I like to watch movies

Brian Cox does something for the niche role of the grizzled CIA mucky-muck that I will measure all future clandestine bureaucrats against. Unlike so much that is wrong with action movies, and so much of what is right with the Bourne Supremacy, there's nothing archetypal about his character.

He’s not righteous in the face of evil. He’s not pure evil himself. He’s not a double agent.

He’s greedy, he’s out to cover his own ass, he seems tubercular. He has constructed a grandiose self-image to beat back his pangs of conscience. He'’s human.

Brian Cox is never the star of any movie I’'ve seen him in, but he’s usually the brightest spot.

It’s articulate characterization like this that makes the Bourne Supremacy work despite the annoying inconsistencies that plague all action movies.

There’s a part early on--this bothered me greatly; I'm sure you'’re going to think I’'m crazy. Jason is in India, laying low. He'’s got a bungalow, he’'s got a cute German girlfriend, he's "off the grid"--he’'s living the life. Then Jason sees him, the guy he’s never seen before. This guy, Bourne knows, is there--in that country, on that subcontinent--just to kill him. How does he know this?

"“It’'s all wrong, he’s dressed all wrong, that car’'s all wrong."” True, he’s white, has a sniper rifle flung over his shoulder, and the car's a gleaming new Kia Optima. Way out of place.

That's just good sleuthing.

About 45 minutes later we’re following the CIA operatives at work in Germany. They’re acting very stealthily. They slink out of their hotel. They mouth something into their cufflinks. They have trench coats and don’t look German in the least. They nonchalantly look both ways before getting into their . . . Chryslers?

Here is where I ask the film makers to take advice from their own script. I know nothing about the spy trade, but I know that if I'’m a German bad guy, and I see a half-dozen suits get into a half-dozen jet black Dodge Caravans, I walk the other way. Dodge Caravans. The CIA field office in Berlin thought it better to ship a bunch of American-made minivans rather than buying a fleet of CITROËN like everybody else.

A few minutes later, Bourne steals his German assassin friend's Jeep Grand Cherokee. It's not enough that, against all odds, clandestine American operatives drive American minivans, but Director Paul Greengrass expects us to believe their German counterparts are driving American SUVs as well? There could be a unicorn wearing a monocle riding shotgun and we couldn'’t get any deeper into FantasyLand.

Right, Jeep and Dodge are all Chrysler, which is owned by Daimler, a German Company. But I’ve been to Germany. Number of Chrysler’s I saw there? Zero.

I understand marketing is an important way for producers to recoup the costs of making a big-budget film. What is unforgivable is letting product placement get in the way of characterization and common sense.

The other big problem I have with this movie is the cinematography. God how I despise the shaky-cam action sequence. I don'’t know who started this. I think I saw it first in Gladiator, or maybe Saving Private Ryan. As much as I like him, Spielberg should be hung from the top floor of DreamWorks SKG by his flowing pepper gray hair until he apologizes for setting the frenetic, over-caffeinated, jiggle-tron zeitgeist upon an unsuspecting world [correction: I'm now told it was probably Ridley Scott and GI Jane that started this trend]. It’'s not that I'’m missing what the shaky fight scene is trying to do. I understand its purpose: frantic realism. I like realism. But when I choose between realistic cinema and putting off that next grand mal seizure, I choose the latter.

I'’m picking at these details because I liked the movie a lot.

I wanted perfection. In the end though, what I ended up liking the most was its dogged imperfection. Not the stuff above, that’'s still just stupid. I’m talking about the problem that thrillers have of trying to attain total completeness. We’'ll call it the Usual Suspects syndrome (see also: The Game syndrome). You take a convoluted plot and three dozen characters you don’t think anyone will ever be able to wade through, much less wrap their heads around, bring everything to a boil, then drop the pieces one by one into the audience’s lap. QED. In the above two movies that was fun, and done well. In the deluge of films that have done it since, I haven'’t been as impressed.

Luckily Greengrass doesn'’t fall into that trap. There aren'’t any epiphanies, there aren'’t any archetypal struggles of good vs evil, Bourne never dangles above a tank of piranhas while Cox dictates his whole maniacal plan. These are all very, very good things, though I'’m sure that most people will see a flaw where I see strength.

The plot wasn'’t taught enough.

Taught and thriller appear together so often they'’ve become synonymous. That bothers me. There’'s nothing taught about real life, even at it’s most thrilling. The pieces never really fit right. Screenwriter Gilroy seems to get this. Good for him.

There'’s also a surprisingly great chase scene. All chase scenes have the good and bad guys slamming into each other. This one has the good and bad guys pinballing a third motorist between them pong-style. I also liked how, despite his status as uber-agent, Bourne’'s driving isn’'t perfect. He screws up, he gets tagged by oncoming traffic. He does some amazing things, but he also gets blindsided by a truck--—not the bad guy’s truck.

As I said, comparing The Bourne Supremacy to Shakespeare is stupid. I’'m with Comrade Snowball on this one: Each movie to the best of its ability.