Director : Paul Greengrass Starring : Matt Damon, Franka Potente, Joan Allen, Brian Cox, Julia Stiles

I thoroughly enjoyed The Bourne Supremacy, although I can safely say that about 90% of the time I had no idea what was going on. An action movie that blissfully feeds off the energy it generates rather than throwing together innumerable CGI effects in the hope of generating some energy, Supremacy has one of those plots that would make you feel incredibly stupid were you to try and relate it to a friend. "See, there's this guy," you'd start, "And he shoots this other guy, but he makes it look like this other guy shot the guy. Now, he did that because ten years ago the guy – no, not that one, the other one – shot this other guy (yes, another one) and now these people want the one guy, but he didn't do anything! It's the other guy -- no, not that one, the other one – who's the bad guy…. I think…. Well, he's in cahoots with this really bad guy…" And so on and so forth.

Really, though, the plot of The Bourne Supremacy is entirely beside the point in both form and content, though I suppose a certain amount of credit and attention should be paid to Tony Gilroy, who has thoroughly ripped apart and rewrote the Robert Ludlum novel the movie's based on. Creating a labyrinthine structure and peopling it with a number of characters (only one of whom feels extraneous – see below), Gilroy comes up with an agreeably old-fashioned espionage flick that, aside from the use of computers, cell phones and one strategically-placed protest rally, could have been dropped into any time frame and any political age. It's all vaguely Cold War – there's the CIA, Russia, politicians, lots of guns and cover-ups – but also feels strangely timeless. That somewhat generic feeling, though, is actually rather freeing, as it gives all the professionals at hand, mainly the actors involved and director Paul Greengrass (Bloody Sunday), a chance to let loose and have a rip-roaring time. And watching them go at it will make you throw out your plot-point scorecard and just sit back and enjoy the ride.

Supremacy opens with original Bourne Identity stars Matt Damon and Franka Potente as former CIA assassin-turned-amnesiac Jason Bourne and his galpal Marie, in semi-blissful tropical happiness in India. See, Jason's still haunted by fragments of his past, in particular the bits and pieces of one dark-and-stormy-night job he did but can't remember in its entirety. Meanwhile, a CIA deal, headed by agency bigwig Pamela Landy (Joan Allen), is starting to go haywire in Berlin; when it goes south and two agents are killed, the fingerprints (literally) are those of Jason Bourne, planted there by a nasty Russian assassin (the deliciously gritty Karl Urban). So Jason's in India, but the CIA thinks he's in Germany; the Russian dude, however, has found Jason and Marie, and goes after them with a vengeance. And once Jason finds his abstract dreams turning into harsh reality, things get way personal, and he turns the tables on the CIA and Landy, who's stalking him for a crime he didn't commit. But who's behind it, and why? And how does eeeevil Abbott (Brian Cox), head of the assassin cabal Jason used to be a part of, fit into all this? And what does it have to do with Jason's old memories? And how what about the Russians? And is there some money involved?

It's about 20 or so minutes into the movie – after the first low-key yet surprisingly adrenaline-pumping chase scene in India – that you will most likely throw up your hands and say, "Okay, what the fuck?" While the plotting may be tightly wound and make sense to somebody, director Greengrass seems to realize that, for most of us, taking the energy to parse it out would prove a major distraction from the movie itself. Therefore, what you get instead of laboriously explicated motives and tracking, are a kinetic series of set pieces that keep you on the edge of your seat just enough to figure out what's going to happen next and take you to the next level, albeit just barely. As he proved with Bloody Sunday and his amazing staging of the Irish civil rights massacre of 1972, Greengrass is a master of making order out of chaos, utilizing the most jagged hand-held camera this side of a bumpy bus ride to create large-scale set pieces that still manage to focus on a handful of actors. He adapts his faux-documentarian style, full of rough, quick cuts and blurry takes, adroitly to the spy shenanigans of Bourne and company, and while you may not always see who's hitting whom and with what (a knockdown between Bourne and a fellow assassin utilizes a rolled-up magazine, though exactly how I couldn't tell you), the visceral energy is almost palpable – and in a way that CGI-heavy movies like Van Helsing and Troy could only dream of accomplishing.

Thank god Matt Damon is so charismatic – otherwise, Jason would be a bit of a cipher (which he already is, thanks to his amnesia) and we'd have zero invested in him. Working with very little, Damon makes Jason into an assassin with a conscience, who's made a bit of peace with what he's done but is guilty enough to try to atone for it. At the same time, he's not above using his old tactics to find out and get what he wants. (In that way, his only contemporary would be Joss Whedon's Angel, the vampire with a soul who sought penance for his sins by using his vampiric strength and technique to do some good.) And though she and Damon only ever interact via phone, Allen complements Damon nicely; even though she's on the opposite side, her character is also a poised, cool outsider trying to dig deeper for the truth that's eluding her. And the rest of the cast is so thoroughly integrated into the film, with the tenacious and determined Urban (easily one-upping Clive Owen's similar character in Identity) and Cox (who's great but ultimately just reprising his role from X2, down to the "You'll never change who you are, Wolverine – I mean, Jason!" speech) particularly standing out. Unfortunately, for the sake of continuity of some kind, Julia Stiles as one of the few survivors from Jason's last rampage, again reprises her Bourne Identity role as most superfluous supporting character in a summer movie. (On the flip side of that, though, it's nice to see Identity baddie Chris Cooper as the main figure of Jason's haunted dream.)

Of all that Supremacy has to offer, its piece de resistance is a phenomenal car chase through the streets and highways of Moscow that puts the impressive automotive shenanigans of Identity to shame. And this isn't some blue-screen, CGI chase either; it's the real deal, on the real streets of Moscow, and features what has to be the most resilient taxicab ever created. Watching it, I was reminded of a variety of recent action movies, from SWAT to Bad Boys II to Terminator 3 to both Mission: Impossible films – not because it evoked those movies, but because this is what those movies aspired to be. Kudos to Greengrass for creating something we'd almost forgotten we'd missed: the true, rock-'em-sock-'em action movie. It's nice to have one back.