Best of the series, but that's not saying much

Rating: 7/10 (5 August 2007)

Jason Bourne (Matt Damon), or whoever he is, continues to be on the run from the police, innocent people, the CIA, and the world at large. He's scared, he's frustrated, and he's in mourning, since losing his beloved Marie (whom he met in the first Bourne movie and who died in the second). Bourne's put together a little bit of his past, after killing scores of people with skills he didn't know he had, but now a British reporter has published a series of articles about Bourne - and they seem to contain a lot more detail than an outsider would have. This sets the plot in motion, as Bourne's flushed out into the open in London, and the CIA battles with itself to either bring him in or shoot him dead like a dog.
You can see the frustration build on Damon's increasingly creased face; he's looking older, weathered, beaten down - although Bourne can still disarm two strong bastards quick like a bunny rabbit. Jason Bourne doesn't have much to go on regarding his former life, but he's able to grasp at a couple of loose threads and weave a comfy blanket out of them. That sort of sums up this movie, really - it's a comfy blanket that doesn't go overboard in trying to wow the viewer while avoiding the appearance of stagnation. Damon has grown rather well into the lead - ironically, he looks a hell of a lot more believable here than he did as Edward Wilson in the recent The Good Shepherd. Damon's grim and determined but not robotic; he appears to be a couple of steps ahead of the audience, anyway, and that's what's important.
Helping Damon out is an excellent supporting cast. Joan Allen is back as CIA operative Pamela Landy and manages to look tough while not looking bitchy. Great job, Joan! David Strathairn joins the cast as CIA Deputy Director Noah Vosen, with an aging Scott Glenn as the agency's director. Turns out Strathairn (who's also a fantastic actor - see him in Good Night, and Good Luck, for example) and Allen have tremendous chemistry together; their in-office battles could have come off as just histrionics, but both actors use steely glares in lieu of angsty shouting. When these two were on screen, the tension was palpably thick, and you were always wondering if the characters had ulterior motives in how they want to deal with Bourne.
Also back is Julia Stiles as Nicky Parsons; her scenes with Damon far supersede those he had with Franka Potente in the first two Bourne films. So much is said with a flit of the eyes, with a curl of a lip. We aren't beat over the head with Nicky's motivations - in fact, they're left rather vague, which is good - and neither she nor Bourne behaves quite as predicted when they're interacting.
I wasn't a huge fan of the first in the series (The Bourne Identity), and I felt that the second (The Bourne Supremacy) was a little bit better. This one, purportedly the last of them, is the best of the lot, although that's perhaps damning with faint praise. One trouble is that there are plot holes that you can drive a car through. Another is that when director Paul Greengrass wants to film an action scene, he makes sure no cut lasts more than a half-second, else your brain would be able to follow what's going on. It's extremely chaotic, intended to convey the sense of how a real fistfight or car crash would appear, but still - I don't need the scenes to be so realistic that I get a headache from watching them. This is supposed to be fun for me! A favorite dumb moment - Bourne's involved in a high-speed chase that culminates with his car hitting a parked car and then getting slammed by the chasing car, from behind. Bourne, of course, exits his car with a few scratches, although the guy who slammed INTO him dies while slumped over his car. Makes little sense. Sure, we need to see violent crashes - it's the American way! - but c'mon. No injuries? Heck, at least Bruce Willis limped a bit in the new Die Hard movie.
And finally, although this is alleged to be the last of the Bournes, it's all left rather open ended. Which is a shame, really; at the end, you'll notice there's a great chance to finish the series definitively without making it seem too pat. And the filmmakers passed this up, presumably to ensure they could have another shot at making millions more dollars.