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The Bourne Ultimatum - 6/10
Throughout this film, one thought sat in my head. “Gee, I sure wish I was watching Identity again.” Not a bad film, but like Supremacy before it, it fails to live up to the first movie.
I completely concur. Personally, I think The Bourne Ultimatum is only a few notches above The Bourne Legacy for the franchise’s weakest film. It gets a lot of credit for “wrapping up” the original trilogy. But, really, the prior two movies demanded nor merited such a conclusion.
Lazily, similar to Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade (which is far superior), The Bourne Ultimatum, as third movie, recycles imagery and plot, using its status as “the grand finale” as an excuse. Actual development from the previous movies- the CIA shutting down Treadstone and no longer using assassins- is rescinded, in favor of having a Treadstone clone called Blackbriar really have been running all this time. Even action scenes are similar: again, we have an apartment fight scene, but this time 'round, it lacks clarity with the shaky-cam aesthetic, exacerbated ad nauseam. The ending, with its reuse of dialogue and imagery from the best film in the franchise, is unearned, if momentarily entertaining.
Moreover, it goes so far as to retroactively weaken The Bourne Supremacy. By taking place directly after that film, for unknown reasons, it tries to reframe its vastly superior self-contained predecessor as Part 1 of a larger story. The movie cannot think of any better motivation for Bourne than to recycle angst over Marie’s death. Worst of all, Supremacy’s wonderful ending, which still left enough room for possible follow-ups, was somewhat marred, in my opinion by the final scene’s recontextualization within the plot of Ultimatum. The seemingly straightforward and honest conversation between Landy and Bourne is now “spy-talk,” which has to be awkwardly fitted into the plot of the movie. Part of the brilliance of Supremacy was that, taking its cue from second Bond film, From Russia with Love, it had the CIA and Bourne being unwittingly pitted against each other by a third party. The ending of Supremacy asserted that both Landy and Bourne were smart enough to see they were being played and choose to reluctantly reconcile with each other; Bourne Ultimatum reneges on that, in order to have the CIA once more chasing after Bourne.
Perhaps Ultimatum’s greatest sin, however, is taking its sole original idea: the notion that Jason Bourne himself is responsible for his creation, with no manipulation necessary, and failing miserably to develop it. Such a revelation should theoretically be horrendously devastating to the Bourne character, but the film deprives us of no such intriguing emotional reaction. For all the faults of the new Bourne movie, at least it was smart enough to take retroactively note of what a radical game-changing development this revelation should have been.
Instead, Ultimatum ends with the recycled line, “Look at us. Look what THEY make you give” even though Bourne, throughout the runtime, has learned no one made him give anything.
2 out of 4 stars.
(For the record, my ratings for the other films in the franchise are:
The Bourne Identity (1988)- a reverent, if awkward attempt at Ludlum- 2.5 out of 4 stars
The Bourne Identity (2002)- the heart of the franchise- 4 out of 4 stars
The Bourne Supremacy (2004)- the franchise’s most crafty tale- 3.5 out of 4 stars
The Bourne Legacy (2011)- often boring with flashes of intrigue- 1.4 out of 4 stars
Jason Bourne (2016)- a messy, if not unique sequel- 3 out of 4 stars)
