THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM (2007) - ****1/2If you've been watching the Bourne trilogy from the outset, seeing Matt Damon take down baddies with clear but quick precision strikes in tight corridors is expected. The difference though with the third entry of this saga is that his Jason Bourne does something unexpectedly: He's caught by the camera.
He's made a mistake.
For someone that "makes no mistakes," this is quite jarring. Jason Bourne has become the face of action cinema for this decade, that of someone who is eternally calm yet brutally swift with his movements, that he forced the greatest cinema spy of them all in James Bond to catch up.
Now he's fleeing, chasing, and fighting these "upgraded" agents that are faster, deadlier, and worst of all, smarter. The punishment that Bourne dished out at his previous adversaries is now being served to him.
With a shot of Damon looking over his bloodied bruised fists, we realize that this is a fighting machine that is rapidly becoming obsolete this side of Atari in the Nintendo-Era.
With THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM, Director Paul Greengrass not only has helmed the best action movie of this year, but is among the premier-efforts of action cinema for this decade.
Working from the original foundation laid down by Doug Liman, Greengrass completes the most wholly satisfying cinematic trilogy we've gotten since Sergio Leone's immortal THE MAN WITH NO NAME westerns, and much like THE GOOD, THE BAD, & THE UGLY, the last picture is the best.
ULTIMATUM is so intense, so packed with fights, chases, and jumps, and so nearly sterile in its storytelling narrative. For once, its a good thing that the plot doesn't get in the way of the action. Such major story exposition is brilliantly boiled down to simply a few subtle-toned words, and feel the impact of them, like Damon's diner scene with Julia Stiles.
Reportedly this is the last Bourne picture, and I believe it. How can ULTIMATUM be topped? Hell, simply equaling this would be a great miracle in its own right, and I just don't see how its possible.
But what makes ULTIMATUM surprisingly lay the real smackdown is with its political commentary. 2007 was a year where quite a many political pictures on Iraq and the War on Terror were produced from LIONS FOR LAMBS to RENDITION...and they all bombed. The funny thing is, it took a popcorn movie to actually make an actual goddamn point.
While most folks enjoyed ULTIMATUM as simply great entertainment, I was hooked by Greengrass' criticisms about our post-9/11 world, where the American state can secure surveillance everywhere, in everyway, at anytime, with a few keyboard taps and mere seconds.
Certainly there is an anarchistic sense of great joy when Matt Damon uses his smarts to beat the CIA cameras at the Waterloo train station. The villain in David Strathairn believes that due process, much like Joan Allen, is an obstacle in his path towards victory over "them."
The problem is, with his "You're with Us or Against Us" attitude this side of the Sith, who is "them?"
It's funny if you think about it, the whole Bourne franchise are as carefully disguised as the hero is seemingly in any city. They're all masked as action movies, but in reality THE BOURNE IDENTITY is a 70's stylized spy thriller , THE BOURNE SUPREMACY is a revenge drama, and THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM is a political thriller...and the best of that kind in 2007.
Though as cool as the hero is and all, what's more remarkable than him is that Greengrass has done something that neither Spielberg, Lucas, or Coppola could do with their legendary sagas....A great third act.
And just like Stiles in the finale of this chronicle, I'm smiling.
