Matt Damon returns in this second adaptation of a Robert Ludlum novel to the role of Jason Bourne, a superior US CIA rogue agent, who has gone to ground in the field of international espionage, beset with amnesia following a bungled mission.

A Russian oil baron hires a pair of hitmen to mug a CIA operation, stealing a stash of money and important information and killing two agents in the process. They leave a fingerprint at the scene, which is traced back to Bourne and send a hired assassin out to Goa, India, where Bourne has been staying with Marie (Franka Potente), and succeed in killing him (or so they think).

Bourne becomes a most wanted target and a CIA boss, Pamela Landy (Joan Allen), is out to track him down for what he supposedly did in Berlin. Bourne, by contrast, must work out what he's supposed to have done and evade capture. Meanwhile, another CIA boss, Ward Abbott (Brian Cox), is up to no good and Julia Stiles reprises her role from the first film as an agent.

On the plus side, The Bourne Supremacy is an impressive thriller, keeping your attention throughout with a plot that ranges across Europe, from London to Berlin to the Netherlands to Moscow. It's a fairly cold Boys Own action film, strong on car chases and killing, but without much emotional entanglement. On the minus side, a fight scene with a German spy seems faintly ludicrous, merely because its hard to fathom whose body is which with so much handheld camerawork going on. Similarly, a car chase late on along Russian streets seems to stretch credibility a little, but ends at least with a monster collision.

Most should be satisfied with a story that extends the prowess of a ruthless assassin in Bourne, but the director, Paul Greengrass, could have gone further. You're left feeling this is a classy piece of work, but for the sum of its parts, it could, and perhaps should, have delivered more, but that's not to say it's without redeeming features. Allen delivers another sparkling performance, eclipsed only by Cox's neatly rounded turn as the shady figure of a Langley veteran.