The Bourne Ultimatum

***

August 10, 2007
By Scott Cupper

Jason Bourne…………….Matt Damon
Pam Landy………………Joan Allen
Noah Vosen……………...David Strathairn
Simon Ross………………Paddy Considine
Nicky Parsons……………Julia Stiles
Ezra Kramer……………...Scott Glenn
Desh……………………...Joey Ansah
Dr. Albert Hirsch…………Albert Finney

Directed by Paul Greengrass
Written by Tony Gilroy, Scott Z. Burns, and George Nolfi
Based on the novel by Robert Ludlum


Jason Bourne is awesome. Faster than a computer. More powerful than crashing cars. Able to size up any situation in a single glance. It’s Jason Bourne!

Therein lies the problem of The Bourne Ultimatum. Now don’t get me wrong. I love to watch Jason Bourne being awesome. And Matt Damon is awesome at making Bourne…awesome. But by simply being awesome, the series has lost something along the way. In the first Bourne outing, The Bourne Identity, Jason Bourne was bewildered by what he could do and we were in awe. We were discovering together. Lately, though, he’s all about revenge.

It’s a natural progression, I understand this. At the end of Identity, he was content with what he knew about himself and was trying to live happily ever after on a secluded island with his girlfriend. But the CIA wasn’t happy, so they killed his girlfriend. Now, that would mess me up somethin’ awful. The funny thing, though, is that we no longer really care about his plight. We’re more interested in fights and big things go boom.

Jason Bourne has become more machine than man, going about his business as if he was programmed to do so. And forget about anything else. Sex seems to be a thing of the past. The movie wants us to believe that he loved his girlfriend, but when Bourne learns that he was in at least one other relationship, he reacts as if he’s been told he once owned a vacuum cleaner.

Ultimatum understands that this has happened, so it gives us something else to care about while Bourne is traveling from clue to clue. Joan Allen returns as Pam Landy, but she is no longer heading up the Bourne case. That job has gone to Noah Vosen (David Strathairn). And like any superiors must, they butt heads. Pam is trying to understand Bourne. Noah is trying to eliminate him. These are two fine actors and their interplay is a highlight of the movie. If Jason Bourne’s pursuit wasn’t so loud, this would feel like the main plot of the movie.

Ultimatum gets the ball rolling with a newspaper article that’s coming out. Reporter Simon Ross (Paddy Considine) is about to break the story on Treadstone and Blackbriar. I was a little hazy on this, but I think Treadstone became Blackbriar. Our hero was the first of the new program. That Jason Bourne, he’s such a good sport. So, anyway, Jason gets wind of this article and meets with the reporter.

The meeting was one of the movie’s best action sequences. Bourne, being the cunning fox he is, knows that this reporter is most likely being followed. So he slips him a cell phone and tells the reporter how to avoid all the security. It a skillfully crafted sequence that plays the right notes of Bourne’s knowledge verses the reporter’s fear.

I’m not in love with Paul Greengrass’s direction like everyone else is. Yes, his handheld style is kinetic, but it sacrifices a lot. It was very effective in Bloody Sunday. Here, however, the action scenes are a great deal more confusing than they need to be and at some point it’s even hard to tell exactly what’s going on. There’s no need for it. The pleasure of seeing this kind of movie is what the actors are doing. We want to see cool fights.

It probably sounds like I didn’t enjoy the movie. I did. It’s fine. It’s effective. It’s a good time. If you liked The Bourne Supremacy, you’ll like this one. It’s just when something starts with such promise, it’s hard to see it settle for the common denominator. At least it goes for the jugular.