This is a different kind of James Bond. This is the James Bond who is not really needed at his agency very much anymore. After his last battle, he’s now taken a forced sabbatical after being driven to clerical duties and then forced in to relaxation and wealth. There’s a brand new agent working for Universal that’s taken over his duties, and Bond is having a considerably hard time facing that.
It may seem like an eye roll and a groan to the average reader, but Bond is basically stir crazy when we first meet him at the beginning of “Devil Maycare.” He smokes foreign cigarettes, already has a routine that screams monotony, and a seemingly random murder of a young Middle Eastern man has suddenly become so important that it’s pulled Bond out of his sabbatical of woeful relaxation and considerable obsoletion in to the duties of 007 once again.
So it’s come to this. After all these years following Bourne, after “The Bourne Identity” becoming one of my favorite action films of all time, we’re here at the tail end, and hopefully the last film of the franchise. And with it comes Joan Allen, David Strathairn and Paddy Considine; how can you beat a cast like this? You can’t. “The Bourne Ultimatum” is yet another fantastic entry into the series, and shocking enough: It breaks the rule that the third parts in franchises are terrible. “The Bourne Ultimatum” brings what the former films did.
“The Bourne identity” took me by surprise; it was certainly a most welcome surprise. “The Bourne identity” and “The Bourne Supremacy” are two different movies, and the Jason Bourne from both movies are different people. Now here, he’s no longer a man discovering his past, now he’s just a man struggling with it and the severity of his crimes and deeds he performed as Jason Bourne, he’s a ghost of the past struggling with his unforgiving demons of his past, and he’s a ghost who can not escape them no matter how hard he tries.
