The Bourne Ultimatum 09/15/07

Pam Landy (Joan Allen) enters a hi-tech room in the CIA headquarters. She's greeted by David Straitharn who proceeds to introduce the rest of his staff, an entire room of techies stationed at a big desk with lots of computer screens. "Let's get to names later, What's the situation?" She asks. She is told and you know what, we never do find out who those people in the room are. They never are introduced. They certainly are yelled at alot by Straitharn, and they seem competent for his directives are always carried out, but they aren’t really characters in the movie. They are a modern movie cliché: A bunch of people in a control room who are shouted at and magically provide answers by typing rapidly on a keyboard. 
This is the third Bourne movie. The first two villains were Brian Cox and Cris Cooper respectively. We've got two more this time in David Straitharn and Albert Finney. If they make another one, I bet the bad guy will be Jon Voight. After that, who knows, I think they would have killed off every second tier dramatic elderly actor in the business. (Ian McKellan and Ben Kingsley maybe but I wouldn't call them second tier)
Matt Damon and Paul Greengrass reunite to give us not so much a movie as a really good television episode. By that I mean it didn't have any real gravity to it, no more extensive character development than an episode of the Sopranos. People do come to realizations, but you kind of get the sense that nothing substantial has changed. I don't think it would lose any intensity if they ran commercials through it every twenty minutes, maybe before and after every chase sequence, which is literally every twenty minutes. But I'm not just degrading the movie; I'm also complimenting it. An enormous amount has been done with very little and if it weren't in the sure hands of Damon and Greengrass this movie would not be worth seeing at all. 
This movie shouldn't be seen so much as it should be studied. It's the sort of movie that one would show in a film school. "Listen kids, this is how you film a car chase. This is how you stage a fight. This is how you shoot a roof chase in Morocco. Now all you have to do is add motivation." The techniques used here are ingenious and exciting in every way, and yes, if Greengrass directs it, I probably will see the next Bourne movie. It's a safe bet that I will get my heart pounding action and great dramatic acting. What isn't sure is that they'll offer closure of any sort. Like a television show it's afraid of any real change or character arc. They are deliberately inching their way to that point where the series 'jumps the shark' and they finally have to end the show.