What Parents Need to Know
Parents need to know that The Bourne Ultimatum features wall-to-wall action, much of it violent, causing repeated, bloody injuries to Bourne. The film includes car chases and crashes, explosions, fights, falls from great heights, smashes through windows, and murders (hand-to-hand, by gunfire), as well as images of dead bodies. The plot involves high tech surveillance and a dastardly, secret CIA program, and the hero comes to distrust his (U.S.) government (that said, Senate hearings at film's end lead to arrests of "rogue agents"). Language includes "s--t," "damn," and "hell."
- Families can talk about Bourne's sense of betrayal: How does he come to see himself as a tool, created and used by the CIA, and how does his moral sense lead him to challenge his "employers"?
- Why might it be significant that Bourne is helped by the two women agents, who both question their boss' efforts to cover up the secret program?
- How does Bourne's amnesia make him different from most other, very self-secure action heroes?