The Bourne Ultimatum

[kate_nepveu]

Important things to know about The Bourne Ultimatum:

• If the second movie made you motion-sick, this one will too. Though less so, for me.
• There is an elderly white man with a full face and glasses in this movie. Though he strongly resembles Brian Cox, who was in the first two movies, they are not the same person.
• The characters of Pamela Landy and Noah Vosen (new to this movie) both have henchmen with pale skin and very short dark hair. Though the henchmen strongly resemble each other, they are not the same person.

  (Seriously, both Chad and I thought they were and it was going to be a plot point. Did no-one involved in the movie notice this? Movie-makers, if you wanted to make a point by having all of the office-types in the CIA white (and maybe you did), at least give them different hair colors or something.)

  (Speaking of which, I'm aware that many comments have come in on the defaults post while I was running errands, working on other things, and having dinner and a movie. No-one wants me to answer them while I'm motion-sick, however, I assure you.)

• The movie picks up immediately after the close of the main action of Supremacy and incorporates the coda within its body.
• Yes, there are lots of exciting action scenes, and Bourne is still just that cool.

The rest is spoilery and behind the cut.

I was a bit confused about the timeline, at first, because of the coda to Supremacy. (And didn't that show Bourne on a rooftop, not inside a building?)

I think that contributed to my feeling up to the big reveal, that the movie wasn't getting very far: we already knew that he had been born under originally had another name, and that Bad Things had been done to him.

And then the big reveal was lame. Bourne had to be tortured into becoming an assassin? So . . . none of it was really his fault, oh, how nice.

How much more interesting would it have been if he'd agreed, known what he was getting into and consented (I mean, how could he have thought otherwise? the world couldn't have been so much less cynical those few years ago), and then gradually came to change his mind? Wouldn't that have been much more realistic, gripping, engaging?

At the point where he regains his memories, I just shut off. Yes, Vosen should have shot Landry anyway; yes, the agency should have been able to hush it up; yes, it's not really going to root out the problems. It's all part of the little fantasy-land that the movie has slid into, and I don't mean that in a good way, either.

I've said that the first two movies were about the consequences of violence. This one ducks the consequences by removing responsibility. The hints of present-day political commentary don't change that (and might even be made less effective thereby; I'm not sure).

I do at least appreciate that the movie did not throw Bourne and Nicky Parsons together, unsubtle hair-dying-parallel and all. Am I supposed to understand why Nicky was helping Bourne, besides generalized good vibes towards someone who looks like Matt Damon and didn't kill her when he could have?

Anyway. Exciting movie, lame ending, and now my motion-sick self is off to bed.

Comments

[kate_nepveu]

Obviously, I see it completely differently. There are flashbacks showing him being tortured, setting up a big mystery about why he's being tortured, and then it turns out he's being tortured to make him kill. He chose to join, and then *changed his mind* when he knew what it would involve, and then had to be tortured into doing it. Otherwise, why bother torturing him?

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Because he didn't know he was signing up for behavior mods, which is supposedly illegal, and we were supposed to see the conflict in the otherwise automiton "asset" there on the roof at the end. That one and Desh were like machines--like Bourne was at the beginning.

I still don't believe I'm right--I'm always the last on the block to see the obvious--but this was the chain of events that linked up to make sense out of that jiggle-wiggle for me as I walked out the door, rubbing my eyes.

[kate_nepveu]

If the reveal at the end of the torture had been something else, I might agree; but the reveal was the killing, and that's where I get stuck.

And yes to rubbing eyes!

Oh, and apparently the credits music was the same in the last two movies? Lame or cool?

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I recognized the music immediately, this time.

I tell you why I think he didn't know what he was getting into, and compartmentalized so shizophrenically (the way he was supposed to) I think it was extrapolated from the old Navy Seal kill training, which my brother undertook way, way back. He'd gone into the Navy, got selected out for the Seals, and loved the phyiscal training--he was all "bring it on!" he'd been in such incredible shape, after surfing giant waves in Hawaii for years. But the next level, the kill training was, something else again--he was so traumatized he went AWOL, and when they got him back, did went AWOL again, and though they mustered him out in a very humane way, that was when he starting hitting the heavy drugs.
So that knowledge has most likely shaped my own logic chain.

[calimac.livejournal.com]

That sort of event in your past (I mean, having your brother have a history like that) is certainly going to shape your reaction to any fictional depiction of anything like it.

I have no opinion as to the interpretation of this movie's plot; I haven't seen it nor its predecessors and am not going to, so I don't care about spoilers.

[kate_nepveu]

I'm very sorry to hear about your brother's experiences.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Well, it was nearly 30 years ago, now--but it did color what I think of what kill training is and what it can do to the mind.