Starring: Matt Damon, Chris Cooper, Franka Potente, Clive Owen
Directed by: Doug Liman
Studio: Universal Studios Home Entertainment
Video: 2.35:1 anamorphic/enhanced, 1080p widescreen
Audio: English and French Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 Surround
Subtitles: English SDH, French
Extras: Director audio commentary; 8 featurettes; Robert Ludlum three-part documentary (“The Ludlum Identity”, “The Ludlum Supremacy” and “The Ludlum Ultimatum”); Deleted scenes; Alternate opening and alternate ending; Mheatrical trailer; music video; Picture-in-picture commentary
Length: 119 minutes
Movie Rating: **** AV Rating: ****
Based upon the Robert Ludlum novels, “The Bourne Identity” opens with an unconscious man being rescued at sea by the crew of a fishing boat. The ship’s doctor discovers two bullets in the near-dead man’s back, as well as a Swiss bank account number implanted in his hip. The rescued man, Jason Bourne (Matt Damon), is suffering from amnesia but nevertheless travels to Zurich looking for answers. There, Bourne finds that the bank account number grants him access to a safe deposit box. The box contains a gun, money and several passports with Bourne’s picture but all with different identities. Within minutes, Bourne is on the run from an agency trying to kill him and in his efforts to stay alive, Bourne finds that he possesses extraordinary talents in fighting, linguistics and self-defense. Bourne enlists the help of a lady named Marie to help him continue his quest to discover his true identity and why so many people want to kill him. I found this to be a very enjoyable movie as it successfully mixes thrilling action with tense drama. The fight and chase scenes are believable and not ‘over-the-top’ as is the tendency with many spy films of late. Damon does a great job in portraying a character that experiences a wide range of emotions in the film. Highly-recommended.
The high definition video quality of this HD DVD is very good. Images are clean and sharp. Blacks are uniformly dark throughout the movie. Colors are a bit muted but otherwise accurate with saturated hues. Other than occasional film grain, picture defect mastering is commendable with no major flaws or compression artifacts. The overall audio quality is also very good with the English Dolby Digital 5.1 Plus track. The soundtrack does a nice job incorporating all of the discrete channels into its mix. Dialogue is natural-sounding and intelligible. The surround channels are very active in the action sequences, where they are utilized for both sound effects and the pulsating music score. The LFEchannel is explosive and deep.
— Calvin Harding Jr.
