"The Bourne Ultimatum"

In trying to keep up with the most current movies in the theater, I went out and saw “The Bourne Ultimatum” over the weekend. All the talk around the water cooler suggested that it was a good movie, and worth seeing. I’m guessing some how I will probably be taken out and shot for this review, but one word comes to mind. “Yawn.”

Personally, I have always enjoyed a good cloak and dagger type movie, if it is done correctly. I can not say that the Bourne Ultimatum was done UN correctly, but the simple fact is, it has been done, re-done, and now done for a third time. About the only difference between the three movies, is that Jason Bourne finally finds out the true story about his past, and even that was anti climatic to say the least.

Matt Damon has made some fantastic movies in his young career, and a few of them have even cracked what I would call as my top 50 greatest movies. "Good will Hunting," and "The Legend of Baggar Vance" are two examples of Damon at his best. Even with his young man demeanor, he manages to take those characters and do them justice. In the Jason Bourne movies, Matt tries to play this big, bad, and mean character, and for the most part, it just has never worked for me. I was really hoping that Director Paul Greengrass would have taken a different direction with this third installment of the Bourne series, but instead he did probably what any good director would have done. He took the best, and most exciting parts of the other two movies, and focused the new movie around those scenes, giving the audience exactly what they wanted. Unfortunately, this recipe fell short in my opinion, and ended up with scene, after scene of the same thing. Jason, running around dodging the governments hit men, and barely escaping each time by the skin of his teeth.

I think that the most disappointing part about this film, is that in the end, they never really wrapped up the story, and then to add insult to injury, they left the window wide open for a 4th movie! Hollywood could have taken this series, and made two really good movies, and then left it on the shelf where it should be now, but instead they chose to try and cash in on their previous success. From what most people have told me after seeing the movie, it looks as though they will succeed for a third time, and hey if that is what the audience is looking for, more power to them. For me it was just second rate, and I should have waited for the DVD on this one.

My rating for this movie is 6.50 out of 10.00