The Bourne Ultimatum

[El Dingo]

For some reason my company decided to send the IT staff to the movies. We all wanted to see 'Transformers' (by all I mean me) but they decided on the latest Matt Damon flick.

Honestly I'm so tired of cheesy action flicks I would rather have stayed in the office.

If you've seen the other two, you've seen this one. If you liked the other two, you'll like this one. I didn't particularly care for the other two so you can probably guess where I stand.

The funny thing is, if they called this 'The 6 Billion Dollar Man' and explained that Bourne had bionic limbs and filmed the stunts in slow motion I would have enjoyed it more. The endless bone-crunching stunts that Bourne walks away from start to wear away my suspension of disbelief.

Everyone drives cars that have had the airbags removed and explode on impact. The villains once again buy their weapons from the slightly-irregular rack at the bad-aim superstore. Windows are made of brittle, non-lacerating safety glass perfect for leaping through.

Matt Damon shows his concern for being a highly sought-after fugitive by donning a myriad assortment of disguises (not really). Actually, he does his best to wear his hair and clothing as close to his pursuers description and photo as he can.

I think what's missing was humor. There was no wisecracking sidekick to balance Matt's dour, violent persona. No cackling villain, no funny chase scenes through fruit carts and chickens. Just punch-shoot-run ad nauseum.

Oh well, at least it was free.

[Dr. Ivor Yeti]

ED, I think you summed it up pretty well. But, since I liked the first two, I liked this one. Don't see it if you haven't seen the first two. The first one was the best, natch, but the other two will satisfy your need for a Euro-spy-shoot-'em-up-and-drive-fast-movie.

Ronin was about the best of that genre.

On Bourne Again, I would have liked to see the fight choreography more clearly, other than that, good violent spy fun!

-Y

[Haggis Killer]

I really liked the first one. The second one was directed by the same nitwit that directed this third edition who does not understand the concept of keeping the camera still. At all. Period. There is no moment in the entire film where the camera is not moving. As annoying as this is in the quiet moments, it makes his action scenes almost unwatchable. Even though the camera should be moving during action scenes, he doubles or triples what's required making the whole experience one of feeling near unconcious and unable to focus. Add in shots that are no more that 1 or 2 seconds and you don't know who's in which car or what the hell is going on. You can't look at anything very long in the sustained shots as the horizon is constantly moving, causing motion sickness in the susceptible.

Like me.

We ended up sitting way too close to the screen due to a crowded theater, and I had to leave about half way through. I thought I had food poisoning from the previously consumed crappy chinese food. But it was effin' motion sickness from this numbskull director. I'll never see another one of his films I don't care who's in it and if I had his address I'd write him a nasty note and suggest he study some John Ford movies. Idiot. I got back into the theater after about 15 minutes, but had to stand in the aisle. Couldn't sit back down. Continued to be a tad nauseous throughout and watched a fair bit of the movie out of the corner of my eye. That's when it became clear that the camera never ever never stops moving.

Moron. And he'll probably continue to get more work. Won't get my money, though.

Jerk.

No idea whether this movie was any good.

[Dr. Ivor Yeti]

One word: "Dramamine"

[The Queen]

I'll cross it off my "to see" list. As much as I tease Greg for dragging the tripod around wherever we go, a steady camera is a GOOD thing!!!

[Dr. Ivor Yeti]

If you liked the first two, I would recommend it (just don't sit close to the screen). It did take me a minute or two to get comfy with Mr. Don't-Own-A-Tripod, but I did and found it good.

If you were +/- on them, don't bother.

[Drunk Monk]

Both Dm and Mrs. Dm give all three the thumbs up. It's an entertaining park-your-brain-outside spy romp, with preposterous deux-ex-machina escapes thinly disguised as spy cunning. Reminded me a lot of Alias in it's frenetic energy. Jeff Imada did the fight choreography and he's been working it for years - it's decent stuff but you need to be quick of eye (or handy with the slow mo) to catch it. The camerawork was pretty wobbly, but it worked for me, like the shaky upside-down part of the rollercoaster ride. We'd like to see the whole trilogy back-to-back. Lustbader wrote books 4 & 5 - will they continue the franchise? We hope so.

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

running running bleeding shooting bleeding. All better traveling running shooting running punching bleeding running hiding hiding passing up romantic moment running driving driving shooting explosion driving running running bleeding not shooting diving.

All hail the deus ex machina. Could we bring up the massive logic flaws or is that like kicking a sick puppy? Okay, just one. Why do you have a top secret CIA building where anyone can look in the windows? Didn't they cover that in spy 101?

It was better watching it on my big small screen. There were a couple cool moments. I especially liked the bomb in Morocco. But I think Matt Damon did study the Chuck Norris school of acting before doing these rolls.

What can I say? The other two choices on the queue were Hairspray and Waitress and the Queen chose this one.