The Bourne Supremacy

Paul Greengrass’s 2004 sequel dismantles the first film’s engine in the opening fifteen minutes: Marie is killed. There is no relationship to return to and nobody left to protect, so guilt is the only fuel Bourne has. That is an unusually severe structural choice for a sequel, and it sets the tone of everything after. The second choice is the camera. Doug Liman’s clean geography gives way to handheld work and very short cuts, and the Moscow chase is cut fast enough to blur who is where. If that registers as pressure, the film works; if it registers as nausea, it lasts the whole film. The producers hired Greengrass after seeing his 2002 film Bloody Sunday; Patrick Crowley wanted a camera used like a participating witness. The film was also shot in reverse order of its settings: Moscow first, then Berlin, with the Goa opening last. The New York phone call that closes it was devised only two weeks before the premiere by Greengrass and Matt Damon, shot afterwards, and replaced an ending set in a hospital room. A good fit if you want the resolution to arrive as a confession to the daughter of a man Bourne killed, not as a kill. Less so if you want to see where the cars are in relation to each other.