Amnesiac spy Jason Bourne has a new mission this summer: rescue bored film fans.
With the summer of threequels entering the home stretch, so far it’s moviegoers who have been doing most of the stretching — and yawning — at the underwhelming likes of “Spider-Man 3,” “Shrek the Third” and “Ocean’s 13.”
Enter “The Bourne Ultimatum.” The third entry in the “Bourne” movie series hits theaters Friday at a fast trot and virtually never slows down until the end.
Once again starring Matt Damon and directed, like previous entry “Bourne Supremacy,” by Paul Greengrass, the movie is satisfyingly visceral, artfully slapped together in a gritty, cinema-verite style, and it provides most of the answers Bourne and viewers have been seeking.
Something must have gone wrong at Hollywood’s franchise blandification plant.
People in the know say it was hiring Greengrass, a British TV documentarian who, when not having fun with Bourne action, likes to direct hyper-realistic historical re-creations such as the acclaimed “Bloody Sunday” and last year’s “United 93.” Known for hand-held camerawork, jarring editing, and basically, shooting whatever catches his eye on any given day, Greengrass gets a propulsive, absorbing energy going that few filmmakers can match.
“You couldn’t teach that in film school and send people out there to do it,” Damon said. “But it works for Paul.”
The storytelling is a major reason why “Bourne Ultimatum” keeps us awake and engaged. All three films have been loosely adapted from Robert Ludlum’s Cold War-era source novels to reflect the current angst: The 2002 “Identity” had immediate post-9/11 confusion; “Supremacy,” regret at what may have been done wrong in the name of patriotism; and “Ultimatum,” now, anger at being misled into those actions as elusive truth finally is revealed.
“It’s pretty obvious what story there was left to tell,” Damon notes. “Whatever loose ends there were, you want to tie up. And you want the movie to feel like it’s current. Ultimately, it’s a popcorn summer movie, but hopefully with a little more.”
But not too much more. Undeniably political in his other films, Greengrass wanted to ensure that people just have a good time at “Ultimatum.”
“My primary objective, always, is the ride,” the director says.
“It’s got to be the best ride of the summer. But what is the Bourne franchise relative to the other franchises? A bunch of these franchise movies come out during the course of the summer, but Bourne is distinctive because he’s a real man, and it’s the world that you see right outside your door. It’s not magical, it’s not idyllic, it’s not drawn from a comic book.”
The main attraction might actually be Jason Bourne’s extremely capable yet deeply haunted character. Many have described the franchise as the James Bond series for the 21st Century. Even the most recent Bond film, “Casino Royale,” seemed to borrow some of “Bourne’s” harder-edged, tortured tones.
Damon says the similarities end there.
“The comparison to Bond kind of stops at they’re both spies and they both have initials of J.B. To me, the characters are so fundamentally different. I bumped into Pierce Brosnan and had this conversation. He said that Bond was just un-updatable; he’s a creature of the 1960s, an imperialist, misogynist guy who slurps martinis and kills people and cracks jokes about it. Bourne is a guy who is not with the government, the whole government is after him. He’s this paranoid, serial monogamist whose girlfriend has been killed, and he doesn’t even think about other women. He feels incredible guilt for the things that he’s done, and he’s trying to figure out what they are so he can atone for them.”
All of which indicates why Bourne has held up so well. But is there enough there to give it the longevity the almost-50-year-old Bond franchise has enjoyed?
“I’m very ready to move on,” Damon says. “But the reality is that the story for this trilogy, this guy’s search for his identity, is over. He’s got all the answers. So what would the fourth one be about? … Paul said we could call it ‘The Bourne Redundancy.’ “
