So bad that five people walked out of the theater

Rating: 2/10 (14 August 2007)

The Bourne Ultimatum is only the third movie I've ever walked out on in my life and, in fact, four other people in the small, weekday matinée audience walked out before I did.
The movie begins with an endless series of the same cookie-cutter sequences we've seen in the first two movies. Intelligence agency suits being briefed while an aide runs after them, watching them as they pace and recite clichéd lines like "We need cameras, people", "Tap his line, people", "Why aren't we following him, people." You could edit these scenes interchangeably between all 3 movies and not tell which scenes belong to which film.
One of the first major plot devices is that this post-9/11, super-CIA agency, which can apparently tap into any security camera in the world, is caught off guard by Bourne's use of an obscure, cutting-edge piece of technology known as the "prepaid phone". The mega-intelligence agency with unlimited funds and a license to kill is confounded by this! It would be one thing if Vosen, the CIA mastermind character, snapped his fingers and said "Damn, of course, he's using an untraceable phone" but the guy practically double-takes and says "a prepaid what??" as if the audience is to believe this is some incredibly ingenious spy trick. And of course, this comes after Bourne foils their wiretapping of the London newspaper by calling the reporter on another reporter's phone. Guess the security budget didn't allow them to tap the whole office? OK, so the rave reviews for this movie never claimed it was a *clever* thriller, I say to myself. It's being billed as the best action movie in years, maybe I should take it as that.
A blurry view of an assassination and close-quarters combat scenes shot so tightly, in such dark shadows, with such choppy editing and shaky filming that you can't even see what's going on. I guess the audience is meant to fill in the scenes with their imagination rather than actually seeing the Jason character put down the brilliantly choreographed fight moves that made the first two movies enjoyable? If these are the action elements of the movie, it just does not work as an action movie.
By the time Jason got to Madrid and more of the numerous cell phone call scenes played out, I predicted what was coming next. Jason yells "No no it's a trap", the bomb goes off, Jason hits the deck, and rather than meeting with his contact and learning the truth of his identity, which of course would end the movie early, we move on to the next unoriginal spy movie sequence. One flat, boring, car explosion later, this predictable scene had played out exactly as I saw it coming. I grabbed my hat and became person #5 to walk out of the theater.
Some might argue that I missed a dynamite second half of the movie, that the action or the plot became better in the following hour. Whether that's true or not, it could not possibly make up for the first hour. And the audience shouldn't have to pay for it by being forced to sit through the repetitive, intelligence-insulting, meat grinder movie-making of The Bourne Ultimatum's first half. The fact that this movie has been so highly rated by so many baffles me as much as a prepaid cell baffles Noah Vosen and the CIA.