The Bourne Ultimatum (2007)

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General		Extras
Category	Action	Audio Commentary-Director Paul Greengrass Deleted Scenes Featurette-Man on the Move:Jason Bourne Featurette-Behind The Scenes-Rooftop Pursuit, Planning the Punches, Driving School Featurette-Behind The Scenes-New York Chase
Rating
Year Of Production	2007
Running Time	110:32
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL	Cast & Crew
Start Up	?
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Paul Greengrass
Studio Distributor	Universal Pictures Home Video	Starring	Matt Damon Julia Stiles David Strathairn Scott Glenn Paddy Considine Edgar Ramirez Albert Finney Joan Allen Tom Gallop Corey Johnson Daniel Brühl Joey Ansah Colin Stinton
Case	?
RPI	?	Music	John Powell

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	Unknown	No Audio Data available for this title
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.35:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	Yes
Subtitles	None	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

The Bourne Ultimatum is the third film in the surprisingly great Bourne trilogy. Loosely based on Robert Ludlum’s bestselling novels, the films have surpassed all critical and box-office expectations and are arguably the blueprint from which modern action thrillers are based. Even the Bond producers, scared that 007’s relevancy was being threatened, rebooted their franchise by modelling their latest Bond iteration on the grittier, more dangerous and emotionally conflicted Jason Bourne (Matt Damon).

The Bourne Ultimatum picks up where The Bourne Supremacy left off. Jason Bourne is an amnesiac fugitive who is being hunted by the CIA. Having been an assassin prior to his amnesia, Bourne is a high value target with too much classified information in his head. Bourne is slowly getting memories back, and he is trying to decipher what they mean and why he could be killed for them.

Bourne is slowly starting to put together the pieces of his past. A British newspaper article details part of Bourne's story and a covert unit of the CIA known as Operation Blackbriar. Bourne attempts to use the journalist to get information and instead witnesses his assassination. The CIA mistakenly think that Bourne is the source of the story and try to take him down.

Matt Damon is Jason Bourne. Having read the Bourne novels and being a massive fan of them when I was younger, I remember being totally shocked and disappointed when hearing that Damon was to be Bourne. At that time he was mainly known as the kid who wrote and starred in Good Will Hunting. That quickly changed once I saw The Bourne Identity. Damon has made the role his own and has the chops to show how dangerous Bourne can be, but more importantly he also has the depth of the emotions required considering the guilt, remorse and confusion Bourne has about his past.

If you haven’t seen any of the Bourne films, I strongly recommend them, but don’t start here. View Identity first, Supremacy next and then The Bourne Ultimatum. If you have seen the previous films (and liked them) but missed this one, you could safely blind buy this film to add to your collection. It’s an absolute nail biter of a film that is a satisfying end (or is it?) to the trilogy. If you missed the theatrical run, you owe it to yourself to check this out as soon as possible.

Video

The video transfer is presented in its original theatrical ratio of 2.35:1. It is 16x9 enhanced.

The transfer is sharp and well defined detail is evident throughout.

There is no major edge enhancement. Shadow detail is excellent (absolutely vital considering that a lot of the film is set at night and many scenes have a drab, wintry feeling about it.)

Grain is minimal. The colours are quite drab, but suit the tone of the trilogy. Blacks are perfectly solid and skin tones a little pale.

Thankfully there are no compression artefacts. Minor aliasing occurs in a few instances and is barely noticeable. There are no film artefacts of any note.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

The dialogue comes through clearly and is never drowned out.

Surround usage is constant throughout the movie and really makes the most of all directional noise.

The subwoofer gets a fantastic workout in the various chase sequences and other key action scenes. My house was shaking under the pressure.

The score for the film is credited to John Powell and was really well done. The music is well balanced and certainly adds to the mood of the film.

There is also a Czech Dolby Digital 5.1 track (384 kb/s) and a Polish track as well..

I'd prefer a dts option, but to be honest this Dolby mix is right up there with the best sound experience DVD can offer.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Deleted Scenes (12:23)

No menu to choose from, it just jumps right into the 8 different scenes. Most of the scenes were really interesting, added a lot to character development and were obviously trimmed for running time related reasons. Definitely worth watching more than typical deleted scenes found these days.

Man on the Move: Jason Bourne (24:00)

Looks at the varied locations where the film was shot, Berlin, Paris, London, Madrid and Tangier. Amazing work that goes into making a film of this calibre.

Rooftop Pursuit (5:40)

Looks at the chase scene on the rooftops in Morocco.

Planning the Punches (5:00)

Looks at the fight co-ordinating for the Bourne vs Desh fight an Moroccan apartment

Driving School (3:24)

Brief look at how driving sequences are trained for.

New York Chase (10:47)

Looks at the great car chase in the Big Apple.

Feature Commentary with Director Paul Greengrass

Great commentary and probably one of the more enjoyable and interesting commentaries that I have heard in the last few years. A good mix of on the set anecdotes and technical information.

The R1 edition appears to be the same as the R4, so let's call it a tie.

The film is fantastic. Don't miss it.

The video is first class.

The audio is great.

The special features are good, but pretty standard. I'd love to have Matt Damon on the commentary too though.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall