In the early 2000s, the action movie was in mortal danger. The reliable heroes of the 80s and 90s – Sly, Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis and Mel Gibson – were getting old and out of touch. Director Michael Bay was the new guy on the block, with hits like The Rock and Armageddon that repurposed the slick style of Tony Scott and Jerry Bruckheimer into high-concept outings. But he seemed content to burn out the genre; once you’ve saved the world from an asteroid the size of Texas, there’s really nowhere else to go.
And then came The Bourne Identity, a film that would so heavily influence the future of action film-making that it doesn’t feel the least bit dated today. Providing a model for both the rest of the Mission: Impossible franchise and the Daniel Craig-led reboot of James Bond, The Bourne Identity nailed the formula of the modern action film: a stoic intelligence agent who has a complicated relationship with his own government. A globe-trotting adventure with at least one heart-stopping car chase and lots of nifty hand-to-hand combat. A love story but one that doesn’t get in the way of the hero’s sense of purpose. And to distinguish itself from its predecessors, the quips are kept to a minimum.
