Closing up Bourne

Just came back from seeing The Bourne Ultimatum (2007, ***1/2) with my father and was very impressed by almost every aspect of the film.

Matt Damon's acting seems to get better with every film he is in and again brought that wonderful sense of tortured emotion to the character of Jason Bourne. I was surprised to see Albert Finney in this installment as well. He's always a welcome presence in my book (even though every time I see him, I can't get "Oh, Danny Boy" out of my head for a few days).

My favorite addition to this film, though, was David Strathairn as Noah Vosen. Strathairn always impresses me with the depth and believability that he brings to his characters. I think this is mostly because he keeps a very low-key social life. Since I don't hear about him all the time, I can always take his characters seriously ... and the amount of mystery he brought to Noah Vosen in this film within a short time span was impressive.

But the most important thing about this movie, IMO, is the official emergence of Paul Greengrass as the master of the action thriller. Greengrass has managed to make three taut, tense, emotional, and extremely entertaining films in a row (The Bourne Supremacy, last year's masterful United 93, and now this). Although I have a few gripes with his shaky camera every now and then, there is no doubt that he knows what he's doing when it comes to choreographing an action scene and shooting it in a way that made my father and I both say, "How does one film something like this?!"

Great film and probably the best three-quel of the summer.

BTW, the first thing I thought of when I saw the poster at the top of this post was this:

Don't ask me why because I don't even know.