Movie Gazette

In the first movie he didn’t know who he was, in the second movie he wants them to stop chasing him for who he was and in the third one he finds out he’s not who he thought he was. Jason Bourne is back, so take your sea sickness pills and strap in for the ride.

This movie starts where the last one finished, with Bourne still on the run in Russia. While attempting to patch himself up so he can keep running, he has a flashback that seems to involve torture and someone asking him “Are you committed?” He manages to give the police the slip and we jump six weeks into the future. Bourne is still on the run, the CIA still think he’s a threat and want him dead and a reporter called Simon Ross (Paddy Considine) is writing a story about a project called ‘Blackbriar’ which had a man called Jason Bourne at ‘square one’. Bourne reads the reporters story, but has no clue what Blackbriar is or how he is linked to it so he tracks down the reporter. Just in time to see him get shot by a CIA assassin. Having taken Ross’s notes, Bourne starts following the leads, to a CIA operative in Spain, Neil Daniels (Colin Stinton) who, aware of the trouble he is in has taken his files and fled to Tangiers. However Bourne finds help in the form of Nicky Parsons (Julia Stiles), who intimates that they used to mean something to each other. She tells him that Bourne’s training involved mental torture and stress techniques. They go to Tangiers to look for Daniels but the CIA has put out a hit on Daniels, Bourne and Nicky and an assassin, Desh (Joey Ansah), has been sent. Pamela Landy (Joan Allen) has been brought in to assist with the case, but her protestations of Bourne’s innocence fall on deaf ears. Desh manages to kill Daniels, but Bourne kills him before he can complete his mission, they use Desh’s phone to tell the CIA that they are dead, hoping to buy themselves some time. Nicky goes on the run and Bourne using scraps of information from Daniels briefcase, goes to New York to finally get some answers with Landy’s help.

Ultimatum is not a new premise, but it’s convoluted enough to mean you need to pay attention. For the most part it is a fast paced and exciting. The special effects are good and some of the chase scenes, such as Bourne chasing Nicky’s assassin through the streets, houses, roofs of Tangiers, are brilliant. Matt Damon is certainly believable as Bourne, and his fighting skills are impressive. Unfortunately, some of the more important points of the movie such as Nicky’s implied past with Bourne or Bourne’s decision not to kill a helpless assassin he gets the drop on, are conveyed through looks and both Stiles and Damon lack the facial expressions to pull this off. There just seems to be a lot of staring. The other problem is the camera movement. While the jerky, flash like camera movements give a feeling of fear, speed and action, they also make me feel slightly seasick and this movie has an over reliance on them. I felt like I was missing some of the action, because of the jumpy camera. Over all this was an exciting and action packed movie, with a few minor problems. A fitting end to the Bourne trilogy.