The Bourne Ultimatum

Eh, I should have written about this last night anyway. It’s the kind of movie I love while watching it: and I leave the theater feeling sly and roguish, leaving cryptic messages on my friends’ voicemail inboxes. And it’s the kind of movie that definitely benefits outrageously from seeing it in the theater: noise, scope, eyes forceably glued to the screen… it’s the kind of movie I have to be “in” to fully enjoy. But then it is the kind of movie that, the next day, begins to lose its appeal, because let’s face it, it is a candied summer thrill ride, and just not the sort of film to stick with one. Even so, from this vantage point, I will say I love the Bourne movies over and above all contemporary action films, and agree with one reviewer who said Greengrass should be forced to helm every action film that rolls out of Hollywood. In his hands, the shaky-cam, fly-on-the-wall thing works; it’s somehow hypnotic rather than unsettling. Add to that, Joan Allen emotional but badass, David Strathairn almost cartoonishly villainous (catch his penultimate scene!), hunky Matt Damon, and an almost not wimpy Julia Stiles. And… I’m convinced the only thing preventing Allen & Strathairn’s characters from ravaging each other was some producer-level decision that the audience would not be interested in such a thing. I wish they’d consulted me. Hoping for a deleted scene on the DVD! Anyway, this is as sophisticated as this sort of thing gets. I love it.

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