07.22.07

The Bourne Ultimatum

Posted in action, reviews at 9:57 pm by FilmFemme

The third installment of the Bourne trilogy, The Bourne Ultimatum is packed with a lot of ass-kicking fight sequences and some just-satisfying-enough conclusions.

After three years of jetting around the world and beating lots of ass, Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) is finally getting close to figuring out who he is. Unfortunately, there’s a nosy journalist in London (Paddy Considine) who is also close to figuring some things out. The threat that this journalist creates sets off a chain of events back in the US with deputy CIA director Noah Vosen (David Strathairn) reopening the Jason Bourne project and bringing Pam Landy (Joan Allen) back to try to finally track down Bourne and ultimately eliminate him as a threat. Of course, Bourne evades and thwarts them at every turn and does a lot more incredibly entertaining ass beating.

By now, director Paul Greengrass definitely has a handle on making some really tense and awesome fight scenes - aided, of course, by Matt Damon’s total brooding sexiness. He also seems intent on creating a real sense of intimacy, especially early in the film. The handheld camera that is used for all conversations with Bourne definitely feels intimate, but it gets a little excessive to the point that the shakiness becomes a little nauseating.

The plot moves along at a nice clip. When there aren’t awesome fights happening, usually something interesting is being revealed. There was a bit of not-so-choice dialogue (Bourne to nosy journalist: This isn’t a story in a newspaper! This is real! Apparently Jason Bourne has little faith in the media…) I was less than thrilled with the Joan Allen/David Straithairn conflict. Something about their chemistry (they are supposed to hate each other) was just a little off. Like Joan Allen is just too nice about the whole thing.

But in general, the movie is really entertaining and I really hope they make another one. Really really.

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