The Bourne Identity

For the first picture of a blockbuster franchise, that was surprisingly small-scale and grounded. But then so was the first Fast & Furious movie. We'll see how crazy things get later on.

I liked it. The specific way the amnesia worked was not satisfactorily explained in my mind, but perhaps a sequel will shed some light there. There didn't seem to be a reason for it because I don't think the bad guys knew it had happened. And yet, the assassin in the field of grass Bourne killed is someone Jason feels a personal connection to through his experiences. They sound familiar as he is dying, but he still doesn't know what they mean.

It was cool in the restaurant when Bourne was listing all the things he could do to Marie, and wondering how he could know all that but not his identity. It's a cool concept, but unfortunately that specific bit DOESN'T make sense. Unless this was something done TO him. But if it were the bad guys would have known about it.

The old guy getting increasingly frustrated with Chris Cooper's character was totally understandable. Even if Cooper's character and the assassins he hired failed to kill Bourne, he left behind such a freaking mess each time he failed. That was actually a problem for me because it made the villains seem incompetent and as if Bourne's life was never in actual danger. I know there are sequels, but legit tension IS actually possible in franchises where you know the characters aren't going to die. But the bad guys being SO bad at planning, or even understanding what was happening lowered the stakes a lot.

And frankly killing Bourne and all of the people they did to "clean up" whatever mission this ultimately was seemed counterproductive to me. These agents aren't intelligence gatherers, they are intelligence destroyers, which just makes me think they need to be better at their supposed lines of work.

I hear the trilogy gets better and better as it goes on. But while I DID like this movie, I don't love the franchise yet. ***1/2.