Movie Night #2

I recently watched The Bourne Ultimatum, the third Bourne flick, and thought I should do a little movie review. The movie was OK, entertaining enough, but not great.

The power the CIA has in these Bourne movies is absurd. As if they could be monitoring ALL cellular phone conversations worldwide, and pick up the mention of the codeword "Blackbriar" by a London journalist. Please. That's just the start of the omnipotent CIA ridiculousness, but it's a good example.

Two things about this movie distracted me and hindered my suspension of disbelief, which needs to happen if I'm to accept plot holes and nonsense like that mentioned above.

The first: What was with the funky shaky camera crap? This was more than using odd camera angles, this was akin to the "novice with a handi-cam" a la Blair Witch Project. Sorry, it didn't work for me.

The second: Joan Allen (the actor playing the part of Pamela Landy, CIA agent) appears to be botoxed to hell and back again. The woman's face is so immobilized, she is completely incapable of any facial expression! Her forehead and eye area are totally wrinkle-free, as is her upper lip. Sure, she looks serene and smooth, but so does a mannequin. I liked her better in the second Bourne movie.

I've always thought Matt Damon was an odd choice of actor for the Jason Bourne role. When reading the Bourne books by Robert Ludlum, I felt that the Bourne character had to be older (by ten years or so) and more world-weary than the fresh-faced young Damon, particularly in the first movie, The Bourne Identity, which came out in 2002 when Damon was all of 31 (he must have been 29/30 during the filming). Damon's a good actor, but I just had a hard time finding him believable as Jason Bourne.

Now that I've slammed this movie I'm sure to be told off by someone else who loved it. I'm not saying it was awful - after all, I did sit through the entire thing - I'm just glad I didn't pay to see it. It was entertaining enough to keep me occupied while parked on the couch in my family room, but I'd have been disappointed had I paid nearly $20 Cdn to view it in a theatre.