Gripping, Heart Pounding, Intensity. . . and StoryLine almost keeps up.

Rating: 8/10 (7 August 2007)

The Bourne Trilogy having the benefit of Ultimatum as its closer serves up one of the best modern trilogies. The cat and mouse tactics between Jason and his pursuers is what makes the final segment of this trilogy a required viewing. These scenes are at first compressed into a majority of the first 40 minutes. The beauty of these scenes is that they simply take human nature and inject the highest level of awareness, reflex, and intuition. Its not as though Bourne's act is believable, but its not unbelievable either. The movie eventually tries to down shift, but even in the scenes of circumspection where characters try to process and react to the last crazy action sequence, intensity is rarely if ever lost. Bourne is so fluent in the language of covert tactics that we see notions of evasion, manipulation, and anticipation taken to the highest level. Of course, Bourne's efforts, while amazing are stunningly short lived, equally cool is the way Greengrass portrays the CIA as momentarily hoodwinked, but back on the trail within seconds. Greengrass, the director deserves accolades for his use of the hand-held cameras that give the footage a "live" type of feel, and implant the moviegoer into multiple P.O.V's in split second takes. I know this was done in Supremacy, but Greengrass has clearly mastered his own technique, and the manner these scenes are shot in differentiates the movie from your run of the mill action genre.
With the movie taking a running start, filled with action sequences, its noticeable that the actual plot lines were never the bread and butter to this movie. Unlike in Identity"where the omnipresent theme of amnesia acted so as to give Damon a boyish innocence/experience identity crisis, and made his romance and battle with the CIA emotionally significant. Ultimatum is more similar to Supremacy in that the plot is now a more bright line "search for the answer to who I am, and who is to blame" theme. Bourne finds some answers which do infuse some emotional depth into the robotic plot, but it just seems watching Bourne deconstruct scene after scene of entrapment is more robotic, because we know Bourne, and expect as much. Additionally, as Bourne learns more about himself, the mystery of who he is, and the impact this had on Bourne in the earlier parts of the trilogy vanishes.
Lastly, Ultimatum provides a fissure within the CIA in how to handle Bourne. We all know that Pamela Landy (Joan Allen) appears sympathetic to his plight, but now we see Noah Vosen (David Straitham) who is sympathetic to the CIA's plight in keeping secret the truth about Bourne and the program that trains/creates similar black ops. If Landy can see a shade or two of gray, Vosen sees only black and white. This allows for the final match point to develop, in a mad dash through Manhattan. Through all of the location shifts, and cat and mouse games, I think the actual plot and dialogue falter at times, perhaps only because they wind up being truly secondary instruments as compared to the cinematography/action sequencing. I wont hold that against the movie, I still think its top flight cinema that far far surpasses the vast majority of modern day action/thriller movies.