The Bourne Ultimatum

I’ve been watching a lot of espionage themed stuff recently, on a friends recommendation I finally tracked down the BBC classic ‘Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy‘ and I have the sequel ‘Smiley’s People‘ on order from Amazon. Whilst ‘Tinker’ is a engrossing slow build to unearth the mole in MI5, the Bourne Films take a rather different tack and assault your eyes and ears with impressive pyrotechnics, frenetic editing and gritty fight sequences. It does go a little over the top – one fight sequence in Tangiers reminded me of this hilarious scene – but if you go with the flow you’re in for a fun ride.

Just to coin some cliches along the line of ‘Bourne is like James Bond on speed’…well, ‘The Bourne Ultimatum‘ is celluloid crystal meth, a two hour extended action sequence – I had to neck a six pack of Red Bull after the movie just to calm down. Matt Damon (yes, I will link to that every time I mention him on my blog…) returns again as Jason Bourne, the amnesiac uber assassin who is still trying to unearth the conspirators behind his conditioning for the secret Blackbriar programme. Solid support from the likes of Albert Finney, David Strathaim, Joan Allen and Paddy Considine keep you involved – It’s what good mainstream Hollywood film should be – exciting, fast and exhilarating. It hurtles toward it’s final conclusion and has a suitable ending (including a very nice touch with Bourne outfoxing his hunters) with space for possible further installments.

I think it will be a film (along with it’s predecessors) that lasts on some levels given it’s references on the infestation of CCTV, GPS and the need for ‘clean’ mobile phones, computer hacking and all the associated technological changes that build an atmosphere of paranoia in the era of the Patriot Act and development of charming new devices such as this – crowd control, or dissuading dissent. Hmmm….yes we’ve come to quite a point when as other bloggers have observed you find yourself agreeing with The Daily Mail….

One of the early sequences revolves around Waterloo station so it was quite amusing to head back home via this route. I’m sure those two Mediterranean guys were following me – I saw them get on separate tube carriages at Piccadilly Circus, but they were ahead of me on the escalators at Embankment station. If I don’t get a chance to finish this blog entry then make sure you retrieve my files from the safety deposit box situated in the Hollinger Swiss Bank on Threadneedle street – the passcode is 5525 and password is ‘Joshua’. In it you will <session terminated>…..