The Bourne Ultimatum

Over the past few years, moviegoers have faithfully followed Jason Bourne’s footsteps as he tries to figure out his past. We’ve seen the man rescued from the sea an amnesiac in Identity, stalked him across Europe as he tried to piece his life together from his hazy memory, felt his anguish as he lost his girlfriend in Supremacy and empathised when he meets the surviving member of the first family he decimated as an assassin. In Ultimatum, these facts are important to the plot but rest assured, the movie reminds you every now and then about the past. In a way, you don’t have to a Bourne junkie to watch the third and final installment to the Jason Bourne series.

In Ultimatum, we delve deeper into Bourne’s past which is tied to a covert CIA operation called Blackbriar. We meet a whistleblower who tells British journalist Simon Ross (Paddy Considine) about the project and when the article is published, references to Bourne and all, Ross becomes the first focus of the movie as Bourne catches up with him to find out more about his Blackbriar source. Unfortunately, shady CIA department head Noah Vosen (David Straithairn) is also following Ross after the journalist was caught using the term ‘Blackbriar’ during a phone conversation. Little does Vosen know that Ross would lead him to Bourne, and what ensues is a dangerous game of cat and mouse that takes place in the crowded Waterloo train station. It’s easily one of the best scenes in the whole movie as the verisimilitude of the espionage leaves your mind reeling.

It’s this hyper sense of reality that makes Ultimatum an above average film – it’s a complicated Hollywood thriller that still feels like it could happen in real life. Honestly speaking, the plot is intelligent but it’s hardly surprising. When the big secret is revealed and Bourne connects the dots to his past, you don’t feel like the anticipation was really worth three movies. Maybe the book did it better. But what the book doesn’t do is illustrate in colour the wow-factor of Bourne’s deadly moves and the exotic backdrops of the locales he travels to in his quest. Ultimatum takes audiences from Moscow to Madrid, and Tangier to New York City. The film was shot on location in the four cities, and it’s money well spent as the differences in each locale allow for variety in the action sequences that, once again, are grounded in reality.

But reality doesn’t equate boring. Quite the opposite actually as Ultimatum’s action scenes will leave you hanging to the edge of your seats. The movie itself is a nonstop thrill ride – it picks up immediately from Supremacy with a footchase and Bourne breaking into a hospital. There’s also a breathless chase across rooftops in Tangier that leads to a nicely choreographed fight scene between Bourne and his assassin. Although Matt Damon and Joan Allen are more than competent actors, in this movie they don’t have to do much (or say much) as the action is arguably the star of the show.

Cast Matt Damon, Joan Allen, Julia Stiles, David Straithairn Director Paul Greengrass Runtime 111 minutes Opens 11 October

Text Sarah Chan