Not because The Bourne Ultimatum is bad. It's not. It's quite good in some ways. But if artistic considerations are the only factor, the series should end here.

If they do shoot a fourth version, they have to ditch director Paul Greengrass and figure out a way to revitalize the franchise the way Casino Royale did for Bond.*

* Some argue the Bourne franchise is what prompted the Bond rethink

Again, it's not that I don't like Greengrass's work. I loved United 93, Bloody Sunday and Omagh, to name three of his non-Bourne films. And I really enjoyed the first two Bourne movies (Doug Liman directed Bourne I).

However, Bourne III is too close in visual style and story structure to Bourne II, The Bourne Supremacy.

The CIA control room hubbub is getting old as an energy-boosting trick*. In some ways, I felt like I was watching the same car chase in III as I did in II (I hope it's not too much of a spoiler to reveal that there's a car chase). I also felt like, "if it's XX minutes into the film, then YY is about to happen." Some scenes could have had a bit snipped here and there and kept the energy level high without losing the story.

* There's a wicked parody waiting to be done! "Bourne's stopping for a hot dog." "What does it mean?" "People, I want to know what kind of mustard he's putting on that hot dog and I want to know NOW!!"

I was left wondering why the London "asset" (CIA killer) and the New York one were the same guy (does he get sent to cities on the off-chance that Bourne will show up?). And there's many other moments that made me look at the screen in askance.

At the same time, much of what has made the Bourne films such a refreshing addition to the international-man-of-mystery genre still works big-time!

The film gets started where it almost ended last time. Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) is trying to escape from Moscow with the police on his tail. Somehow, he pulls it off (thank God; after all, there were 106 minutes left in the movie! :) ).

While Bourne is underground, British reporter Simon Ross (Paddy Considine) with the left-leaning Guardian newspaper is meeting with a secret CIA source to talk about him. On his cellphone afterwards, Ross utters a word that sends the CIA into spasmodic convulsions: Blackbriar  -- the code name for the blackest of black ops and an outgrowth of Project Treadstone, where Bourne used to ply his deadly craft for the agency.

When the reporter gets back to London, he receives a surprise phone call from Bourne, the subject of his stories. He goes to meet with Bourne, who wants to know the source's name.

Without spilling the details, this is the film's most exhilarating part. Why I have no personal expertise in covert black ops, the Bourne films appear to be very well researched. If they don't mirror reality, then they certainly have the ring of authenticity to them.

Ross is the everyman, our surrogate plunged into this violent nightmare world of omnipresent video surveillance, rendition teams and assassins. "Man, you don't know what you're into," Bourne tells him. "These people will kill you if they have to."

More amusingly, to me, is when Bourne tells Ross at one point in the sequence: "This isn't some story in a newspaper. This is real! Do you understand me?"

True to Bourne's warning, "they" eventually do kill Ross -- but how it was done let a little air out of the scene.

A trademark of Bourne movies (actually, the entire genre) is how they sweep through exotic locales. Our man's next stops are Madrid and Tangiers. More nifty fight and action scenes in both places! Nicky Parsons (Julia Stiles), a CIA agent and character in all three B movies, risks her life to help Bourne out and puzzlingly hints at some possible romantic involvement with him at some point in his amnesiac past. And then she leaves it at that. Just as well. Jason has to head off to the Big Apple.

There, the film nicely dovetails into the final scene from Bourne II ("You look tired, Pam. Get some rest").

The intense but honest Pam Landy (Joan Allen) is one of the white hats in this movie and, as you may have gleaned, a returnee from B-II.

While in New York, we have some final high-energy battles between individual good and institutional evil, the repentant monster Bourne meets his amoral Dr. Frankenstein, and a crack left is open for yet another Bourne film.

On Thursday's Daily Show, Damon joked that if there was a fourth movie, it should be called The Bourne Redundancy. :)

I concur. 'Let's Cash in on the Bourne Franchise One Last Time' doesn't have a ring to it, but unless the creative team has something new to say and a new way to say it, that would be the only reason for one more installment.

Here's the CTV.ca review. It has video attached.