While inspiring all the expected headlines punning laboriously on its protagonist's name, "The Bourne Ultimatum" supposedly wraps up the film adaptation of Robert Ludlum's Bourne trilogy; if a fourth picture appears, then I guess we can call it a franchise. Despite some occasional faint resemblance to the Bond movies - now that's a franchise - the Bourne group will never really challenge its venerable British counterparts, but successfully demonstrates some of the important differences not only between James Bond and Jason Bourne, but also between the British and the American spy thriller.

Although the Bond movies and whoever impersonates 007 tend to play their scenes of sex and violence for laughs, and wildly exaggerate the action and characters, they also assert a certain touching confidence in the government, the organization, and the people who stand behind the protagonist. The scripts clearly distinguish the good guys from the bad guys, and everything turns out all right at the end, with another triumph for Bond and another affirmation of the rightness of his cause.

"The Bourne Ultimatum" and its two predecessors display enough action to fill up a Bond flick, but the context, the characters and, ultimately, the themes differ conspicuously. Like James Bond, Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) serves his government as a skilled secret agent, a trained assassin who operates all over the globe. Unlike Bond, however, he not only faces danger from his enemies, but endures manipulation, deceit, and betrayal at the hands of his organization, a fact that in effect provides the basic motive for all the action in the trilogy.

The latest installment opens in Moscow, then moves rapidly to Paris, Tangier, Madrid, London, and New York, as Jason Bourne searches for his true identity. Throughout the film, he remembers, in a series of flashbacks, some vague and disturbing images from his past that appear to show him undergoing some kind of psychological conditioning and the waterboarding so popular in the current administration. As he attempts to track down the truth about his past and himself, the CIA, the organization that employs him, seeks to block his quest in the most negative manner, i.e., death.

The agent's journey toward his goal and the parallel pursuit by the CIA provide a familiar basis for numerous action sequences and violent confrontations. A man of great resourcefulness, Bourne defends himself with fists and firearms against policemen in half a dozen countries, a squad of CIA agents, and a clutch of hired assassins. He races acrobatically across the rooftops of Madrid and Tangier, maneuvers at high speed through the crowded streets of several cities by automobile and motorcycle, and in the climactic chase, creates a veritable demolition derby, destroying trucks, taxicabs, and police cars in Manhattan.

Interrupting all the physical action and stuntwork, the picture constantly cuts to CIA headquarters, where a couple of high-level operators, played by David Strathairn and Joan Allen, track Bourne's progress and direct his pursuers. Instead of the fantastic technology of the Bond flicks, with their rocket propelled cars and trick weaponry, "The Bourne Ultimatum" employs real and recognizable gear - computers, satellite imaging, wiretaps, electronic surveillance, and so forth - which Bourne foils through his own ingenuity, which includes such relatively ordinary tactics as picking locks and constantly switching cellular phones.

Crosscutting between the violence in Bourne's difficult journey across Europe and the frantic electronic manipulation at the CIA center in New York, the picture moves at a remarkable pace, balancing the physical excitement with the sheer fascination of technological process. The camera records the rapid actions and reactions of the chief operators and computer experts with an intensity equal to its display of the fights and chases and stunts.

Most important, the picture simply assumes what we all know, that the government of the United States, at least embodied in the CIA, constitutes an enemy as evil and certainly as powerful as any alleged external menace. The villains in this movie are not Soviet Communists or Muslim terrorists, but the very people entrusted with the defense of the nation. As "The Bourne Ultimatum" makes excitingly clear, it's no longer an easy task to tell the good guys from the bad guys.

"The Bourne Ultimatum" (PG-13), directed by Paul Greengrass, is now playing at area theaters..