HE WAS THE PERFECT WEAPON UNTIL HE BECAME THE TARGET.

A young man (Matt Damon) is fished out of the Mediterranean and remembers nothing of his past; all he has is an implant in his hip revealing a Swiss bank account number.

Doug Liman’s great breakthrough as a filmmaker also introduced Damon as a star of action movies worthy of your attention. This version of the Robert Ludlum novel did things its own way; we’ve got car chases, fights and shootouts, all slickly done (especially a scene involving Bourne and a flight of stairs).

Many critics were blown away, but there’s not really anything new here. Franka Potente is appealing in her first major Hollywood movie.

2002-U.S. 121 min. Color. Widescreen. Directed by Doug Liman. Screenplay: Tony Gilroy, William Blake Herron. Novel: Robert Ludlum. Music: John Powell. Cast: Matt Damon (Jason Bourne), Franka Potente (Marie Helena Kreutz), Chris Cooper (Alexander Conklin), Brian Cox, Clive Owen, Julia Stiles. 

Trivia: Co-produced by Liman; co-executive produced by Ludlum and Frank Marshall. In the 1980s, Burt Reynolds was considered for the lead in a film adaptation of the novel. In the 2000s, Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise and Russell Crowe were considered as Bourne. The story was previously filmed as a miniseries, The Bourne Identity (1988). Followed by three sequels, starting with The Bourne Supremacy (2004), and a spin-off movie, The Bourne Legacy (2012).