20 years of The Bourne Identity
June 6, 2002 in Los Angeles, California (USA), the premiere of the film "The Bourne Identity." Director Doug Liman.
Doug Liman's film was the second film adaptation of the novel of the same name by Robert Ludlum, published and became a bestseller in 1980. The first film adaptation, starring Richard Chamberlin, took place on American television in 1988. Robert Ludlum watched the 1988 film adaptation, but he did not live to see the second film adaptation - he died in 2001. Therefore, it is not known how he would evaluate this film adaptation, the plot of which differs significantly from the first film adaptation and from the novel itself.
Some believe that the name, or rather, the initials of the protagonist of his novel, Robert Ludlum gave with a hint of James Bond. But it's not. At least in terms of last name. In fact, the surname Bourne "got" the hero of the novel from Ansel Bourne, a preacher from Rhode Island, the first documented case of "dissociative fugue", a condition similar to dissociative amnesia or dissociative personality disorder (multiple personality disorder). One day in 1887, he forgot who he was, started a new life in Pennsylvania under the name Brown, and opened a convenience store. About three months later, he woke up and suddenly remembered his life as Bourne, but at the same time he completely forgot his whole life as Brown ... and, most importantly, he could not understand at all how and why he ended up in Pennsylvania.
The film did not receive any prestigious film awards or nominations. Commercially, however, "The Bourne Identity" proved to be quite successful, with a total production and marketing cost of $85 million, and grossed over $214 million at the box office.
As for the assessment of the film by film critics, it is very ambiguous. The most authoritative professional film critics responded to the film, to put it mildly, condescendingly skeptical. Thus, The New York Times film reviewer Anthony Oliver Scott began his review of the film with the following paragraph: "The fat, plot-stuffed novels of Robert Ludlum are perennially popular among airline passengers. It is not surprising, then, that Doug Liman's adaptation of "The Bourne Identity" Ludlum's 1980 best seller, seems like an ideal selection for in-flight viewing. The story moves swiftly enough to make the time pass pleasantly, and it is not so complicated that you are likely to miss anything if you take a brief nap, wander off to the lavatory or devote your concentration to the difficult task of removing the plastic wrap from your meal."
The guru of American film criticism, Roger Ebert, rated the film with three stars out of a possible 4, and noted in his review: "The Bourne Identity" is a skillful action movie about a plot that exists only to support a skillful action movie. The entire story is a set-up for the martial arts and chases. Because they are done well, because the movie is well-crafted and acted, we give it a pass. Too bad it's not about something....The movie is unnecessary, but not unskilled."
Approximately the same spirit was expressed by another respected Russian film critic Sergei Kudryavtsev: “this“ 21st century “spy film” loses even in comparison with the 1988 television version, which was also not a noticeable work. But in that picture ... the English actor Richard Chamberlain, in addition to the outward beauty and aristocracy of manners, possessed a certain attractive force, which is also called charisma .... The whole trouble of the fresh adaptation ... is that the popular American performer Matt Damon looks and behaves like a typical parvenu. ... In earlier times, he would not have been allowed to enter the high-ranking sphere of spies with a “license to kill”. Now this guy with the appearance of an ordinary provincial from a small town of one-story America acts as a smart, cunning, cautious, super-agent quoted all over the world .... And the creators of the new action movie have no choice but to compensate for the lack of intelligence ... a rather dull saturation of the action with fights, chases and special effects.»
However, the assessment of Doug Liman's film "The Bourne Identity" by ordinary moviegoers turned out to be much higher than the assessment of leading film critics. This, in addition to commercial success, is evidenced by the following figure: 69% of IMDB and Kinopoisk users rated the film from 8 to 10.
With this in mind, Doug Liman's film "The Bourne Identity" was rated 7,854 by FilmGourmand, which allowed him to enter the Golden Thousand and take 941st place in it.
