedly pursues serious questions, even though she's forever barking up the wrong tree. Allen might have patterned Pamela after some earnest network TV reporter on a Washington assignment.

Julie Stiles has the nothing role of a CIA psychologist to whom Bourne turns for answers, and she does nothing much with it.

With only one truly big surprise in the middle of the film, much of Bourne Supremacy feels like a retread.

***

The Bourne Supremacy

Starring: Matt Damon, Joan Allen, Franka Potente, Brian Cox, Julia Stiles, Karl Urban, Gabriel Mann.

Rated: PG-13, contains violence, profanity.