Alternate Disc-Tractions: The Bourne movies on Blu-ray, DVD review
by at February 16, 2010 9:10 pm
Sections: Ads & Media, Features, Home Video, Movies, Opinions, Originals, Reviews
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The most recent release of the three Bourne movies – The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum – marks Universal Home Entertainment’s foray into the wonderful world of the flipper disc. These two-in-one, Blu-ray-DVD combo discs mean you can get the movie and enjoy it now, even if you don’t yet have a PS3 or Blu-ray player (assuming, of course, you have abandoned VHS and embraced DVDs).
Here’s what that means for you.
Bourne Again
First, a big fat, super fast recap that puts all three movies into a tiny nutshell.
In this spy-assassin action series, a guy (Matt Damon) wakes up, isn’t sure who or what he is and find himself running from the government he discovers he’s serving. He eventually figures out that his “name” is Jason Bourne and there are several chase scenes, misdirections, wordless fights with household items used as weapons and a few cool spy tricks.
There are enemies who become friends (or non-enemies), a love interest, lots of stern facial expressions and, with a few suspense-ending exceptions, rarely a giggle. Super spy is chased, gets framed, exposes the chasees and then is simultaneously being chased while chasing the chasers.
The series is packed with suspense but, surprisingly (and to help keep it PG-13) not blood and the audience, as well as Bourne, get a trickle of insight into who and what he really is until the end of the third movie. Secret government projects are covered up and old white dudes act all stern about it.
Each of the films has a slightly unique look and pace, with the fist (Identity) having the welcome-to-our-story advantage. The middle movie (Supremacy) has the most awkward and slowly paced of the three yet still proves a worthy middle movie offering Bourne some of the more exciting personal revelations. The third (Ultimatum) literally brings the action home and puts everything nicely to rest.
There is plenty of decent acting (Julia Stiles’ acting actually improves with each film), a lot of jittery action scenes and many grumpy old white guys. You can certainly see where 24 gets a lot of stylistic inspiration, although these films deal with a man simply trying to find himself while being chased instead of preventing a ginormous disaster.
Shiny Round Objects
Being a flipper you obviously have the option of standard def DVD one one side or high def Blu-ray on the other.
Each of the film shows well in high definition, with Ultimatum often being the most frenetic in terms of action sequences and disparate in terms of settings. Some of the first two film’s distant shots seem a little blurred but that may be more a matter of original film stock than transfers. On DVD, you’re getting essentially the same video as previous releases so don’t expect much improvement there.
If you are an extra junkie then the Blu-ray releases of these movies will prove exciting. Each comes with a picture-in-picture option (overlay commentaries, alternate shots and other goodness over the movie), a Bourne Card Strategy Game, miscellaneous files and deleted scenes.
Each movie, for both the Blu-ray and DVD versions includes movie-specific featurettes (some avaialble on earlier DVD releases). The first two movies include background bios whereas the third primarily offers featurettes based on the make hard-to-shoot action scenes.
BD-Live interactivity is also included with each movie, which allows you and a friend, who must also own the movie, to watch the movie together or select scenes and record your own comments. This is a feature that the film industry seems excited about enough to include it on most Blu-ray releases but doesn’t always result in the most – or best – community videos. You might want to browse though to see if any have been added and the silliness people have to utter but expect cruddy delays and a distinct lack of insight (aside from company sponsored celebrity mini-features).
ReBourne Again?
This release makes it clear that the higher the def, the more exciting the action, the more tense the tension and the grittier the grit. If you don’t already own a home video release from this series, go for a Blu-flipper. Invest for the sake of having it in two formats. Otherwise, don’t expect too much more than you’ve already seen on previous releases.
Site [NBC Universal Store]
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