A man is picked up on a fishing boat, with a bullet inside him and no memory of who he is, what happened or where he is heading.
Not being able to remember anything is not a good thing at all, but even worse when people seem to be constantly trying to kill you. He must do his very best to trigger memories by using small clues to piece everything back together.
The good thing about the story and set up of the film has to be as the viewer we don’t really know very much either, we find out information and begin to put it together at the same time he does. That is a very big positive for me about the set up of the film, everything else in action terms is pretty damn impressive as well. A fantastic car chase scene, possibly one of the best? No time to catch your breath as the next attempt to kill him comes hard and fast.
Now I must just give you a little background on why all of a sudden I have re-watched the first of the Bourne series. Yes, I had seen this film many years ago, although when watching it again I was at times doubting if I had actually seen it or not. I couldn’t really remember too much about it apart from Bourne not remembering who he is and someone smashing through a window. I therefore missed the latest installment at the cinema as have not seen the next two (that will be changing and you will see reviews soon).
Matt Damon is really something else as Jason Bourne, you cannot help but like and feel sorry for him. Even when you can see his training and set of skills which he can still do even if he does not know the background. It really is such a great role and something very different to what your used to seeing him.
The action is fast paced and some of the moments can be very annoying, in the sense of not being able to figure out who he is. You know when you comes across loads of different passports all with different names in! I mean come on who is he? Yes, annoying yet brilliant at the same time.
Marie offers some companionship and female presence in the film but at times it is not clear if she is helpful or a hinderance to the cause. Is she slowing him down or helping things move at a quicker pace? It seems to slip between the two, I guess it was better having a woman in that role to give him something different.
When watching you cannot help but get sucked into an American style James Bond character as well and I am sure this film really did help shape the way Bond has been rebooted. Not that it is a bad thing of course this is how action films should be made, with a little bit of everything in it!
