THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM(2007) movie review!

THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM

Plot- Jason Bourne slowly begins to regain his memory as he discovers clues from his past.

Review- I liked “The Bourne Identity”, and loved “The Bourne Supremacy”, so it was safe to say I was looking forward to this film. Did it meet my expectations? Yes and no.

The film starts with Bourse still in Moscow(where the second film ended) and he is being chased by the police. Suddenly, he gets a vision from his past. I won’t reveal much else because that would be spoiling the movie. Anyway, Bourne searches for his identity while dodging CIA operatives and an assassin.

The movie really only kind of impressed me with its script, and kind of impressed me with its action. The plot I thought was about as good as the movie could get. My problem came with the rest of the script.

The twists are just “bleh”, never really being surprising. We already know enough of his past to know he was an assassin from the first film, so all Bourne is searching for is where he began at, ect. Trust me, its nothing to jump up and down about.

The movie tries to catch us off guard with other twists as well, but once again they fail to impress. The movie is only sort of interesting and the one unique subplot(the assassin who is hunting him down) felt underused and under effective. Then we have Nicky Parsons(Julia Stiles) returning. I like the actress but the character just felt like a copout to give away one detail and provide some tension for Bourne. She also may have had a past with him but it’s never developed upon or explained.

What about the other characters? Vosen(David Strathairn) plays the possibly corrupt CIA guy who is leading the operation to catch Bourne. He was decently written, but not as cool as Brian Cox’s character from the first two films. Then we have Landy(Joan Allen) who plays a more good-hearted CIA operative. Personally, the character was too one-dimensional for me. She was too much of a good person to be interesting. Finally, we have Desh(Joey Ansah) who actually was pretty interesting as the assassin. Too bad he had too little screen time to matter.

Another issue with the script was some of the character choices. Landy was incredibly unbelievable in what she did. I had trouble believing Vosen would personally go on missions. Parsons decision regarding Bourne was never explained well enough for it to make sense. The bit at the end with the assassin was REALLY stupid. I had trouble believing these people were real professionals.

The directing was on and off. Ultimately, he does fine. He uses some worthy style and has some cool action pieces but the shaky camera movements were way too overused. Basically, it’s the same as the other two films in terms of style.

This is a hard film to review, because while it wasn’t a very good script, it was far from bad. Once again, I said I was sort of interested in it. The action was plentiful when it happened and there are two very intense sequences(both involving the assassin).

Matt Damon(Bourne) can play this role in his sleep. He does fine, rarely stretching but doing well overall. Julia Stiles(Parsons) does good as well, too bad she had no reason to be there. Joan Allen(Landy) does good with what little she has to do. David Strathairn(Vosen) injects personality into a bland character, and saves the role. Joey Ansah(Desh) does fine with what he has to do.

Overall, this is my least favorite of the trilogy. It’s decently written, directed, choreographed and acted but fails to bring in anything new or exciting. It just feels sort of like a rehash of the others.

2.5/4 stars.