"'The Bourne Ultimatum."
As several reviews have noted, Paul Greengrass has emerged as simply the best action movie director working today. Do note this rather contrarian review, by Stephen Hunter of the Washington Post -- he hated the movie, but writes an entertainingly negative review.
My take: It's the second-best of the three Bourne films. (Chris Cooper and Clive Owen give the first movie a little more gravitas, plus it was fresh at the time.) "Ultimatum" is really just a continuation of the "Supremacy" narrative -- Bourne's still trying to figure out who he is and why people are periodically trying to kill him; it even starts where the second movie leaves off. This movie is more conclusive that the second, however; they can make a sequel if they want, or they've got things pretty neatly tied off if they don't want. And I think the locations and action sequences are just a bit more dramatic and spine-tingling than in the second movie; a sequence in Tangier, noted in every review I've read, is breath-taking.
As Hunter notes, however, the title of this movie doesn't make sense. I guess it's in keeping with the sequence of the Ludlum novels, which I either haven't read or read so long ago -- I think my parents have them laying around their house in paperback -- that I've forgotten them. But there's no ultimatum involved. In the first movie, we were introduced to the Bourne identity, and in the second, Bourne certainly reigned supreme. The titles made sense. This movie should have been "The Bourne Revelation" or "The Bourne Source," something like that.
Anyhow, go see it.
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2 comments:
Mr Wayne.
Long time.....this is James in NC. Thought I would see if your blog is still up and running and lo and behold.
I agree with your comments about the third Bourne movie and the director in particular. Not a weak link in the movie(s).
The only marginal complaint I have is in the Ultimatum, he is damn near indestructable. Car crashes, 10 story dives into contaminated rivers, bullet wounds, explosions....none of it matters. He just brushes himself off.
But that is a slight complaint. Overall..........great movie(s).
James! Nice to see you.
That is an excellent point. And it's not just the third movie: In the second, he's stuck in a car chase through Moscow (the only city in Europe with which he is unfamiliar, judging from his use of a map), nursing a bullet wound, and driving a crappy Russian taxicab. At one point he gets t-boned, for gawd's sake, and just keeps on driving, finally smashing his antagonist's car (a much more capable, heavier vehicle) into the wall of a tunnel -- killing the antagonist, but leaving our hero almost unscathed.
Well, he does walk away with a limp. But still.
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