Sequel! Sequel!

Rating: Null/10 (6 August 2007)

Notice is served right from the first shots: the hand-held camera is here to stay, like it or not. But this second time around (for Paul Greengrass) is much better. For us mere mortals, the images are confusing enough and a simpler plot line wouldn't hurt. In Bourne Ultimatum, that is what we get: the protagonist following one lead after another, in a continuing pursuit of a final answer  the standard formula for a thriller. The beauty is in the execution. It's no accident that movie critics unanimously give Paul Greengrass something akin to a standing ovation.
So you know the game; now to the players. In this third installment, the reinforcement in the star pool comprises three. Screen tough guy Scott Glenn plays the chief villain, the CIA big shot behind an illegal project to develop human killing machines. His dirty work is done through a ruthless bureau chief, played by David Strathairn whose talents are not really challenged here. In an almost cameo appearance is Albert Finney whom we first see in a few snapshots (literally) until his appearance in the final minutes. The two regular ladies, cool CIA agents, both take on a different role, switching from Bourne's adversaries to his allies. Pamela Landy (Joan Allen) answers to her conscience when she smells a rat and becomes a whistle blower at the risk of her own safety. Nicky Parsons (Julia Stiles) runs an even bigger risk (about one second from being fatally shot) to become "the woman behind the man", accompanying him and helping him through his quest.
In my IMDb users comments on "Bourne supremacy", I suggested that without the romance dimension, it became far less engaging than "Bourne identity", and further suggested that Stiles' role may be developed towards that direction in the third installment. Do we get this in "Bourne ultimatum"? Yes and no. While Nicky Parsons is by Bourne's side throughout the middle section of the movie, the feeling between them is handled subtly, and appropriately so, as they are two professional secret agents on the run for their lives. It's only when asked why she helped him that Nicky reveals just a glimpse of her feeling, saying that with him, her job (of being his adversary earlier) has been very difficult. Then with a faint smile (one of the only two times Stiles did in this movie, which is most unfortunate as she has such a beautiful smile), she asks if he remembers anything between them. The romance element is left at that, plus her comforting hand on his in a later scene when he is distressed by the memory of all the killings he did. Maybe more in the next one, if they make one.
With the plot line relatively simple and the romance angle somewhat undeveloped, Bourne Ultimatum's main focus is still the action sequences. While the action takes place in a half-dozen cities, there are three key locations  London, Tangier and New York  which essentially structure the movie into three movements, not unlike that in a concerto. Out of the relentless parade of one exciting action sequence after another, two particularly brilliant ones stand out. At the beginning of the movie Bourne arranges a rendezvous with a journalist (a vital source to allow the quest to continue) at the crowded Waterloo station in London, amidst CIA sharp shooters with clear orders to kill. At the mid-point of the movie, after Bourne linked up with Nicky in Madrid, they followed a trail to Tangier for another source, but are themselves in turn pursued by more CIA killers. Rather than risking failure to do justice to these two and other superb sequences, let me just say, again, that it is no accident that film critics have unanimously hailed Greengrass as the best action director around today.
The "thinking audience" will also find satisfaction in this movie, in Matt Demon's memorable portrayal of a complex character in a dark and somber struggle with the devil within.
Finally, the clever ending montage is worth mentioning. It starts with a camera that keeps cutting back and forth between Nicky in a café watching the news on TV about the apprehension of the villains in the Bourne case and Bourne's body (continuing from an earlier sequence when he jumped into the river after being fired at) motionless under water. As the cutting back and forth continues, we can clearly see the concern on Nicky's face, until it came over in the news that after three days of underwater searching, Bourne's body was still not found. As we see a smile spread on Stiles' lovely face (the second one), the camera cuts back one more time to the hitherto stationary body, which suddenly came to live and swam away. "Sequel, sequel", you can almost hear the voice inside you clamour.