Of men and memory

[trinityvixen]

The Bourne Ultimatum really should have been stellar. As is, it was mostly just good. I don't want to say I didn't like it, but I definitely am disappointed on some levels, most having nothing to do with the quality of the thing or the story as a whole. I think the problems I take issue with really started in The Bourne Supremacy, for all that I really love that film. It's like with X-Men: The Last Stand--the problems of the third movie are really that movie's own fault, but they were not helped by problems in the preceding films.

What bothered me about Ultimatum is the heavier reliance on flashbacks as reveletory. Even in The Bourne Identity, they abused the snippets of memory coming back to Bourne plotline. However, by the time Supremacy rolled around, he was still, largely, operating in the dark. The suspense of Identity is that Jason Bourne has no idea who Jason Bourne is and why being Jason Bourne is so dangerous. There's really nothing that can top that--the journey of discovery of the self, literally. Supremacy did very well with tearing down the new Bourne that had been built out of the ashes of the old--no matter how he is reborn, he is still the same person whether he likes it or not.

So, if the journey is discovery then acceptance...what next? Bourne rejects his old self in Identity and defends himself and his old self in Supremacy. Where do you go from acceptance? Atonement, I suppose. And that is in there, in a way, though Bourne's exports being pored over in columnist's snark? Unbelievable. After the Plame scandal, did we ever go into detail about what, exactly, she'd done as a spy? Who she'd been in contact with? I was under the impression that no former spook is ever so eulogized. That's the mark of a damned good spy, isn't it?

The theme was off, then, and that was not helped by ret-conning or, at least, retroactively reimagining the scene at the end of Supremacy. It's sort of like the dismal view thrown on the series by the way Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines ended. T2 ended with such hope, was tied off neatly if not completely, and left unscripted. That's how the scene in Supremacy with Bourne and Landy on the phone felt, and it really hurt that it was reshot so the coyness and gratitude and relief of it were sucked out of it and thrown into seriousness once more. It would have been better to have Landy, amidst a second hunt for Bourne, possibly examined for having made that phone call several weeks previous.

I'm still not putting that right. Damn it. I did enjoy the film, but still...

I think my problem is that the formula showed too much and added too little. Like with James Bond--you knew, in the old movies, that something outlandish would happen to threaten humanity as we know it; an outsize villain with a henchman who might as well have had mutant powers would show up and menace people; Bond would screw some anonymous chick but work his way into the bed of another throughout the whole movie; and he'd save the day using gadgets revealed to him by Q in an earlier scene. Much the same way, The Bourne Ultimatum ran through the numbers and did so less effectively. Hi, actual cities in Europe, Africa, and America! Otherwise known as the, "Fabulous and real city" money shot. And here's the elaborate, if awesome, fight scene with the guy who isn't quite as good as Bourne. Awkward personal moment, check. Painful (?) memory reappearances at inconvenient times. Hello, Julia Stiles. Blustering at CIA shot. Etc etc.

Didn't like the way the problem was resolved either. Won't say more than that without a cut-tag for now.

Comments

[droidguy1119.livejournal.com]

I highly appreciated the tight chronology the movie wound itself into, but I did think Blackbriar was kind of boring. I also liked the callback to the original. Overall I kind of agree with you although I think I liked it a little more than you did.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I know I sound like I didn't like it, but I did enjoy it. I'm just more troubled by not being able to pinpoint what I had a problem with than what I liked. I know what I liked. I loved what simple yet ingenious things Bourne could do to combat better armed, better informed people than he. That will always be awesome. Not to mention the fight scenes were, as ever, amazing.

[equustel.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm so sorry you didn't love it. Your reasoning makes sense, but we disagree on some key points. I think the theme was dead on - actually, I found this film to be more about identity than the first, as ironic as that sounds. Back then, Bourne was trying to find out who he was. I feel like all throughout Ultimatum, he's trying to figure out who he is (and where he's going), once the pieces really start fitting together - which is a far greater challenge. (Supremacy for me was much more about atonement, so this didn't need to be. Bourne crossed that threshold already.)

All the films, though, I see as primarily about truth in a gray world - as Jason has been dealt many half-truths in his life. So I don't mind all the flashbacks as a plot device. They're not intended to be revelatory, IMO - they're too vague for that... and Bourne is smart enough not to rely on them for truth until he discovers their proper context. Which is why I love that final scene with Hirsch - what he tells Jason is slightly different from what Jason remembers.

Yeah, we get the "expected" Bourne trademarks - the fights, the car chases, the CIA chaos - but more than any other blockbuster this summer, this movie makes it all feel justified. Because it is so damn smart and makes use of every situation. Nothing's there for the sake of it.

And how much did Pam Landy rule, refusing to compromise and screwing over Noah Vosen? Oh yes. "This isn't us." So glad these films have that balance - not making the government into this mass ebil persona... merely a flawed system full of people with clashing goals. Landy goes a long way towards humanizing that and I love how she sticks to her guns.

Anyway, as you said, your issues seemed to start with Supremacy - and as that's still my favorite of the series (for now), it makes sense that we are verging off a bit here. Still, so glad to get a bit of meta on this from you. :)

[equustel.livejournal.com]

Wow, apologies for the mass overuse of italics. Huh. Talk about relying on context...! ;P

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I always abuse italics. They are the whores of LJ font styling, so they always are out there doing tricks.

Talk about italics abuse...

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

To me, there was a real sense of confusion about what Bourne was doing in Ultimatum, which may be why you come away loving it and I come away questioning. What Jason Bourne's goal is in any given outing needs to be understood at the outset. I didn't feel like Ultimatum had really decided on what his goal was. He set out, at the end of Supremacy to atone, and, as Ultimatum took up right at that point, it seemed that was the motif that would dominate the film.

But it didn't, quite. Suddenly, he's back on his way through Europe, apologizing to Marie's brother (!?) and promising a sort of justice for her. But that, as much as getting the CIA off his wrongly-accused ass was also the central theme of Supremacy.

Now, as new mission, acting to foil the plans of the CIA (NSA? Wasn't Straitharn NSA? I swear they said that and then suddenly he was CIA) not because he fears for himself or for the random people he meets but for the future and the people, like him, who have no idea what they're in for? I think that would have been a brilliant idea. But that wasn't Bourne's purpose in intercepting the reporter. He went to him seeming to want more answers. It turned into a different mission but the parameter switch was not clear. So the act of nobility in protecting future generations of post-Treadstone Blackbriar graduates got muddied by his personal need to confront the bad decisions of his past.

Then there's the fact as, like you said in your LJ, it doesn't seem as if he really did ever want the thing so much as he was good at it, game to make a difference, and bullied into it. So, yeah, the big "It was your choice" ::coughcoughWolverinecough:: was a tad, "Yeah, sure you would say that..."

I guess I object to making Bourne no longer the unreliable narrator. Because if he knows, then he cannot be surprised. As we've seen, you cannot tackle Jason Bourne without the element of surprise. He is just that much better than everyone else.

And, though it is no slight on Matt Damon, he just couldn't give as heart-renderingly wonderfully wrenching a reading of Clive Owen's line from Identity. But Clive Owen almost walked away with that entire picture, so...