A short time back, a friend of mine opined that THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM was essentially the same movie as THE BOURNE SUPREMACY. While I agree that ULTIMATUM was nearly a remake of SUPREMACY, I didn't mind. I liked SUPREMACY, so more of that jump-cut action was fine with me.
The thing I like about the Bourne movies is that they make hard stuff look hard. The fights look like real, brutal fights for survival, not staged dances. There is no graceful parkour: running across rooftops is hard, and dangerous. People breathe heavily when they've been running or fighting, and actions have resonance. This is not a world of easy death or winking nihilism. This is a world in which real actions have real consequences, and I always enjoy visiting it.
Damon, Allen, and Strathairn are all top notch, and the filmmakers cared enough to get serious talents such as Paddy Considine, Albert Finney, and Scott Glenn for some of the smaller supporting roles. Yeah, the story doesn't go very far and the film doesn't resonate all that much, but it's a fun ride while it lasts.
2 comments:
All your points are valid. A more realistic action movie. But what was the point? Would it be any more pointless in Bourne 4 to find out that Blackbriar was actually set up by the UN and end it Bourne watching the trial of Ban Ki-moon through the window of a Bang & Olufsen in Manhattan. Bourne 5: Jitter-cam as Jason confronts his true creator on the international space station, which the Illuminati created to house their "Jason Bourne" headquarters in the event that he happened to slip through their first four layers of subterfuge. In summary: I really enjoyed the first one. The second was over-praised and Ultimatum fell flat.
I think the point was to make a crowd-pleasing, reasonably smart action movie. I agree with you that the story is a rehash of that which has gone before, but I don't mind. I enjoyed the ride. Because of the objections you raise, I wouldn't rank ULTIMATUM among the best of the year, or even the best of the series. But I enjoyed in the same way I enjoy a chili cheese dog. It ain't fine cuisine, but it gets the job done.
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