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On The Bourne Ultimatum
The wait is over for the third Jason Bourne film. Having seen a rough cut several weeks ago I can tell you that in some ways it's the best yet. Starting about two minutes after The Bourne Supremacy ends, the film is Bourne's search for his origin. Who created The Bourne identity, and why?
One of the best things about the Bourne films is how adult they are, especially compared to their competition -- and that includes Bond, Die Hard, etc. That's all down to Bob Ludlum, who created a real flesh-and-blood character with pain, guilt, uncertainty -- and no past. The films have thankfully kept to his unique vision, using more or less the same creative team for all three films (Paul Greengrass, the director of Ultimatum also directed Supremacy, the second film). But what really sets the Bourne films apart is the writing. The producers happily chose Tony Gilroy to write the screenplay of The Bourne Identity, and in an unusually intelligent move for Hollywood, hired him for the subsequent films.
Too often, after the first film hits, another screenwriter and director are hired for the sequel, leading to an inferior product. No so with the Bourne films. Supremacy is arguably better than Identity. It sure was at the box office. And, so far, the advance reviews for Ultimatum (go to Variety.com) have been ecstatic.
Ultimatum benefits from having Joan Allen back, along with the wonderful David Strathairn. The action sequences (I know you're all wondering about those) are perhaps the best in the series. The Bourne films have about them the gritty atmosphere of reality. They use real sites in all the countries they go to, and they use Matt Damon himself for a majority of the stunt work. Greengrass' camerawork puts us either inside Bourne's body or running right alongside him, for a two hour adrenaline-pumping ride that, unlike other action films, actually has meaning. We all want to know where Bourne came from, and why he was created, don't we? Yes, we do!
Let me put it this way: the day you go see The Bourne Ultimatum you won't need your morning coffee, and, even better, you'll be talking and thinking about it until you go see it a second time!
The wait is over for the third Jason Bourne film. Having seen a rough cut several weeks ago I can tell you that in some ways it's the best yet. Starting about two minutes after The Bourne Supremacy ends, the film is Bourne's search for his origin. Who created The Bourne identity, and why?
One of the best things about the Bourne films is how adult they are, especially compared to their competition -- and that includes Bond, Die Hard, etc. That's all down to Bob Ludlum, who created a real flesh-and-blood character with pain, guilt, uncertainty -- and no past. The films have thankfully kept to his unique vision, using more or less the same creative team for all three films (Paul Greengrass, the director of Ultimatum also directed Supremacy, the second film). But what really sets the Bourne films apart is the writing. The producers happily chose Tony Gilroy to write the screenplay of The Bourne Identity, and in an unusually intelligent move for Hollywood, hired him for the subsequent films.
Too often, after the first film hits, another screenwriter and director are hired for the sequel, leading to an inferior product. No so with the Bourne films. Supremacy is arguably better than Identity. It sure was at the box office. And, so far, the advance reviews for Ultimatum (go to Variety.com) have been ecstatic.
Ultimatum benefits from having Joan Allen back, along with the wonderful David Strathairn. The action sequences (I know you're all wondering about those) are perhaps the best in the series. The Bourne films have about them the gritty atmosphere of reality. They use real sites in all the countries they go to, and they use Matt Damon himself for a majority of the stunt work. Greengrass' camerawork puts us either inside Bourne's body or running right alongside him, for a two hour adrenaline-pumping ride that, unlike other action films, actually has meaning. We all want to know where Bourne came from, and why he was created, don't we? Yes, we do!
Let me put it this way: the day you go see The Bourne Ultimatum you won't need your morning coffee, and, even better, you'll be talking and thinking about it until you go see it a second time!
