Yours truly helped contribute to The Bourne Ultimatum dominating the box office this weekend. I'm a big fan of the Jason Bourne legacy (not to be confused with The Bourne Legacy, the "fourth" book in the series, but written by Eric Van Lustbader, which I have yet to read, but heard isn't as good anyway). I started reading The Bourne Ultimatum in Mexico last November, and should probably get around to finishing it now that I've gone and seen the movie. Granted, the books and movies have nothing to do with each other after the first one (both first book and first movie - any series of books written a couple decades ago would have to be updated for a movie nowadays, and it's understandable, too, that you might have to adjust the plot to keep the short attention span of your audience and make them more movie-friendly), but they're all good in their individual ways. I'm not such a purist that I can't appreciate one because of the other.
The whole movie has a gritty feel to it, just like the second one, so even though you know that this could never happen in real life, it feels like it could. (I mean, seriously. How realistic is it from the first scene in both book and movie to have some guy survive a gunshot wound and the open sea? If you can buy that, you can buy the rest of the trilogy.) And Matt Damon. He's the one who helps make it feel more realistic. If there were any other actor portraying Bourne, I don't know that I would like the series nearly as much. If this movie doesn't make you wonder about the CIA and the NSA and which movie David Strathairn will show up in next because he's a good actor, then you must've been so completely distracted by the guy coughing directly behind you that you couldn't concentrate at all.
Like Ebert, and as much as I liked the way this one ended, I tend to think there's still a door wide open for another movie, but there doesn't necessarily have to be one for complete satisfaction in the trilogy. (And mind you, I don't agree with everything Ebert has to say in his review.) In fact, as far as I'm concerned, in three movies, we've only gotten to the end of the first book. There's more to be done with this series. The only question is, should it go on? Or will Matt Damon do another one? It would be horrible if they brought on some new actor (is that what fans thought when they replaced Sean Connery as 007?), or attempted to piece together a bad storyline. I was pleased enough with the ending of the Ultimatum movie, and cynical enough about Damon wanting to continue the franchise, to be content if this is the end.
Many people out there seem to like The Bourne Ultimatum, and count me in as one of them.
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