The Bourne Ultimatum, Movie Munchie #21|99

I spent my time flying to Europe watching the Bourne Identity and the Bourne Supremacy on the plane. I'm a fan of the series and every movie in the series has been fantastic so far. I'm proud to say that the trilogy gets a fitting final installment.
We've all met Jason Bourne. His movies have been some of the best action movies of all time. It's even more rare that the sequel lived up to the high standards set by the first movie. While I liked the first movie more in terms of storyline, the third movie is tied too it. The action is amazing. The story is amazing. The acting is amazing. Everything is fantastic.
The Bourne Ultimatum brings the series full circle, (you'll notice at the end) and more. The characters so well developed are used to their full potential, and same goes for the script. This is tied with Ocean's Thirteen as the best threequel this summer. Go see it. But only if you've seen the past two. You'll want to see those first.

This post has been edited by Mario Gamer on Aug 23 2007, 09:57 AM

I saw it though I never saw the first 2


Still good

Ocean's 13 was good?

Yes, almost as good as the first one.

Action movies are fun to watch. They are full of ridiculous chase scenes with equally ridiculous fight scenes. And a couple of slow paced badly acted talking scenes thrown in there to give you a breather from the intense thrill ride you just had when that car flipped over the bus full of children only to land on the plane that was taking off, where an intense battle between the super buff hero and the ugly drug overlord had their final battle in the middle of a hurricane.

Now, imagine that kind of movie, but put the camera in the hands of someone with Parkinsons. Not only that, but have it that way throughout the WHOLE MOVIE. Because that's what you get with the Bourne Ultimatum. I'll say it right up front: I haven't seen the first two. I dunno if the camera work is any different in that one, or if I just need to see the other two to really appreciate the third, but I nearly fell asleep in the movie twice. And when I wasn't falling asleep, I was trying my damnedest to figure out what was happening on screen.

The movie centers around Jason Bourne. A man wanting to know about his past, all the while constantly on the run from people who would be fine with him dead. It's not terribly complicated, nothing in the movie was. So what you expect are some awesome action scenes. And you get them... Well, you would get them if you could see just what in the hell was going on. There's a pretty intense and badass car chase scene that suffered from what the entire movie suffers through. The camera NEVER stops moving. It's always shaking, making sure to use the zoom tool like a child who just got a hold of their parent's video camera for the first time. The worst instance of the camera, is when there are two men talking, and it tries to do an over the shoulder shot from behind each of them, to try to get a stylized shot of just their eyes. It could have possibly worked if it didn't look like some amature was working the camera. It was as if they were trying to film one guy, and then someone else stood in front of the camera and they just went with it. It all looked really terrible.

One of the on foot chase scenes went from "Oh this is interesting" to "I can barely keep my eyes open". It goes on for way too long. I did get more awake and alert once a fight happened afterwards, but after a while of just what was a boring ass chase scene, I was struggling to keep my eyes open. And because of the camera being so bad, not being able to see this already boring chase scene just made it unwatchable. It didn't look good when they were on the slow paced parts of the movie, because if they needed to zoom in on a piece of paper, they literally just had a camera guy walk up to it and then ZOOOOOOOOM! Then zoom back out and attempt to get focus back on the guy holding the piece of paper.

I know I'm focusing a lot on the camera work, but honestly, that's what keeps this movie from being a great action movie. I didn't have a gripe with the acting. I like Matt Damon and I don't have any problems with Julia Stiles so there's nothing wrong there. The soundtrack was intense and good, and the lack of what looked liked, any CGI was impressive. But really, no matter how good all that stuff is, you won't be able to notice because, like I've said, the camera just flat out sucks. Shaky Cam is already a touchy subject in movies. While it can make some scenes intense, doing it more than once or twice in a movie (like 28 weeks later did) can be overkill on its own. So nearly 2 hours of it will leave you with either questions about what exactly was happening in the movie or a giant headache. Or both. I mean, honestly, there are probably kindergarteners that could hold a camera more steady than this movie.

While on its own, it's not a BAD movie, mixed with the crappy camera work it becomes a horrible movie. People who suffer from motion sickness might want to sit this one out. Much like they would want to with the Back to the Future ride. Man that ride was so disappointing when i went on it recently. There's a huge brown spot in center of the screen! Go ride The Mummy instead, it's way cooler. Like when the ceiling catches on fire. IT'S AWESOME.

While I agree on what you've said, MG, your review seems to lack alot of info regardless.

But the Bourne series is certainly something that I enjoy far more then most series that exist.

This post has been edited by Zae on Aug 30 2007, 07:21 PM

Spoilers:

Are you talking about the scene in Istanbul (or whatever), where that guy's trying to kill the girl?

I'm not a movie critic, but the camera shots are a thing I noticed almost immediately.

I give it a thumbs up otherwise though. I wish I'd seen the others though.

don't take this the wrong way but...... you're a BIG fan, and I don't think it's all that good.

even Star Wars???

Umm... yes.

Also I think double posting is not allowed in the GC but I do know your post is spam(the second in this topic).



Also, about the camera angles and movement. I do agree they are bit awkward and rather confusing but they weren't continually terrible. I also loved the chase scenes too, and as far as I know: The camera angle/shots were alot better in the first movie then that of the third movie.

This post has been edited by Zae on Aug 31 2007, 12:47 PM

Cameras sucked, but I did enjoy the movie. Asction scenes were pretty intense, and I really enjoyed the characters and ending.

EDIT: Oh damn, sorry for the massive bump. Clicked the link in MG's sig and didn't think to look at how old the topic was.

This post has been edited by Pucifur on Oct 16 2007, 08:27 PM