Why so much hype?

Dreadfully Boring

Brilliant and touching

In other words,this film is a surreal ride.

The Bourne Identity introduced Matt Damon as Jason Bourne and he is simply amazing. Doug Liman is great at action sequences as well as pacing the film and he excels here. Damon is, as already enthusiastically mentioned above, really good as the spy Jason Bourne who is found in a state of confusion when the film begins. I never got the chance to see the rest of the films but this was a very good thriller from Liman which reminds me to go see them.

I reckon I've seen this film a while ago and wasn't really all that impressed with it so I basically let the rest of the franchise slip through my fingers. Then again that is probably a good thing since there are so many franchises, and so many films, these days that keeping up with all of them is a chore in and of itself. Still, a part of me wanted to give it another shot, even though I'm not a big fan of spy thrillers, and in a way I am really glad that I did. I guess the last time I watched it I was a somewhat tired and wasn't able to get into it. In fact, I'm sure this film is also based on an older film that I also loved (or even a book, though I haven't read the book and am unlikely to do so). Anyway, I suspect the plot of this film is quite well known. A man is fished out of the ocean (though how he managed to survive is beyond me - he should have been well and truly dead, especially if he is floating face down) and basically can't remember a thing. However there is something implanted in him which reveals a Swiss bank account number. To cut a long story short, it turns out that he is a skilled assassin, and is being hunted down by the CIA for some reason or another, though it turns out that he failed a mission and needs to be, well, killed. Not surprisingly he also picks up a female partner to travel with him on his adventures (ah, don't you just love Hollywood cliches). Well, yeah, it is a spy thriller, and it really did end up keeping me drawn in right through to the end. Okay, it turns out that you pretty much know a lot more than what he does, which does drag the film down somewhat. In a way it is a shame in that regards because it would have been so much better if they had kept the whole CIA business hidden away behind the scenes so that everything was being revealed to us as it was being revealed to him. In a way it did subtract from a lot of suspense. Not surprisingly though he does get his memories back eventually, though it is rather dubious as to how they actually came about - there really wasn't any trigger for that to happen, and once again it might have been better for it not to have actually happened. I'm not really all that sure if there is much more that I can say about this film though. It is sort of a straight out action thriller, and I suspect that the various sequels are going to be pretty much the same. Still, it was a pretty cool idea, though as I have mentioned it is hardly original (since I believe that it is based on a book). Of course, the period in which this film is set suggests that there was probably been some significant diversion from the original, since the good old evil empire that was the Soviet Union no longer exists, but then again this is also very much about a government agency that has gone completely out of control, though apparently it was quite like that at the height of the Cold War, with CIA operatives basically living it up in Europe. Not surprisingly this does translate over to similar films, particularly since most of the action takes place in Paris (though a part also takes place in Switzerland). So yeah, this was a pretty cool film, and I'll probably go and watch the sequels some time soon.

Until I noticed that the reason he is able to kill the other expert assassin is because the other assassin kills the family dog for no apparent reason. This is too big of a plot hole for me to swallow. Otherwise the movie is great. The action scenes are amazing and the pace is really good.

I imagine a lot of people forget the more humble, stealthy experience that is the beginning of the Bourne story.When a man is found afloat in the ocean he finds he has no memory of who he is. When a shadowy covert operation begins to send assassins after him and watch his every move, terrible truths are revealed as he is on the run.Having enjoyed films like The Fugitive, The Bourne Identity was a natural progression for me, it is probably a massively underrated film especially since its own series got so bombastic. Identity is such a moody, quiet and real experience. Damon plays a very subtle character in Jason Bourne; a man who has no identity to define himself with, but has hard truths to find answers for. The film is not exposition heavy, even when it frequently bounces from our hero to the men hunting him, it maintains a strong sense of tension and mystery without ruining it with blatancy or over explaining everything. Something action movies do far too often. Directed by Doug Liman (not Paul Greengrass, who would continue the series) and scored by John Powell, the film is drenched in a great atmosphere of tension and puzzle solving.The characters too are compellingly human, everyone is performing extremely well here, Brian Cox, Chris Cooper and Franka Potente, Clive Owen is even briefly in this well cast film. No one feels out of place, unnecessary or poorly written.The action sequences are great too. From what I remember of Greengrass' follow-up Supremacy there was a lot of shaky cam, and I was surprised at the lack of shaky cam in this movie. Sequences are very well shot, giving kinetic weight yet not loosing the audience in the process (and this was after Gladiator, when everyone wanted to do shaky-cam!) There's an awesome car chase too involving Bourne escaping in an old Mini Cooper, very memorable stuff.All in all The Bourne Identity is a superb and solid action thriller that took everyone by surprise, propelling one of the biggest action/espionage franchises since Bond forward.