Aug 16, 2007

Matt Damon looks like a sixth-form prefect, the lead choirboy in the world's smuggest choir and a lump of enchanted ham all crumpled behind the biggest poop-eating grin in Hollywood history. Talented actor and screenwriter he may be, but believable hard man he is not, which brings us to our first and possibly greatest point. He's not had his face, body, movements or voice scanned for Vivendi's take on the Bourne franchise because Vivendi has picked up the rights to the original books instead.

The Bourne Conspiracy's martial arts system has been designed under the watchful eye of the film's fight coordinator Jeff Imada, but the rest of the details are taken from the literature, not the celluloid incarnation of the amnesiac super agent - and if you know the books, you'll know exactly why this fact should be dropped in a big box marked "Good Things."

In the Damon films, Bourne first appears floating in the Mediterranean with bullets in his back and one more in his dome. That's where we meet him, and from that point on it's just a simple A-to-B march through amnesia until he meets Clive Owen who he smokes quite beautifully with a shotgun. A perfect reaction to Owen's acting style it may be, but there's far more to Bourne than being a nice guy who joined a US government secret agency, got betrayed and earned some payback.

The Bourne Conspiracy is potentially going to be a lot more of a literal translation of Ludlum's novels. And as a game it takes its stealth-action lead from Splinter Cell. Of course it does, it's an action game where you use stealth as a weapon. Stealth, however, isn't implemented to force you to keep to the shadows and avoid direct engagements.