One of the most intelligent and satisfying big-budget thrillers in years, The Bourne Identity, adapted from Robert Ludlum's best-selling novel, may have a silly premise but it's remarkably entertaining stuff.  Matt Damon is excellent as the main character, who has a nasty bout of amnesia and therefore has no idea that lots of people are trying to kill him, nor of course why, and so must spend the film not only dodging them, but finding out who he is and what he does for a living at the same time.  It's very well done, doesn't resort to just trying to thrill the audience with a series of explosions and fights every few minutes, and - surprisingly for a movie of this type - the actors are skilful enough to create empathy for their characters.

Swingers director Doug Liman enlisted composer John Powell for one of his earliest solo efforts on a big movie.  Since then, he has certainly established himself as a film composer of some note with his ability to create compelling dramatic scores based around modern sounds, sometimes with the orchestra playing a very reduced role, and The Bourne Identity is perhaps the model for all those later works.  The only live instruments are strings and some percussion, with much of the impetus of the music coming from synthesised percussion and drum loops - usually a recipe for disaster as far as I'm concerned, but Powell is one of the few film composers who manages to create interesting music while doing it.

The Bourne Identity is a generally laid-back score which moves the film forward with the ever-present percussion and drum loops; but it does occasionally burst into life.  Generally the action music sees the introduction of an electric guitar or two, and the percussion gets lifted up a notch, and it works very well; "At the Bank" and "Escape from Embassy" are particularly impressive.  Indeed, the whole score has such an organic feel to it, naturally moving from point A to point B rather than just being a monotonous drone like so many modern action/thriller scores, Powell deserves much praise.  He has gone on to refine the style and produce even more impressive works since The Bourne Identity, but even so it remains one of his best efforts so far.  It is so refreshing to hear a younger composer writing music firmly in his own style and not just copying temp-tracks; and so refreshing to hear a Media Ventures graduate write an action score which doesn't sound like the generic MV template.  This is solid stuff, highly recommended to fans of more modern music.