Fantastic ending to a soon-to-become legendary spy trilogy

Rating: 10/10 (22 August 2007)

As the followup movie to The Bourne Supremacy, Ultimatum thrills, excites, and never fails. As a masterpiece of action, this film rockets from one action scene to the next without dipping into (much) unrealism and retaining the solid grit of real-time espionage, far removed from the rather bubbling optimism and invulnerability of the older Bond movies.
The story picks up exactly where Supremacy left off, with Bourne heavily injured in Moscow after tracking down the daughter of Vladimir Neski and apologizing to her for her parents' death. The story jumps ahead a month and a half into the future and the existence of a new black ops program called "Blackbriar" (alluded to in the first film) is revealed as an upgrade to Treadstone 71. This organization has the illegal authorization to murder anyone that its handlers deem necessary. A reporter stumbles upon the information from an inside source and following publication, is targeted by the same organization. Bourne tracks him down in order to find out who the source is, inadvertently causing the black ops team to believe Bourne is the source. Only director Pamela Landy, having understood Bourne's motives, is aware of the real circumstances surrounding Bourne and believes him innocent, and combined with her heavy disapproval of Blackbriar causes her to aid Bourne in his quest to discover the initial mastermind behind Treadstone.
Bourne enlists the help of CIA analyst and psychologist Nicky Parsons, fresh from the previous film, in order to discover the identity of the handlers at Blackbriar while being tracked by assassins across Europe and North Africa. Upon locating the headquarters of Blackbriar in New York City, he returns home to discover the horrible secret involving both his true identity and the brutal process of his induction into Treadstone 71.
The film manages to keep the storyline simple, yet enthrall the viewer and allow them to understand what is going on without boring them. A few key elements distinguish Ultimatum from its predecessors, including the presence of multiple car chases with sharp, kinetic action sequences instead of a single, drawn out chase. As the final act in a trilogy, Ultimatum is also chock-full of references to its predecessors and lines are echoed which, in context, finally make sense. Subtle and not-so-subtle elements of suspense are combined in conjunction with good scripting to make one very, very good movie.