The Bourne Identity (2002, 119 min)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0258463/
My roommate and I decided to watch the Bourne trilogy of movies today. We had previously done The Lord of the Rings in the spring and wanted to do something again. I hadn't seen any of the Bourne movies but once in theater, but I remembered how good they were so I thought this would be a good idea.
The first film in the series stars Matt Damon as Jason Bourne. As he rediscovers his past he lives quite the adventure. He meets Marie (Franka Potente) and learns of the head of the program he worked with (Operation Treadstone) in Conklin (Chris Cooper). There's a bunch of minor characters, but these three serve as the main means of plot advancement.
Matt Damon is a quality actor in whatever movie he's in and this is no exception. He's not really what you expect when you think assassin (and especially not back in 2002), but he pulls it off really well. Potente is a pretty good female lead here as well. She carries her own and I felt did a good job at being the reluctant accomplice-turned-lover or whatever. Conklin seems typecast as this sort of character so it's again no surprise that he does a good job.
This Bourne movie is easily the most memorable and also the best of the three in my opinion. There's the great scenes and just the feel of everything is better. The obvious scene is the vertigo inducing climb on the wall that Bourne does in his escape. I would easily put it as the best scene of the entire trilogy. Another good part of this film is the relationship between Marie and Bourne. It adds a lot to the film, having this relationship which really isn't present in the other two. While it's not something that's absolutely required in a spy movie like this, I do think it creates a good setting and provides a different overall feel.
When I watched all three of these films in theaters I didn't really see how much the second and third feel different due to the shaky camera. While I feel that The Bourne Identity does this somewhat, it's much more calm throughout. This creates more of a tense feel to the movie than the adrenaline feel of the other two. But The Bourne Identity captures this tense feel in a really good way and everything really flows together right.
Overall, I gave this film a 7/10. The Bourne Identity does a lot right, but it's just not a great movie. It's a fun film and there's no doubt about that. It revolutionized quite a lot in the spy genre and set up the other movies to follow. But as for an overall rating, I feel that The Bourne Identity is just a really good movie - not a great one.
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