Do you
remember the study that reported on seizures widely induced in Japanese children
by fast frame video games? Try “The Bourne Ultimatum.” The overall momentum is
akin to a Japanese bullet train roaring at top speed without touching the
brakes, but the whole is sliced into hundreds of fast cut scenes that will
scramble your brain. While the effect may fall short of seizure, you will have
to work hard to follow the camera that is held just behind or just in front of
Matt Damon. Persevere. This is a terrific thriller, an action flick with a
brain, directed for our great pleasure by Paul Greengrass (United 93).
On the odd
chance that you may have missed Bourne #1 or #2, the premise here is that Jason
Bourne has complete amnesia and is certain only of the fact that he is a highly
trained killing machine. Realizing that the people trying to kill him must be
the ones who trained him, he sets out to identify them. This is about a good guy
who has done bad things and is driven to find out why. The long, violent trip to
the answers covers some glamorous ground but it’s hard to lift your focus from
the fast moving Jason Bourne to enjoy the landscape.
For the
travelers among you, look for Moscow, London, Madrid, Tangier, and New York. For
the action lovers, know you will be well fed with gun battles, hand to hand
brawls, a grand car chase, and more running and jumping on rooftops and
ubiquitous staircases than you can even imagine. All this is simply landscape to
the cerebral battles between Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) and Noah Vosen (David
Strathairn), the black-ops station chief.
In addition
to the main men, we have Nicky Parsons (Julia Stiles) and Pam Landy (an
excellent Joan Allen), as agents tinged with a morality born of watching their
agency spin out of control. There is an enormous and talented supporting cast,
but constant chaos and early death keep us from knowing them well, so
concentrate on the four who manage to rise above the turmoil.
Buried in the
fun are a few serious thoughts - an allusion, for example, to Noah’s wide
ranging abuse of the power he has been given as head of the covert operation “Blackbriar.”
“You start down this path, and where does it end?” asks his colleague Pam Landy,
and Chief Noah Vosen replies, “It ends when we’ve won.” In a nice bit of
contemporary resonance, Noah issues a public declaration of “a national security
emergency, an imminent threat” that will justify the actions and powers he will
take. But worry about that after you’ve come out. From the safety of your seat,
watch Bourne create havoc that embroils whole cities in chaos – with a
motorcycle, a gun, a cell phone, and his fists. This is one agent we all cheer
on as he tries to come in from the cold.
Copyright (c) Illusion