Bourne Ultimatum

Finally! Finally, finally, finally! I've been waiting sooo long to go see this movie. And tonight we finally saw it. The Bourne Ultimatum.

This post will contain some spoilers so if you haven't seen the movie yet you should go see it right now and then come back.

Ever since I heard that Ultimatum was being made I have been eager to see it. I've seen the two first Bourne movies several times and I still enjoy seeing them. They are not your ordinary type of action movies, they have a smartness which I think is unparalleled in the genre together with some very well portrayed characters. And of course a truckload of sweaty action. All together they are among my favorite films which I come back to and watch over and over again. So you can imagine my expectations on the third movie.

Do Ultimatum deliver? Oh yes. Paul Greengrass, who made Bourne Supremacy, is back to make the final installment as well. He is now my hero. My current feeling is that Ultimatum is the best movie in the trilogy and to achieve that is no small feat. He has managed to step up almost everything. The fights are sweatier than ever, the surveillance scenes are more intense and the car chases... what can I say. I didn't think there was much to add in that area but apparently I was wrong. The only thing which hasn't been ramped up is the character development. But that is only natural as we know several of the characters quite well by know.

The movie contains quite a few references to the two earlier movies, most of which are rather subtle. For example, Bourne comes back to Tangiers. It is mentioned briefly in Supremacy that he was there but the reason for him coming back now has nothing to do with that. Another reference is when Nicky colors her hair make her self less recognizable, it looks very much like when Marie does it in Identity. A more obvious connection with Supremacy, which is also a very nice piece of scripting is how they include the end scene of Supremacy right in the middle of Ultimatum. I totally did not see that coming but I very much enjoyed it. Simply brilliant script writing!

The perhaps most beautiful reference to the older movies is the end when Bourne is shot and fall off a building and into the water. It's exactly how it all started, with Jason Bourne failing his mission and being chased off a boat and shot. We see pictures of him floating in the water motionless cut with a kind of epilogue showing what happens with all the other characters in the end. And finally when we hear on the news that they have found traces of Bourne he wakes up and swims away. Pure beauty in my eyes. I see it as a kind rebirth of David Webb. He is no longer Jason Bourne and in the water he gets his rebirth. It also gives closure to the story, it starts where it ends.

If I live I'm going to watch this movie many times. Maybe I'll have something more to say about it then, these are just my initial impressions of the movie.

Oh, and I was right about the end credit music. It was indeed Extreme Ways but it wasn't the same version as in the previous movies. It didn't sound like Moby this time, probably some group who'd made a cover. I would have preferred Moby's version.

Knuth and the Second Law of Thermodynamics

Nobody wants to argue with Knuth – it is the equivalent of arguing against the second law of thermodynamics.

From a nice article about Mature Optimization at Cowboy Programming.