'The Bourne Ultimatum'

Rating:

BY JAN STUART | jan.stuart@newsday.com

July 31, 2007

Paul Greengrass' family name is something of a misnomer, redolent as it is with pastoral reveries and consoling scents of summer. The films of this British-born director, by contrast ("United 93," "The Bourne Supremacy," "Bloody Sunday"), are jangling, unsteadying affairs, foaming with tumult and calamity. After two hours at a Greengrass movie, one is ready for a two week vacation.

In his second foray into the dizzying life of amnesiac assassin Jason Bourne, Greengrass seems to be in a race with himself. Maybe it was the bologna sandwich I scarfed down before the screening, but my stomach was doing somersaults during much of "The Bourne Ultimatum." Everything about this third Bourne outing -- the lightning-flash editing, the careening camera, the pum-pa-da-pum music, the urban congestion and frazzled law enforcers shouting "Stop that man!" in a multitude of languages -- plays like "The Bourne Supremacy" on Bullshot.

Everyone wants Bourne. David Straithairn, as act-now-think-later CIA chief Noah Vosen, wants his hide for killing a fellow agent in the last movie and being way smarter than he is. Joan Allen, as skeptical agncy internal investigator Pamela Landy, wants him innocent. Paddy Considine, as Guardian reporter Simon Ross, wants his story. Julia Stiles, returning as itinerant CIA operative Nicky Parsons, wants his bod. Alas, wrong time, wrong place.

I want his frequent flyer mileage. In the first half hour alone, Bourne vaults between Moscow, Turin, Paris, Madrid and London in his alternating occupations as stealthy cat and stealthier mouse. Tangiers and New York are on his spontaneous travel agenda in the film's third act, as he tries to outwit Vosen and his regional posses while trying to get to the bottom of his forgotten identity.

As before, Bourne's memory lapses are conveniently selective. He can't quite piece together glimmers of encounters with a Dr. Hirsch (Albert Finney), who may have given him his marching orders. But he can summon fluent Russian, Spanish and Italian when the need presents itself and invoke a stunningly effective vocabulary of hand-to-hand combat moves that bespeak years of advanced training.

Screenwriter Tony Gilroy, who's been around the block with Bourne on the first two pictures, juggles all of this to-ing and fro-ing with admirable precision. Like their protagonist, however, he and Greengrass are grabbing at all their proven tricks: the breathless car chases, the crowded terminal maneuvres, the marathon mano-a-mano fisticuffs moment that leaves the audience completely winded.

That's what you paid for, you say? To be sure, speed and virtuosity propelled the first two installments to triumph, and they get the job done here. But the lost-man formula is thinning out, and the low-grade sexism (women CIA agents are nurturing and supportive, guy agents are trouble) is beginning to grate. Much as I love this series, it may be time to stop chasin' Jason. Come what may, I'm definitely swearing off bologna before the next Paul Greengrass movie.

THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM. (PG-13). The globe-trotting amnesiac of Robert Ludlum's espionage novels is still collecting passport stamps and trying to figure out why the C.I.A. is on his case. Director Paul Greengrass whips up another virtuouso spectacle of sound and fury, but the symptoms of sequel-itis is are beginning to set in. With Matt Damon, Joan Allen, David Straithairn. 1:51. Violence, intense action. At area theaters.