DVD Voice

The Bourne Ultimatum is the conclusion to the Jason Bourne story by Robert Ludlum. It ends The Bourne Identity and The Bourne Supremacy. It stars Matt Damon (Saving Private Ryan, Ocean’s 11) as Jason Bourne as well as Julia Stiles and Scott Glenn. Directed by Paul Greengrass (United 93) who I’ve never seen anything by — and I must say I was impressed by his work.

The movie is essentially about Jason Bourne. And it assumes that you’ve seen the other two or know the basis of the story or of read the books. But really if you just sit back for the ride you’ll do fine. And what a ride. If you want action, this movie is essentially non-stop action. The car chases, the foot chases, the motorcycle chases, etc. And bundle that with political intrigue and lots of nifty technology and you’ve got one heavily testosterone fueled movie!

I sadly found myself in the position of coming to this movie with high expectations. And whenever I do that I seem to be let down. I need to get back to detaching myself from what I’ve heard and just enjoying the movie for what it is. I guess I was a little disappointed that I thought it needed more fascinating and wowing rock-em-sock-em explosions, etc. And from my vantage point now, I think it delivered, its just that when I was turning things off from this one last night that I felt it was a little bit under delivered. But what can you do. I’ll give it a higher review now that I’ve had a little time to digest it. Which is why I wait a little while before I write these things! Lesson learned.

The car chases in this were unbelievable! I loved how the cars were falling to bits after being dinged just a little. Bumpers hanging off, etc. That was so realistically cool! The grand finale car scene was just so open-mouth awe inspiring. I had to go back afterwards and replay that New York City chase scene several times! Too cool! The motorcycle chase was also amazing. How can they do those things on a bike! Wow!

And the foot chases too. After Daniel Craig and Sebastien Foucan (founder of free running) in Casino Royale I thought it’d be hard to top a foot chase, but aside from the three person chase (Matt Damon, Julia Stiles, and the assassin) being a little too hard to follow inside buildings, it was still utterly impressive! wow!

The story was intriguing, and the power struggle / political issues were plausible. I really loved how Bourne seems to be able to go where he wants to at will, including the directors office! Too classy!

In short, if you love action/adventure/thrillers/cars then you’ll want to see this movie! I recommend it!

As an aside, if you notice the beginning of the DVD has a promo for HD-DVD as being the future of High Definition. It’s amazing what a few short months do to the world of technology isn’t it? As Toshiba has officially declared HD-DVD dead and bluray is now the defacto standard for High Def. Its a good thing that we do have the one standard. I hope to be getting into hidef via a PlayStation 3 soon!