With the best opening for Bourne movies, The Bourne Ultimatum should give audience something good based on their previous movies. Most of the internet review give average B+ or 4 star out of 5. Check below for full review.
The others The Bourne Ultimatum review:
Philadelphia Inquirer (Steven Rea) review [4/4]
The King’s Room (Paul Perkins) review [4.5/5]
Film School Rejects (Nate Deen) review [B+]
Scott’s Movie Reviews (Scott Mantz) review [4/5]
Parent Previews evaluation [B-]
One Guy’s Opinion (Frank Swietek) review [B-]
Review via guidelive.com [A] grade
The Bourne Ultimatum leaps, scampers, scraps and drives its way into the pantheon of all-time great action movies. But the third and best chapter of the amnesiac spy saga might have more going on above the shoulders than on the streets, sidewalks and rooftops. This movie is alive with the thrill of thought and the courage of a most timely moral compass.
Ultimatum is something of a freak occurrence in this summer of tired and tepid threequels. Its humor is wry, and the consequences of its actions are grave. The story feels fresh. And the motion is perpetual, with set pieces that dazzle in their ingenuity. The hand-to-hand combat is every bit as creative as the chases, which is saying a great deal: Director Paul Greengrass (The Bourne Supremacy, United 93) has crafted a brand of breathless pursuit sequence that would feel right at home in The French Connection. Yet somehow, Ultimatum plays out in thoroughly modern fashion, especially when it peels back the curtain on the guys calling the shots.
It’s reckoning time for Jason Bourne (Matt Damon), the super spy who can kill a man with his bare hands but still can’t remember who he is. Shards of memory sneak through the mental margins, rendered in hazy, fragmented flashbacks of hot white light. There are clues and leads, including an English reporter (Paddy Considine) Bourne leads on a staggeringly intricate foot chase away from CIA snipers. Bourne is closing in, but he’s still in a sort of existential hell; at one point he admits he can see the faces of everyone he has killed, but he doesn’t remember any of their names.
The stakes are high in The Bourne Ultimatum, and they dovetail neatly with current events and the questions that surround a carte blanche surveillance society. The CIA honchos, played by a canny David Strathairn and a leathery Scott Glenn, want Bourne dead. No surprise there. But their ability to glean whatever info they want, from whoever has it, comes across with startling dramatic clarity. “There’s an incoming text,” barks one of Mr. Strathairn’s minions. “Get it,” barks the boss. And it’s got. Some of the film’s agents, including those played by franchise veterans Joan Allen and Julia Stiles, have reservations about unchecked power, especially when it comes to targeting fellow agents. But those in control have no problem exercising any means necessary to reach the desired ends.
So there’s all that to chew on if you’re so inclined. If not, sit back – or scoot to the edge of your seat – and enjoy the turbocharged gamesmanship. The action itself is superbly staged; Mr. Greengrass and his crew combine camera movement and editing, spontaneity and lockstep precision, to create a sense of constant movement (though we’ll issue the courtesy advisory for motion sickness that can result from handheld camera kinetics). Even better: The masterful fight and flight is never divorced from the excitement of a good cat-and-mouse hunt, bolstered by the feeling that the end awaits anyone who doesn’t stay a step ahead of the curve.
It’s tempting to say that any actor could show up on the Bourne set and coast on the movie’s considerable craft. But that wouldn’t really be fair to Mr. Damon, who continues to invest his character with the stoic urgency of a man who will die if he doesn’t find the truth. He may not like the results, but chances are you will. An endless summer would be more than welcome if more big movies were like The Bourne Ultimatum.
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