.: Roberts' Reviews - Movie Reviews :.

Every decade there comes a film with a car chase scene that stays in your mind as being the 'best of its era'. Back in 1968, director Peter Yates had a Mustang and a Dodge Charger (and Steve McQueen, I might add), chase through the streets of San Francisco in Bullit. The action sequence was considered the best ever filmed. That is, until 1971 when William Friedkin put Popeye Doyle into a high paced car chase scene that left audiences aghast with 'how did they do that' inquiries with The French Connection.

Flash forward to the 1980's and it was William Friedkin again with a automobile action sequence that was all the talk and included a wrong way chase on a busy highway in the underrated To Live and Die in L.A. This and George Miller's The Road Warrior defined excitement on the pavement during the decade of excess (with special mention being made to The Blues Brothers). Then, in 1998 director John Frankenheimer had a breathtaking chase through the mountain roads in Ronin. Whether watching it on a theatre size screen or at home on High Definition television, the road rage still rocks ten years later.

It wasn't until 2004's The Bourne Supremacy that I again had the feeling that what I was watching was thrilling, unique and the best car chase scene(s) since Ronin. It felt as real and as claustrophobic as a camera inside a small European car can project onto the big screen. Its ferocious crash, smash and chase was the highlight of what was already an above average summer flick and catapulted The Bourne Supremacy into a surprising box office hit.

That was three years and countless Affleck fiancés ago. Enter 2007 and Supremacy's director Paul Greengrass (fresh off his Academy Award nomination for United 93) has reunited with Matt Damon's Jason Bourne for yet another film that is the third in a series to debut this summer (Spider-Man, Pirates, Shrek) in The Bourne Ultimatum.

In this installment, we pick up pretty much where we left off in 2004's Supremacy with Bourne continuing to run from the agency's that want him dead while trying to investigate and determine his true identity and past that is about as clear to him as sobriety is to Lindsey Lohan.

Like the two Bourne predecessors, Ultimatum is a cat and mouse game between Bourne and agents within the CIA that seem to have an agenda that is hell bent on leather to have Bourne erased from existence. At the centre of the pursuit is Noah Vosen (David Strathairn) who has assembled a team to track and kill Bourne in an attempt to keep his silence.

Like the Bourne films of the series, we are whisked from city to city, country to county as Bourne outlasts, outwits and outplays his deadly opponents (enter CBS's Survivor theme music here).

There is so much to like in The Bourne Ultimatum that 1500 words or less doesn't quite give room for. The action sequences are top rate, the acting is credible and the storyline and dialogue are both intelligent (with the exception of any scene involving ringleader Scott Glenn).

Then there's the car chase scene.

Paul Greengrass outdoes himself with a car chase sequence that was real, brutal and even outclasses his Supremacy effort. As Bourne dodges traffic, bullets and much larger cars than the police vehicle he decides to wreck havoc with, the audience (including yours truly), were on the edge of their seats with smiles as wide as anything this screening side of Knocked Up! The Bourne Ultimatum is worth the price of admission and the line up outside your local DVD retailer in 7 months time for the chase scene alone.

But The Bourne Ultimatum is more than just an action movie wrapped around an exhilarating metal-meets-metal on the road sequence. It is a clever race to an unforeseen ending that will surely leave audiences wanting to see more of the character that Damon is claiming to now be finished with.

And maybe too clever.

There were times that I was a little lost with how the story jumped to certain conclusions and anyone who has not seen the second film might be a little lost when returning characters played by Joan Allen and Julia Stiles show up and talk as if you were watching a continued second half of a drive-in double header.

Many reviewers will rate Ultimatum in reference to the other three-quels that we endured during the dog days of summer. In that case, Ultimatum stands above them all as the best of the bunch. In fact, Ultimatum can hold its head above the water that has been raised substantially with a summer crop of films that have provided far more thrills and far less disappointments than any summer this decade.