Any movie critic can tell you what a newly released DVD is about & spoil the ending for you. I plan to ruin your entire DVD watching experience by highlighting it's flaws, it's missteps, it's examples of poor editing, casting, and point out the ridiculous holes in the plot. If you're cynical, you'll appreciate this valuable service I'm providing. If you're easily impressed, then don't say I didn't warn you.  - Mean Jean

Even if you were bourne easily impressed, this movie is one you'll want to watch at a friend's house. I know, I know- in order to enjoy a movie you need to be able to suspend belief for the duration of the movie. With this bomb Hollywood again demonstrates their contempt for thinking individuals and actually demands that they suspend common sense as well. Too bad I wasn't bourne yesterday. How soon after you dropped out of high school did you forget the foreign language they tried to teach you, assuming you didn't have ample opportunity to practice it? Suspend common sense & pretend Matt Affleck or Ben Damon or whoever starred in this movie has amnesia, yet he can remember foreign languages, martial arts, which memory flashbacks will help him further down movie lane, how to pick every single lock he encounters, and how to beat up, kill, out drive or out strategize assassins trained by the same agency who have never had amnesia. Too bad he has a mental handicap, otherwise he might have developed a perpetual motion machine or cold fusion by now! 

Further ruining this movie are the cameos by everyone from the first movie, popping in & out of the scenery like a jack in the box, just in case the title wasn't bluntly obvious enough that this is a sequel, you moron, Hollywood shouts. It's not that I so despise original players from movie one, they can sometimes bolster a sinking movie by such acting out a show of confidence. The fantastically acrobatic rollercoaster thrill ride®  twists that the script writer had to throw into the plot to contrive such diverse meetings, with so many unrelated at this point in movieland history characters, begs too much suspension of common sense. 

I realize movies have a greatly accelerated timetable to follow, but please. Every single dramatic moment being captured dramatically by key characters, every single time? The phone rings and the conversation is overheard by the right guy, who picked the right lock to the right room, amazing! Key government agents are in a meeting wondering where on earth this zany nemesis of theirs could be, guess who just then gets picked up on the other side of the world & sets off all their federally funded computer alarms? No, really!? On & on it goes. 

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention at least some of the 'stock movie cliché's' riddling this cinematic cheese. Here we have all of the famous old movie traditions dragged out, gasping for air: the 'good cop/ bad cop' pretend conflict, the 'covert op gone bad' chestnut, the "don't screw up! I'm watching you!" employer/ employee relations, the 'everyone's hunting down poor lil' innocent wanted man who is better & faster & deadlier than everyone combined' staple, the 'dumb spies showing up in an obvious car in the small one horse town' ridiculii, the 'Let's just assume he's dead & not stick around to find out for sure' famous bad guy mistake #1, the 'bad guy giving the good guy crucial information for no reason whatsoever, just getting it off my chest' obligatory famous bad guy mistake #2 speech, etc. After a while, even the characters would comment to each other how formulaic the dialogue was. That was the only honest & bright spot in the movie! 

Ok, onto technical aspects of the movie. I didn't watch any of the behind the scenes stuff, I was too busy feverishly working on this savaging of the movie so I could turn it in & warn you all before you went out & wasted any money buying this drivel. I'm pretty sure it contains the ubiquitous "What a magnificent specimen of humanity the (fill in the job title) is, I'm pretty sure I saw him walking on water after a big rain storm left puddles all over the parking lot" fawning speeches. I don't mean any of that technical stuff. I mean editing. How interesting is Matt or Ben washing the blood off his hands? Is something dramatic going to happen? Nope. Just in case you were too stupid to see that he killed someone, here ya go, last chance ya loser, see the blood? Thanks, Hollywood! Boy, we are as dumb as a box of hammers! Edit that out! Oooh, the girl is rifling through his stuff while he runs on the beach. Is he going to spring in on her? Is she going to learn anything relevant? Nope. Just killing movie time. Edit that out! Don'tcha just love when the stuntman's car obviously crashes face first at the bottom of the hill, then the next scene has the car leaping back up with catlike reaction time as if it hadn't just landed on its own radiator? Edit the nosedive out! 

Dare I mention the many, many instances of 'only in a movieisms'? How about Russians as bad guys these days? Are we back in a cold war with them? Does the glove box of a jeep unimpeded by windows or a roof strike you as a particularly safe place to store a gun? Yeah, such vehicles afford many dumb people security, Hollywood bets. Suddenly the windowless jeep is under the water, and now it's become an inescapable tomb he can't get his dead passenger out of. Dude! It has no windows! Hey, from your place under water, how 'bout give mouth to mouth to that corpse? Of course! His oxygen tank must be some high tech spy metal alloy, making it invisible. Pretty good for a retired amnesiac former spy, eh? Not to mention the wads of cash hiding conveniently in his crummy motel room. No job, no income, yet managed to not touch his nest egg, what a savvy shopper! Did you know a rolled up magazine will beat a trained killer with a knife? I didn't either before I saw this corn soufflé. No wonder dogs hate rolled up magazines so, they are well aware of the inherent power of one, sorry, Fido! 

Ah, the ending. As if trying to leave the viewer some emotional memory of this flick besides the boredom & mockery you should feel, one last 'only in a movieism' mawkish scene, then blissfully the end, establishing all kinds of hints for the upcoming release, "Bourne Desperate for Money". 

I can wait. 

My analysis: don't waste your money on this one. 

(but if you must click here to buy the DVD)