The Bourne Ultimatum: The Poll

The Bourne Ultimatum

****
0
No votes
*** 1/2
4
21%
***
6
32%
** 1/2
5
26%
**
1
5%
* 1/2
2
11%
*
0
No votes
1/2 *
0
No votes
0
1
5%
 
Total votes: 19

Penelope
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Post by Penelope »

Sonic Youth wrote:unrelenting nervous camera movement and machine-gun cutting prove wearying more often than not
Greencrap is a thoroughly unoriginal hack. Fucking hate his films.
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Post by Sonic Youth »

Two rave reviews. Check out what they say about Damon.

(...I hated the last Bourne...)

The Bourne Ultimatum
By TODD MCCARTHY
Variety


If they could bottle what gives "The Bourne Ultimatum" its rush, it would probably be illegal. The third and purportedly final installment in the mountingly exciting series is a pounding, pulsating thriller that provides an almost constant adrenaline surge for nearly two hours. Worldwide B.O. will be terrific and likely surpass that for each of the previous two pictures, which combined pulled down more than $500 million.

In setting Jason Bourne on the home stretch of his search to discover who and what made him the killing machine he is, director Paul Greengrass has outdone himself, creating a film of such sustained energy and tension that the infrequent pauses for breath seem startling in their quietude. In other hands, unrelenting nervous camera movement and machine-gun cutting prove wearying more often than not, but Greengrass skillfully employs both not only in the service of excitement, but for the accentuation of telling detail and discreet parceling out of information.

Result is a breathless doozy that sends Bourne from Moscow to Turin, Paris, London, Madrid and Tangier, Morocco, before alighting in New York, from where the CIA's extra-legal assassination org has been tracking his movements with the most sophisticated and instantaneous of high-tech equipment. But Bourne continually beats the agency at its own game, outwitting and tricking its surveillance ploys and besting the toughest killers the company can throw at him.

Having settled certain scores in "Supremacy" three years ago, Bourne (Matt Damon) is determined to retrieve his memory this time around, so as to learn the identity he had before placing his skills at the service of the agency. Spurring this opportunity are articles by a London journo (Paddy Considine) in which revelatory details of Bourne's career were obviously provided by a highly knowledgeable source.

After a hair-raising pursuit of Bourne and the scribe at London's Waterloo Station, Bourne tracks the source to Spain, where he once again meets CIA op Nicky Parsons (Julia Stiles), and then to Tangier, where a CIA "asset," or hitman, is lying in wait. An amazing chase through the port city's twisty, hilly streets and the teeming passages of the old Medina, then over rooftops and through windows, and finally to a gasping, slashing, hand-to-hand combat scene in a cramped bathroom, is a marvel of technique and sheer logistics, and one that makes marvelous use of a legendary city rarely seen in Western cinema.

Along the way, it becomes clear the CIA has replaced its former black-ops program, Treadstone, with a new one called Blackbriar, which under stern topper Noah Vosen (David Strathairn) displays a propensity for rogue action and killing as a ready solution to all problems. As they listen in on phone calls and observe Bourne's movements their secret Manhattan HQ (never before has a feature film so well documented London's pervasive surveillance cameras), Vosen and colleague Pamela Lundy (Joan Allen) argue over what to do with Bourne. Lundy, who developed a certain affinity for the lone wolf in Berlin three years back, wants to keep him alive, while Vosen repeatedly insists upon whacking him. Latter's increasing frustration over the mounting failures to do so amply contributes to the very pure audience pleasure the picture generates.

Greengrass stages one spectacular set piece after another, virtually all of them in crowded public places -- train stations, airports, cafes, bottlenecked city streets -- that lend the action scenes an unsurpassed sense of verisimilitude. Bourne walks away from more than one auto crash that would have finished off lesser men, but he and we know that nothing is going to stop him before he comes face to face with his own Dr. Frankenstein, a man whose image periodically flashes through his mind.

Resolution to this central issue of the three films, as well as to individual fates of secondary characters, proves highly satisfactory, resulting in that rare tumultuous thriller that can't be faulted at all on its own terms. The continuity and even upgrade in quality as the series has progressed can be significantly attributed to a solid team that hasn't changed much across the seven years; producers Frank Marshall, Patrick Crowley and Paul L. Sandberg have been onboard for the entire ride, as have story and screenwriter Tony Gilroy (this time credited alongside Scott Z. Burns and George Nolfi), cinematographer Oliver Wood, editor Christopher Rouse and composer John Powell, whose urgent musical accompaniment is goosed by some striking string and percussion orchestrations. Second unit and stunt work overseen by Dan Bradley is top-drawer. Nor should one forget Doug Liman, who continues on as an exec producer after having set the artistic template as director of the initial outing.

It may not have been entirely apparent at first, but Bourne is unquestionably Damon's signature role, the one in which a viewer becomes most complicit in the actor's identification with a character. The subjective camerawork merely augments the degree to which one is completely with him in the series, and if this is indeed his last "Bourne," as he has said, then this is a performance to be savored all the more.

Stymied by limited action in earlier rounds, Stiles has more to do this time but remains deliberately understated. A low-key Strathairn proves mightily effective in an against-type turn as the quietly seething heavy, while Allen shrewdly reveals a woman dedicated to creatively subverting the constraints of her highly regulated job. Scott Glenn turns up briefly as a new CIA director, and Albert Finney effectively lends his weight, basso tones and a slight Southern drawl to his man-behind-the-curtain character.





----------------------------------------

The Bourne Ultimatum

By Kirk Honeycutt
Jul 25, 2007
Hollywood Reporter


"The Bourne Ultimatum," the culminating film of the trilogy begun five years ago with "The Bourne Identity," gets under way with a burst of nervous energy and extreme urgency and never lets up. It's a 114-minute chase film, dashing through streets and rooftops of any number of international urban sprawls with Matt Damon's redoubtable Jason Bourne hot on the trail of -- himself. That might be the genius of the series: A James Bond-like character who can escape any pickle and thwart any villain, but all in a quest for his own identity. Jason is not out to save the world -- though he might do that -- he'd just like to know his real name.

[gad, Honeycutt is just the worst.]

Director Paul Greengrass, who only made the astonishing "United 93" in the interim, returns for his second "Bourne" film (after 2004's "The Bourne Supremacy") to bring the roller coaster ride to an end in a dead heat where all the plot points and (surviving) characters of the three films converge. Audiences will eat it up: This is a postmillennial spy-action movie pitched to a large international audience. You hardly need subtitles.

The cool thing about this movie is that the real revenge is not against bad guys in the CIA, but against the high-tech world that maddens mere mortals. Your mobile phone drops calls? Your car needs towing after a parking-lot fender-bender? Well, Jason can switch phones and patch into the world from trains, subways, stairwells and undergrounds. Any car he steals leaps up sharp inclines, plunges off of roofs or smashes into other vehicles until reduced to smoldering metal yet can still outrace any car on the block.

And his body! Blow it up with a bomb, expose it to brutal hand-to-hand combat or throw it into the East River, and it gets up with a few manly scratches.

Yes, there are a few plot holes. But few are likely to care. A smart cast of veteran actors gives the film just enough emotional heft to carry you through the silliness. Damon has definitely made Bourne his own. For all his physical dexterity and killing instincts, Damon brings a Hamlet-like quality to the CIA-trained assassin suffering from a five-year spell of amnesia who can never quite tell who his friends are, or rather, which of his enemies might be a true friend.

Joan Allen returns as the CIA investigator who has slowly come to see that Jason might be the real deal. And Julia Stiles as an in-over-her-head agent again shows up for no credible reason other than the producers want her back. (They're right.)

Newcomers include a flinty and increasingly antsy David Strathairn as a head of a black-ops program that has its real-life model in all the extralegal programs sponsored by the current administration. At one point, he declares "you can't make this stuff up," and you know the filmmakers are nodding toward today's Washington.

Scott Glenn appears as a law-ignoring CIA director, though he might remind you more of the current attorney general, and Albert Finney crops up toward at the end as a Dr. Mengele figure behind a behavior-mod program that created any number of Jason Bournes.

The movie swings through Moscow (filched from the previous film); Paris; Turin, Italy; London; Madrid; Tangiers, Morocco; and New York as Jason hones in on who did this to him. (That's another thing -- he never has to endure airport security checks!)

A fatigue factor sets in somewhere; it might vary from person to person. Yet the sharp intelligence behind the screenplay by Tony Gilroy, Scott Z. Burns and George Nolfi (though other hands reportedly contributed) gives the plot, salvaged from the Robert Ludlum Cold War spy novel, a genuine buoyancy. The film is trying to get at something, no matter how crudely, about corruption within the American espionage system, with its secret reliance on renditions and torture in the name of freedom. This might not be the best way to illustrate the problem with credibility-stretchers at every turn. But then again, how many people look at documentaries?

Greengrass tops himself with each passing minute by staging terrific stunts and chases through crowded streets, buildings and rooftops. Cinematographer Oliver Wood and editor Christopher Rouse gives the film its lightning speed and jagged edges with a close, hand-held camera and quick edits while John Powell's score pulsates pure adrenaline.
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Post by VanHelsing »

Paddy Considine (I like him in In America) has also been added to the cast. He plays a London journalist who is tracking a former CIA director.

Bernal is out.
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Post by VanHelsing »

I can't remember but did Karl Urban's character die in the 2nd film? If yes, guess the same fate is in store for Bernal's character. I've also heard that they're turning Stiles into Damon's love interest in this 3rd instalment. They've really deviated a lot from the books. Great to see Allen is back on board. Thought her character would end in the 2nd film.
With a Southern accent...
"Don't you dare lie to me!" and...
"You threaten my congeniality, you threaten me!"

-------

"You shouldn't be doing what you're doing. The truth is enough!"
"Are you and Perry?" ... "Please, Nelle."
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Post by MovieWes »

I came across this today. It looks like Gael Garcia Bernal has finally decided to break out of indies and do something a bit more mainstream.

Strathairn and Bernal join “Ultimatum” cast

Oscar nominee David Strathairn (Good Night, and Good Luck) and Mexican ingénue Gael Garcia Bernal (The Motorcycle Diaries) have joined returning cast members Matt Damon, Julia Stiles, and Joan Allen in the upcoming spy thriller, The Bourne Ultimatum, the third and final act of the wildly popular trilogy based on the novels by Robert Ludlum. Strathairn will play Noah Vosen, an underground agent in deadly pursuit of Jason Bourne, while Bernal will play Carlos “The Jackal” Paz, the leader of a trio of deadly assassins whose skills rival those of Bourne’s.

The film, which has been targeted for a summer 2007 release date, began filming this week in Tangier. It is once again helmed by Brit director, Paul Greengrass (The Bourne Supremacy, United 93) and written by Tony Gilroy (The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy).
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