A Sober-minded, Super-charged, but Serious Spy Saga

Rating: 10/10 (8 August 2007)

If "The Bourne Supremacy" gripped you with its spiraling melodramatic mixture of suspense and tension, then its white-knuckled sequel "The Bourne Ultimatum" will have you hanging by your fingertips during most of its harrowing 115 minutes. Reportedly, this installment represents the final cinematic outing for novelist Robert Ludlum's death- proof, ex-CIA assassin Jason Bourne in his one-man war against the Central Intelligence Agency and his never-ending quest to regain his true identity. In many ways, "The Bourne Ultimatum" recalls a number of post-Watergate spy thrillers that appeared in the 1970s, such as "Three Days of the Condor" with Robert Redford, "Scorpio" with Burt Lancaster, and "The Killer Elite" with James Caan.
Three things you should know about "The Bourne Ultimatum" before you see it. First, if you have to excuse yourself from the movie, you'll miss loads of important information in an elaborately orchestrated plot that gathers momentum with each scene up to its hair-raising car chase finale. The noisy car crash is probably the most outlandish thing in this nimble, no-nonsense espionage epic that deplores the above and beyond the Constitution freedoms that the CIA seeks to curtail. Second, director Paul Greengrass doesn't let things lag for long in this hyper-kinetic, adrenalin-laced thriller that globe-trots around Europe and the U.S. This movie piles on tons of information and doesn't give you any time to sort it out. Usually, the hero stays a step ahead of you. Third, if you skipped either "The Bourne Identity" and/or "The Bourne Supremacy," the spy-vs.-spy skulduggery taking place inside the CIA will knit your eyebrows into knots because you haven't been adequately briefed. For example, the tape-recorded confession in the first 20 minutes of "The Bourne Ultimatum" happened near the end of the second "Bourne" movie. The character, slippery, shifty-eyed CIA superior Ward Abbott (Brian Cox of "The Glimmer Man"), had committed suicide. On the other hand, the neat thing about watching "The Bourne Supremacy" again (if you have the time) is that "The Bourne Ultimatum" literally resumes the action in mid-stride with an injured Matt Damon limping away from a dead hit-man.
At the end of "The Bourne Supremacy," Bourne took time out to visit the daughter of a Russian couple that the CIA had ordered him to kill when he was an assassin. Apologizing for their deaths, he explained that the wife—her mother-- walked in unexpectedly on them and Bourne had to ice her, too. In "The Bourne Ultimatum," our amnesiac hero visits the brother of his girlfriend from the first "Bourne," Marie Kreutz (Franka Potente of "Anatomy"), and he apologizes to him about his role in her death. No sooner has Bourne said and done this than he finds out that an English journalist, Simon Ross (Paddy Considine of "Hot Fuzz"), who may have information about his origins.
At this point, "The Bourne Ultimatum" turns into the Will Smith thriller "Enemy of the State" with its dazzling array of intelligence gathering devices. CIA surveillance technology hones in on the same London newspaperman when the unsuspecting reporter utters the word "Blackbriar" during a cell phone conversation. Blackbriar serves as the code name for the organization that has replaced the murderous 'Treadstone' outfit from the "Bourne Identity" that trained Bourne as an elite assassin. The chief villain in "The Bourne Ultimatum," black- ops CIA chief Noah Vosen (David W. Straitharn of "Dolores Claiborne"), vows to track down Ross and he is prepared to liquidate him without a qualm if it is the only way to maintain secrecy. When he learns that Bourne has contacted Ross, Vosen labels Bourne a threat to the CIA and gives his government gunsels orders to shoot the ex-assassin on sight. Nicky Parsons (Julia Stiles of "Mono Lisa Smile"), a CIA analyst from the first "Bourne," literally stumbles in on Bourne after he has searched the office of her London-based CIA superior, Neal Daniels (Colin Stinson of "The Jacket") who funneled secret information to Ross about Bourne. Briefly, Nicky joins Bourne on the run, but she doesn't behave like the usual, blithering female Girl Friday who can only scream, sprain her ankle, or shed her wardrobe for sex. Neither director Greengrass nor his three scenarists keep Nicky on hand for long before they banish her from the action. Another "Bourne Supremacy" alum, top CIA supervisor Pam Landy (Joan Allan of "Face/Off") returns, but Vosen confines her to the sidelines as an adviser about Bourne's method of operation. Predictably, Pam doesn't act like a team player. She wants to invite Bourne back into the CIA with open arms, while Vosen prefers to shoot first and hold an séance afterward for any questions.
Watching "The Bourne Ultimatum" is like watching a PG-13 car accident. Paul Greengrass, who helmed "The Bourne Supremacy," keeps the action as genuine as possible as he did in the previous "Bourne," and he provides us with a front-row seat for all of the mayhem. Jason Bourne is a MacGyver style hero who has to rely on his wits to get him out of his predicaments. He is not allowed to conjure up a handy gadget at the right moment like James Bond might. The thuggish hand-to-hand combat scenes in "The Bourne Ultimatum" are collisions of flesh & bone, and Greengrass stages them with hand-held cameras so that you will feel the intensity of each body blow, even though you'll never see any contact. In another scene, our hero plunges through several large windowpanes and the sounds of broken glass will make you grimace more than anything that you see. People are shooting people everywhere in "The Bourne Ultimatum," but Greengrass presents the violence in a narrative fashion. The shoot-outs, the fisticuffs, and the automobile chase propel the plot forward without halting it in a pageantry of digital special effects. Altogether, "The Bourne Ultimatum" is sober-minded, often realistic, but humorless adventure thriller that keeps our resilient hero dodging bullets while negotiating a challenging obstacle course of hazards.