Bourne Identity, The: Explosive Extended Edition (2002)

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General		Extras
Category	Action	Main Menu Introduction Main Menu Audio & Animation Menu Audio Alternative Version-The Bookend Scenes: New Opening And Alternate Ending Featurette-The Bourne Mastermind: Robert Ludlum Interviews-Crew-Tony Gilroy (Screenwriter) Featurette-From Identity To Supremacy: Jason And Marie Featurette-The Bourne Diagnosis Featurette-Cloak And Dagger: Covert Ops Featurette-The Speed Of Sound Deleted Scenes-Declassified Information Featurette-Inside A Fight Sequence Music Video-Extreme Ways By Moby DVD Credits Trailer-Van Helsing Biographies-Cast & Crew Filmographies-Cast & Crew
Rating
Year Of Production	2002
Running Time	113:37
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (76:57)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Doug Liman
Studio Distributor	Universal Pictures Home Video	Starring	Matt Damon Franka Potente Chris Cooper Clive Owen Brian Cox Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje Gabriel Mann Walt Goggins Josh Hamilton Julia Stiles Orso Maria Guerrini Tim Dutton Denis Braccini
Case	?
RPI	$29.95	Music	John Powell Moby

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.35:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English for the Hearing Impaired	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Question - When is an Extended Edition not quite an Extended Edition?

    Answer - When this The Bourne Identity Explosive Extended Edition features a running time exactly the same as the original version of the DVD.

    Believe it or not, this disc features exactly the same version of the film that you will find on the original retail disc that has been in the stores for well over a year. The so-called bonus extended material consists of a couple of dodgy looking deleted scenes that have been clumsily integrated into the overall running time at the beginning and end of the film to make it appear as if we are getting an extended edition with around six extra minutes of footage. These deleted scenes (and that's what they should be called and relegated to the bonus materials section accordingly) add precious little to the story other than setting up a natural segue for the story to pick up in the sequel. In other words, this disc is nothing more than an advertisement for the upcoming The Bourne Supremacy. To add further insult, the quality of these scenes is well below that of the rest of the film and they haven't even been integrated with a seamless branching option. You must manually make a selection to activate the scenes even after choosing to play the extended version of the film from the menu.

    Apparently these extra scenes all came about as a result of the September 11 tragedy which occurred just after the film's editing had been completed. The makers thought the idea of a CIA spy going off the official books and committing a political assassination was a little old-hat and irrelevant in the new war-on-terror era in which the US and the world found itself after 9/11. The idea was to bookend the film with two new scenes that allowed the makers some sort of safety net to make the story appear as more of a flashback sequence to the pre-September 11 era. In the end, after numerous test screenings they decided these bookend scenes weren't needed and left them out. The scenes were deleted and that's probably where they should have stayed.

    Now seriously, this release is nothing more than a marketing exercise in an attempt to milk a few more dollars from the DVD buying public all while extracting a little publicity for the upcoming sequel The Bourne Supremacy. It's setting a dangerous precedent whereby marketing people can make an old release look like a new release with precious little effort. A new cover slick, a couple of brief new extras, and a little imagination in terms of a catchy (and misleading title) and hey presto there's a new version of the film which will hopefully have the DVD buying public fooled enough to ship a few thousand more copies off the shelf.

    So, in short, if you already own the original retail version of The Bourne Identity, there is no need to bother with this one. If you don't already own the original version of The Bourne Identity there is also no need to bother with this one. What we gain in terms of extra material here (a few new featurettes and the boring bookend scenes), we lose in the way of an audio commentary and dts soundtrack.

    But just in case you have not seen the original version of the film or purchased the original retail disc, here's a quick rundown of the plot.

    Matt Damon is the main man, Jason Bourne. The story opens on a stormy night, when the crew of a fishing boat pluck the body of a man (Damon) out of the Mediterranean Sea, thinking he is dead. They proceed to check him over, finding several bullet holes in his back and a tiny capsule embedded in his hip that contains the details of a Swiss bank account. It also happens that he isn't actually dead, just very close to it. When he comes round, he has absolutely no idea who he is, or how he came to be bobbing around in the sea in the middle of the night. The only lead he has is the Swiss bank account number, so after a brief period of convalescence, he heads to Zurich to find out what is tucked away in the safety deposit box. Once past all the security checks (not bad for a guy who has no ID, no wallet, and no idea who he is), our man is given access to a large box that contains all manner of goodies, including several passports with different identities for a multitude of countries, all with his smiling face on the inside cover. Add in a few spy gadgets, an automatic pistol, and a swag of various currencies and we're getting the idea that Jason Bourne (the US passport is in this name and it's the first one he opens) isn't an insurance salesman.

    When he arouses the suspicions of the Swiss authorities, he makes a dash for the American Embassy, only to get himself in more trouble. He is also beginning to learn that he has some pretty serious training on his side when he can effectively disable several armed men, all with his bare hands, and he discovers he is fluent in a multitude of languages. With everyone after him, he makes a spectacular escape from the Embassy and convinces the lovely Marie (Franka Potente, who played Lola in Run, Lola, Run) to drive him to Paris. From here he attempts to unravel the mystery of exactly who he is and why so many people are trying to do him in. The story cuts to the CIA offices in Langley, Virginia where we find those responsible for his predicament trying to clean up the mess before it escalates out of control. What follows is a cat-and-mouse style chase with no real obvious distinction between good and evil. Some stylish set pieces such as the car chase in a Mini through the street of Paris add to the excitement, as does Bourne's slow realisation of exactly who he is and his bewilderment at the things he can do without actually remembering how.

Video

    As was the case with both the rental and retail versions of the original release, the same transfer has again been used for this edition. That original release was more than adequate with only a couple of minor blemishes. At the time I said a recent blockbuster film deserves a pristine transfer and that's almost what we got. The situation is exactly the same this time around.

    The video transfer is presented in its original theatrical ratio of 2.35:1. It is 16x9 enhanced.

    Sharp and well defined detail is evident throughout. Thankfully, there is no major edge enhancement to be concerned about. Shadow detail looks a little dodgy at times, but this would surely have to be all source-based. Spies do like to creep around in the dark to do their work and this is no different. Grain is so minimal as to be barely noticed and there is also no low level noise.

    The colours are quite drab, with the entire production feeling like it was filmed under leaden skies with the constant threat of misty rain. Being set almost entirely in Europe, this grey drab tone suits the locales well. Blacks are perfectly solid and skin tones a little pale (but remember this is Europe in winter).

    Compression artefacts are absent. The biggest issue is the appearance of some mild aliasing. There is some shimmer on several surfaces that, while quite obvious, just borders on what I consider acceptable. The usual culprits offend here. Some grille-style walls in CIA headquarters at 12:17 and the grille of the Mini at 34:21 are the most notable offenders, with a handful of smaller, less bothersome instances scattered throughout. There's a handful of extremely small film artefacts that are not too bothersome.

    For some reason we only get one subtitle stream here. The original release had several options, but all that's here is a standard English for the Hearing Impaired flavour. They are well presented on screen and are quite accurate, but I found on my player that I was forced to switch them on and off via the subtitle menu. I was unable to activate them on-the-fly, which sort of defeats the purpose of having them here. It's also worth noting that the location captions used throughout the film to denote whatever city or country the action has moved to have been placed in the subtitle stream. The font used here is quite different to how it appears in the original theatrical version of the film.

    This is a single-sided, dual-layered disc that is RSDL formatted. The layer change is different to that on the original disc and occurs a little later, mid-scene at 76:57. It is not as well placed as before and is quite obvious.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    Aside from the disc title and a few extras, it is the soundtrack department that sees the biggest and most unfortunate changes for this edition. Both the rental and original retail disc benefited from the inclusion of not only a Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack, but also a dts 5.1 soundtrack. The retail version also picked up a Dolby Digital 2.0 Commentary soundtrack. Unfortunately this Explosive Edition drops both the dts and commentary tracks leaving the sole Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack to carry all the load.

    The sole English Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack is encoded at the lower bitrate of 384 Kb/s. This soundtrack is quite excellent, offering superb separation, heaps of solid, clean grunt, and some really well mixed panning effects. It is still a corker of a soundtrack that we get here and it will give your amplifier some serious work to do.

    The dialogue levels are fine, though on occasion in the early scenes I had a little trouble understanding the various European accents. There are no audio sync problems.

    The score is credited to John Powell. It has an espionage-style suspense-building tone and suits the action very well indeed. There didn't seem to be any need to play the score constantly and the moments of silence at the appropriate times add much more to the tension. There is also a song by Moby called Extreme Ways played over the end credits.

    There is plenty of surround channel use throughout the film, with the levels varying between highly aggressive down to a subtle ambience that finds you looking over your shoulder to see if a bird (or car) hasn't somehow snuck into your home theatre room. Check out the very good surround use examples at 23:57 for some amazing background street-scape style ambience, and again at 84:35 when the birds fly around.

    There's plenty for the subwoofer to keep itself occupied. The classic car chase scene through Paris will get it thumping as will a couple of the martial arts scenes.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

    The original release featured a number of extras highlighted by quite an informative commentary track from director Doug Liman. Unfortunately, the commentary track has gone and what we now have is a collection of quite brief featurettes. Thankfully they are at least not a simple repeat of the featurettes included in the original release.

Main Menu Introduction

Main Menu Audio & Animation

Menu Audio

Alternative Version

    As stated in the plot synopsis there is an alternative version of the film available here, but to call it an Explosive Extended Edition is really stretching the boundaries of honest marketing to their limit. In fact, it's almost an outright lie. When you select the option to play the film you are offered (like many other real Extended Editions) a further option to play either the theatrical version or this new extended version. Unfortunately this is where the similarities with other quality extended editions end simply because of the shoddy way this new footage has been incorporated into the overall film.

    What we really have here is two deleted scenes that have been tacked onto the beginning and end of the film. These "bookend" scenes have in no way been seamlessly added to the film as is common with most alternative versions. Instead you are presented with an icon at the point where the scene occurs during the film and you have to manually select this icon to activate the scene.

    The new opening runs for 2:17, while the alternate ending (which contains a little bit of the alternate ending seen on the original disc) runs for 4:57. The unfortunate thing with these new scenes is that both are presented in an aspect ratio of 2.35:1 but are most certainly not 16x9 enhanced. Audio is also a disappointment, with only a Dolby Digital 2.0 surround encoded soundtrack available. The overall quality of these new scenes is equal to the other deleted scenes and is far from perfect. Overall these scenes are best described as tedious with precious little additional story development (other than the already mentioned safety-net that the producers were hoping for). Where the highly exaggerated explosive tag is earned is anybody's guess.

    There is also a 3:34 intro to the scenes featuring an interview with producer Frank Marshall and writer Tony Gilroy, who explain the reasons for the existence of these bookend scenes.

    All three parts of this alternative version can be selected from the bonus materials menu or by selecting the option to play the extended version of the film.

Featurette - The Bourne Mastermind: Robert Ludlum

    This is a 5:46 look at the world of master author Robert Ludlum. While he passed away a couple of years ago there is a little archival footage of him from various sources discussing his work plus recent interviews with a couple of his colleagues and publishers.

Interviews-Crew

    This is a fairly lacklustre interview with screenwriter Tony Gilroy. He discusses very briefly some of the challenges of condensing what are considerably large novels into a 120-page screenplay. There's not a whole lot of information conveyed here and it only runs for 4:04.

Featurette - From Identity To Supremacy: Jason And Marie

    This is more of a tie-in to the new film The Bourne Supremacy. It contains interview footage with Matt Damon plus a few behind-the-scenes peeks at the new film during filming. Runs for 3:38.

Featurette - The Bourne Diagnosis

    A rather strange little featurette this one. In between snippets of footage from the film we have a psychologist explaining just what amnesia is. Runs for 3:27.

Featurette - Cloak And Dagger: Covert Ops

    This is a 5:32 interview with a real CIA field operative (I think he's retired now) who discusses just how realistic the film is in most respects.

Featurette - The Speed Of Sound

    A 4:05 featurette dedicated to the sound aspects of the film. A slightly condescending sound editor discusses just how he goes about his work and how he is sure audiences simply think all the audio is recorded using one microphone on the set (I think we have all seen enough featurettes to know how hard you all work, OK). At the end of this featurette is a nicely executed example of how all the layers in the audio come together to produce the finished effect. Based on a 0:58 scene of Bourne and Marie in their Mini, you can listen to all the individual layers of audio such as Foley, background, dialogue, and engine noise, before listening to the finished scene.

Deleted Scenes

    Given the fancy label of Declassified Information, these four deleted scenes are exactly the same ones that appeared on the original retail version. They run for between 1:00 and 2:32. Total running time is 6:59. They are fairly tedious when shown as standalone scenes; without any commentary as to the reason for their deletion (presumably pacing) they are really quite dull.

Featurette - Inside A Fight Sequence

    While this actual featurette was not included on the original disc, most of the footage presented here was part of the making-of featurette. It's a 4:44 look at the choreography of the various fight scenes that Matt Damon took part in.

Music Video  -Extreme Ways By Moby

    Running for 3:40 and presented in the widescreen aspect ratio of 1.78:1 (without 16x9 enhancement), this is the music video for the song that appears over the end credits.

DVD Credits

    A very simple and very quick scrolling list of people that worked on this version of the DVD. Runs for 0:54

Trailer

    Not the theatrical trailer for the film (or The Bourne Supremacy), but for the Hugh Jackman vampire flick Van Helsing. Runs for just 1:04.

Biographies-Cast & Crew

    Standard bio details for the principal cast and crew.

Filmographies-Cast & Crew

    Located at the end of the bios are lengthy filmographies for the same cast and crew.

    Region 1 has also been lucky enough to have a version of The Bourne Identity Explosive Extended Edition.

    The addition of French and Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtracks are the only difference between the Region 4 and Region 1 discs. With both titles suffering from the same over-the-top exaggerated title I'll declare this contest a draw.

    Released to coincide with the theatrical release of The Bourne Supremacy, this Explosive Extended Edition of The Bourne Identity is nothing more than a marketing exercise to boost publicity and revenue, and sets a nasty precedent which we hope is not repeated. If you already own the original retail version of this film there is absolutely no reason to pick up this new disc. If you don't own either then the choice is between the original disc with extras including a commentary track and a dts soundtrack, or this so-called extended edition with a few new extras but no commentary and no dts soundtrack.

    I know which one I prefer.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall