The Bourne Hyperactivity

I like the "Bourne" set of movies. The first one, "The Bourne Identity," is one of my go-to favorites, hands down. Good suspense, thrilling action, a little romance thrown in, set in exotic locales across the world ... I'm an unabashed fan. I liked the second movie, "The Bourne Supremacy," but slightly less. The reserve I have is not from the story, but in how it was shot. The final car chase, in particular, is exciting, but shot is such a jumpy, jangling manner that the action is actually a little hard to follow.

It turns out that the director of that movie, who also directed the recent "Bourne Ultimatum," is a big fan of handing his stuntmen cameras so that action sequences can be shot from "inside the action," as it were. He gave full rein to his impulses in "Ultimatum," to the detriment of the movie, in my estimation. The script is fine: it has the now-usual governmental machinations (a little overplayed this time), the incredible escapes by our hero, and cool action sequences. Unfortunately, there is not a single moment in the film in which the camera is not moving. And by moving, I don't mean a smooth dolly shot or crane swoop. Everything seems to have been shot by a caffeine-addled teen weilding the family Handi-cam, even during slow moments of dialog when two characters are sitting facing each other. My feeling is that, rather than adding energy to the scenes, the jolting camera work actually detracts from the intensity of the action because the viewer has to work so hard to figure out what is actually happening. In one particularly exciting hand-to-hand set piece, clever use was made of such things as hard-bound books and towels, but I only knew that because I had seen photographs of the scene. Unfortunely, all the visceral punch (no pun intended) of the scene is lost because you can't really grasp what is happening until it is all over.

It's still a good movie, but I'd hold out for the Steadycam version.