Reaction: The Bourne Ultimatum

First thing's first, I'm not going to say it was "the best one yet" because I absolutely can't stand when people compare an instalment with previous instalments (sorry, Ally). Instead, I will just give it a thumbs-up and say "it lived up to its predecessors."

I feel a franchise should be made up of building blocks rather than disjointed stories. In the Bourne saga, this is very true - each film gave us more pieces of information building up the bigger picture. There is a steady progression: who is Bourne and why was he found floating in the ocean? Where did he come from (what is Treadstone)? And finally, how did he get involved in Blackbriar to begin with?

In that sense, I loved this movie for following up threads from previous chapters. Matt Damon gives us a man who is the best at what he does and hates it. He's the world's most dangerous man and yet he and others like him are just pawns: they are never called "agents," only "assets" (or in Bourne case, a liability, perhaps). Bourne is the ultimate killing machine ...flawed only by being human.

Just a couple of other points I wanted to touch on: I'm not a huge fan of handhelds. I understand its builds tension and "brings the audience into the room." But it was just a tad overdone in this film. I liked it in the war-room, but I disliked it for shooting the close-ups during 1-on-1 discussions.
And as for Nicky... I haven't read the books so I'm grasping at straws: I think there's more to her story. I suspected this since The Bourne Supremacy. How is it that she keeps turning up wherever Bourne is? The little, "you were the hardest one" and "you really don't remember" gives us a little hint as where she's from and where her loyalties lie... Heck, if director Kramer was ready to string up Landy for a fall, no wonder they were so quick to task their "asset" Desh with eliminating Nicky...

...get ready for the next sequel... The Bourne Romantic-entanglement? ^_^;