Movie Review: The Bourne Ultimatum.

The Bourne Ultimatum is the third and final installment of the Jason Bourne saga and it does not disappoint. The movie moves briskly from Moscow to Turin to Tangier to New York briskly and there is never a lull in the action. The cinematography is great and director Paul Greengrass films some of the claustrophobic fight scenes with hand held cameras, which gives the scenes an even more frenetic feel that I greatly enjoyed. A few scenes where would be assassins are searching for Bourne in an apartment make use of the video cameras built into their guns (if these things are real the terrorists must have a million of them) to great effect.

As for the story, Jason Bourne, played to perfection by Matt Damon (I'm a huge Damon fan so I may be biased), still can't remember much about his past life but is slowly putting the pieces together through headache inducing flashbacks. He meets a British journalist who can help him uncover his past only he needs to keep him alive to do so, which leads to a great scene in a train station where Bourne leads him in and out of trouble while on his cell phone. The information Bourne gets leads him to a secret training program he was put through and leads him on the path to New York to go after the Doctor who broke him (Albert Finney) and Noah Vosen, the head of the operation. Vosen is played capably by the always reliable David Strathairn but I couldn't watch his character without thinking he was miscast in this role.

Along for the ride again are Nicky Parson (Julia Stiles), who we are left to wonder whether she and Bourne were romantically involved at some point because the script never closed that thread, and Joan Allen who is fantastic as the would be fall girl Pamela Landy and who badly outshines Strathairn during their CIA pissing contest scenes (for which the dialogue was tired and badly cliched). The trust between Landy and Bourne is what drives the final act of the movie.

Overall I would say the script and story are little more than average but the action sequences, fight scenes and acting are just as good, if not better, as the two previous movies in the series. If you enjoyed the first two you definitely need to see this one.

Rating: 7.5/10