The Bourne Ultimatum Reviews

The BEST movie realesed this summer

If you loved the last two, your gonna love this one. This is an intelligent, soild action movie with characters and a story which is genuinely captavating. This has the best fight scenes out of the three movies, but the car chase isn't as good as the last one. However, this is the best film in the series and the supporting cast are top class, its nice to see a film which has proper actors, with a visionary director who doesn't need to rely on CGI to tell the story. By far the best film of the summer, if not the year.

[Highly rated reviewer]

The Bourne Disappointment

It's not been a good summer. It began with the crushing disappointment that was Spider-Man 3 and it ends with the crushing disappointment that is The Bourne Ultimatum.

For the record I really loved the first two Bourne films but just give the edge to Paul Greengrass' superb sequel over the Doug Liman directed original and with Greengrass at the helm again and much of the talent from the previous films returning I'm really at a loss as to how it went wrong this time out.

There are several big problems. Firstly there's the story. Part of the fun of the Bourne movies has been that we've discovered the story with Jason Bourne, been thrust inside his amnesia but as it has unfolded that story has always been easy to follow. That's not the case here, the story is so murky that I found myself lost several times . Worse though is that I didn't especially care where things were going as right from the off this film feels overfamilliar. Greengrass hits all the same beats as in the last two films but is unable to up the ante in the way he did so well with Supremacy so here it just comes off as 'we're 45 minutes in, better have a car chase'.

Even more disappointing though is that Greengrass squanders what assets the film does have (fantastic stunts, punchy fights) with a camera technique so irritating it took me completely out of the movie. Okay so it's not like Identity and Supremacy were the most sedate movies in the world but Ultimatum's camera moves around so unrelentingly that not only does it detract from your understanding of the movie but if you get seasick you should be warned to avoid this film for the good of your health. This and the almost ludicrously fast pace of the editing renders what would otherwise be a brilliant fight scene in the middle of the movie utterly unintelligible and irritiating.

It gives me no pleasure to say this about The Bourne Ultimatum. I want it to be a better film, the cast deserve a better film and all are on fine form. Damon is a great actor and he's grown into this role in completely convincing fashion. He provides one of the best moments of the whole trilogy after that pivotal fight when his silence says more than any line could have. It's nice to finally see Julia Stiles get something to do in these movies and she acquits herself well, but sadly vanishes from the film in pretty short order. Strathairn and Allen also cintribute strong turns that resist action movie cliche.

Sadly though it's not enough, the technique drowns what might have been a fun action film and the hard to follow story means that this third film never engages like the first two did, what a terrible shame.

Chase me

Its just 2 hours of the baddies constantly chasing the good guy and that is it! Oh, and 10 minutes tacked on the end as a poor excuse for a plot. Rubbish.

[Highly rated reviewer]

the final bourne and the best

i must admit the bourne trilogy has been what alot of movies have tried to be and failed big style a modern day james bond but for me these films have been better the final film in the series is the best by far and one of the best films i've seen this year the stunts and fighting scenes was amazing and the story kept you on the edge of your seat no spoilers from me but a must see for action lovers and if matt damon does keep his word that this is the final well shame because one of the best action trilogys i've seen

[Highly rated reviewer]

Cracking Finale

This is a superb end to a great trilogy, Damon is excellent as Bourne, the amnesiac CIA assassin who, now, for the final film, remembers everything about his training and the people who made him, and wants revenge.

The film has some fantastic set peices including a brilliant chase through Waterloo station at rush hour, and a spectacular car chase through the streets of New York.

The final act is great, and ties up all the lose ends of the film; really enjoyable.

Superb action movie. Superb Trilogy

The Bourne Ultimatum is the third and 'sadly' final installment of the Jason Bourne trilogy. Picking up where we left Jason in 'The Bourne Supremacy' we follow Jason (Matt Damon) as he tries to piece together his past whilst evading capture.

The Bourne Ultimatum grips you from the off. It is fast paced and you quickly get sucked into Bourne's situation. Travelling around the world to meet any possible leads who may know about his past, whilst trying to stay one step ahead of what seems like the entire worlds police force headed by the American CIA who wont' stop untill Bourne is dead.

This was my favourite installment of the three. It is extemely tense and clever throughout, and the fight scenes are superb. This is pretty much one long chase on foot, car and bike the whole way through and never lets up, all brilliantly filmed , with a superb score that adds to the tension and excitement surrounded by wonderful worldwide settings.

The best action film this year by a long way, and doesn't deserve to be compared to Bond, it's much better!

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[Highly rated reviewer]

Oh dear, oh dear...

Is a great, or even good, third chapter to any franchise a genuine impossibility? (If so, I can only hope nobody tells Christopher Nolan…)

After being dragged to see some genuine garbage by friends this summer (also third chapters; hint, hint) I was desperately looking forward to The Bourne Ultimatum. That I was actually expecting it to be so good only deepens the crushing disappointment that the conclusion to Bourne’s saga is ponderous, over-familiar and, in comparison to its forebears, thinly plotted.

So, what has gone wrong?

Well, the return of Greengrass means we’re back in the hands of the weaker of Bourne’s two directors. Whilst his hand-held camera work occasionally satisfies and his big fight sequence is certainly superior to the dreadfully confusing editing of the fight between Bourne and Jarda in chapter two, Liman’s crisp, punchy, unobtrusive style is much missed.

Much of the action in the film feels unnecessary. The car chases, which in Identity and Supremacy were both electrifying, are here distinctly forced.

Bourne himself is, disappointingly, far less proactive, simply chasing after leads he’s given rather than piecing things together himself.

The huge number of echoes to the previous films, such as Bourne reiterating The Professor’s dying words, should have been a nice touch and given a sense of coming full-circle, but simply serve to remind the viewer of the superiority of the earlier instalments.

But for me the film’s greatest dilemma is that, although Identity’s most underrated element, the effortlessly charismatic Franka Potente, was disposed of in Supremacy, her presence hung oppressively over the rest of that film. But that presence is, despite the shoe-horning in of a handful of flashbacks, wholly absent from Ultimatum and Julia Stiles is as woefully ineffective a replacement as the film’s attempt to suggest a past between Nicky and Bourne is clumsy.

Sadly the effect of all this is to make what is, I have to make this clear, not actually a bad film dreadfully unsatisfying. Ultimatum is ultimately overshadowed by the quality of its predecessors. And as the story simply grinds to a halt rather than obtaining any closure, I found my reaction to be merely apathetic. What a shame.

[Highly rated reviewer]

The Bourne Over-rated

Completely overhyped film. Too much of the same ole unrealistic predictable crap. Will entertain the pea brained no problem.

[Highly rated reviewer]

Warning - Hand-held camera.

We gave up watching this after 10 minutes because the hand-held camera work was so distracting. I am happy with this technique when it adds intimacy and excitement at appropriate moments - but this was constant. Even in a conference room the camera could not keep steady but had to waver up and down, and from side to side.

I was really looking forward to seeing this after watching the first two. Ah, well.

[Highly rated reviewer]

He might be an amnesiac.. but this is unforgettable..

This is a cracking finale to the Bourne series of films, is it the final farewell, or not, of our globe trotting amnesiac, all comes together in this fast paced, entertaining blitz of a film that does just what action flicks should do, and them some. The man with a thousand passports seems to have dispatched most of the lower league assasins over the previous two films, and this time he is up against the hardcore top guns, really out for his blood.

Beginning this journey in Russia, and taking in Europe, North Africa and the USA, this is a hugely satisfying and entertaining end to one of the most watchable series of action flicks ever to have hit the big screen. Recommended..?... I'd say more like unmissable...