Just like its predecessor,
The Bourne Identity, 2004’s
The Bourne Supremacy is being released on Blu-ray as a “Flipper” disc. That means you get the Blu-ray version on one side of the disc and the DVD on the other. Not unlike
Identity, there doesn’t seem to be much wrong with this set up….yet.
The Bourne Supremacy Blu-ray release is a “Flipper” disc, which I’ve discussed in
The Bourne Identity review. If you have questions about possible problems with this type of disc, check out that review, although neither disc I have, either
Identity or
Supremacy, has any technical issues at this point. That could change with wear and tear in the future, of course.
The disc matches
Identity in that the HD version is sharp and clear and wonderful to watch, and the extras are plentiful. The “U-Control” feature is hyped on the back of the box, but of the three options -- “Picture in Picture,” “Bourne Dossier,” and “Bourne Orientation” -- only “Picture in Picture” is worth checking out. It operates like a second commentary with interviews, storyboards, and other behind-the-scenes video popping up during the movie. The other two options are, in a word, crap. The “Dossier” just throws up a bunch of random numbers meant to seem like secret file codes and some information about the location or mission being shown on screen. The “Orientation” is a simplistic retelling of the information you’ve just seen. A total waste.
Since the “Picture in Picture” is a good second commentary, the actual commentary by Paul Greengrass has some competition. Fortunately, he’s up to the challenge, although he does sometimes seem to forget he’s giving a commentary and minutes go by while a scene unfolds and he says nothing. When he does talk, though, he’s entertaining, if not particularly enthusiastic.
While the plot of the movie is somewhat confusing, there is some help available in the “Explosive Deleted Scenes” extra. The scenes, about 10 minutes in total, are anything but explosive, but one has a bunch of explanation of how things fit together that would have been helpful. There is also an alternate ending that shows Bourne and Landy meeting in a hospital room and her asking him to come back in and join the CIA. It’s interesting that both alternate endings for the first two movies show face-to-face meetings between the Bourne and his CIA pursuers. I have no idea what it means, but it’s interesting.
Two of the extras follow-up on extras from
Identity. “The Bourne Mastermind” is a continuation of the interviews with and about Robert Ludlum, the Bourne author. As I noted in the other review, if you watch the three-part extra on Ludlum contained on
Identity, you can avoid both parts of “The Bourne Mastermind,” as they are just shorter versions of the same material. “The Bourne Diagnosis” continues the misguided premise that Bourne’s amnesia and other psychological issues are worth discussing with a real psychiatrist.
There isn’t a “making-of” featurette, but there are individual featurettes, all in the four- to six-minute range, that give quite a bit of interesting info on the film. There are nine altogether, and they can be broken up into two main groups: action stuff and non-action stuff. The action stuff includes a breakdown of the chase on the bridge (when Bourne jumps onto the barge and then climbs back on the bridge), the Russian chase scene, the special car that was used to film the car chases, the fight training Damon was given, and something simply titled “Blowing Things Up.” The non-action stuff focused on Greengrass, the composer John Powell, the locations, and a casting featurette that primarily allowed the actors to kiss each other's asses.
When taken together, the Blu-ray is a great value. Plus, the DVD version is there if you need it. This is just a good action series, and while I wish they’d avoided the controversy by putting the DVD on a separate disc, you can’t go wrong picking this up.