"Bourne" again

In preparation for my viewing of the third Bourne movie, The Bourne Ultimatum, I caught up earlier this week with the previous two installments in the franchise (although in my defense, I was doing the ironing while watching them...). One thing that I really enjoyed about the first two movies is how consistent in tone and energy they remained, despite a change in director from Identity to Supremacy. When done well, I love it when sequels bring back the same writers, composers, actors, etc. with the intention to maintain continuity. Gratefully, Ultimatum falls right into line with its exciting predecessors; it's a fast-paced, edge-of-your-seat ride, thrilling from start to finish.

The movie takes place not long (I'm guessing a matter of weeks) after the events of Supremacy, where, if you'll remember, Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) has just escaped yet another barage of attacks on his life, losing his girlfriend, Marie, along the way. Still wounded by his loss, and continually haunted by uncontrollable flashbacks of his mysterious assassin origins, he is obsessed with finding answers to his true identity and confronting those that have covered it up.

The film moves at a record-pace--from one intense globe-trotting chase to another (in the first 20 minutes alone, I think we see five different countries). And though Bourne has lost none of his lethal defensive or strategic skills, his pursuers seem to have more resources than ever in tracking him down. One of the film's most exciting sequences (there were two in particular that I can't wait to see again) has Bourne chasing/being chased through the narrow streets and rooftops of Tangier, Morocco. Director Paul Greenglass (who returns from Supremacy) has a fantastic skill at staging hand-to-hand combat in some very claustrophic environments. Though his shaky-camera tendencies bothered me a bit in Supremacy, they seemed a little more focused in this film than in the last (I never got motion-sickness this time around). And as is par for the Bourne course, there is at least one thrilling car chase in this film, which I won't spoil by detailing here, though I will say that I actually found myself taking a deep breath after it was over. Good stuff!

I should note that I was temporarily a little distracted during the movie, and though I did shamefully respond to a text-message mid-movie, I was gracious enough to actually leave the theater to take an important phone call. Altogether, I missed a chunk of about 10 min. right in the middle. And unless there was a random F-bomb or love scene thrown into the middle, I think it was also the least offensive (content-wise) of the three movies, though no less intense.

In the end, there seems to be a bit of a resolution to Bourne's quest for knowledge, at least enough to make you feel satisfied if this is, as rumored, the last time we see Bourne on-screen. In a summer where I had high hopes for the third entry in some of my favorite franchises (Pirates, Spider-man), The Bourne Ultimatum is the only one that hasn't disappointed so far. While I hope it's not really the end to what is probably our generation's greatest action franchise, at least it would be going out on a high note. (***1/2 out of four)