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The Bourne Identity (Widescreen Collector's Edition) Customer Reviews (10 - 12 of 62 Reviews)

It wasn't a bad movie
Those kids from Good Will Hunting are really growing up. Now that they have grown up they want to go from the cerebral to the action oriented in one bound. Right now you could go to the theater and find Ben Affleck playing a C.I.A. Analyst in The Sum of All Fears or you could check out the adaptation of Robert Ludlum's The Bourne Identity with Matt Damon as the lead. I can't speak for the latter but you might want to wait and rent this one.
Matt Damon plays the title role of Jason Borne. Borne has a lot of special talents unfortunately he has to learn about them one at a time because, well, he has lost his memory. It seems that he was pulled out of the ocean with two bullets in him as well as a nice little micro-chip. The men on this ship thought he was dead but much to their surprise he is still alive and after some quick surgery, healing rather rapidly. He doesn't know who he is or how he came to be in the ocean. He does know that he seems to speak multiple languages fluently and that this chip is leading him to an address of a bank in Zurich.
After getting to this bank, the man discovers that he appears to have multiple identities of which Jason Borne seems the most comfortable. He also has quite a bit of cash, some weapons, and after being attacked...a good deal of fighting skills he was unaware of possessing. Borne is forced on the run to discover his identity. Unfortunately the longer he is on the run, the more people with similar skills pop up trying to kill him. It seems that a major governmental agency is not happy having supposedly dead agents reappear without contacting them.
First off I must admit that I have never read the original book so I cannot comment as to how accurate an adaptation this movie is. That being said, I will state this is a very uneven movie. The action sequences are first rate and engrossing. The speed of them can keep you riveted on the edge of your seat. That's the good news.
The bad news is that the rest of the movie moves as a snails pace and doesn't sustain the suspense in the slightest. If anything the middle sequences slow the movie considerably. Also, the movie doesn't seem to go anywhere. The beginning makes some sense for story purposes but the end just happens with no particular climactic moment. One minute the movie is going along and the next...it just stops dead in its tracks. It almost leaves you wanting more with the earnest hope that something else will happen to explain the movie.
Matt Damon does do a good job in the title role. He is very believable as someone who has lost all touch with himself and suddenly finds people all converging with his face in their scope. He is pretty phenomenal in the action sequences and they were quite surprising in their ferocity. This movie is full of action but make no mistake, it is definitely PG-13 oriented as most of it is bloodless.
Most of the rest of the actors have meaningless characters and could have been done by anyone. Character actor Chris Cooper, Lone Star and The Patriot, is wasted as the "villain" and Julia Stiles, Save the Last Dance, is almost non-existent in her role.
Did I hate the movie? Not particularly but I was not totally entertained. It had some great moments but they were few and far between.

The Bourne Identity
There was a point about half way through "The Bourne Identity" when I realized that the movie had no real plot --- but I was enjoying it anyway. Sometimes all you need is a good, solid lead, some nice action, and a well-kept pace in order to be entertained. Thankfully, the movie provides all of those attributes.

"The Bourne Identity" is about Jason Bourne (Matt Damon), who is found floating in offshore waters by some fisherman, taken aboard their boat, and then recovers from two weeks at sea and two gunshot wounds. The recovery is quick, and Bourne is soon back on land, attempting to find out who he is, all the while people are trying to kill him. And he manages to hitch himself with a European drifter girl named Marie (played by Franka Potente, of "Run Lola Run" fame).

Unfortunately for us, and the reason why I say that the movie has no real "plot", is that any possibility of mystery and intrigue is zapped out of the story by a few factors. 1: From the title alone, and then a passport seen relatively early on, *we* know Bourne's identity well before he does. 2: We also are clued-in to who is trying to kill him, long before he starts to get an idea, as the action cuts back and forth to his adversaries quite often. And 3: as we know who he is, what his job used to be, who his adversaries are, and what *they* are doing to try to catch him, the potential plot of "mystery" is completely removed. All we are left with is the possibility of suspense during some of the action scenes.

Ah, but do those fulfill the purpose admirably. Even though we either already know what's going, or can pretty easily guess, once the story leads us into one of its many action scenes, all bets are off. The suspense comes into focus. The tension arises. And the fighting (Matt Damon must have taken some professional lessons) is great to watch, if a tad bloody. There is one scene in particular in which Bourne outwits an assassin, and it simply teems with nervous excitement as to how he'll resolve the conflict.

"The Bourne Identity" may suffer from an overexposure of its more mysterious elements, but it stands up well under the wonderful talents of Matt Damon and Franka Potente. They have good chemistry, and the director is smart to keep a primary focus on them. The story moves along at a strong pace, and feels sure of itself. All in all, not bad, as techno spy thrillers go.

Fast-Paced and Entertaining!
Adapted from Author Robert Ludlum's novel of the same name, The Bourne Identity stars Matt Damon as Jason Bourne, who, as the film opens, is found floating in the middle of the ocean, and is picked up by a fishing crew. He's been shot twice in the back, and has a strange device implanted in his hip, a laser-pointerish thingy that shows a swiss bank account number. When Bourne awakens, we get that old movie cliche....AMNESIA!!! (Cliched, yes, but it works here.) The movie follows Bourne's efforts to not only uncover his identity, but also find out why so many people are trying to kill him.

The movie is pretty long, but the brisk action scenes and snappy plot keep things moving. Director Doug Limon does a good job, and the cast is excellent, especially Chris Cooper (As Bourne's slimy boss), and the original Hannibal Lector, Brian Cox, who adds gravitas to every film he's in, even if it is a small role.

Two problems- Matt Damon's fight scenes are sped up almost to the point of distraction. I appreciate the fact that Bourne is supposed to be a step above everyone else, but the fights just looked....off somehow. And I hope Julia Stiles has some heavy-duty "Deleted Scenes" on the DVD, because otherwise it just seemed like unnecessary stunt-casting to have her here at all. Her character just adds more time to an already long movie.

I'm not usually the biggest spy-movie fan, but The Bourne Identity had me hooked from start to finish.

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