First up is an audio commentary track from director Paul Greengrass that starts off as primarily a technical discussion but which soon lightens up a little bit and becomes more of a general look at the making of the film from the director's perspective. Greengrass is obviously a smart guy and he's got not shortage of topics to cover here as he talks about the difficulties of adapting the Bourne novels to the big screen based on the level of detail and the many levels on which those stories are written. He covers working on location and what it was like shooting in a few different countries and he talks about having to re-shoot a fair bit of the picture to get it just right. Greengrass also talks about the cast and crew and is happy to give credit where credit is due, showing appreciation for the performances in the film and for the work of the various technicians who helped bring it all to life.

A section of Deleted Scenes is also included, and here we see some of the excised material that didn't make the final cut including some courtroom drama, a neat motorcycle chase scene/assassination, and a few minor bits of character development and interaction from the various locations used in the picture. There's twelve and a half minutes worth of material here in total. These are presented in standard definition.

A documentary entitled Man On The Move: Jason Bourne is up next and it takes a look at the location shooting that was done for the film. Clocking in at twenty-four minutes it's a pretty detailed piece that shows us what it was like for the cast and crew to work in Moscow, Paris, London, Madrid and Tangier. Obviously it had to have been pretty taxing to travel so much for the film and this segment shows us how the team pulled it all off, though not without their fair share of headaches and problems. Also included here are some interviews with actors Matt Damon, Julia Stiles, Brian Cox and Joan Allen as well as director Paul Greengrass and producer Frank Marshall. This documentary is presented in high definition.

From here, check out a few scene specific featurettes, starting with six minute Rooftop Pursuit which, obviously, shows us how one of the stand out action set pieces from the picture was shot and edited. Planning The Punchesis a five minute peek at the rapid fire editing used to present the fight scenes in the picture, while Driving School shows us over a scant three and a half minutes how the stunt drivers play such an important role in the film and how Matt Damon did much of his own driving for certain parts of the film. New York Chase is an eleven minute look at the chase scene that takes place in NYC in which Bourne drives backwards and how clever camera work was used to make it as exciting as possible. These featurettes are presented in high definition.

All the supplements above are available on both the HD-DVD side and the standard definition side of the disc. Exclusive to the HD-DVD side, however, is Universal's U-Control interactive interface which allows the user to further explore a few different sides of the production through the following bonus features, all presented in high definition:

Picture In Picture: This is a great collection of behind the scenes footage, cast and crew interviews and other assorted interesting tidbits of information about the film that plays out in the second, smaller window when this feature is enabled. This is hands down the most interesting extra feature on the disc and it does a great job of showing us all sorts of interesting 'making of' and 'how they did it' clips as the finished product plays out in front of us.

The 'Be Bourne' Game: With this feature enabled, as the movie plays out you'll have the chance to take a look at a couple of different parts of the movie and, once you've watched them, you'll be quizzed on what you just watched. Once the film is done you're given a tallied score which you can then compare to other players online.

Blackbriar Files: This is an interesting overlay feature that, in real time, will give you more information the technology and gadgets used in the film as well as interesting trivia and information about some of the characters and about some of the locations seen in the movie.

Tech Specs: Don't get too excited about this one, as it's really nothing more than a list of features and options for the Volkswagen Touareg that is used in the film. It does allow you to go online and get more information from the web, which is neat, but really this is basically a glorified car commercial.

My Scenes: This is simply a nifty name for Universal's bookmarking option that allows users to add a scene to their favorites list or to make clips out of their favorite scenes for easy playback at a later date.

Jason Bourne's third adventure arrives on HD-DVD with a bang. The Bourne Ultimatum continues the tradition of excellence started by the first two films and it turns out to be an enjoyably exciting and suspenseful action/spy film with brains to match its brawn. The HD-DVD presents the film in excellent quality and with plenty of interesting extra features. Consider this one highly recommended.

Ian lives in NYC with his wife where he writes for DVD Talk, runs Rock! Shock! Pop!. He likes NYC a lot, even if it is expensive and loud.