The camera man was drunk

Rating: 7/10 (8 September 2007)

A plethora of trilogies have emerged in recent years, signifying a shift in decision-making of Hollywood producers: they are abandoning risky, yet original and creative scripts for pathetic dime-a-dozen scripts and plots ... and sequels... that they are guaranteed to at least get their money back on.
The "Bourne" trilogy is an exception to that rule in many respects because it abandons so many of the devices and plot formulas commonly found in films of this genre. First there is the gun. Go back and watch all the films and you'll find that Bourne almost never carries a gun (and interestingly gets rid of guns that he wrestles of his enemies). He's a hand-to-hand combat man and a master of creating a diversion. I like that aspect.
Second is the intelligent plotting. While there are some double-crosses running through the film, they don't become the dominant focus. Some films tend to throw in 500 double crosses in the hope of creating an intelligent and powerful plot, but end up in a puzzling web of contradictions with many turns that simply don't make sense at all. Not the case with Bourne.
Third is the creation of suspense without shooting or fighting. This is exemplified particularly well in Waterloo station sequence in this film - where the viewer is on the edge of their seat without one shot fired and very little hand-to-hand combat. It was all evasion and diversion which was thoroughly engaging.
Finally, the inventiveness of the hero. For instance, in this film, he's pursued through Daniel's office in Madrid and all we see is him pick up a fan and a few random objects before he disappears. Is he going to pull a Magyver? build a helicopter and fly out of there? Nope - I won't spoil it, but it's that sort of subtle inventiveness that makes the actions sequences all the more intelligent.
But there was a major problem i had with both Supremacy and Ultimatum: the camera work. A lot of shots, especially action sequences, were extremely confusing. No doubt that the director of photography thought he was breaking new ground with lots of hand-held, close-up camera work. But i thought that it made the action sequences difficult to follow and even in some of the CIA station scenes, they seemed to zooming in and out with hand-held cameras, but it didn't seem to lift the intensity of the scene. In fact, it simply became annoying after a while.
I looked up the biography of director Paul Greengrass and found that he's a big fan of the hand-held camera shots. Well good for him! Unfortunately, it was appropriate for this film and it became too messy and irritating at times. Liman, who directed the first one, new how to vary the camera during the fight scenes to perfection. And furthermore, the first one - identity - was one of the greatest spy films of all time and certainly the best of the trilogy. The change of directors wasn't a good idea in my humble opinion.
In the last two Bourne films, it looked at times like the cameraman was drunk, rather than dynamic and creative. It ruined many explosive entertaining fights and stand offs they we'd been waiting for. IT loses marks for that I'm afraid.
Otherwise terrific watch and if the first one entertained, but like many others you thought the second one was OK without being anything special, i highly recommend the seeing this one. Great watch, good plot, the first half of the film is actually magnificent (but it does fall away a bit in the second half) and all round entertainment to wind up one of the best trilogy series of the last 15 years.