THEY stole his identity, and now he wants it back.

Matt Damon's Jason Bourne spent The Bourne Identity trying to work out who he was, and with the amnesia gone, he has settled for a new, anonymous life in a beach hut with his German girlfriend (Franka Potente).

"It's just a headache," he says, waking with the sweats, troubled by bad dreams and incoherent flashbacks.

However, that headache is not going to go away in Goa, and his Indian summer is brought to a sudden end by a hit man (Karl Urban) in the employ of a Russian oil tycoon (with a beard in the style of Roman Abramovich).

Not only does the hitman terminate his relationship with girlfriend and India alike, but he has put him the frame for two murders in Berlin that send the CIA into overdrive.

The CIA, in the form of its sleek new chief (Joan Allen) and enervated stalwart (Brian Cox), makes the capture of Bourne its number one priority and so begins a game of cat and mouse that takes the elusive Bourne to Berlin, Naples and ultimately Moscow, as he seeks to clear his name and right earlier wrongs.

All that flitting hither and thither may suggest the Bourne movies are a distant cousin of James Bond's deeds or the Mission: Impossible movies but Damon's troubled, grimly determined and stealthy Bourne has no time for quips or girls.

We already have our Bond, our Spider-Man, or Batman; Bourne is no superhero but a flawed killing machine, who walks with a limp and does not shrug off the pain of a bullet wound in a Hollywood nanosecond.

Intelligence is at work in this psychological thriller, both in the solemn, intense performance of Damon (to the manner Bourne) and in the directing of Paul Greengrass, whose background in documentary film-making brings realism to the camerawork.

Detail is pleasingly multi-layered, characterisation is fully drawn (save for Julia Stiles's cameo), and the plotting is clear, fast paced and remorselessly progressive. Greengrass's movie is lean and mean; he doesn't waste a scene, balancing emotional impact with the demands for high-speed thrills. Indeed he has the ruthlessness of a hitman, with his crisp editing ensuring that he delivers the car-chase scene of the year.

Shrek 2, Spider-Man 2, and now The Bourne Supremacy have made 2004 the best summer for sequels in years. Where the Matrix sequels disappeared into a blackhole of tedious mind games and lifeless, empty special effects, the Bourne franchise is smart, inventive and thrilling.

Bourne again? Part three is inevitable, even if it won't be called Bourne Free.

Updated: 09:06 Friday, August 13, 2004