Jules and I caught Bourne Ultimatum last night because it was so freakin' hot (see below). I dug it pretty well, I'd probably give it four stars if I applied the old H-thon ratings, but...I liked the other two much better. This is a good property with good characters and all that, it just suffered from the threequel pitfalls.
First and foremost: too much shaky cam! Dammit! Supremacy was right on the line for me, I saw it twice so I could really make sure I liked it, and I thought Paul Greengrass had earned his chops as someone who used the technique instead of hiding behind the technique. Not so this time! Bourne meets with Marie's brother, a short scene mostly consisting of closeups of these two guys' faces. Why is the camera wobbling around? WHY? Buy a fucking tripod! I heard some neat stuff about the rooftop chase scene in Marrakesh, which did have some amazing moments courtesy of the "stunt-cameraman." It also had a lot of footage of what it's like to hold a movie camera while you run upstairs, namely tons of blurry whipping back and forth. Sometimes I feel like I'm inside that camera, you know? Headache.
Okay, going into some spoiler territory now...read on if you've seen it.
The worst bummer of shaky cam happened a couple of times here: I didn't know what was going on. The Marrakesh chase scene starts with an explosion, and the cops are chasing Bourne. I couldn't tell who the cops were chasing! I could not figure why Bourne had to drive that motorcycle on those steps, because insead of being chased by people, he was being chased by blurs, and riding a blur, and in between there were blurs. Same deal with the ending chase! I didn't realize that guy in the SUV was "the asset" until the scene was over and the boys at HQ said "the asset lost him."
Too much bald-faced retread: The conclusion of the ending car chase was the same as the one in Supremacy, with Bourne looking sympathetically at the busted-up dude in the car. Once again he calls Joan Allen and -- duh duh DUH -- he's watching her during the call. The repeat of Clive Owen's line from Identity: "look at what they make you give" didn't have any real resonance, it was just your basic callback maneuver. Worst of all...
Julia Stiles dyes and cuts her hair in the same style as Franke Potente in the first one. LAME! I like Julia Stiles, I think she's pretty while she gets a lot of Dunst-like flack for having an unusual face. But Franke Potente she is not.
Too much of the same game: The thing is, I like those scenes in which some guy in front of a dozen screens manned by tech wizards tries and fails to track down Bourne. But I got really tired of it by the end. "Where's Bourne? Dammit!" I also got sick of Matt Damon saying the name of a city, and then there's an aerial shot and we're over that city. When you're making a threequel, you really need to sit down and think "which parts of this flick need to not be a lot like the first two?" I don't think they had that meeting.
Okay okay, I'm bitching a lot here. The truth is, I simultaneously feel this way and also managed to enjoy myself quite a bit. That first scene in the London subway station watching Bourne dodge the surveillance was riveting. I also loved that the other two Treadstone/Blackbriar guys were really decent Bourne-level foes. That bit where Desh saw that Bourne was following him and then just folded Bourne into his plan to bomb that CIA dude was perfect.
But I like the other two lots more. I'm not sure which I like better; I'll have to see Supremacy again.
Saw Superbad, too. Lotsa fun.
6 comments:
I dug this movie. Although I must admit that I never saw the second one so I'm in no position to compare. I'm glad you think it's so good because it sounds like you're in for a treat. My only complaint was Julia Stiles, I could never stomach her. She's homely with a husky voice. I never understood her appeal.
Do you mean that you're for a treat? You've confused me. But if I'm getting you, then yes, you're in for another fun dose of everything you dug about Ultimatum, but a little better even.
And the bad guy (one of them) is played by Eomer from the Rings trilogy.
The only things I liked were Julia Stiles and the air conditioning in the theater.
Too much shaky cam. I almost fell asleep because I got dizzy.
OK, a little more to say....
I was a huge 24 fan, until the second nuclear bomb went off in SoCal, and somehow I lost interest. But until that, I was an addict.
This Bourne movie had way too much of the totally unbelievable 24 elements of superior technology. "Pull that up on my screen! Tap into his phone! Get all the cameras in the subway station under our remote control and let's follow him!"
It really doesn't happen that way, and for some reason I could accept it all in a totally pulpy television show that also relied upon the conceit that you could get ANYwhere in Los Angeles within 15 minutes (just after the commercial break). But it's just too unrealistic that technology works that fast. Any NPR interview with actual spies will tell you actual spy work is not that cool and doesn't involve people in a room on laptops who can tap into ANY satellite or surveillance system in the world in a split second and provide their overlords with immediate speedy camera work and closeups. No way.
Can't buy it. Can't suspend my disbelief that far, although for some reason I could do it for Jack Bauer. Because he was Superman, really. I guess Bourne is supposed to be like that, too, but this movie was too exaggerated and too shaky anyway. Half the time I didn't know what was being pulled up on somebody's screen, because who could even understand the crazy camera work in what was supposed to be the "live" part?
But it was nice to be in the air conditioning.
I watched an episode of 24 once. It featured Kevin Dillon as a survivalist who was visited by Jack Bauer's hot daughter, played by the easy-on-the-eyes but rather vapid Elisha Cuthbert. I thought "heh, this is like Grease 2, when that guy tries to bang that girl in the bomb shelter by tricking her into thinking the world has ended." And then that's exactly what happened.
I gave up on the show immediately. If you're stealing your plot ideas from Grease 2, you don't deserve to be on the air.
Yeah, and if you're stealing your aesthetic from 24, you don't deserve to be in the theaters.
But on a lighter note, it's fun to play drinking games while watching 24. If you do a shot every time Jack says, "Just do it, Chloe!" you will be hammered before the end of Act Two.
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