Hello and goodbye to the Bourne Supremacy.
I have been looking forward to seeing this movie since it came out, and finally I went to see it. Can I now be glad to be staring at a blank wall that isn’t moving!?
I thought the plot and the action were great, although I realize it doesn’t follow the book very closely (but realistically, how many movies really do, anyway). Matt Damon did a great job, and his level of physicality in this movie kept up with the first one well.
I doubt I will ever see this movie again, or certainly I wouldn’t pay to see it again, because the producers made one mistake by hiring a fool for a director of photography.
I understand the use of different kinds of cinematography to enhance movement and action of a sequence and pull the audience into the movie, and I’m no stranger to action movies. THAT makes sense. What doesn’t make sense in this movie is that the person in charge of the cameras had an ‘obsession’ with handheld cameras as well as a rapid succession of cutting shots, out of focus pictures, and spinning cameras. I’ve seen better home movies.
What would have been great action sequences and a really stellar car chase became mostly guesswork because you couldn’t see anything, and what you could see you didn’t get a chance to focus on. As a test, I closed my eyes briefly during the car chase, and got a better handle on what was going on by closing my eyes and just listening to the sound effects.
That doesn’t only apply to the action sequences…simple scenes such as someone working on the computer became disorienting due to the shaky and too close filmwork. There was no break in these movements until the last …2 minutes of the movie? At which point, the people in the audience just wanted it over, like a bad ride. The people sitting next to me left halfway through and did not return. I just read that a girl actually threw up at the end of the car chase seen during the press screening. What more evidence do you need?
My question as we left the movie theatre was ….”Did they actually STOP to watch this movie?” Was this a case of being too close to the art piece so that you only see the pieces and don’t step back to see if it works as a whole piece of art? In an effort to be “artsy-fartsy,” maybe they lost touch with the plan to connect with the viewing audience at large. Let the artists rave over the weirdness of the project. Give me something I can focus on…I enjoy getting pulled into the action of a movie just as much as the next person.
Disappointing. Definitely not a buyer.