I have to be honest. I never did get much into Jason Bourne. Part of it is my natural disinclination for anything that smells like Matt Damon (Ocean’s Eleven notwithstanding), and part of it is my natural bent toward bucking the popular. Everyone and his secret pet spy alter ego seem to have loved the first two Bourne movies, while I was left bored in the first and nauseated in the second. Have things improved for me now, with the last(?) in the Bourne trilogy? The answer is a qualified yes.
I didn’t sell my possessions and start the First Order of Bourne Devotion School For Homeless Spies, so keep your pants on, grandma. But I did find myself engaged by the plotting and I found the action scenes riveting and pulsing with extraordinary energy, the kind a dynamic action movie should have. The excruciatingly shaky camera movements from the second movie have been toned down to a tolerable and more effective level. And despite my disdain for the actor, I have to admit, Damon as Jason Bourne is a whole other Damon indeed. He’s tough, resourceful, and extremely lonely, making him the most lethal threat the United States has ever unleashed upon the globe.
Bourne’s identity has slowly been pieced together by a Guardian journalist named Simon Ross (Paddy Considine). After contact with an unknown informant who tells him about a project code-named “Blackbriar,” Considine comes under the scrutiny of the watchful eyes of Deputy Director Noah Vosen (David Strathairn) and Pamela Landy (Joan Allen). Vosen is determined to eliminate the Bourne threat and close up the whole Treadstone project completely. Landy believes Bourne is trying to uncover his past, and slowly her allegiance is torn from loyalty to the company to a desire to help Bourne.
With Bourne one step ahead of Vosen, he enlists the aid of Nicky (Julia Stiles) to track down Ross’s contact, who has gone to Morocco. Meanwhile, Bourne experiences more flashbacks that reveal Dr. Hirsch (Albert Finney) in what looks like a sterile hospital room, torturing Bourne with mental and physical techniques. Bourne’s quest leads him to the brokerage firm itself, where he nabs the files on Project Blackbriar and finally remembers how he came to be Jason Bourne.
The film is easily the best of the trilogy, and does an excellent job of meshing the contents and twistings of the first two into a cohesive and somewhat unpredictable ending. The action is dynamic and energetic, and the fight scenes are alive with a crispness that provide the movie with pulses of reality. Scenes within the brokerage are notoriously unrealistic, with the usual spy jargon being floated around the “war room” like candy. It smacks a bit of cliche, too, that Vosen, a Deputy Director, directly calls the shots, yelling at subordinates to “find Bourne! Eliminate the threat!” with nary a hint of subtlty or tact. I’ve worked enough in the corporate world to know that Vosen would more likely be pushing papers and assigning orders via proxy. It’s for the sake of drama and excitement, I know, but just once, I’d like to see a spy thriller where the bad guys don’t stick their hands directly in the pie.
Speaking of bad guys, except for an assassin who shows up twice (once in the beginning and once at the end), Vosen seems to be the only guy with a motive, and it’s pretty one-dimensional. Everyone else is just following orders. It would have opened the movie up considerably to see someone with a real bone to pick with Bourne, as opposed to a corporate lackey who is just following orders from the top. Again, these are personal peeves, and not necessarily detrimental to the enjoyment of the movie.
Overall, Bourne Ultimatum feels more alive and interesting than the previous two installments, and successfully ties up loose ends without extreme measures. Bourne’s slow realization through the film makes for an interesting journey for the audience, one that has a nice culmination and an inkling of future Bourne stories. It’s a solid spy action piece that doesn’t disappoint.
Fringe Rating: out of 5