2. The Bourne Ultimatum (2007)

Adam,

I am so sick of Jason Bourne and his increasingly indistinguishable line of The Bourne Nouns.  At this point, I would much rather watch one of our suggested additions to the franchise: The Bourne Congeniality (in which Jason Bourne enters a beauty pageant), or The Bourne Adjacency (in which Jason Bourne stands next to things).

Watching these movies now has revealed fissures and weak points that went mostly unnoticed at the time of their release, I suspect, amid critics’ joy at having movies to review that didn’t contain exploding robots.  The wait time between theatrical releases probably also went a long way towards smoothing over flaws that were accentuated by the super-condensed time frame in which we watched all three movies.  Furthermore, that The Bourne Ultimatum is a better-than-catastrophic third entry in a franchise undoubtedly endeared it to audiences and boosted it up to a rarified category along with precious few other films.

But what does work about this movie?  The action sequences, for one.  But after two movies’ worth of the stuff, it seems almost beside the point to comment on how skillfully they were staged—millions of dollars went into all those stunt doubles and parkour consultants.  If those scenes weren’t good maybe then they’d be worth discussing.  Honestly, the only one that, for me, rises above a sturdy but ultimately uninspiring competence is the one you mentioned, where Bourne has to maneuver both himself and a hapless journalist out of trouble.  That scene demonstrates exceptional creativity within restraints and finishes on a powerfully unexpected note.

Parkour!

As you discussed, Ultimatum also carries on the Bourne movies’ willingness to point out the bureaucratic origins of wide-reaching government mischief—timely then in the context of the Patriot Act, Guantanamo, etc., and perceptive now given current scandals with the NSA.  Like you, though, I wish the movie didn’t mistake pointing out a problem with having real insight into it.

Ultimately, though, a movie—especially a blockbuster affair like this one—doesn’t need to have deep thoughts about current affairs or much-better-than-competent action scenes to be successful.  What’s really missing for me in this film is the emotional content.  Two movies ago, The Bourne Identity managed to elicit pity and tenderness for a character whose physical dominance would normally raise him above such vulnerability.  Bourne’s terror, confusion, and moral turmoil felt real.  Even as he was punching his way out of danger he conveyed a cornered animal desperation that gave the first movie its emotional and ideological center.

The succeeding Bourne movies haven’t really done much to develop that tone.  The more people Bourne dispatches, the more ably he evades CIA capture, the more times he pulls a BECAUSE I’M RIGHT BEHIND YOU-style gambit, the harder it is to remember the origins of the character.  The sequels could have gotten around that problem by consciously reinventing aspects of Jason Bourne, the way Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade realized it couldn’t keep rehashing its main character’s romantic appeal and pivoted to explore his emotional neediness through the foil of his father.  Each Bourne sequel just tries to double down on making us feel sorry for Bourne without really lingering on the specific feelings involved, depending on flashbacks as a kind of shortcut to emotional resonance.  Again and again in this film we’re told that Bourne sacrificed everything to the Treadstone program, but what did he sacrifice that he really seems to miss?

Parkour!

If it sounds like I’m being rough on Ultimatum, as well as Supremacy, it’s not because I dislike action or mainstream or franchise films.  I’ve already mentioned Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade as an example of a successful franchise entry, and in fact, the Indiana Jones series serves nicely as a case study to compare with the Bourne series.  Both series feature rugged-yet-sensitive male protagonists, both enmesh their heroes in the shadowy dealings of international politics, both express bitter resignation at the chicanery and short-sightedness of government officials, both take place across a variety of exotic locales, and both contain their fair share of ludicrous plot elements.

So what is it that makes Jones superior to Bourne?

I would suggest three things: a lack of embarrassment about the conventions that go along with genre and serialization, a healthy sense of absurdity, and most important of all, good writing.

Indiana Jones never forgot its original inspirations—1930s and ‘40s boys’ adventure tales, particularly the kind found in pulp magazines—and joyfully recreated the tone and imagery of those sources, in the process transcending them.  The series’s comfort with serialization meant
that it was willing to mix up its own formula before it got stale.  The Bourne movies, especially the Greengrass features, seem so intent on trading out the pulpier aspects of the Ludlum novels for Serious Political Commentary that they lose out at both.  At their lowest, the Bourne movies contain none of the fun of a spy romp and none of the charge or heft of a political thriller.  Furthermore, the sequels’ dogged adherence to a single plot thread—who is Jason Bourne?—long after that device ceased to have emotional significance can make for a grueling slog indeed.

That self-seriousness also sets Bourne a fair distance apart from Indiana Jones, which always remembered that its chief mission was to entertain.  To that end, the Indiana Jones movies embraced preposterousness, nurtured chaos, and cherished irony.  Bourne follows the trend of mid-2000s blockbusters for whom darkness, edginess, and solemnity were the highest virtues, sometimes at the expense of nuance, character, and dialogue.

Which brings me to my last point.  “It’s not the years, honey, it’s the mileage.”  There is not a single line that good in the entire Bourne franchise.

Reflecting back on both sets of movies, and looking back at the other blockbusters that have followed since then, what becomes apparent is that we are really just looking at a predictable pattern of seesawing trends.  This generation of audiences may be moving away from the style of Bourne and back towards jokiness (see: the Marvel movies, especially Iron Man, The Avengers, and the upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy).  Of course, Indiana Jones is an uncommonly great example of blockbuster moviemaking of any style, and none of the contemporary blockbusters I just named (Guardians of the Galaxy excepted) even approaches it in terms of originality, tone, character, iconography, or writing.

I guess what I want to point out is that there are drawbacks to any style or genre.  The fact that overcoming those drawbacks to achieve greatness is so hard necessarily means that most movies will not be great.

The Bourne Ultimatum is a good, not great, movie.  Not an embarrassing thing to be, by any stretch.  What we as audiences have to do, though, is hold out for the great ones.

Parkour!

Love,
Victoria

Update

A few quick things I want to mention as Victoria finishes up her The Bourne Ultimatum review:

1. I want to thank all of you that have been regularly reading the blog.  Victoria and I have had a lot of fun writing it so far, and we have enjoyed getting your feedback too.

2. I will be posting a picture of the box very soon.  For those of you wondering, there are 276 films in the crate.  So far we've watched 5.  The earliest is 1928, the latest 2013, and  three of them are foreign language films - 2 Italian, 1 French.  

3. We are no longer an engaged couple - we got married!  Instead of a soon-to-be married couple romantically reviewing films together, we are a husband/wife movie-blogging team!

1. The Bourne Ultimatum (2007)

Victoria,

Well, as we’ve discussed, franchise fatigue is a thing, and I’ve got it bad for the Bourne series.  Not that The Bourne Ultimatum is a bad film at all - I think it’s probably the strongest in the series after the first film (beating out The Bourne Supremacy, which we’ve discussed, and The Bourne Legacy, which we’ll pretend doesn’t exist).  In order to be a good film reviewer, I’ll shelve my boredom with watching Matt Damon glower and try to give you my honest opinion about the film.

The fact of the matter is that, though The Bourne Ultimatum has its problems (which I’ll get to), it does a lot of things right.  The action sequences are rarely plodding, and most often manage to impress with the cleverness of their staging.  The sequence early on, in which Bourne attempts to guide a dimwitted journalist through a crowd and away from CIA assassins is particularly well done.  Greengrass opens up the action in this film, moving it out of narrow European streets and into wide-open spaces filled with numerous moving parts.  This proves exceptionally compelling.  These scenes make it easier for me to buy into the conceit that Damon is a super-spy than anything in either of the prior two films, simply because we see him managing large amounts of information  - people, targets, trains, traffic, etc. - and adapting to multiple changes in real time.

Ideologically this film attempts to progress some of the anti-bureaucracy sentiments of the first two films, and this time presents an intelligence agency that not only is clunky and inept, but that is malevolent too.  Watching all of the phone-tapping and record-stealing going on in this movie, it’s hard not to think about recent revelations concerning the NSA and data collection.  Privacy being something we are at least nominally still thinking about as a culture makes this movie a little spookier than it probably was upon its release in 2007.  David Strathairn’s heart-healthy omelet-eating Deputy Director is an effective villain in that he, given the power to have his agents shoot first and ask questions later, is so far removed from the actual action that he has no qualms taking out anyone, including civilians, that might get in his way.  Greengrass is trying to make a Hanna Arendt-esque “banality of evil” point with Strathairn’s character, asking the audience to think seriously about what happens when nebbish office-dwellers are given unmonitored power over the health and well being of others.  Not good things, it turns out.  Even those concerned with their cholesterol will kill if given the chance.

My problems with this film are two-fold.  First, related to my prior comment, though Greengrass points out a particular kind of evil, he doesn’t go any farther than simply noticing it.  We are encouraged to think about mundane atrocities, but are not invited, it seems, to think about where this comes from, or why.  What is the problem with Strathairn’s character, for example?  Should we be frustrated with particular policies that enable a person like him, or should we be upset with bureaucracy in general?  The movie leaves the question too vague to be satisfying.

My second problem stems from the first film.  My big issue with The Bourne Identity was that it left unexplained the awakening of Bourne’s conscience.  This film attempts to answer this question, albeit with all the grace of a tip-toeing gorilla.  Bourne chose to be evil from the beginning, we discover, he wasn’t forced to be bad (or, at least, not directly forced) by some nefarious government program.  Bourne’s conscience is supposed to be an enigma to us, a miracle of humanity that managed to blossom despite the best efforts of Albert Finney and Co. to keep it in check.  While I have zero problem accepting that people are something of a mixed bag, containing the will to do evil as well as good, I think that, in the interest of a functional narrative, something more believable than spotting a target’s kid should have been presented somewhere within these film’s collective runtime.

All this being said, I’ve enjoyed watching these films with you, and look forward to watching something that doesn’t involve either Matt Damon or shaky-cam next.

Love,

Adam

2. The Bourne Supremacy (2004)

Victoria,

You touch on some worthwhile points in your review that I want to be sure to address in mine.  Before I get to that, though, I want to let you know that much of what I’m going to talk about is going to center on the difference between what I think Greengrass is trying to do, and what the movie actually is.  This might seem a bit unfair at first blush, but I don’t think so, because this movie fails the first test every single sequel in the history of filmdom has to pass: this film fails to justify its existence over and against its first episode (granted, most of Hollywood doesn’t play by this rule, but it should - it’s the one thing good sequels, like The Godfather Part II or The Empire Strikes Back or, heck, even Spiderman 2, have in common).  There isn’t really a good reason for The Bourne Supremacy to exist, narratively speaking, and so I can’t really qualify it as a “good” film per se, or talk substantively about the ideas that are actually present in the film.  I can talk about what I suspect Greengrass wanted to do, though, because if he had accomplished it, the film would’ve had enough muster to legitimate itself.

What I suspect Greengrass wanted to do in The Bourne Supremacy was to treat seriously the idea that violence, something that is commonplace and typically taken for granted in film (especially American film), has consequence in the lives of individuals.  I base this argument partially on the rest of Greengrass’ oeuvre, which has, in one way or another, dealt more transparently with this idea.  I think particularly about the scene at the conclusion of Captain Phillips, in which Tom Hanks’ character suffers physical shock from the violence and terror that has occurred around him over the course of the film.  This scene is powerful because it shows something film typically doesn’t - a character dealing with the aftermath of what is, in the grand scheme of film history, relatively minor violence.

There is a somewhat similar scene in the conclusion of Bourne 2.  Here, Damon’s Bourne apologizes for the assassination of a Russian politician and his wife to their orphaned daughter.  We watch her grieve over the deaths of characters that are, in light of the entire narrative of the Bourne films, more-or-less insignificant.  We, the viewers, are supposed to think seriously about the cost of death and carnage, and perhaps even the effect of our fetishization of it in film.

The problem is we don’t.  Instead, we think back to the obnoxiously long car chase we just endured, or the fist-fight in the chic European apartment, or the snipering of Marie, a character we do in fact care about but find it hard to believe Bourne does.  This is what happens when you situate an emotionally-potent scene in an otherwise standard-operation action film, which is ultimately what Bourne 2 is.  Greengrass thinks, I think, that the “shaky cam” changes this, and I see why he would think so.  The camera movements, particularly in the action scenes, are designed to make the viewer feel as if they are physically a part of what is happening on-screen.  The cinematography is definitely effective, but it doesn’t quite take the viewer where Greengrass intends.  The result is a movie that, as you point out, is nice to look at, but doesn’t, in execution, have anything new or interesting to say, especially when compared to its originating counterpart.

Hopefully “Bourne 3: Bourne Again, Again” succeeds where this one doesn’t.

Love,

Adam

1. The Bourne Supremacy (2004)

Adam,

Given its reputation as one of the better sequels out there, and given its director Paul Greengrass’s pedigree, I'm surprised to say I liked The Bourne Supremacy rather less than its predecessor.  

The Bourne Supremacy feels like it spent a lot of time on the explication of its plot and on the choreography of action sequences (some of which are, admittedly, nifty) without bothering to build on any of the ideas from the previous film.  This isn’t to say that The Bourne Identity was perfect—Bourne’s moral about-face was awfully convenient, as you noted in your review—but it had an absurdist take on the typical spy premise and a political acuity that set it apart from other Hollywood run-shoot-fight exercises.

The weaknesses in Identity should have given Supremacy room to expand and flesh itself out.  Mostly, though, Jason Bourne runs around, reacts—albeit stoically—to assorted bits of bad news, and blows up a house for good measure.  In between is the fallout from the assassination of a Russian reformer which could have had contemporary relevance if the movie had any more sophisticated an attitude about it than IT WAS BAD.  The first movie understood that international powers interact with each other in complicated ways, guided variously by national self-interest, moral necessity, and just plain bureaucratic incompetence.  For example, it implicitly asked, is it ever justified to eliminate a foreign dictator—for political or moral reasons?  This movie, while it gets the bureaucratic inefficiency right, seems to think that political snafus can be probably traced to the mercenary impulses of a few crooked officials.

Also disappointing is the treatment of Bourne’s girlfriend Marie, a holdover from the last movie who is quickly dispatched in Supremacy’s first act.  Sure, Bourne sheds a few obligatory tears for her, but it’s pretty clear that the movie is primarily interested in 1) drumming up some easy sympathy for Bourne, and 2) streamlining the narrative so that Bourne can conquer bad guys without having to drag along any Franka Potente-sized baggage.

All that said, there’s a lot to appreciate in this movie, especially the acting, which is something I don’t always feel generous enough toward actors to comment on.  Special kudos go to Matt Damon and Brian Cox for bringing commitment, professionalism, and verisimilitude to roles which otherwise could have been expensive filler.  Damon embodies a basic decency that is essential to grounding the film in some emotional reality, even when he’s bouncing around Eastern European streets riddled with bullets.  Cox, meanwhile, shades his performance with a weary pathos that makes his character seem like more than just a stock villain.  With his fraying hair and eyebrows that look permanently furrowed, he’s the corrupt cop and the thirty-year lifer with one more to go before retirement, all rolled up into one.  Joan Allen, whom I usually enjoy, fares less well, relegated as she is to barking generic boss lady orders like, “If you want to go home, FIND JASON BOURNE!”

Also, there are those previously mentioned nifty action sequences that are in fact pretty nifty, serving to more or less justify, as they say, the price of admission.  My favorite is a loopy little getaway involving a boat, a crowbar, a bridge, and a train.  There’s also a hand-to-hand fight sequence that fulfills this movie’s quota for the fetishized destruction of stylishly chilly European interior design.  The climactic car chase, however, runs far too long and monotonously.

All told, I’m still looking forward to The Bourne Ultimatum, which will hopefully not wear out my tolerance for shaky-cam.

Love,
Victoria

2. The Bourne Identity (2002)

Adam,

After a little hiatus (road trip, wedding planning, Star Trek), I’m back—as inevitable as a big budget remake of a familiar property.  Speaking of which, let’s jump right in.

You point out, in your comparison of the two super-spies, that both James Bond and Jason Bourne subvert certain cultural assumptions about Brits and Americans.  I think you’re right on about that.  But it’s also worth keeping in mind the ways both characters embody values and concerns specific to their respective cultural contexts.

Bond’s confidence does make him seem like a deviation from the norm of diffident British men, but he also makes perfect sense as a champion of Anglo-Saxon tradition and structure.  For example, look at all that goes unquestioned by the Bond franchise: the entitlements of masculinity, the moral and national imperative to preempt acts of terrorism abroad, the good intentions of a political organization like MI6.  Even Skyfall, which went about as far as any Bond film in challenging the basic premise of the series, still characterizes the MI6 organization and leadership as essentially supportive, reliable, and just (Javier Bardem's villain may have felt wronged by MI6, but he was also totally crazy-pants and arguably deserving of his fate).  This faith in—or at least acceptance of—structures is perhaps to be expected from a nation still in possession of a monarchy.

It’s also possible to look at James Bond the character as a symbol for Britain itself.  Bond always pretty much knows who he is, even though he has been dozens of times by a half dozen different actors.  There is an underlying consistency that is ultimately comforting, even when it involves a bevy of institutionalized horrors like alcoholism and casual misogyny.  (Because a good Brit knows what serving the Empire calls for: a stiff upper lip, a stiff drink, and a stiff—well….)

I don’t mean to get sidetracked talking about James Bond, but 1) you started it, 2) I do want to establish critical perimeters within which to begin talking about our current film.  What does it say that in 2002, America produced, of all things, an existential spy thriller?  Unlike calm, cool, collected James Bond, Jason Bourne doesn’t have a clue who he is, and most of what he discovers alarms him.  As you discussed in your review, Bourne’s gradual uncovering of his past can be read as a metaphor for personal psychological discovery.  But it can also be interpreted allegorically through the lens of recent American political history.  

It’s a coincidence that The Bourne Identity came out right after the September 11 attacks and just before the ensuing Iraq War.  The prescience of the film's warning not to meddle in the affairs of other countries owes everything to its awareness of history, to the fact that foreign entanglements have been a recurrent theme in American politics. When director Doug Liman set out to adapt the original novel, he wasn’t thinking of Saddam Hussein; he was inspired by the Iran-Contra affair, which his own father was involved with investigating.

The Bourne Identity’s disgust at the duplicity and callousness of organizations comes out of an American temperament that has bred, time and again, an individualistic dissatisfaction with institutions.  Bourne, in this sense, is the ultimate individualist—striking out on his own, frontiersman-style, guided only by his intuition, skills, and conscience.  Even more specifically, the movie’s vision of America is influenced by the scandals and mounting disillusionments that have marked late 20th century American politics, from Vietnam to Watergate to Monica Lewinsky.  The true villain of The Bourne Identity isn’t the dictator Bourne was originally assigned to kill; it’s the shady CIA program that ordered the hit.  Bourne’s America is one continuously in the process of figuring itself out, only to be horrified by what it learns about itself.

Funny, there’s enough to discuss about the ideas in the movie that I haven’t even really begun to talk about how I responded to actual scenes, which OMG REMEMBER WHEN MATT DAMON JUMPED DOWN THAT STAIRWELL AND TOTALLY SHOT THAT DUDE ON THE WAY DOWN OMG.

Next up: Bourne 2: Spy Conspiracy Boogaloo.

Love,

Victoria