The Bourne Ultimatium Rocks My World. Film at 11.

Here is one of the year's smartest, energetic films, a ball of fire into a year of action and adventure films that has given us promises without delivering the goods. In a year where The Transformers spins everything into a blender and gives us a smattering of computer graphics and when John McClane can't even utter an F-Bomb in a Die Hard sequel where he's supposed to Yippie Ki Yay, Motherfucker, it's simply wonderful to see a movie as synthetic, appropriately stylized and downright FUN as The Bourne Ultimatium. This is every bit as fresh and exciting as The Bourne Identity and then some.

What makes these films so exciting is that we identify with the character of Jason Bourne, a man who is trying to find himself. He's in an uphill struggle to find identity in his life. In the first film, he lost his memory and was amazed in how his primal instincts would kick in when even he didn't realize it. His slow realization of the Treadstone project with the Central Intelligence Agency led him to the people responsible for his brainwashing and eventual training as a "$30 million dollar killing machine."

In The Bourne Supremacy, he was still battling with his past and the Treadstone project, and several fleeting images of his training were coming back to haunt him. He became more aware of who he is and his surroundings, all the while battling the CIA, the Kremlin and even Eomer from "The Two Towers" chasing him down a freeway tunnel in Moscow.

In Ultimatium, Bourne is finally putting all the pieces together. Clues are starting to become known about how he became who he is now. In the end of the last film, he was given the name David Webb, and in the first chapter of the film he gets classified information from a reporter (Paddy Considine from My Summer of Love, who even in a small part is wonderful.) Clues lead him from Paris to England and even back to Nikki (Julia Stiles), who has had a small part in Bourne's life previously and is more of a main player in the story here.

Bourne is "on the run", but if you watch him carefully you'll see him more walking fast than lifting his feet up and down. He's always on the move, always breaking down the problem and solving it quickly. How he's able to move around surveillance, agents and various bad guys unharmed is part of his training. Credit must also be given to Matt Damon, who flawlessly makes us believe in this character and his physical ability. When Bourne gets in a car crash late in the film, some audience members at my screening scoffed that "Well of COURSE he's okay." I wanted to shout out "Well of course he's okay...he's Jason Bourne. He's built to survive that crash you silly beans!"

Ultimatium is what Roger Ebert would call a "Bruised Forearm" movie, where you're grabbing the arm of the person who is sitting next to you. The film's pace never lets up, giving us nearly two hours of a pure adrenaline rush. But in this particular case, it makes deep and resonating sense, and even though there is so much globe-hopping in the film that you wonder when these characters sleep, it is all told clearly and faithfully by director Paul Greengrass.

In what is quite possibly one of the best action sequences I have EVER seen, we follow Jason, Nikki and an assailant through the streets, alleyways, staircases and rooftops of Morocco. What's amazing about this sequence is how Greengrass and editor Christopher Rouse are able to carefully cut and blend these three elements in such a way that we're completely in control and keeping in touch with all the perspectives of the hunter, the hunted and the guy you better not mess with.

I was so energized and so "there" with the film that I kept bumping the arm of the gentlemen sitting next to me at a screening of the film, and he did just the same. I think the key is in Greengrass' and cinematographer Oliver Wood's terrific use of hand held photography; while many people have complained about the "shaky cam" and the unsteadiness of the image, I think it's absolutely essential to the story. When Bourne is running, so should we.

Is "The Bourne Ultimatum" the best of the Bourne series? Possibly. There are elements of this film that I admired the most, which is the same way I feel about "The Bourne Identity". I still recall seeing that film in 2002 and breathing a sigh of relief at the film's end credits, happy to discover that we're still getting well-made espionage thrillers in a sea of remakes and sequels. That a sequel in 2007 that can perform with just as much high octane energy and adrenaline is a delight to behold.

Jason
efilmcritic.com

Oh, and I want to apologize to anyone out there who reads this blog on a regular basis. VERY sorry for the lack of updates lately. I've been a bit exhausted, not feeling well, working on other writing projects and also, I'll admit, procrastinating. If you've read this blog before, my thanks, and I'm hoping to return full time soon. -- JW