Malaya and I got out to see
Bourne 3, AKA
The Bourne Ultimatum, Sunday evening. I was pretty eager to see it, since my appreciation of
Bourne 1 and
2 has grown steadily with additional viewings. Also,
Bourne 3 has a great trailer and the reviews are through the roof. It's at
94% on RT, and not just from a bunch of 3-star, mildly-recommending review. Check out
Bourne 3 on Metacritic; there are enough 4-star reviews to do some Elizabethian costume drama proud.
Sadly, my review will not be joining them. Not by fame, nor by score. I enjoyed the film, but thought it was good, not great. I enjoyed Bourne 1 and 2 more than 3, and while it's possible this sad state is due to my expectations being so high for the threequel, I'm pretty sure it was more about the movie than what I wanted the movie to be.
To the scores.
The Bourne Ultimatum
Script/Story: 6
Acting/Casting: 8
Action: 8
Eye Candy: 4
Fun Factor: 6
Replayability: 7
Overall: 6.5
As I often point out, reactions are mostly about expectations. I wanted this movie to be awesome. I wanted to believe all those overheated reviews that talked about how this film redefined the action movie genre, and how the tension and pace were almost unrelenting for the whole 2 hours. I'm sorry, but it doesn't, and it's not. It's a better than the average action movie, and if I had never seen Bourne 1 and 2, or had only seen them once, years ago, I would probably have given this one an 8. Having seen the other two, and having given them a 7.5 and a 7, I can't give this one a better score, and since I remember liking both the others more than this one on a first viewing, I have to rank this one below them.
I'm still recommending it to anyone who enjoys action films or who liked Bourne 1 and/or 2, but it's not some kind of breakthrough in the thriller genre, as some reviewers would have you believe.
I gave
Bourne 1 a 7.5 and
Bourne 2 a 7 based upon my initial viewings. After seeing each several more times on DVD and cable, I'd upgrade those original scores to oh... 9s each. It's entirely possible that Bourne 3 will appreciate equally in my appreciation, but I don't think so. Even if I were sure it would, I'd still have to score this review on my reaction to seeing it this firs time. And it was good... but not great.
I think my primary dissatisfaction with Bourne 3 stemmed from the plot and the character development/behavior. I'll be vague to avoid being spoilery, (the trailer does enough of that), but Bourne is much less the lone wolf in this movie. He's no longer lone; he gets help on several occasions, and he's not even very much of a wolf, since he now regularly leaves people alive rather than finishing them when he has the chance. It's a plot device to clue us in to his continuing efforts to recover his humanity/soul, which is paralleled by his ongoing efforts to discover his true identity and origin, and that's fine, but Bourne struggling to not kill people who want to kill him is kind of aggravating for the viewer. I'd rather see him kick ass and survive against impossible odds. I don't care if he's occasionally merciful, not do I especially want him to be.
We're supposed to root for him to recover his humanity and decency and such, and maybe other people did, but I liked him better as the ruthless antihero from the last two films. Not that he was ever that ruthless or antihero anyway, what with his sentimental behavior towards women and children, and his highly-selective murders. For a trained killer with a lengthy resume, Bourne's always been remarkably good at leaving survivors. He's never shot anyone by accident, he never throws a bomb into a crowd to distract his pursuers with mass death, he never runs anyone over during the car chases, etc.
Which is not to say that
Bourne 3 doesn't often kick ass. There aren't enough car chases, and the ones we do see are more demolition derby than the brilliant, scientific "memorize a map in 10 seconds and then use that info to humiliate pursuers" stuff we got in the first two movies. The human chases are better, and the smartness remains very evident in them, but they are entertaining without being amazing. The fight scenes are fast paced and hard hitting, but the editing as gotten choppier in each movie, and while there is one longer fight that's pretty cool, several shorter scenes are just a blur of guys in dark clothing, all of which end with Bourne standing over unconscious heaps.
My favorite action scene in the movie featured Bourne being pursued by literally dozens of cops, while he's trying to locate a friend in a massive crowd, while the friend is being tracked by a hit man. As the scene unfolds I was thinking, "Bourne can't possibly evade/avoid all those cops and find his friend and stop the killer all at the same time. Can he?" I won't answer that question here, but you can probably hazard a guess with a reasonable degree of accuracy.
Besides Bourne's growing sentimentality, the other thing I disliked about the movie was the somewhat cliched plot twists and character developments. There's no real surprise or suspense about who the bad guys are, and by the time Bourne's unraveling his past history, it's not much of a surprise either. The ending is a bit of a let down as well, since it goes macro, with a change in the world and politics, rather than being more focused in a micro way on Bourne himself. Bourne 1 and 2 ended with Bourne overcoming tremendous odds and personally taking out the main bad guy who deserved to be taken out. Bourne 3 doesn't really do that, and it doesn't really have bad guys to take out, as the plot unfolds with institutions and governments as the enemy, rather than individual evil men. Bourne 3 is almost certainly more realistic in its depiction of society and government and the nature of evil (corporate, rather than personal), but it's a lot less satisfying when "the system" is the villain, rather than some guy you can put a bullet in and thereby affect direct change and results.
Anyway, it's a good movie, and it's well worth seeing, but it's not the masterpiece the critics may be leading you to expect. So don't expect that, and you'll probably like it more than I did.
Labels: bourne, movie review
