THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM (15)

Gripping thriller is perfect end to excellent trio of Bourne films

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This paper takes very seriously its public service duties so I think it's only fair, in the interests of health and safety, to remind you to breathe from time to time in this film.

The Bourne Ultimatum is the single most gripping thriller I have seen in years. If this is to be the end of the franchise then it goes out on a high with a film that matches in intelligence what it provides in the way of thrills.

The third film picks up where the second one left off, almost literally: Matt Damon's Jason Bourne is in Moscow where he begins to have a flashback to how this all started.

The amnesiac Bourne has been pursuing clues to his own identity; now he has a major lead in the shape of a British journalist. The journalist is pursued by those who want Bourne dead - a sequence incidentally which is the most exciting chase I have seen in years - but he also helps provide the answers.

Bourne, it turns out, was only the beginning of a secret operation which has carte blanche to do whatever it takes to protect American interests around the world.

The real skill of Paul Greengrass as director and Tony Gilroy as writer is the way they manage to incorporate contemporary political resonances into the film. It has the confidence, for example, to use glib euphemisms such as rendition' or experimental interrogation' secure in the knowledge that the audience will understand.

Unlike Bond, Jason Bourne's world is scarily plausible, so much so that one scene early in the film when they put journalist Paddy Considine under surveillance could give you goosebumps.

This is Greengrass at his best. He cut his teeth on television current affairs in World in Action and he brings documentary credibility to what we see on screen.

The Bourne films have become known for their exciting car stunts and The Bourne Ultimatum is no exception. Unlike the golden-hued fetishised world of Michael Bay, for example, Greengrass's car chases are frightening half glimpses of onrushing vehicles punctuated by occasional sudden impacts.

None of this would work, however, without an actor as good as Jason Bourne. This is not a role for a himbo; for the film to work you have to believe in Bourne as a man fighting against his programming and Matt Damon does that superbly. Again it is a tribute to Greengrass that you have a cast led by Damon which includes heavyweight contributors like Joan Allen, David Strathairn, Albert Finney, Julia Stiles, and Scott Glenn in what is essentially a summer blockbuster.

The end of this third film is almost perfectly symmetrical with the start of the franchise. Damon has said he is unlikely to do any more Bourne films, largely, I suspect, because he knows they won't top this one.

Director: Paul Greengrass

Running time: 115mins

EAGLE vs SHARK (15)

Freaks 'n' geeks in romcom fun

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My old granny used to insist that for every pot there's a lid. And this New Zealand story about how an improbable pot finds an unlikely lid is one of the most charming and engaging films of the year.

The world of romantic comedy is populated by clean-cut, impossibly good looking people who have so much money they don't need to work and can spend all their time failing to get together with each other until the end.

Meet Lily. She works in a burger bar and has the sort of lank hair and spotty skin that comes from spending your working day surrounded by grease and fat. Lily has the hots for Jarrod who works in the video store across the mall.

Jarrod is the sort of guy who goes through life with a giant L' hovering over him that everyone can see but him and of course Lily.

She doesn't think he's a loser, he is the light of her life.

The two of them get together by chance at a party where they dress as their favourite animals, hence the title.

Jarrod is the sort of geek whose idea of masculinity and appropriate behaviour is defined by video games and action movies. Lily is a good soul and unaccountably she loves him.

Most of the action involves a weekend at Jarrod's home so he can take revenge on a bully who blighted his childhood. Lily goes with him and even her decency is stretched to breaking point by Jarrod's boorishness.

But love will find a way, even in a world of freaks and geeks.

Eagle vs Shark is a beautifully observed film with lots of lovely grace notes along the way.

But it is Loren Horsley as Lily who makes the film with a nicely underplayed performance. Her Lily is all wide-eyed simplicity which instantly engages the audience's sympathy.

I spent most of the film urging her to ditch Jarrod but eventually she started to make me see him through her eyes.

Refreshingly simple and a welcome antidote to mainstream romcom slush, Eagle vs Shark offers hope to the hopeless - which is no bad thing.

Director: Taiki Waititi

Running time: 87mins

COPYING BEETHOVEN (12A)

You just can't copy genius

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Anthony Hopkins was born to play Beethoven; no-one brings credibility to deranged genius like him.

That presumably is why this film was written for him but when he didn't fancy it the part went instead to Ed Harris. He struggles heroically - or possibly Eroically given the subject - but he looks too contemporary.

So too does Diane Kruger as the woman who copies his music for him while nursing her own ambitions.

She is so contemporary that unless I had become afflicted by Beethoven's deafness at one point she accuses him of mooning' her. I'm sure people were mooned in the 1820s but I'm pretty certain that's not what they called it.

Director Agnieszka Holland has paid a huge amount of attention to the music - the staging of Beethoven's Ninth is wonderful - but the rest is stalwart, stodgy, period material.

Part of the problem of course is that genius is innate. If we could explain it then we could all do it and if we can't explain it then we can't show it on screen.

Copying Beethoven is a Hungarian-British co-production but Hollywood has the right idea. If you want to make a successful Beethoven movie then make sure you cast a slobbering St Bernard.

Director: Agnieszka Holland

Running time: 104mins

SPARKLE (15)

Get entangled in this little gem

In a similar vein to Eagle vs Shark, this British film is something of an antidote to romantic comedy predictability.

Six years ago the writing-directing partnership of Neil Hunter and Tom Hunsinger made the gentle but intelligent Lawless Heart.

Sparkle is a film of several themes concerning itself with the knots in which we become entangled through the course of our relationships.

Shaun Evans and Amanda Ryan are the couple who you know will get together in the end but Hunter and Hunsinger make their journey an interesting one.

There are some lovely little gems in a support cast that includes Stockard Channing, Bob Hoskins, Lesley Manville and Anthony Head.

It may be overlooked in the cinema and destined to find its audience on DVD but Sparkle deserves to be seen.

Director: Neil Hunter, Tom Hunsinger

Running time: 104mins