Bourne….Jason Bourne.
Over the past few years, many movies have been pretty hit and miss. For every 40 Year Old Virgin, there are multiple horrible movies like Superbad. For every Inception, there are middling sci-fi attempts like Tron:Legacy. And there are few action/thrillers that offer up much beyond the same old car chases and Matrix–action ripoffs of late. Except the Bourne series.
I just watched the third Bourne movie again this Sunday – The Bourne Ultimatum. And for a second sequel, it’s pretty dadburn good. Despite there being some unbelieveable stuff in these movies (how many times can Matt Damon blast through major cities in small(er) cars, crashing them into/being hit by nearly everyone else, and emerge alive? Apparently always, even if banged up :). And I sure hope our own ‘intelligence’ services aren’t near as cynical (or corrupt) as most of the main actors are in the portrayal of the CIA and similar here (but as these movies came out during the Bush years, I suspect they were making a LONG-overdue ‘statement’ on Bush/Cheney’s corrupt foreign policy, no?).
Anyway, I really like these movies. They are a well-balanced mix of action and plot, with things always moving along fairly well – no real dead spots. They don’t rely on obvious devices of sex and pointless violence to advance the plot (not to say they aren’t violent – they certainly are). And despite many bad things that Bourne ultimately does (or in some cases, is forced to do) you really end up rooting for him throughout. Plus I like that Joan Allen‘s character tries to be the sane one amid all the mayhem – she is given the role of questioning her own agency and its ‘black’ ops (within which Bourne was a key player). The movies don’t answer the many tangential questions they raise about all this, but (again) I sincerely hope much of it is simply Hollywood and not reality. They make effective use of (and if not real – implied commentary on) the ‘Big Brother’ society we are increasingly forced to live in – not fun.
Plus great bad guys! Each movie has at least one, by the end there are several. Especially Albert Finney in the third one. Having seen him now in Erin Brockovich, Ocean’s 12 and this third Bourne movie – like the chameleon Gary Oldman – AF is never the same thing twice!
And yes, Bourne ends up with a (sort of) happy ending by the end of movie 3. Which if you’ve watched all three movies, he damn well deserves, methinks.
candybowl