The Bourne Ultimatum is a crackerjack of a high-adrenalin, fast-paced film. I must admit that I am slightly allergic to Matt Damon but he delivers the goods in this third instalment of the Jason Bourne series. James Bond he ain’t: no tuxedos, no rapier one-line putdowns, no Russian Smersh agents called Tanya and definitely no Aston Martins with ejector seats but for excitement, it ranks highly. I was slightly irritated by the constantly jerky film shifts – the director is obviously trying to show how realistic and gritty the whole thing is, and I am not entirely convinced that the CIA’s technology is as snazzy as in the film. But these are quibbles.
I expected to see a few cliches in this film, and we were not entirely disappointed. Yes, the CIA is portrayed as riddled with mad, bad people, but on the other hand, justice is done, the bad folk get brought to book eventually, and the film does not imply, as far as I can tell, that the threats to the US are somehow made up or are the figments of imagination. If anything, the message is that overzealous security agencies can easily convince themselves that it is okay to violate the boundaries of the law to do what is necessary. No one is above the law.
I also smiled wryly at the way the film showed how many CCTV cameras there are in Britain. The scene at Waterloo Station, for example, was excellently done, and horribly believable.
But didn’t you think that Jason Bourne was a wee bit too invincible in this one? He just seemed to survive too many car crashes and was just too good at running rings round a supposedly omnipotent CIA for my liking. I found the first two films in the series more convincing in that respect.
A spoiler warning may have been in order for those of us who have not seen the movie and would like even a tiny degree of suspense over the ending…
Well, I hated this film. The action scenes were just too jerky and silly, IMHO. The dialogue was just not funny. “Get yourself a good lawyer!” was the only line that got the audience to respond. I would have walked out after 15 minutes but I was sure it had to get better. It didn’t.
But, I loved the Simpson’s film.
uhthanks, we are not your mother and not a government department, so I am not in the practice of putting alerts, health warnings and other such things on my posts. There is nothing really in my article that really gives the game away about this film. This was a three-para quick take on the movie, for fuck’s sake.
I somewhat agree with Andy, but overall I came out with the same impression as Jonathan. I do like Damon, though, but I am a girl:-)
Joel: it was not intended to be a comedy.
This movie was a cracker, best one of the summer for me so far.
As for the Simpsons movie, could have written the basic plot line in my sleep. Homer does something bad that threatens his marriage, Lisa adopts some watermelon cause, Bart is bad and annoys Homer, Maggie saves the day, Marge forgives Homer. Was still pretty funny though.
I also saw Transformers recently, good for a bit of a laugh. Was listening to the radio (Xfm) when I heard a good idea for an alternate movie. Transgenderformers – more than meets the eye.
The recent book “Sabotage” did a reasonable job of exposing what some of the C.I.A. is really like (a politically motivated bunch of “liberals” – as well as being a government bureaucracy).
As for the film – I did not see it.
I can not remember the last time I went to see an action film (I did not go to see the latest “Die Hard” film either).
If I watch such play fighting films at all I wait till they are on television.
If you liked the 1st 2 installments, you will like this one although I think it was not as good as the others.
I had a great time anyway.
You can keep the simpsons.
Paul: movies of this kind lose a lot of their impact on TV – they were made for a big screen and a big sound system.
The last Die Hard was the first one I have ever seen. The reason I was able to bring myself to watch it was that I saw Willis’ bit on Friends. It was some of the best pieces of comedy ever, and puts the whole Willis super-hero persona in a completely different light. (And before anyone brings up Moonlighting: he was young then, so it is different).
I might agree with you had I not been afflicted with a fair amount of motion sickness caused by the shaky camera.
While The Bourne Ultimatum’s producers’ decision to film the project in its entirety by a crew of cameramen suffering from the most advanced stages of St. Vitus’s dance is admirable, those of us prone to dizziness suffered from it.
“Yes, the CIA is portrayed as riddled with mad, bad people”
I didn’t get this impression from the film, to be honest. Everyone in the CIA outside of the assassination project seems genuinely shocked and disgusted when they find out about it. Bias is common in stories like this but I dont think it was present here.
It was cute in a 1970s sort of way: “we’ll get it exposed and in front of a Congressional Committee, that way everything will be okay.”
It might work …
if we could clone a quorum on Ron Paul’s.
That should read “a quorum of Ron Pauls”
Well I doubt that Ron Paul would have a C.I.A. – granted it has been fairly useless (to put it kindly) in recent decades, but it did have its effective period.
For example, in the post war years both France and Italy would have been taken over by the communists if it had not been for the C.I.A.
Encounter magazine (and so on) were also very effective in countering communist propaganda – and it is hard (although not impossible) to see such efforts being entirely privately funded. However, I have a feeling (well more than a feeling actually) that if the C.I.A. tried to fund a journal these days that journal would be very low grade stuff indeed.
Perhaps that is the way with government bureacracies – the people who set them up have (like them or not) real motives and objectives, but then the structure takes control and, whatever the quality of the people who go into the structure, it tends to warp people into time servers. Of course individuals still matter (both in civilian intelligence and in the military) but “the system” does tend to limit (and twist) what one can achieve.
However, I remain unconvinced that either private companies or charitable foundations can totally replace either the government military or intelligence organizations (although private efforts are very useful).
Alisa – good point.
For example the “Lord of the Rings” films were good both at the movie theatre and on television – but a lot of the effects were better on the big screen.
Good film… and let’s hope that all the technology and people tracking works on the Muslim would-be terrorists too.
I loved the second Bourne film because of the Moscow scenes. For the first time ever in a Hollywood film, Russia actually looked like it does.
Ditto. It’s an affectation which actually destroys the mood of a movie, and the ultra-quick cuts are equally dire.
That said, I love the Bourne films — I actually think they’re better than the Ludlum novels which inspired them — and I’m a little sorry that the series has come to an end.