If Bourne Ultimatum were a commercial, it would be for:
a) E-Hitman.com.
b) Volkswagen.
c) Hilary Clinton 2008.
d) All of the above.

Yes, I know Bourne Ultimatum is not a commercial. It’s a movie. It has a whole story behind it. It’s full of A-list stars. And its budget is at least a thousand times that of most commercials. But after watching the newest tale in the life of Jason Bourne, I can’t help but think that the movies we like the most are also the best commercials—not for a product, not for a service, but for themselves, their story, and the ideas that make up what they are. And in the case of Bourne Ultimatum, I’d have to say that its ideas are grabbing onto our wants, our needs, and the most prominent of our current thoughts to sell Bourne and his story well through his theater, DVD, and limited-edition-DVD-set lifetimes.

Take Bourne himself. If there were a poster boy for the damaged bad-boy that all of us ladies just want to save, he is it. Sure, he’s a trained killer, he has no idea who he is, and someone is always trying to kill him. But, oh what any one of us would have given to be Marie, to have a life full of that much excitement, to share a love deep enough to heal wounds. And now comes the barrage of damaged assassins in Ultimatum—tall, dark, handsome, and just asking for someone to come and save them too. I admit—bailing on dates because you get texted to make a kill—not exactly a turn on. But when you dangle that turn-around in front of us and tease us with that hesitant glimpse of humanity, I’m telling you, Universal Studios should just go ahead and begin development on Who Wants to Marry A Hit Man?

Not interested in hot men? No problem. That’s why Ultimatum has cars. Lots of cars. Not unlike Bourne himself, they are fast, sleek, and indestructible. And inside of them, many a character proves that he is out to fight the world and win. Forget rules. Forget danger. In Bourne’s cars you make your own path, take out everything in your way, and emerge intact. And who doesn’t want that? Taking hold of life’s wheel and driving without fear, eluding all who try to put you down, and surviving every crash and collision you encounter along the way? Sign me up! Easy financing and special pricing just for me? Draw up the papers now, because I’m ready to get in driver’s seat.

Speaking of which, there’s that pesky detail of the other people driving around us. And in Ultimatum, that reality is front and center. Unlike Identity and Supremacy which focused mostly on Bourne himself, Ultimatum almost spends more screen time with the characters connected to Bourne. Those characters—the longstanding higher ups who have been messing up since the beginning of Bourne’s career and the few renegades who have become aware of what is going on and decided that enough is enough. The interesting thing? The bad guys are all highly-ranked and well-established older men and the good ones are younger, shall we say, newer administration women. Throw in references to killing our own citizens, killing without reason, and continuing with a botched operation just to win, and the parallels to current popular opinion surrounding the war in Iraq and the upcoming presidential election could not be clearer. Twenty bucks says at least one person involved in Ultimatum has already been hired by the Democratic party to help with the upcoming campaign.

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