Bourne to run … again

Jason Bourne’s fans will have no trouble remembering who he is, even if he can’t.

Seamlessly picking up the tale of the amnesiac assassin from 2002’s hit “The Bourne Identity,” the sequel overcomes a couple of distracting flaws to deliver another solid thrill ride.

Director Paul Greengrass takes over from Doug Liman, who made the first movie and remains an executive producer on the sequel. Greengrass applies similar fly-on-the-wall film methods used in his terrific 2002 docudrama “Bloody Sunday,” relying heavily on handheld cameras nervously flitting, always in motion.

Screenwriter Tony Gilroy, who co-wrote the first movie based on Robert Ludlum’s thriller, this time creates a story bearing almost no relation to Ludlum’s novel sequel, which has Bourne pressed back into service to chase down an impersonator whose assassinations threatened political chaos in China.

In the film version, Bourne (Matt Damon) is still on the run from his old CIA handlers and haunted by fleeting images from his shattered memory as he and Marie (Franka Potente), the muse and emotional anchor he found in the first movie, hide out in India.

A shadowy Russian oil tycoon has framed Bourne for the deaths of two American agents, prompting CIA honcho Pamela Landy (Joan Allen) to hunt down Bourne. Meantime, a hit man (Karl Urban) tries to kill him, the resulting tragedy sending Bourne on a mission that’s part revenge, part redemption.

Returning from the first film are Brian Cox as shady spymaster Ward Abbott, Julia Stiles as greenhorn agent liaison Nicky and Gabriel Mann as agent Danny Zorn. Chris Cooper, the heavy of “The Bourne Identity,” appears briefly in flashbacks.

The cast is tremendous, from Damon down to the bit players. An ominously brooding presence, Damon has long stretches with no dialogue, yet even in loner mode, his twitchy expressions and body language convey broad emotion.