Paul Greengrass, Please Read This

Rating: 8/10 (17 August 2007)

First off, I'm honestly writing this in the hopes that the director (Paul Greengrass) will read it, so that when he makes the next Bourne movie, he can take it from near-perfect to perfect. The "spoilers" that follow are ever so slight and probably not even spoilers (I've tried to be vague and ambiguous), but IMDb's spoiler warning before I submitted this review was stern so I'm erring on the side of caution.
This is a tight, intelligent thriller that maintains symmetry with the original two movies, and we learn some interesting back-story about more than just Bourne (e.g., Nicky, and in fact one key item that changes certain dynamics of the series), which is intriguing and refreshing. I gave it 8 stars. As I submit this, this movie is ranked #55 of all time by IMDb users (I have noticed that IMDb ratings for certain newer films tend to skew higher than they really deserve, probably because a bunch of young fans who've seen movies that cater to them vote for those movies; for example The Simpsons Movie is ranked #231 of all time---I mean *come on*). Seems like a bit of a stretch (action spy thrillers aren't supposed to be in league with Citizen Kane or Casablanca), but all the same when you add up the plot (smart, as I said, which automatically puts you ahead of 90% of the other movies out there), the fact the movie makes you think and draw your own connections about why things are happening the way they are before letting you in on it, the quick pace (I had to leave to use the bathroom and waited a good 15 minutes before I thought it was safe to leave the theater for 60 seconds) and the taut and semi-gritty "feel," you've got a winner. The movie doesn't feel contrived at all, and even though all of the events are improbable, the "voluntary suspension of disbelief" (as William Blake would say) is never in doubt, even for these fantastic situations. When all is said and done and you're walking out of the theater, you realize the director didn't assume you were an idiot (didn't lay political moralizing on you too thickly) and yet the outcome of the film and all of the key players is exactly what you would have wanted (with the resolution of a few plot points held back (such as what to make of the back-story we learn about Nicky), which I'm sure are deliberate so that the next movie can develop them.
However, Mr. Greengrass, please cut it out with the unsteady camera already. It's annoying. All right, a little unsteady camera action, particularly during the action scenes, is useful and effective. But the swerving camera at the beginning, for example when Ross is meeting with his source in Turin (hardly an action-centric scene), is just annoying---I felt seasick. Honestly, I thought a nervous 10-year-old kid must have been holding the camera. (Later on, when there's the close-up of Nicky in the hotel room in Tangier, it's unsteady but much less pronounced, and therefore much less annoying.) When your audience starts to notice the camera action instead of the movie itself, you know you've gone overboard. I realize I'm whining here and most people don't care, but it's easy to notice and, once you have, it's hard to ignore. Don't let this detract from the rest of the movie, which is otherwise more or less faultless. I've said what I wanted to say.