I saw it without having seen the other two and I picked up the plot lines just fine. They fill in all the pertinent info as you go. My only criticism of this movie is that the direction chose to use hand held cameras, which works for the rest of the movie except near the end with one of the big action scenes. My two friends and I felt quite motion sick after that scene ended.

Oh and congrats on the job! I really should read the whole post before answering :)

You could do fine enough--you'll be entertained. Most of the character development happens in the first Bourne movie, but it's not like the characters evolve significantly over the course of one film to the next. At the end of each film Bourne still has amnesia; he's still got tradecraft and ass-kicking skills and can't remember where they came from; he's still haunted by his past and on the run; etc.

There are a few shots in Ultimatum where someone rifles quickly through a file full of papers, and the contents of those papers will only make sense to you if you've seen the other two movies, but that's not terribly important. And there's a very clever bit of retconning (that I don't want to spoil) that you won't pick up on at all unless you've seen the second movie. But those are the only problems, I think.

Congrats!

I've never read the Bourne novels or seen the films, but my impression is that they're a ways away from being mindless.

Also, oddly, Matt Damon has a strict ethic about violence in films, instilled in him by his mother when he was young. I believe, according to an interview with Damon I recently read, he literally ran the films by his mom before accepting the role. So, hopefully, they aren't just "action" films with gratuitous violence.

Okay, here's the interview... "Every role I took, there's always a special eye toward the violence."

Since we're on the subject and I think it's interesting:

Damon: I'll take Bourne over James Bond

Bond is "an imperialist and he's a misogynist. He kills people and laughs and sips martinis and wisecracks about it," Damon, 36, told The Associated Press in an interview.

Btw, the slightly overlooked Pathfinder is a GREAT intelligent "action" film too. Incredible plot twists and surprises, activist/actor Russell Means in an important supporting role, and some pretty over-the-top violence. Not in theatres but currently on DVD.

thanks for the links, shane, those were good reads.

alto, congrats on the job! i love coaching, so i'd imagine tutoring is similar.

and... you could do a lot worse than to go catch the Ultimatium in the cinema, then netflix the other two and make a weekend of it.

Matt-Damon-as-Bourne is now my alltime fave movie role, to be honest. and i never thought much of him as an actor before this.

don't listen to me, tho. go see it! it's definitely not mindless, but i guarantee you WILL be entertained. i've seen all 3 but i doubt there'd be a ton of disconnect from picking up in the middle, so to speak.

Hey shane, if you liked Pathfinder, you should see the original Norwegian flick, Ofelas (1987); it's entirely in Saami (Lapp). One of my twenty-five favorite movies ever.

OK, so not mindless but if I wake up a bit before this evening it sounds like a good bet - thanks guys.

Quite excited about the tutoring - opportunity to share knowledge, 'put something back', etc etc.

I found Ultimatum to be quite thin on plot/dialogue and heavy on action. If you're just looking for thrills, and not something about which you can pontificate the meaning of life, then go.

Congrats on the job!

On the violence thing: I rewatched the first two last weekend and was amazed at how amazed I was at the paucity of fatal violence. Damon's character spends a great deal of time getting rid of other people's guns so that no one gets hurt, unless there's some actual huge compelling reason not to. It was kind of nice.

I have yet to see the third one, but the first two Bourne films were good. Sequels seem to go downhill at a rapid pace and the Bourne flicks have avoided that. Damon says the third one is the last one and I'm glad for just that reason.

I loved Bourne Ultimatum (Matt Damon is fantastic), and I've seen the previous two; my friend who went with me also had a blast, and hadn't seen either. I gave her a very brief precis going into the show (basically, who is Jason Bourne, and why is he so pissed?) and she said that was plenty.

Thanks, HJ. I'll search out Ofelas.