by rick grant rickgrant01@comcast.net
B+ Rated PG-13 111 min
Bourne is on the run kicking serious butt to find out his identity and who turned him into a secret agent with advanced fighting skills and espionage abilities. And that was only the first two movies. Now Matt Damon returns as Jason Bourne (presumably for the last time) to find out the truth, and he’ll stop at nothing to get it. His CIA colleagues want to terminate him with extreme prejudice. So viewers, strap on your seat belts, this is the culmination of all the action of the first two films with more car chases, gun gags, plenty of kung fu fighting, and Matt Damon running like a marathon athlete. Why can’t this massive posse kill this one guy? He’s super-Bourne.
To bring us up to speed, let’s review the last two movies. Doug Liman’s 2002 movie, The Bourne Identity involves a CIA operative fished out of the ocean with no memory of his identity or his mission. So he dedicates himself to finding out his identity. But before he can think about that, he’s dodging bullets and on the run from an unknown enemy. Just add up the number of cars demolished and that tells us this is serious action in the Bond film tradition.
In 2004, Paul Greengrass helmed the sequel called The Bourne Supremacy, which finds Bourne living with his girlfriend (yes he finally had time for romance) in India hoping to avoid the mysterious organization trying to kill him. But guess what; they find him and the chase is on again, with more car crashes, guns, and kick boxing the crap out of a gaggle of assassins. Again, he escapes the dragnet.
Cut to today, with Greengrass again at the helm, Bourne is still running and kicking butt, but this time he’s come home to find the control agent that set him up. “Terminate the threat,” his former boss Noah Vosen (David Strathairn) says. Teams of agents are on the case and Bourne outsmarts them at every turn. More vehicles are sacrificed to keep the adrenaline pumping as Bourne gets inside his nemesis’ office. Clearly, Vosen has gone rogue, which justifies his termination order. The bad guys, killer CIA operatives on a black ops mission, are hell bent on whacking Bourne, who knows all their secrets.
Joan Allen reprises her role as Pam Lundy who is against killing Bourne, but she gets swept up in the chase that goes to London, Paris, Madrid, Tangier, and New York City. Bourne is a slippery devil who is now protecting the life of the London reporter Simon Ross (Paddy Considine). Yes, Ross is about to break the story wide open. Corruption inside the CIA agency is related to Bourne’s case, according to Neal Daniels (Colin Stinton). As in Supremacy, Nicky Parsons (Julia Stiles) holds the key to helping Bourne nail the corrupted agents that are trying to kill him. Lundy is also disenchanted with the Company–all good signs that Bourne can find out the truth.
Meanwhile, Edgar Ramirez plays the assassin hot on Bourne’s trail and Vosen is personally involved in the chase to terminate Bourne. They are formidable adversaries as Bourne gets closer to unraveling the conspiracy that his pursuers are hiding. The ongoing frustrations of being thwarted by Bourne have strengthened the assassin’s determination. As with the other Bourne incarnations, this last episode is Bourne in constant motion, leaping off buildings, traveling in cars, confronting assassins with his kung-fu skills.
Bourne’s allies are few, but he uses them while on the run gathering information along the way. Lundy and Nicky are doing what they can in the background. Bourne makes a breakthrough, but that doesn’t help him get his pursuers off his back.
This is the best of the Bourne trilogy, with Greengrass’ savvy, fast-paced and unrelenting action and stunts. The wildly popular movie franchise has made Matt Damon a bona fide movie star with his own Star on Hollywood Boulevard. Well, he earned it with this incredibly demanding role. Damon never stops running, jumping, and kung-fu fighting. Don’t bet on Bourne not coming back.
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EU Critic’s Choice Awards
