Flynn Batchelor

first time rewatching since it came out. and the 3 hours just flew by, incredible film, amazing performances, Cillian Murphy fantastic all the way through, and when Emily Blunt testifies? i mean come on. accompanied by an amazing score from  Göransson, proving once again he is a composer to keep listening to. just amazing everything. and Casey Affleck giving the most intimidating softly spoken minutes in cinema history caught me off guard this time as well as my first watch. it honestly doesn’t get much better than this. it may be my favourite film of his, recency bias??

this shit was crazy. was gripped the entire runtime, feel like i need to watch it again now i know the full picture, as jesus it does throw you through some loops.

the Bourne trilogy is one of my favourites, and it’s got a lot to do with Ultimatum. this is the best of the series, it’s constantly firing on all cylinders, the best action sequences, the best plot, best score, and even the shaky direction feels perfected here, so perfected in fact that we got a decade of people trying to copy it for all the wrong reasons.  only complaint is some of the characterisation, not that it’s bad, i think the writing is great but just wish there was a little more of it.  they really should’ve stopped here instead of attempting to go further, it doesn’t get much better than this in terms of spy thrillers, and also has the best version of Extreme Ways, GOATED.

i’d say this is maybe better than Identity, but Paul Greengrass’ camera work does take it down a peg. i do quite like his signature style in his other films, but here it feels a little too much shake, like brother please just let me see what’s going on. it definitely works in some instances, really selling the intensity of dialogue, paranoia and frenetic action in the finale, but that apartment fight, good lord.  doesn’t stop it from being a great spy thriller with Matt Damon being forever good as Bourne. and even insane shaky cam can’t bring this script down. also great score, never really noticed it before.