Bewitched, Bothered, Bewildered

I have to admit that it has been a busy year for me when it comes to the big screen. With Sian being as much of a film nut as myself and with the opening of the new Vue Cinema in my home town, I’ve had a far greater incentive to actually pay the extortionate ticket fees to go see films as they arrive in the cinema. Since the closure of the small Odeon on the Kingsway Swansea was left with just the UCI, a cinema which had already seen better days. With non-tiered seating and the owners showing no interest in refurbishing it, upgrading the screens and sound systems, I had taken to waiting for the DVD of the film rather than putting up with having to watch it through someone’s head.

The Vue has changed that, modern screen, modern sound system, impressive tiered and comfortable seating has made the ticket price worth it and the experience fun once again. As you know I enjoyed Live Free or Die Hard, I absolutely despised Pirates of the Caribbean (which is a shame considering I loved the first of the series,) Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was far more enjoyable than the book, Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer was okay if you like that kind of thing, Transformers was a film I loved despite the fact that I was expecting to hate it and The Simpsons didn’t fall foul of the lack of jokes I was expecting from a feature length Simpsons episode (In other words, funny and enjoyable!)

So what of one of my most anticipated films of this year? I’ve been a big fan of Jason Bourne ever since The Bourne Identity established Matt Damon as an action hero capable of forcing the venerable Bond to change tactics in order to win back fans. So I had high hopes for this one, the film that cast and crew have gone on record to say will likely be their last.

The Bourne Ultimatum is without a doubt the greatest film I have seen this year. It was an action film which actually managed to pull in intelligence and substance and did so with the style of it’s predecessors.

For those who don’t want to be spoiled, the rest is behind the cut…

I’ll start at the end and how perfect I thought it was! There were threads that had not been tied up yet I got the sense that this was intentional…nothing in Ultimatum struck me as bad direction/storytelling in fact, I was left with the feeling that everything happened exactly as expected. The ending was perfect for me for the simple fact that I have seen so many films that it has been a very long time since I’ve been left tense. The Ultimatum’s cliffhanger ending had me literally edge of my seat the whole way, I was tense, I didn’t know quite where I was being taken. The Bourne series has never been too afraid of taking chances and the knowledge that many are reporting this to be the last Bourne left me lost. I didn’t have the traditional fall-back of knowing things like “They can’t kill off the hero” or anything similar, I felt it could happen.

However to lead out with the same music that concluded The Bourne Supremacy really helped for me, it’s the perfect song to say “Aha! Gotcha, really everything is okay” just before revealing the conclusion to us.

What I found a little confusing was Nicky Parsons. It wasn’t entirely out of the realms of possibility that all along she was a former love interest of Bourne’s, however to insert it mid-film as they did and then not take it anywhere was more than a little odd. Again though, I got the feeling this was intentional in some unfathomable way.

Pamela Landy…who else was expecting her to be murdered? Yeah, me too.

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 19th, 2007 at 10:16 am and is filed under General Stoof. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.