Heartless and nauseating disappointment

Rating: 5/10 (9 August 2007)

Rather than being a satisfying climax to a great trilogy, Ultimatum is more required viewing for those like me who loved the first film and found the second satisfying if lacking the solid craftsmanship of the original. The story needs to be finished, but you wish it had more of a bang. Instead you get an entertaining piece of action cinema that isn't too stupid for arty folk, despite some gigantic leaps of logic.
That's fine except for some major gripes. For starters, Paul Greengrass' shaky cam makes the action nearly impossible to follow. It's all one big blurry movement. Dialog scenes are shot with objects blocking the actor, so all you see is their eyeball, and the drunken camera man seems to be going out of his way to nauseate you. This is all accentuated on the big screen. It's nerve-wracking and it never, ever ends. Riding a roller coaster is fun, but after two hours you want to get off and puke.
However, the biggest problem is that Bourne's humanity gets left on the doorstep. Julia Stiles is supposed to give the movie its heart, but all she does is look longingly at Bourne. They've gone out of their way not to give her any dialog. When he has questions that need answers, she just looks at him longingly. When he's searching his soul to understand who he is, she touches his hand and looks at him longingly. When she leaves him to a world of danger, another longing look. Not even a goodbye. She could help Bourne out a lot if she would just open her mouth and start yapping. She hints that she knows quite a bit, but he learns more about himself from his own flashbacks.
Ultimately, who Jason Bourne is is a whole lot less interesting than Jason Bourne wanting to know who he is. The more he learns, the less provocative the story gets. The Bourne series has made a promise that it's worth three films to learn the truth, but sadly in the end it's nothing more than an excuse for car chases and exotic locales. It's a movie that really needs to pack a punch, but all you get is some fancy slight-of-hand.
I say wait for DVD and watch all three at once