The Bourne Ultimatum is the third and possibly final film in the Bourne series, with the other two films being The Bourne Identity and The Bourne Supremacy.  Supremacy and Ultimatum were both directed by my boy Paul Greengrass, who is also responsible for directing the amazing United 93, which blew me away.  The Bourne Identity was done by a director named Doug Liman, who also directed such films as Go and Mr. And Mrs. Smith. 

All three of the films are all based off novels by Robert Ludlum, which I am actually curious to read now, after seeing the films.  I would really like to see the difference in how an amazing action scene from these films is written in a novel. 

The Bourne Ultimatum stars Matt Damon (The Departed, Good Will Hunting), Julia Stiles (Save the Last Dance, The Bourne Identity/Supremacy), David Strathairn (Good Night Good Luck, Fracture), Albert Finney (Big Fish, Miller’s Crossing) and Joan Allen (Face/Off (great action flick directed by John Woo), The Notebook).

The Plot: When it comes to the plot line, you kind of need to know what happened in the first two films to be able to follow this film.  To give the most basic breakdown possible, Jason Bourne (Damon) is a C.I.A. agent who was sent on a mission to kill an African Dictator who was going to cause harm to the United States.  Bourne ends up not completing the mission and gets shot twice and left for dead in the middle of the ocean.  His memory has been wiped clean and he has no idea who he is.  The only thing he has is a bank account number that leads him to a safe that contains passports, money and a gun. 

We find out in the first film that the C.I.A. now wants Jason Bourne dead because the mission was failed and could possibly screw over the C.I.A.  The C.I.A. send out people to kill Bourne, but Bourne has no idea why these people are trying to kill him.  The cool thing is that he can beat the crap out of anyone because he still has the training in the back of his head.  The whole point of the story is for Bourne to find out his true identity.  

Now in The Bourne Ultimatum, we learn about a top secret project called “Blackbriar,” which Bourne is trying to find information about.  Apparently, the information on this project can give Bourne the answer to his true identity.  The C.I.A. wants Bourne dead before he finds out the answers that could potentially put the C.I.A. in a bad light.  That is the most basic breakdown I can give regarding the new plot line.  I do not want to give a lot of way, but I will tell you right now, a lot of the questions that you have about the film will be answered in this movie, i.e. his true identity. 

The Review: Overall, I literally felt out of breath watching this film.  I felt like I was running a race and could not stop.  It is seriously that intense.  One thing Paul Greengrass likes to do, and you can see this a lot in United 93, is a lot of hand-held work.  It almost makes everything a little more natural looking.  This works best when he is directing the action scenes. I was starting to get a little aggravated in the beginning of The Bourne Ultimatum, because the film was being too shaky during basic dialogue scenes.  It ended up becoming useful though because it really did add to the feel of the movie having an out of breath-type feel to it.  I was walking out of the movie and a friend of mine said that he didn’t like the shaky camera.  You can’t let that bother you because it serves a purpose.  Sit through the whole movie and you will see what I mean. 

There are two specific scenes that come to mind when I think back on watching this movie.  I am not going to ruin them, but one is a brutal punching battle between Bourne and this guy named Desh, and the other is a car chase.  Both of those scenes probably combine to a total of 10 minutes of film.  I would say those scenes were so good that they would be worth paying the full ticket price, just to watch those scenes, and then get up and leave.  That is how good they were. 

Obviously, a lot of the action scenes are over the top and totally unbelievable, but it is done in such a bad-ass way.  Seriously though, this movie did not let up for one second.  It is just a constant movie that keeps going and going. 

The Verdict: Please SEE THIS MOVIE IN THEATRES.  It will be worth every penny.  I saw it for free and I almost want to go back to the theatre and give them money for it.