The Franchise Ender That Goes Out Kicking and Screaming
Written: Sep 15 '07 (Updated Sep 15 '07)
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Product Rating:
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| Bang For The Buck |
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Pros: awesome action, great closure
Cons: none
The Bottom Line: See it. Rent it. Buy it.
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| bilavideo's Full Review: The Bourne Ultimatum |
The Bourne Ultimatum is easily the most action-packed in the Bourne Identity trilogy, and a perfect ending to the story. It's not my favorite (that honor goes to Bourne Identity) but it's a major upgrade to the Bourne Supremacy - and for that I am glad.
In the first film (the Bourne Identity), a French fishing crew finds a man floating in the ocean. Taken for dead, he is given some ad hoc medical attention. When he wakes up, the man - whom we come to know as Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) - doesn't know who he is or how he got here. Suffering from amnesia, he struggles to discover his own identity as men with guns descend upon him, chasing him across Europe. Hitching a ride with a stranger named Marie (Franka Potente), Bourne opens up a mystery involving the CIA and ninja-like figures who intend to bring him in or put bullets into him. Fortunately, he has also discovered he's got skills - lightning-fast hands and a killer instinct - that are just as strong as his will to survive.
This first film, Bourne Identity, was such a break-out hit - turning Matt Damon into the thinking-man's action figure - it's not a surprise that the Bourne Supremacy was given a greenlight and a bigger budget (from $60 million to $75 million). It was the bigger, bolder Bourne flick - with the plot calling for the CIA to launch an even bigger posse to bring Bourne in. Lots of people raved about it. Some still think it was better than the original. I'm not one of them.
In this third installment, Jason Bourne has come home. The death of Marie, from an assassin's hands, has convinced him that there's no future in running. This time, he wants answers, and he's not afraid to get his hands dirty in the process.
As the sequel of a sequel, the Bourne Identity knows exactly what it is, which is perhaps why it doesn't bore us with a lot of speeches and answer-itis. Ironically, for a film designed to answer the fundamental questions of who this guy is and why he's been treated like the rabbit at a dog track, the Bourne Ultimatum is more like The Transporter than The Phantom Menace. This is, quote me if you must, "an action-packed thrill ride." It's a roller coaster ride - or what the ride would look and feel like if the cars came off the tracks and went airborn on the way down. I'm not an action junkie - I like a little story with my bloodbath - but this one left me short of breath. It's the Energizer Bunny of action-packed spy thrillers. It takes no prisoners. It's as full of twists and turns as I am of cliches - and today I'm running a sale on them (12 for a dime).
Scott Glenn (Urban Cowboy, Silence of the Lambs) has the thankless job of filling the big shoes left behind by Chris Cooper in the first film. Equally fun to watch are David Strathairn and Joan Allen, as avatars of good and evil within the belly of the beast of the American intelligence community. But if you want creepy - and who doesn't? - you can't go wrong with Albert Finney, who does such a great job you'll forget you're looking at Finney and not Brian Cox. This is a movie about a guy who's starting to think he's Frankenstein's monster, and Finney is dazzling in the role of Dr. Frankenstein.
Also look for a break-out performance by Julia Stiles, who has been muted the last two films in order to give her character both room and familiarity with which to surprise us in the end. I still groan that Robert Ludlum's story doesn't give her more to work with, but at least this time, her character - Nicky Parsons - isn't just a potted plant.
Tony Gilroy, who wrote all three scripts, is a co-writer on this one, and it shows. That statement probably does a disservice to W. Blake Herron (who co-wrote the first film) as well as Scott Z. Burns and George Nolfi (who co-wrote this last installment). Still, for a movie adaptation of a classic series of novels, the Bourne Identity franchise is a remarkable ode to spy-action minimalism. If that continuity of style doesn't owe itself to Tony Gilroy's creative choices, the other writers are free to beat him up in the parking lot - if they can get their hands on him.
With a budget of $110 million, this is clearly the most expensive of the Bourne Identity films, but having doubled its money at home and then tripled - with its revenues overseas - it was clearly $110 million well spent. For my money, the second film (which had Paul Greengrass take over for Doug Liman) was something of a letdown. Maybe it's the difference between the cool of morning and the heat of the afternoon - where a tale starts to stale as we go from mystery to an established machine full of sharpened knives - but if there was ever any question about Greengrass's directorial punch, they were laid to rest in this third film. Where the second film is more Hollywood, with an almost pageant-like morality tale, this third film is "the rocket's red glare." My favorite quality of Liman's initial direction was its economy. Here, Greengrass gets us back to the panting, side-aching excitement - and gives us a finale worth seeing.
What grounds it all with greater emotional authenticity is Matt Damon's performance as Jason Bourne. A little shorter than the average action figure, Damon really comes across as the perfect "everyman." He has an intensity and honesty that make him more than just a wooden figure pulling a James Bond in the age of Al Qaeda.
At the story level, sequels are usually so stale, they're painful to watch - even the ones with all the cross-promotion bringing in hundreds of millions of dollars. But this film earns its place as the climactic end of the Bourne Identity franchise.
(Now watch them make a fourth film and leave me looking stupid.)
Recommended:
Yes
Movie Mood: Action Movie
Viewing Method: Other
Film Completeness: Looked complete to me.
Worst Part of this Film: Nothing
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Member: Bill Kilpatrick
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