Bourne Ultimatum
August 25, 2007
It was many years back that I stumbled upon the Bourne Identity, quite by accident in fact (I was studying at the time and hadn’t kept up with any movies at all). I was somewhat sceptical as I sat down to watch it, Matt Damon didn’t seem a very likely “action hero”. By the end of it however I was thoroughly impressed; it was fresh, it had action without being over the top or cliché and interestingly, the hero had an ounce of intelligence beyond knowing how to shoot someone.
Then came the Supremacy which overall I would say was a step back compared to the first. Killing Marie off in the first 10 minutes was bold, maybe too bold and it only served to bring a shallow “I want revenge” quality to Bourne which was only balanced by his ongoing torturous memories and guilt over a prior assassination. It was however, still a pretty good film and it served it’s purpose: to lead us into the final film of the trilogy.
[Don’t read the rest if you hate spoilers!]
I won’t beat about the bush here, I thought Ultimatum was excellent. From the start (which curiously is more suited as the end to Supremacy) to finish, it was engaging and filled with intelligently scripted action sequences (and of course, the usual car chase).
The few fight scenes present in the film are done very well, they’re fast, they’re gritty and they exhibit none of the cartoony, unrealistic qualities that so many movies do these days.
But what I loved most about Ultimatum were the “cat & mouse” sequences. There are two, one in a station and one in Tangiers and both are just prime examples that you can have prolonged, hard-hitting, tense, nail-biting action without the cheesy one-liners, needless violence and excessive explosions.
There’s a lovely symmetry in how this film ends too. Bourne floating seemingly lifeless in water, just how we first saw him in Identity and then the Extreme Ways strings kick in and he swims into the darkness. It’s a terrific way to end the movie (and the trilogy) although it does seem that they used some cheap cover rather than the Moby original which just doesn’t quite have the same effect.
If you’ve seen the other Bourne films, you need to see this, it ties everything up perfectly and even throws in a twist at the end when we find out how Jason Bourne came to be. If you haven’t seen the first two Bourne films, you should. I would say it’s almost verging on the criminal not too.
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