Today, Matt Damon is largely known as a movie star. The Oscar winner has had a long and quite prolific career, starring in leading and supporting roles alike and receiving acclaim in multiple genres. From psychological thrillers like The Talented Mr. Ripley to sci-fi vehicles like The Martian, from pitch-black comedies like The Informer! to cheesy family flicks like We Bought a Zoo, Damon has truly done it all.
It was 2002’s The Bourne Identity that launched Damon as a potential action star, but the sequel ensured his legacy. More importantly, The Bourne Supremacy changed the game for the action genre as a whole, acting as a precursor to the gritty, thrilling, raw action films that would dominate much of the late 2000s and early 2010s and paving the way for the over-the-top extravaganzas we have today. On its 20th anniversary, let’s look back at The Bourne Supremacy, a film that changed its genre for good — and for the better.
The Damon identity
In 2002, Matt Damon was where every young star would love to be: standing in an open field with multiple roads ahead. In this paradise of opportunity, Damon had his choice of pretty much everything, from directors to screenplays to co-stars. Damon wisely cashed in his post-Good Will Hunting capital on building his credentials as a prestigious actor, meaning he chose to work with big-name directors like Anthony Minghella, Steven Spielberg, and Steven Soderbergh. It didn’t matter if the roles were smaller — Damon famously had a limited, but pivotal role in Saving Private Ryan and played second fiddle to Clooney and Pitt in the Ocean’s trilogy. However, he was building his résumé as a credible actor, which then allowed him to pursue stardom.
This road is not one followed by many actors, mainly because not many have the opportunity to do so. Indeed, most try to become movie stars straightaway with one major franchise and struggle to make a name outside of it. For every Timothée Chalamet, who similarly built a résumé as an acclaimed, Oscar-nominated performer in prestige films like Call Me by Your Name and Little Women before jumping to big-budget vehicles like the Dune duology and the silly musical Wonka, you have a Tom Holland, who can’t seem to escape the Spider-Man role. In more ways than one, Damon was the Timothée Chalamet of the late ’90s. By 2002, he was ready to graduate to movie stardom, and he found the right vehicle in Doug Liman’s The Bourne Identity.
The 2002 movie stars Damon as Jason Bourne, a man suffering from amnesia who must discover his mysterious past and connection to the CIA. It was the perfect role for an actor like Damon; like Bourne himself, the audience, too, was stunned at what the character was capable of. It was refreshing and more than a bit shocking to see this formerly pretty boy getting violent in fight sequences that were raw, straightforward, and far more detailed than anything that came before. The Bourne Identity was an unexpected hit, grossing $214 million worldwide against a $60 million budget. It was the perfect success story, allowing for a sequel that was bigger, bolder, and better.
The Bourne Supremacy came out in 2004 and continues Bourne’s story as he attempts to discover more of his connection to the mysterious Treadstone organization and how he fits into the larger CIA conspiracy. Notably, Liman stepped down as a director, and was replaced by Paul Greengrass, with Tony Gilroy returning to pen the screenplay. Greengrass’ arrival was crucial in turning Bourne from a common action tale into a riveting and anxiety-inducing story that combined elements of numerous other genres, notably the political thriller and the psychological drama.
The Bourne Supremacy takes itself seriously, allowing audiences to engage with it not only as a man-against-the-world story, but as a deeply compelling journey of self-discovery and realization. This is where Damon’s casting and Greengrass’ direction come into play; Damon had the acting chops to bring gravitas and dignity to the story, while Greengrass was an up-and-coming director whose 2002 film Bloody Sunday earned him the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival. This combo proved to be effective, granting the film a sobering, somber approach that stood in stark contrast to other films of the era.
The Bourne transformation
The Bourne Supremacy came out in the middle of a revolution for the action genre. The ’90s gave us a series of delightfully unhinged action extravaganzas that bordered on caricature. Don’t get me wrong; I absolutely love stuff like Con-Air, Air Force One, and The Fifth Element — campy, silly, fun action movies that made the ’90s such a spectacular time at the movies. However, they are pretty great representations of how audiences, and therefore Hollywood itself, thought of the action genre.
To most, action movies were loud, overblown, overproduced, and out of this world, sometimes literally. Everything happening on the screen was distinctively detached from audiences — not an ounce of reality had room in these adventures, and no one was asking for it. Even Brian De Palma, who brought some much-needed respectability to the genre with 1996’s Mission: Impossible, embraced the exaggeration in sequences like the now-iconic wire scene. As the decade went on, the concepts became more demented: from unstoppable buses to face transplants and oil drillers in space, the action genre was slowly becoming a parody of itself.
It was in this landscape that Bourne came out. Sure, the concept of a highly trained, extremely skilled, near-infallible spy and assassin might not be plausible per se. However, the plot is grounded in something relatable, framed as a journey of the self that just happened to include a fair dose of high-octane action. The action was also a stark departure from other movies; in The Bourne Supremacy, you can hear every punch, to the point where you can almost feel them.
The fights are straight to the point, feeling like they’re not even choreographed; Bourne isn’t afraid to get down and dirty, often fighting more as a street criminal than a highly trained agent. There’s no music, either, with Greengrass instead using the environment to provide the sequence with rhythm, be it a ringing phone, the sounds of a crowded street, or the inertia of two bodies swinging at each other.
More importantly, Bourne is fallible. Take his fight against former Treadstone assassin Jarda (Marton Csokas) in The Bourne Supremacy. Bourne allows himself to be distracted by a phone, of all things, leading to a brutal yet surprisingly clumsy brawl where he slowly adapts to the situation, but not before receiving a considerable whooping from the experienced killer.
Bourne can eliminate anyone with pretty much everything — in this fight, he famously uses a magazine as a weapon — but he doesn’t instantly know it; it’s all instinct, and only when he finds himself in danger do his considerable skills come out. And yet, Bourne is not relatable. At no point do you see yourself in his shoes — how could you? But he is remarkably sympathetic, allowing you to empathize with him, which is just as important.
Crucially, The Bourne Supremacy takes the viewer directly into the action through frenetic, confusing, and often downright nauseating editing and camerawork. The cuts are fast-paced, much like the view of someone in the middle of a fight and with more than a few concussions. The handheld camera moves side to side — cinema verité by way of big-budget filmmaking. It’s demanding and might even become exhausting by the end, a prolonged chase that is as challenging as it’s rewarding.
Even the cinematography is strikingly somber. While previous action movies favored saturated images, The Bourne Supremacy uses a muted palette, a distinctive vision that fits just as well in the snowy, desolate landscapes of Russia as in the crowded, loud streets of India.
The Bourne effect
The Bourne trilogy represented a full transformation for the action genre, starting with The Bourne Identity and perfected in The Bourne Supremacy, thus paving the way for the best in the series, 2007’s The Bourne Ultimatum. Whereas its predecessor merely offered a hint of what was possible, The Bourne Supremacy stood firmly on the strength of its lore and unique capabilities. Like Bourne himself, Supremacy is the series coming into its own and growing confident enough to actually offer satisfying answers to a seemingly ever-evolving mystery.
Think of every other action movie that dominated the business post Supremacy. Every film worth a damn, from Casino Royale and the rebooted James Bond series to Mission: Impossible 3 and even stuff like The Dark Knight, can be traced back to The Bourne Supremacy. Often imitated, yet seldom replicated, The Bourne Supremacy redefined what was expected from the action genre, transforming it for a new generation and opening countless doors for future directors to kick down. Indeed, every modern action filmmaker, from the Russo Brothers to Chad Stahelski, built their signature styles upon Greengrass’ visceral approach.
The best way to summarize The Bourne Supremacy‘s legacy might be found in the late Roger Ebert’s review: “That the director, Paul Greengrass, treats the material with gravity and uses good actors in well-written supporting roles elevates the movie above its genre, but not quite out of it.” I’m not sure Ebert meant this statement as a strength necessarily, but I think it’s the perfect description of the film. The Bourne Supremacy sees all the possibilities of the action genre without being embarrassed by it.
It might be deeper, more developed, and emotional, but it is still very much an action movie. By embracing its essence while still challenging its limits, surpassing them in the process, The Bourne Supremacy became a turning point in the action genre, a gut-punch of a movie that’s still effective 20 years later. That’s one hell of a legacy, Mr. Bourne.
The Bourne Supremacy is available to rent or purchase on Amazon and other digital vendors.
