The Bourne Supremacy

(Herald rating: * *)

Here we go again: this is No 2 in the Jason Bourne franchise, following The Bourne Identity in 2002 and with The Bourne Ultimatum due next year. It's pretty much paint-by-numbers, with Matt Damon returning as the secret agent who, for some reason that will be explained in the last few minutes, people want to kill.

As this episode opens Bourne has dropped out with Marie (Franka Potente), and is living on the beach in Goa, India, which was something that I thought people did in the 70s, like going to Nambassa or living on communes outside Nelson and feeding the kids hash cookies to send them to sleep so they could strum Dylan songs late into the night.

Anyway, one day in Goa our man Bourne has the feeling that there's a stranger in town. He can tell because the aforesaid is driving the wrong sort of car, wearing the wrong sort of clothes, and seems to be following them. Aha! His enemies are after him again, and Bourne will have to try to remember why that is (you may remember, he woke up with amnesia in the first movie and spent all of it trying to figure why strangers were after him.)

We know, but Bourne doesn't, that his fingerprints have been found at the murder scene of a CIA agent in Berlin. But this happened when Bourne was in Goa. So someone is setting him up. And boy, if you think he's riled and wants to find out what the score is, imagine the feeling among CIA honcho Ward Abbott (Brian Cox) and his agents, Pamela Landy (Joan Allen) and Nikki (Julia Stiles).

It's all quite silly — but that can be good fun on a Saturday night. Look out for local heroes Marton Csokas and Karl Urban, too.