The third and supposedly final installment of the popular Bourne franchise is by far the best of the batch, a relentless barrage of sheer adrenaline that more than compensates for any shortcomings in the material. Matt Damon returns for one last go-round as the memory-challenged super-spy/assassin trying to piece together the truth of his lost identity; the villains, appropriately enough, are the only ones who ultimately matter — the CIA goons who turned him into the horribly efficient killing machine he is.
The Bourne Ultimatum refines and relies upon all the elements that have made the series so successful and so appealing — the consistently agitated, you-are-there camerawork; the tense, nearly nonstop games of cat-and-mouse played by lethal adversaries; the slam-dunk action set pieces and breakneck chases through crowded, exotic locales; the globe-trotting storyline that whisks us from Moscow to Madrid to London to Tangier, before settling in for the duration in New York City. Things happen fast, lines blur between the hunter and the hunted, and some of the action is shot and edited in so frenetic a fashion that a second viewing may be required just to figure out what actually went on.
Matt Damon's still not much of an actor, but it's doubtful anyone could have played Jason Bourne better. Damon's blank-faced boy-next-door quality suits Bourne perfectly — he reminds us of one of those malleable everymen sleepwalking through an old film noir from the '40s or maybe a pre-Matrix Keanu Reeves — so who better to play a robotic killer trying to re-locate his soul? And while you can't quite call Julia Stiles a romantic interest in this final Bourne, with her low monotone of a voice and unreadable, mask-like face, she complements Damon's wooden-ness nicely, providing an effective anchor for all the chaos swirling around them.
The Bourne Ultimatum (PG-13) Stars Matt Damon, Julia Stiles, David Strathairn, Joan Allen, Albert Finney and Scott Glenn. Opens Aug 3 at local theaters. 3.5 stars
This article appears in Aug 1-7, 2007.