Bourne Ultimatum

It's got to be hard to tell stories in installments, especially when those installments are two and three years apart. The Bourne trilogy, in book form, had plenty of time to recap and revisit the highpoints. I read the Bourne books twenty years after their publication in a month's time,but even when I'm compelled to read series like Harry Potter, or the Thursday Next "mysteries", or Diana Gabaldon's Outlander "romances" in real-time, I try to reread them before reading the newest installment. Even though all authors include some sort of recap, I find rereading the books helps with the fullness of the details and gives the devoted reader payoffs the casual reader might skim right by.

I thought about netflixing Identity and Supremacy before going to see Ultimatum. However, my netflix queue is devoted to research at the moment [I know that sounds geeky, but I can't think of what else to call it-- it really is research] and with boyby at grandma's, we unexpectedly had a Monday evening all to ourselves, so we headed out to the multiplex.

The movie did a fabulous job recapping the first two movies and did it in such a way that it wasn't an obvious going over. If you had seen the first two movies, then you understood the plot-point refreshers and instantly made sense of the references to Bourne's past. If you hadn't seen the earlier movies, then of course those details didn't signify as much, but they still, I think, gave you enough to go on.

The original Jason Bourne was a product of Vietnam era black ops. He existed in the Cold War era and as such the screenplay writers had to ignore huge parts of the original character and his escapades in order to translate him for a twenty-first century audience. The Jason/David and Marie relationship is markedly different in the books as is Bourne's personal life in general. Each of the books has a distinct story that then ties back into Treadstone and Bourne's quest to understand his past. The movies, by and large, jettisoned those separate stories and focused on the connecting mythology--a smart choice, in the long run. Damon has successfully made the character his own, ensuring that although Ultimatum ends the original Bourne trilogy, the big screen hasn't seen the last of Jason Bourne.

*As a side note-- Damon brought Jason Bourne to cinematic life the same summer his buddy Ben Affleck was handed the Jack Ryan franchise. At the time, the Damon series was seen as the gamble. (I remember this because I was one of the Jack Ryan fans that was incensed they were screwing with the Ryan timeline in order to explain a not only much younger but also a much greener, inexperienced and downright ineffectual Jack Ryan. Some might accuse me of simply being loyal to Harrison Ford, but Alec Baldwin's Ryan in Hunt For Red October is actual my favorite Jack Ryan. In any case, can't help but notice there's still "Ryan verse" books out there that we've yet see move to the big screen. I'm just saying.