The Bourne Ultimatum

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Summary:
Jason Bourne has been on the run for three years, trying to fill in the blanks of his swiss cheese memory. He knows he was a super-intelligent agent of some sort for a high level American government agency. He doesn't know much more than that, and continues fighting and finessing his way across the world in search of answers to his past.

Review:
I actually liked The Bourne Supremacy more than The Bourne Identity. I found the first one to be a little slow, uneventful and overlong. The sequel, although not groundbreaking, managed to have a decent amount of action, and had enough fun and entertainment to provide me with a more than passable viewing experience.
This third and possibly last (until the paycheck gets to Damon) installment helps conclude the mysteries that have so plagued Bourne since he first got picked up by some fisherman during the beginning of his journey. There are some high level CIA bigwigs that want his head on a stick, while some others within the department feel that things are going a little too far in the efforts to catch and exterminate him. This is all fine and dandy, but the third time around I couldn't help but feel that I've been there, done that already. Somewhere past the hour mark, I realized only two significant events transpired. Outside of two plot advancements, I was given a slew of cat and mouse moments between long spouts of expositional dialog interspersed with nearly impossible to see action scenes. Supremacy wasn't this shaky, it really wasn't. Yes, it DID have a lot of shaky cam work, but this time around, it's so bad that I got motion sickness even though I was sitting near the back row. I hadn't fell this bad since my slightly buzzed viewing of The Blair Witch Project on one of the biggest screens I've ever been to, sitting near the front. I actually had to close my eyes during a few moments just because I was getting a headache from all the blurry action. It's one thing to try and be kinetic, and to use blurry and shaky camera effects to put us into the moment. This wasn't doing that for me. I was actually hoping the insanity would STOP. I wanted NO ACTION just to get relief of the jittery mess.
Just as expected with a movie that runs at this pace (over an hour in and nothing new to be revealed), the final piece of Bourne's identity puzzle is solved during the final 20 minutes. I was thinking about how long this movie was, and how it could have been a good half hour shorter.

As far as trilogies go, this was average. I liked the second one the most, but I still didn't think it was anything groundbreaking. If Ultimatum was only an hour and a half, and didn't try so hard to give me motion sickness, it could have been a much much better movie. It's still not too bad, and if you liked the first two, I'm pretty sure this final installment will be worth your time.

GRADE: C

Reviewed: 9/4/07