‘Ultimatum’ is ‘Bourne’ to thrill

Still, Damon makes Bourne a much more mysterious and intriguing creature than Richard Chamberlain did when he starred in Roger Young’s three-hour 1988 TV movie based on the late Robert Ludlum’s first Bourne book, “The Bourne Identity” (published in 1980).

Hampered by a clunky visual style, bland performances and television conventions (the blank spots for commercial breaks are glaringly obvious), it nevertheless succeeded in capturing Ludlum’s theme — a throwback to Hollywood’s paranoid Watergate-era political thrillers.

Like Robert Redford in “Three Days of the Condor” (1975) and Warren Beatty in “The Parallax View” (1974), Bourne is out there on his own, trying to avoid getting whacked by people who have more resources than he can muster.

There’s also a resemblance to Jack Nicholson’s unhappy television reporter in “The Passenger” (1975), who fakes his own death and takes over the identity of a gun-runner. Like Bourne, he’s dependent on clues that ultimately lead to lethal trouble when he has difficulty putting the puzzle together.

While Ludlum may have been inspired by these characters to create Bourne, he had far more success than Hollywood did with turning their dilemmas into a franchise. Of the mid-1970s films that seem most Bourne-like, only “Three Days of the Condor” was a commercial success.

The writer’s first three Bourne books, published in 1980, 1986 and 1990, were all best-sellers. So were “The Bourne Legacy” and “The Bourne Betrayal,” which were created after Ludlum’s death six years ago. His friend, Eric Van Lustbader, wrote them, with the blessings of Ludlum’s estate.

Ludlum died before he could see the books transformed into box-office hits. “Identity” grossed $214 million worldwide, “Supremacy” $288 million, while “Ultimatum” is expected to top that — and prompt another sequel. The ads for the new film include a nudge to “read the new novel ‘The Bourne Betrayal,’ on sale now.”

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