The Bourne Ultimatum

Jason Bourne (played by Matt Damon) is back! For the third time, the former government secret agent and trained assassin goes half way around the world to search for his true identity and eventually lands in New York to confront CIA superiors.

Yes, the story has become stale by now. It surprises me that Bourne still needs to encounter so much danger before he realizes that CIA may be behind all his troubles. Haven’t we found that out during Bourne’s previous two outings? Also why does a senior CIA field agent want to divulge top agency secrets to a journalist? Many key plot points are not well laid out and a lot of them are recycled from the previous two movies. At any rate, most Bourne fans don’t go to see the movie for its clear logic; they are in the theater for at-the-edge-of-your-seat action. The movie is more about how Bourne eludes killers on his heels than creating a credible story that puts him in that situation.

Director Paul Greengrass and star Matt Damon don’t disappoint their fans in the third installment of Bourne franchise. Before The Bourne Ultimatum and The Bourne Supremacy, Greengrass is best know in artsy movie circle for his documentary style filmmaking in films such as Bloody Sunday. His 2006 Oscar nominated United 93 closely follows in Bloody Sunday’s footsteps and it is as realistic as it comes when portraying a real life event on the big screen. Now with The Bourne Ultimatum making a big box office splash, Greengrass has proven himself a commercial asset in Hollywood, a dubious title in ever money conscious Tinseltown. However, that shouldn’t diminish his contribution to action genre. He brings his naturalistic approach to filming all the action sequences. In The Bourne Ultimatum, he covers foot races, car chases and hand-to-hand fights, pretty much the same ordeals Bourne went through in the first two movies; nevertheless all the action scenes feel fresh and pulse with energy. Greengrass’ trademark hand-held camera puts the audience right in the center of all the thrills and makes you physically dizzy. Talk about a visual roller coaster ride!

Damon is an unlikely action hero. He has neither golden boy good looks nor a tough guy image, but in Jason Bourne’s case, his ordinariness may have played to his advantage. Bourne doesn’t have James Bond’s upper crust snobbery or condescending flirty attitude towards women. He is trained by the government to be ruthless and unemotional. His search for identity has invariably become a search for humanity. Damon’s everyman appearance resonates very well with the audience and grabs our empathy.

This movie would have made a perfect double bill with German Oscar winner The Lives of the Others. Both expose government surveillance on ordinary people. The Stasi agents in The Lives of the Others could probably never have dreamed all the modern spying technology while the CIA agents in The Bourne Ultimatum could have benefited greatly from Stasi agents’ years of operative experiences. The movie shows sadly like many things in today’s world, surveillance has also gone global. Our government can reach into all corners of the world whenever they feel they are justified.

So far the three Bourne films have been based on Robert Ludlum’s trilogy, although the story lines in the movies have resembled nothing in the books. Ludlum’s Bourne books, by themselves, are actually a very interesting and thrilling read, but their cold war themes are probably like some fantasy to current young moviegoers. The creators of the franchise have been very faithful about Ludlum’s book titles although the second and third movies feel more like The Bourne Identity II and III. Hopefully for Bourne’s next outing, we can see him get some real spy work somewhere instead of circling around CIA again and again.