The 313 Second Movie Review: "The Bourne Ultimatum"

*pant, pant* Note to self, remember when the family is coming up from out of town. Hey guys. What's shakin'? This is Tom, and I'm back (finally) with the 313 Second Movie review. This time, I'm taking a look at "The Bourne Ultimatum." The film stars Matt Damon as Jason Bourne, Julia Stiles as Nicky Parsons, David Strathairn as Noah Vosen, Scott Glenn as Ezra Kramer, Paddy Considine as Simon Ross, Edgar Ramirez as Paz, Albert Finney as Dr. Albert Hirsch, and Joan Allen as Pamela Landy. Now, I trust you've all seen the previous "Bourne" movies (and had an easier time getting them than me), so I'll avoid pressing rewind for this movie. Here's the 411 on the movie. It's part three of the Jason Bourne saga, our favorite amnesic spy working for the CIA. After a series of complicated events, the CIA has tried repeatedly to wipe their hands clean of Bourne. With the NSA hot on his tale, Bourne tries to regian his memory. First stop in this chapter for the perfect assassin is Waterloo Station in London (VICTOR!). Here, he's trying to track down an investigative newspaper reporter who has linked Bourne to Blackbriar. Not much is known of Blackbriar, except if details of that operation were to get out, it be bad news for NSA deputy director Vosen, his superior Kramer, and the United States of America in general because it violates the Constitution and breaches international law. Bourne, who has the unintentional Bond-esque quality of getting women to get him out of sticky situations, gets help from CIA operative Pamela Landy and CIA analyst Nicky Parsons, the only two people in this group of national security employees who want to see Jason alive and appear to have some morals. Using his uncanny strength and wits, Bourne finds himself hopping the globe yet again, from London to Berlin to Tangier to New York. Everywhere he goes, the answers as to who he is become clearer, and Jason learns more of his identity and why the CIA threw him into the Mediterranean Sea some 60 mile south of Marseille in the first place. Really, this movie is just part of the reason I gladly call director Paul Greengrass brilliant. He has the ability to piece together an action movie with as much brains as it does strength. As we all learn more and more of Bourne's past, the more we realize where the previous pieces of the puzzle fit. And it doesn't come in some sort of "uh-duh" way. It's easy enough for most to understand without trying to make anybody feel stupid. As for Mr. Damon, this guy shows a lot of guts. He's taken a gamble from being Will Hunting, the smartest man to ever hold a mop, into Jason Bourne, the most kick-ass secret agent since James Bond. He does so in a manner that makes you say, "This guy deserves to be in as many action films as he does intelluctual movies." Oh how very true. Though a lot of questions have been answered from this movie, there's one prominent one I need answered. Is this the end of the "Bourne" movies? It certainly felt like it, and there's no plan to make a sequal yet, but there were two other "Bourne" books published since 2004. Only time will tell, but I hoping that this is not the end of Jason Bourne's globe-jumping adventures.

My time's up, you've been great. For the road: Klaxons "Golden Skans"