The Bourne Supremacy

Note: the screenshots featured here are taken from the player's downscaled standard definition output and should not be considered in any way representative of the actual quality of the transfer.

Picking up some months after the events of The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy sees former CIA assassin Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) and his girlfriend Marie (Franka Potente) holed up in Goa, India, hiding from his former employers while trying to piece together his fragmented memory. The comparative idyll of their new life is shattered, however, when an assassin (Karl Urban) shows up and forces them to go on the run again. As if this wasn't enough, the CIA, having reason to believe that Bourne was responsible for the assassination of two agents in Berlin, is also hot on his tail, led by the resolute Pamela Landy (Joan Allen). Knowing that he could not possibly have been in Berlin at the time of the assassination, Bourne sets out to uncover the truth about this fit-up and, perhaps, his own identity.

Based on the novels of the late Robert Ludlum, the Bourne movies tread on deliciously fertile ground: a rogue agent who can't remember his own past forced to fend for himself in a world in which seemingly everyone wants him brought down, dead or alive. It's a shame, therefore, that, for a multitude of reasons, The Bourne Supremacy is not a patch on its predecessor. The main culprit is the script, which is all over the place: whereas The Bourne Identity was a reasonably faithful adaptation of Ludlum's novel, barring some necessary tweaks to make a story originally in the early 1980s Cold War environment work in the 21st century, Tony Gilroy's script for Supremacy uses the novel of the same name as little more than inspiration for a plot that is, for the most part, completely new. It's an unnecessarily convoluted affair featuring several different strands that never really come together in a satisfying way, and, even more damagingly, it lacks a human element.


In Identity, this was provided by Franka Potente's character, Marie. An innocent whisked head-first into a world of espionage, assassination and double-dealing, she effectively served as a point for the audience to relate to. We were in much the same position as her, and while the focus was primarily on Bourne, we got the feeling that we were seeing his actions through her eyes. Taking care not to give too much away, Supremacy lacks this crucial element and suffers considerably for it. Matt Damon is hardly the most charismatic of actors, and Bourne is such a blank slate that, try as the script might, it's impossible to get inside his head. He is also inconsistently characterised, which hurts his credibility. On the one hand, he is portrayed as a ruthless killing machine, capable of tearing through the streets of Moscow and causing any number of fatalities in the pile-ups he leaves in his wake. This suggests that he has no problem with collateral damage. On the other hand, we are expected to believe that he is tormented by his fragmented memories of an assassination he carried out in Berlin while working for the CIA. His quest to discover the truth about these memories results in the film's most mawkish scene, in which he confronts the daughter of his target and pours out his heart to her.

All of this is compounded by the film's visual style, a demonstration of all that is wrong with the current trend towards jittery, hand-held camerawork and abrupt, staccato editing. Literally every single shot in the film features the camera jumping around or swaying in an extremely nauseating manner, and while I understand the logic behind adopting such a style - the intention, after all, is to highlight the confusion of Bourne's state of mind and the uncertainty of the world he inhabits - it simply doesn't make for a pleasant viewing experience. With Identity, Doug Liman (of Go and Swingers fame), managed to find a balance between tricked-out camera gymnastics and the quieter moments that allowed the audience to catch its breath. However, Supremacy's director, Paul Greengrass, the man behind Bloody Sunday and, more recently, United 93, seems to have no interest in maintaining such an equilibrium. What makes this doubly sad is that, hidden among it all, are some really nice shots. While the experience is not quite as stomach-churning as something like The Blair Witch Project (which arguably was justified in its use of jittery photography), it is frustrating and, more often than not, simply looks amateur.


Despite its flaws, though, Supremacy still manages to be a watchable enough thriller for the most part. It's undeniably fun to see what sort of makeshift solution Bourne will come up with to solve any immediate problems, and, while Damon plays the character as little more than a plank of wood, he is thankfully surrounded by an able cast of adversaries, of whom Joan Allen makes the biggest impression. The globe-trotting aspect of the original film also remains, and, in the space of under two hours, we've travelled to locations as diverse as India, Russia and the Netherlands. The fact that all of this was shot on location also gives it a sense of legitimacy that TV shows like Alias, which has many of the same traits as the Bourne franchise, can only dream of. Furthermore, the action sequences, while not on the same level as those of Identity - the climactic car chase through Moscow seems calculated to one-up the similar Parisian sequence of its predecessor, but falls short of the mark - are suitably adrenaline-pumping, and the admirable lack of CGI makes it easy to see why so many people consider this series to be a preferable alternative to James Bond's most recent outings.

The Bourne Supremacy is ultimately slightly disappointing given the strengths of The Bourne Identity, but, for all its problems, it remains a competently executed and often enjoyable thriller. With more consistent characterisation of the lead character, a stronger attempt to humanise him to enable to audience to connect with his plight, and less abrasive camerawork, this could have been a top notch spy thriller. As it stands, however, it is far from the Bond killer that many have claimed it to be, and one can only wonder where Greengrass will take the series with the upcoming The Bourne Ultimatum.


HD DVD Presentation

Presented in its original aspect ratio of 2.39:1 at 1080p, The Bourne Supremacy is served extremely well on HD DVD. Due to its director's stylistic choices, which emphasise low light and murky shadows, it won't continually wow you in terms of clarity like some titles do (although the more saturated sequences in India are certainly on par with anything else released so far), but it is of course several times better than it looked in standard definition, and represents the original source materials almost to perfection.

I say "almost" because, while it does look extremely good, a few minor compression artefacts are visible. You have to really be looking for them to spot them, but they do show up on occasion - the paper windmills at the start of Chapter 3 are the most noticeable example. This is a combination, I suspect, of the fact that The Bourne Supremacy is slightly grainier than most films of its age - a completely intentional stylistic touch and one that is represented very faithfully here - and the number of bonus materials that have been crammed on to a single disc. Of course, not having access to a PC HD drive, I'm unable to clarify precisely how much of a 30 GB dual layer disc has been used, so it's impossible to confirm for sure whether or not the encoder was starved for space. All in all, though, this is a thoroughly satisfying transfer.


The audio comes in Dolby Digital-Plus 5.1 format, offering the choice of the original English, and Spanish and French dubs. Much like the transfer, this is an excellent audio presentation with no major shortcomings, although it does lack the added "oomph" of titles like Serenity and Constantine. Here, rear action is decent but not outstanding, with the mix overall coming across as surprisingly front-focused for a film with so many blistering action scenes and chases. I'm sure that this is entirely appropriate to the original mix, though, and there are no problems with clarity, distortion or dropouts.

Optional English SDH, Spanish and French subtitles are provided for the film, and the location type and subtitles for the various moments of non-English dialogue are of the proper burned-in variety rather than being player-generated. All of the extras, apart from the commentary and Bourne Instant Access feature, are also subtitled.


Extras

Whereas most of the current crop of HD DVD releases have merely replicated the bonus content of their standard definition counterparts, a handful have added some additional materials, and The Bourne Supremacy is one of them. The key new feature here is Bourne Instant Access, the equivalent to what Warner is referring to as the "In-Movie Experience" on its releases that come equipped with such a gimmick. Essentially a cross between an audio commentary and a documentary, this feature runs alongside the film, and can be played in audio-only format, which essentially makes it feel like a regular commentary, or the "Total Experience", which causes a small window to pop up in the corner of the frame, showing everything from talking heads to behind the scenes footage, to deleted materials. It's actually a really great way to digest a whole lot of information, and while it does end up replicating quite a lot of the material found elsewhere on the disc, I suspect that, once HD home entertainment releases become the norm, these "In-Movie Experience" type extras will, to some extent, come to replace traditional commentaries and featurettes.

Two other extras are included which didn't appear on the original standard definition release, but were featured on the later "Explosive Edition". These are The Bourne Mastermind, a short piece on author Robert Ludlum, and The Bourne Diagnosis, which gives a brief overview of the amnesic disorder afflicting Bourne. Neither of them are particularly meaty, but it's nice that Universal have tried to included as much material as possible with this release.

For the rest of the extras, it's business as usual, and there is a lot of material for dedicated extras aficionados to work through, most of it of a reasonable standard. In addition to an audio commentary by Greengrass and around five minutes' worth of deleted scenes, a number of featurettes of varying length have been included. These cover everything from the casting, to the score, to the commitment to avoid CGI in favour of practical effects. Perhaps unsurprisingly, there is a great deal of emphasis on the stunts and action sequences - personally I would have preferred a more in-depth look at the adaptation process, an area in which the featurettes are disappointingly unforthcoming - but given the nature of the film, this is probably appropriate.

The bulk of these featurettes are unremarkable, but this release picks up extra marks for the excellent Instant Access feature, and for Greengrass' thoughtful and intelligent audio commentary, which to some extent addresses my complaint regarding the lack of focus on the adaptation in the featurettes. Overall Universal have put together a decent package in terms of bonus materials. There is a slightly haphazard feel to it all, but a little perseverance will result in some rather interesting material being uncovered.


Overall

The Bourne Supremacy is another strong high definition release from the Universal stable. While the film itself is not on par with its predecessor, which sadly remains unavailable on HD DVD, this feature-packed release, which boasts excellent audio-visual qualities, should go down well with earlier adopters who enjoy this modern-day alternative to James Bond.

About My Equipment:

The HD DVD reviewed here was played on a Toshiba HD-A1 player outputting the video in 1080i mode. Two displays were tested: a 1366x768 Sony BRAVIA KDL-32V2000 32" LCD TV connected via HDMI, and a 1680x1050 Sony MFM-HT205 20" LCD monitor connected via component. Audio was output to a Creative Labs Inspire 5700 5.1 audio setup with an onboard Dolby Digital/DTS decoder. Because my hardware does not support the new Dolby Digital-Plus format, the HD DVD player automatically converted the audio stream to DTS.

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