Product Description

A man washes up on the beach with no memory of who he is, but with a whole array of alarming skills.
No Track Information Available
Media Type: DVD
Artist: DAMON/POTENTE/STILES/COOPER/COX/OWEN
Title: BOURNE IDENTITY
Street Release Date: 02/14/2006
Domestic
Genre: ACTION / ADVENTURE

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #320 in DVD
• Brand: DAMON/POTENTE/STILES/COOPER/COX/
• Released on: 2004-07-13
• Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Formats: AC-3, Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD-Video, Special Edition, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English, French, Spanish
• Subtitled in: French, Spanish
• Dubbed in: French, Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 119 minutes

Amazon.com
Freely adapted from Robert Ludlum's 1980 bestseller, The Bourne Identity starts fast and never slows down. The twisting plot revs up in Zurich, where amnesiac CIA assassin Jason Bourne (Matt Damon), with no memory of his name, profession, or recent activities, recruits a penniless German traveler (Run Lola Run's Franka Potente) to assist in solving the puzzle of his missing identity. While his CIA superior (Chris Cooper) dispatches assassins to kill Bourne and thus cover up his failed mission, Bourne exercises his lethal training to leave a trail of bodies from Switzerland to Paris. Director Doug Liman (Go) infuses Ludlum's intricate plotting with a maverick's eye for character detail, matching breathtaking action with the humorous, thrill-seeking chemistry of Damon and Potente. Previously made as a 1988 TV movie starring Richard Chamberlain, The Bourne Identity benefits from the sharp talent of rising stars, offering intelligent, crowd-pleasing excitement from start to finish. --Jeff Shannon

DVD features
Created to take advantage of the sequel playing in theaters, the "Explosive Extended" edition of The Bourne Identity is neither. Unlike many special editions, this is still a single disc, and several of the original DVD features--like the DTS and commentary tracks--are jettisoned for more extras, most of which are lightweight 3- to 6-minute featurettes. The new beginning and ending is incorrectly advertised as an extended edition--the feature is the same as the theatrical, and the new footage is seen &aagrave; la carte, with explanations. These "bookend scenes" were shot after 9/11, an insurance policy for the filmmakers who were unsure how a spy film would play. Fortunately, the scenes were dropped and the results here are more a curio than anything else. The new featurettes are ordinary filler, pumped up with film clips and hooks for the sequel. A nice exception is a sound-mix segment and an all-too-quick recollection of author Robert Ludlum. Funny that "explosive" would be a word chosen to represent a film that was quite proud of going out of its way not to be just a dumb, explosion-filled action film. --Doug Thomas

From The New Yorker
In this latest iteration of the international thriller, two young people-an amnesiac American who possesses mysterious violent skills (Matt Damon), and a beautiful European vagabond with a taste for adventure (Franka Potente)-race across Europe to escape powerful forces eager to kill them both. Adapted by Tony Gilroy and William Blake Herron from a 1980 novel by Robert Ludlum, the picture has tons of up-to-date surveillance equipment, and it features an unfamiliar Filipino martial art called kali, a kind of stuttered karate (block, block, slash, kick). But the movie is still a relic of the bipolar Cold War, and suffers from a fatal lack of purpose. Great actors like Brian Cox and Clive Owen are wasted in tiny roles, and Julia Stiles, as an operative lucky enough to be assigned to Paris, is stuck in a closed room wearing headphones all the time. Directed by Doug Liman, who used to make nifty little movies like "Swingers" and "Go." -David Denby
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

Based on what?!!!!
The movie is awful. Boring. Plotless and the only thing that relates to the entire book is the title The Bourne Identity. The books that the movie is based on are three of the most cherished books in my library. 1st they do a really poor job of introducing the characters. It was not till the third installation that I finally learned the name of several of the characters.

Let me just list off who is not in the movie (these are MAJOR characters in the book too!):

Alexander Conklin - Jason Bourne's creator & friend.
Moe Panov - Jason Bourne's doctor & friend.
Carlos - Jason Bourne's nemesis, his equal.

These three characters are NOT just paramount in the story line - they ARE the story line.

I am certain that the screenwriters, directors and everyone else on board with this movie never read the books and only wanted to make a quick buck.

A sad excuse for a good book. An absolute chaotic nightmare!

everything I could ask for
The story, in brief, is a man is rescued by a fishing boat, with amnesia and bullet holes. In his quest to discover his identity, people try to kill him, and he reacts with professional swiftness. He teams up with a young woman, and together they elude the killers while searching for answers and falling in love.

This was obviously written with me in mind. I mean, come on--it's got almost every one of my favorite things: a spy story, action/adventure, amnesia, a romance--heck, the romantic interest is even German. What baffles me is that I'd never read Ludlum's book even though it came out at a time when I was reading a lot of spy novels. I've ordered it.

At any rate, I can't say yet how the movie compares to the book, but the movie is excellent. Matt Damon plays a man who doesn't realize he's a professional assassin perfectly--the combination of good-intentioned searching for his identity with the growing realization that he's not just some nice guy who works in an office is very convincing.

Franka Potente, too, is very realistic as an adventurous young woman who ends up in over her head, but is reluctant to leave because of her growing feelings for him.

The action is nonstop and exciting, and the mystery of who he is and why people are trying to kill him is compelling.

This is one of those rare movies I can watch over and over again. One of my favorites.

Korina
As far as sequels go, this is top notch just as good as the first one. Great action and suspense.