Matt Damon is “Bourne” again and, especially for action-flick fans, it’s practically a religious experience.
In a summer of so-so three-peats, the international espionage thriller “The Bourne Ultimatum” throws down with just as much hard-core high-stakes force in the superior franchise’s third outing as it did in 2002’s “Bourne Identity” and 2004’s “Bourne Supremacy.” You don’t even need to have seen the previous films to follow the story.
Lots of the credit goes to director Paul Greengrass, a master of gritty style and urgent realism who helmed the preceding installment and wowed critics last year with his definitive 9/11 docudrama “United 93.” Boosting a screenplay of intra-governmentalcat-and-mouse credited to Tony Gilroy, Scott Z. Burns, and George Nolfi, Greengrass engineers supercharged chase sequences and beyond-harrowing stunts to distract from the secret-agent genre’s obligatory over-the-top narrative contrivances. He and the whole “Bourne” team also continue to make the characters from Robert Ludlum’s Cold War novels relevant to this post-millennial age of apocalyptic terrorism, “Big Brother” technological capabilities and the Patriot Act.
They do that in “Ultimatum” by centering it on the indomitable Jason Bourne’s continuing struggle to remember who he is and how he ended up a deadly weapon for a clandestine section of the United States intelligence community. Bourne exacted revenge for the murder of his lover Marie in “Supremacy,” then went underground.
But as today’s episode commences, a London investigative reporter (Paddy Considine) has begun publicly exposing details about Jason’s identity as they relate to the CIA offshoot project that created him. After tracking down the newspaperman, Jason is led down a trail of clues about his past from England to Spain to Morocco and eventually to the New York City headquarters of the sinister black-ops program behind it all, headed by power-tripping CIA assistant director Noah Vosen (David Strathairn). Julia Stiles as a sympathetic fellow agent and Joan Allen as the tough but fair agency watchdog both return to this outlandishly convenient series of information revelations and narrow escapes.
But because the pace is so furious, the fight scenes are so imaginatively dramatic and Damon remains so feisty behind his protagonist’s impassive cool, suspension of disbelief is sufficiently achieved here. So many of the action set pieces stand out, it’s hard to pick a favorite. But a long pursuit and then hand-to-hand struggle between Bourne and a native assassin through the narrow alleyways and ramshackle rooftops of Tangier deserves a place in some kind of hallof fame.
It helps turn “Ultimatum” into a cunning, adult and intense offer you shouldn’t refuse.
‘The Bourne Ultimatum’
****
Starring: Matt Damon, Julia Stiles, Joan Allen, David Strathairn
Director: Paul Greengrass
Rated PG-13 for violence and intense sequences of action
Running time: 111 minutes
