After weeks of being denied a viewing, thanks to procrastination and other forces which were further out of my hands, I managed to get to see The Bourne Ultimatum, the third one in the series. I had to tear myself away from the awesome spectacle of my boss spending (by my standards) obscene amounts of money on firecrackers so I could make it in time for the show. Later tonight, we get to see how that turns out. There was this unit called the Silver Ghost; the cover showed crazy lightning ripping up the night sky and a cackling skull smack dab in the centre of it all. If that's anything close to what it looks like in real life, it should be a blast. Considering he paid only Rs. 350/- for that one, I suspect it might not.

Movie. It picks up right where The Bourne Supremacy left off, with a wounded Bourne fleeing the tunnel accident and hiding from the Russian police. It's evident right away that the dizzy pace of Supremacy is continued, with scene locations switching several times all across the planet in the first 10 minutes. Seeing that the gruff and grumpy old men Chris Cooper and Brian Cox had been trumped and sent packing in body bags in the last two movies, we obviously needed new creepy government agents as antagonists, and they're supplied by David Strathairn and Albert Finney, founders of the Treadstone program and its upgrade, Blackbriar. Naturally they, like their predecessors, aren't too happy to learn of Bourne's presence and make it a priority to take him out. Joan Allen's sympathetic CIA agent has her relationship with Bourne further developed in these circumstances, which makes it a bit tricky since she's obviously one of the agency's best trackers. That's aptly demonstrated in the quick but emasculating scene right after she's brought in on the operation.

Man, like I said, the pace is relentless. There's this part soon into the movie, where Bourne is giving rapid-fire directions to a hapless Paddy Considine (change of pace from Hot Fuzz) over the phone negotiating his way around a crowded Waterloo station peppered with surveillance cameras and agency men, and you're sitting on the edge of your seat, jumping up in anxiety when Bourne says, "Now! Tie your shoelaces." 'The shoelaces! Shit's gonna hit the fan for sure!' And when it does hit...goddamn. This guy doesn't mess around, I'll say that much.

It's further helped by the fact that the movie doesn't treat you like a retard. If you've seen the last two movies, this one is not in the least bit hard to follow. Ignore what some ADD assholes might tell you. But it doesn't dwell on points - it makes then once, and then moves on. It doesn't let emotional moments linger on too long for the sake of being profound - the only exceptions are a couple of scenes with Julia Stiles, and the showdown towards the end of the movie. Forgivable. I'm always reluctant to apply the adjective 'intelligent' to anything that I might like, in the worry that I might be portraying a bloated impression of myself as a connoisseur of sorts, but if someone ever asked me what an intelligent action movie was, I'd tell them to watch this one.