Jason Bourne would be a great stalker. Really, all of the
troubled assassin’s methods—lurking in shadows, following people
around, inviting himself into strangers’ homes, making cryptic,
threatening phone calls—well, yeah, they’re impressive, but
they’re also pretty damn creepy.
Bourne’s been skulking around for a while—2002’s The Bourne
Identity and 2004’s The Bourne Supremacy were okay thrillers
that fancied themselves to be smarter than they really were. Long story
short: Government assassin Jason Bourne (Matt Damon, glaring intently)
doesn’t know jack about his past, and various political stooges don’t
want him to remember. And so Identity and Supremacy played out: Bourne ran around, outsmarting G-men and inhabiting two
forced thrillers in which the action largely consisted of people
walking around faster than usual and scowling at computer screens.
Which was fine, if forgettable. But thankfully, The Bourne
Ultimatum goes balls-out, confidently making itself into a solid
action flick. Presumably the final Bourne, Ultimatum doesn’t waste any time—Bourne’s gonna find out who he is, and a
lot of people are gonna get hurt in the process.
Director Paul Greengrass (who also helmed Supremacy and
United 93) cuts loose with Ultimatum‘s action sequences,
and—from a brutal fistfight in a Moroccan apartment to a stunning
Manhattan car chase—they’re rough and visceral. If Greengrass’
action sequences have a flaw, it’s that the director insists on shaking
his camera about as if he were a coked-out schizoid—but whatever
his sequences lack in clarity, they make up for in sheer adrenalin.
Throughout, Bourne thoroughly outwits everyone around him. It’s kind
of depressing, actually: No matter how intelligent Ultimatum‘s
other characters are (excellent actors like David Strathairn, Albert
Finney, Scott Glenn, and Joan Allen all face off against Damon), our
heroic amnesiac is so resourceful that he makes them all look like
drooling morons. In the earlier films, this got annoying pretty
quickly, but here, it’s fine—mostly because every time Bourne
pulls off one of his clever spy/stalker moves, it means the film is
that much closer to another exhilarating fistfight or tooth-shattering
car chase.
