The idea that the Summer of 2007 was driven by
“Three-quels” is deader than a dead horse by now. It used to be that
sequels grossed only between 60% and 80% of their predecessors’
box-office takes, but consumer culture has reached a point where sequels
mint more or less as much money as the first in a series. The pressure
to churn out a sequel to dock in a coveted release slot clearly took its
artistic toll on all of the Three-quels. Lukewarm to very negative
reviews greeted Spider-man 3, Shrek the Third, Pirates
of the Caribbean: At World’s End, Ocean’s Thirteen, and
Rush Hour 3. (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and
Live Free or Die Hard generally fared well with critics. Harry
Potter 5 had the luxury of falling back on a literary source, and
Die Hard 4.0 did the retro.)
The lone Three-quel to garner across-the-board favorable notices and to
outgross both of its predecessors was The Bourne Ultimatum. A
sense of exhaustion was palpable as people left theatres after watching
the other Three-quels, but Bourne 3 had viewers asking for
another go-around. Is Bourne 3 really an excellent movie, or were
cinemagoers simply happy to see a movie with some semblance of
intelligence?
Beaver readers know that I’m a big fan of director Paul Greengrass. I
feel that Bloody Sunday, The Bourne Supremacy, and
United 93 indicate that Greengrass is possibly the future of Western
cinema. Yet, as much as I love the Jason Bourne character, I am first in
line to point out Bourne 3’s flaws. I am not nitpicking about the
hyper camerawork and editing. Rather, the third effort clearly shows
that the filmmakers ran out of time and resorted to repeating old tricks
instead of generating fresh innovations as The Bourne Identity
and The Bourne Supremacy did.
In Entertainment Weekly’s feature article about the third movie,
lead Matt Damon revealed that the script wasn’t ready when the
production began. New pages arrived on the set every day, and
frequently, much of what was shot was completely discarded as shooting
continued. With a budget north of $175 million, Bourne 3 cost much more
than its predecessors. The filmmakers had to come up with some semblance
of a coherent plot to finish the movie for August 2007. Obviously, they
looked to the previous two movies for salvation.
For starters, let’s look at the Waterloo station sequence. Many
reviewers and audiences buzzed about the tension and choreography, but
it is merely an expanded version of the Alexanderplatz sequence in
Bourne 2. In both movies, Bourne guides another person by phone to
elude government agents, and there’re a lot of bodies shuffling on and
off a bus. This was a new Jason Bourne skill in the second movie, but
it’s old hat in the third.
The car chase in New York City is also old hat. The car chase in
Bourne 1 made clever use of Parisian geography, and the car chase in
Bourne 2 was edited and scored to create a genuine sense of
desperation. The car chase in Bourne 3 is frequently a
scenario-for-scenario re-tread of the car chase in Bourne 2. Both
chases end with a car perpendicular to another, pushing the horizontal
vehicle into a concrete pillar. Both chases end with Bourne bracing
himself right before the crash, with Bourne staggering out of his car
while pointing a gun at his enemy, and with Bourne regarding his injured
nemesis before walking away. The car chase in Bourne 2 revealed
something about the protagonist’s mind set. The car chase in Bourne 3
indicated that the moviemakers were too frazzled to find another way to
end a car chase.
Disappointingly, Bourne 3 is a return to conventional classical
storytelling. Most mainstream movies have dual plots (an A Story and a B
Story), frequently with the secondary plot focused on two characters
falling in love. In action movies, this results in the male hero
dragging around the female love interest, rescuing her, or being
hampered by her when she’s used against him. Bourne 1 dealt with
this problem by giving Marie enough sense to stay low and out of sight
while Bourne was fighting (see the showdown with Clive Owen’s
character). Bourne 2 threw out this convention by killing off the
female love interest, so instead of an oft-used secondary plot, we saw
Bourne trying to make amends for some of his past actions. Bourne 3
hamfistedly shoves a love story into the series again by insinuating
that Bourne and Nicky Parsons had a romantic relationship prior to the
events in Bourne 1. The movie ends with cuts between Bourne
floating in a river and Nicky with a goofy grin on her face. The goofy
grin is out of step with the grim atmosphere of the third movie.
At this point, it sounds like I’m being hard on Bourne 3.
Actually, I’m not; my assessment is that the movie still succeeds
despite its severe handicaps. I won’t gloss over its weaknesses despite
my appreciation of its other elements.
Not all links to the previous movies are faults. For example, near the
end of the movie, Bourne uses a Brazilian passport to enter the United
States. On the intercom at an airport, Pamela Landy’s message for Bourne
is, “Gilberto de Piento, Gilberto de Piento, your party is waiting for
you.” “Gilberto de Piento” is the name that appears on a Brazilian
passport shown briefly when Bourne is rummaging through his safe deposit
box in Bourne 1. The umbrella operation run by the villains is
called Operation Blackbriar; the word “Blackbriar” is used by Ward Abbot
in a Senate hearing towards the end of Bourne 1. Towards the end
of Bourne 3, Bourne says to a fellow spy, “Look at what they make
you give,” echoing Clive Owen in the first outing. Visually, the trilogy
turns full circle as the first shot of Bourne in Bourne 1 and the
last shot of Bourne in Bourne 3 are shots of him floating in the
water. These links are connective tissues that help create a sense of
cohesion amongst the three movies. In this regard, the Bourne trilogy
creates a complete universe as opposed to the James Bond and Mission:
Impossible franchises, which are comprised of unrelated incidents. A
viewer is rewarded for paying attention to detail and for following the
journey.
The movie’s wit is evident after a fight in Madrid. Spies are on their
way to capture Bourne, and to create a diversion, Bourne calls the
Spanish police, saying, “I hear gunfire. I think they’re Americans.” He
then fires a few rounds from his gun.
At the end of the day, Bourne 3 is an action movie, and its
greatest contribution to cinema is...yes, an action sequence. Bourne
1’s action showcase is arguably the American embassy sequence (where
we see Bourne’s smarts when he rips a fire escape map off the wall to
plan his escape). Bourne 2’s action showcase is the Moscow car
chase. Bourne 3’s action showcase is the Tangier
motorcycle-to-foot chase. After the awkward hint about Bourne and
Nicky’s past, the chase partially redeems Nicky’s presence by having her
demonstrate her resourcefulness. As the Arab agent pursues her, Nicky
dismantles her mobile phone to leave a trail for Bourne to follow. As
Bourne runs across rooftops, he grabs laundry off of clotheslines to
protect his hands as he clambers over ledges with embedded glass shards.
The propulsive momentum culminates in a bravura camera shot where a
cameraman literally leapt off of a building right behind a stunt man who
crashes through a window into a cramped apartment. The ensuing fistfight
conjures the same level of desperation as the Moscow car chase.
I am ready for another Bourne if Greengrass and Damon re-up.
However, I hope that they head into production with a completed script
that offers a fresh look at the character. I really don’t want to see
Bourne bracing himself right before a car crashes into a concrete pillar
again.
