Extras:
Alternate ending and opening, deleted and extended scenes, music video, The Bourne Mastermind: Robert Ludlum,
Access Granted: An interview with screenwriter Tony Gilroy, From Identity to Supremacy: Jason & Marie,
The Bourne Diagnosis, Cloak and Dagger: Covert Ops, The Speed of Sound, Inside a Fight Sequence,
Van Helsing trailer, Cast and filmmakers
Director:
Doug Liman
(The Bourne Identity, Getting In, Go, Swingers)
Producers:
Patrick Crowley, Richard N Gladstein and Doug Liman
Screenplay:
Tony Gilroy and W. Blake Herron
(based on the novel by Robert Ludlum)
Original Score :
John Powell
Cast :
Jason Bourne: Matt Damon
Marie Kreutz: Franka Potente
Conklin: Chris Cooper
The Professor: Clive Owen
Ward Abbott: Brian Cox
Wombosi: Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje
Zorn: Gabriel Mann
Nicolette: Julia Stiles
Giancarlo: Orso Maria Guerrini
Rawlins: Vincent Franklin
We've all had days like the lead character in The Bourne Identity.
You wake up, feeling rough as hell and not knowing who or where you are.
However, while most of us can attribute that to the combination of beer, cider
and wine from the night before and that we're at least waking up in something
resembling a bed, for Jason Bourne (Matt Damon), his bed is the sea
and he's dragged out of it at the beginning of the film by the men on a
fishing boat.
To cap it all, he's got two bullets in his back and a device stitched into him
which reveals the code number of a Swiss bank account - and neither of those
can be sorted out with a glass of water and a sachet of Resolve.
After making his way onshore and retrieving a barrel-load of money,
fake passports and identification from the aforementioned account, he finds
his name is revealed to be Jason Bourne, but if there's plenty of other documents
with his picture on in different names then just who the hell is he? The
authorities aren't much help. Every time they confront him he amazes himself
by finding the strength and dexterity to defeat several of them at once.
"Look, I'll bribe you if you pass your test for Comic Relief."
I could go on, but put quite simply, this is a chase thriller from end to end
and a cracking one at that, albeit one that requires a lot of suspension
of disbelief. Damon is accompanied by Run Lola Run's
Franka Potente as foreign student Marie Kreutz, whose travel visa has
expired and doesn't want to be forced to leave the country. Crazed bad guys
even drop by Bourne's flat in Paris just a few minutes after he's taken a
look around the residence for the first time. The C.I.A. are keen to learn
of Bourne's whereabouts because they thought he was dead, but now they know
he's alive and kicking, will they help him out or attempt to help ruin his
day even further?
And talking of kicking, when it comes to violence in the film, it does seem
excessive for a 12-certificate as it's not done in a play-acting style as
you'd expect from a Jackie Chan comedy. This proved all that was wrong about
the new cinema "12a" certificate, which allows children under 12 to see the
film as long as they're accompanied by an adult.
When it comes to a film such as this, young children wouldn't even begin to
understand it and this would ruin the experience for the rest of the paying
audience. Even Matt Damon went on record as saying it should've received a
15-certificate due to the violence and the plot. Still, at least it wasn't
censored.
The cast is complimented by Chris Cooper as CIA team leader Conklin.
Cooper's isn't a name most people will know, but he's probably best known
recently as Kevin Spacey's obstinate neighbour in
American Beauty,
Britain's own Brian Cox making his token appearance in an American film
for no apparent reason, as Conklin's boss, Clive Owen, simply known as
"The Professor" and I'll say no more, plus Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje
as overzealous terrorist-type Wombosi, better known to viewers of the excellent
Oz as Adebisi. Julia Stiles also shows up as CIA computer geek
Nicolette, but thankfully not a love interest since she can't act to save
her life. Finally, there's a blink-and-you'll-miss-it from Vincent Franklin.
Who? Here, he has a brief line as Rawlins, the head of a security company,
while he previously played Rowan, the organiser of the training day in an
episode of
The Office.
Matt walks on the street
because he drives on the pavement.
Well, you have to fit in with the French somehow.
Presented in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen, there's no faults to the sound
or picture. Crisp and clear, it even makes Paris look worth another visit,
and actually clean, and full of good drivers. In this re-release, it's
clearly the same print as it still shows up some rather dodgy CGI in a fall
towards the end, but I'll say nothing else about that so as not to spoil it.
Soundwise, the extra extras have meant this takes on a demerit as there's only
a Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack and not a DTS 5.1 one, which I went with last
time as it was resplendent in fantastic split-surround effects and well-used
sound placing. Certainly a demo disc in scenes like the car chase. DD5.1 will
still be good, but not *as* good.
There are a number of little bits and pieces amongst the extras that are
worth a look, but nothing that'll leave a lasting impression:
This time round the extras are as follows:
Alternate opening and ending (10½ mins):
Last time we just saw an ending, which was not particularly alternate - just
a different way of doing the same thing, and so this time we one which has a completely
different start to the ending, if that makes sense.
The new opening is a fair bit different too from what we're used to, but not as good
as the one they went with. Both are presented in 2.35:1 widescreen but non-anamorphic,
as are the rest of the film clips.
Before both, there's an intro from producer Frank Marshall, screenwriter Tony Gilroy and
actor Brian Cox.
Oh, and you can also watch these where they would've been placed in the film, but if you
do, you'll get the intro forced on you which contains spoilers!
The Bourne Mastermind: Robert Ludlum (6 mins):
The author died in 2001, so several people are on hand to back-slap the man who wrote
the novel for both this, the sequel, The Bourne Supremacy, and no doubt the
third film they'll do the next book, The Bourne Ultimatum.
Access Granted: An interview with screenwriter Tony Gilroy (4 mins):
A brief bit of chat, but nothing particularly revelationary.
From Identity to Supremacy: Jason & Marie (3½ mins):
By this point you get the idea behind each of these extras - all rather insubstantial,
and just mixing in snippets of chat with letterboxed film clips.
The Bourne Diagnosis (3½ mins):
A psychologist waffles on about amnesia. Like we care(!)
Cloak and Dagger: Covert Ops (5½ mins):
Some old guy nattering on about the CIA and how fight scenes were realistic isn't
as much fun as watching them in the movie. Pass.
The Speed of Sound (4 mins):
A bit more interesting, this. After a 4-minute segment about the sound FX in the movie,
you then get a separate menu with which to sample a variety of them before moving on
to further extras. Fun for a while, but not a deal-breaker.
Deleted scenes (7 mins):
Four here which were in the extras menu on the original DVD. I'd have kept in the
first and the fourth, but the middle two don't matter particularly. I won't give
details since you shouldn't be looking in this DVD menu until after you've seen the film.
Inside a Fight Sequence (5 mins):
Work-in-progress footage on the fight scene in the bank.
Music Video (3½ mins):
Moby's "Extreme Ways", with clips of the film mixed in.
We had this last time as well.
Van Helsing trailer (1 min):
It didn't get great reception at the cinema earlier this year, but I suppose it keeps
up the interest for when the DVD comes out nearer Xmas.
Cast and filmmakers :
Text-based info that's been on DVDs since they were launched in 1988. Nothing you'll
look at more than once.
And that's that. This isn't really a Special Edition, per se, just a cheap cash-in
as the sequel gets released in the cinema. The only extras you lose out on from
the first DVD
are a near-15-minute chat-n-clips piece, The Birth of The Bourne Identity,
a trailer for the film itself (which should've remained included), an extended farmhouse
scene which was nothing to write home about, teaser trailers for The Hulk and
Johnny English, the DVD-ROM extras and they've also removed the director's commentary.
Multiple-language subtitles are thrown away in favour of English only, the number
of chapters remains the same as 20, and the menus are still the same. These have
animation and some music from the film, but they do repeat a lot.
It has to be said that the new extras offer nothing of worth, and the fact they rob
the viewer of a DTS soundtrack is pure madness, hence it's lost a point for sound and
added nothing for supplemental material. Get the original DVD if you still can
as it's been deleted from many places as I write this.
DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TXW32R4 32" widescreen TV
connected to either a Creative Dxr2 DVD-ROM player or Microsoft Xbox and
played through a Sony STR-DB930 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
Since Aug 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.66Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb GeForce4 MX440 graphics, Windows XP
Since May 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600TX graphics, Windows XP
Since Jun 2002: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, 64Mb ATI Radeon 8500LE
Since May 2000: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
Special Edition:
