Rio Rancho Film Reviews

Fear gets mentioned quite a few times in Batman Begins. In fact, it gets mentioned about a hundred times. 'I seek the means to fight injustice. To turn fear on those who prey on the fearful.' 'Now you must journey inwards, to what you really fear.' 'There is nothing to fear but fear itself.' Etc. Etc. And then the whole of Gotham City gets The Fear and tries to rip itself apart. It's almost as if the filmmakers are trying to say something. Is it a comment on paranoia in the Bush era? Or is it an insight into how ordinary people are running scared from real and imagined criminality? Or then again, is it just a bunch of cool stuff in a big Hollywood blockbuster? It's probably a combination of all three, although, as you'd expect, the cool stuff takes precedence.

And it’s certainly cool to see Batman back on the big screen after he was gang raped into a coma by Joel Schumacher and everyone else who was involved in the last two pieces of shit. You can’t keep a good money-spinning cash cow down for long.

But you have to wait a while for Batman to make an appearance – unlike Burton’s film where his presence is immediate. Therefore you have to endure the dreaded back story, which is quite often the death of many a comic book film. I mean, the origin story is often like the first couple of hundred pages of a large biography. Yeah, I don’t give a shit that Barry Big Bollocks was born into poverty and that he had to take coal sandwiches to school. I want to read the bit where he makes it big and fucks some slut with a baby crocodile. And so with a comic book character you often just want to see them in action.

But the build-up in Batman Begins is well handled, even though the ninja training is a tad dull. Yeah I know we have to see how Bruce Wayne gets his skills, but still, it’s rather ho-hum. Neeson’s mentor comes across as a bland, slightly malevolent Apollo Creed or a less interesting variation of the old git out of The Karate Kid. Thrilling cinema it isn’t.

However, other stuff in the build-up is superb, especially the scenes dealing with Bruce’s childhood. They have real heart and feeling, which reminds you that this isn’t some bland product churned out by some easily intimidated hack, but a film made by someone who genuinely cares about the characters.

At the same time, though, you have to marvel at how gosh darn great Bruce’s dad is. Like a superhero he saves Bruce when he falls down a hole. Then he carries Bruce to his bedroom and takes care of him. Then he provides Gotham City with a cheap public transport system. What a wonderful guy. No wonder, then, that his death would fuck Bruce up to such an extent that he dresses up like a giant bat.

The appearance of Batman himself is wonderful. Some hoods are conducting a drug deal down at the docks and then suddenly they begin getting picked off one by one. It’s like something out of a horror film. And then our first full glimpse of the Bat Man sees him dangling upside down behind a criminal. It’s a joy to finally see Batman trying to scare thugs rather than give them hard-ons by flashing bat butts and bat nipples.

And Bale has the perfect voice to intimidate people with. His Batman growls and screams. There’s no messing around. In particular I like the scene where he drags a bent cop up by his ankles and then interrogates him. One second you’re having a nice snack and the next you’re upside down being screamed at by a giant bat. I think anyone would be well within their rights to shit themselves.

And it’s also pleasing that the film is quite scary for a mainstream blockbuster. A large part of the story revolves around a hallucinogenic drug that makes people freak out. Cue then lots of cool visuals of people seeing scary stuff. My favourite is probably the satanic Batman that people see flying over the city. But the demon Batman that Dr Crane/Scarecrow (Cillian Murphy) sees is really cool as well. Oh, and I also like the Scarecrow’s horse – it has glowing red eyes and breathes fire.

As far as the villains go, Dr Crane is easily the best. Excellently played by Cillian Murphy, he has a cold, slimy, sleazy vibe to him. He might not be physically threatening, but his eyes are as cold as ice. Therefore it’s a huge disappointment that he’s only the second most important villain and that Liam Neeson’s colourless Ra’s Al Ghul is the primary one. Honestly, when he turns back up you kind of sigh. You just want to give him a drink to loosen him up. Maybe if he had a laugh he wouldn’t feel so compelled to destroy society and be such a pompous downer. At least you felt Crane enjoyed being evil. He even makes a Roger Moore-style quip when he sets Batman on fire: ‘You need to lighten up.’ Excellent.

And the whole League of Shadows thing is silly as hell. Apparently they’re a group of vigilantes that keep the world in check by destroying societies when they become too corrupt. According to them, they sacked Rome and burnt London to the ground. What the hell is this, The Da Vinci Code? Are they the Priory of Sion or something? For a film that tries to drag Batman back into a sense of reality, this stands out as pure silliness.

Something else that doesn’t really work is the casting of Katie Holmes. She doesn’t embarrass herself and she’s not annoying in a Vicki Vale type of way (although at least Kim Basigner and her acres of hair gave me confusing trouser rumblings as an innocent youth), but she’s ridiculously out of place as a DA. She has no authority. She has no screen presence. She’s like vapour.

Thank fuck then that the rest of the cast, Liam Neeson aside, is superb. Michael Caine is excellent as Alfred, Morgan Freeman does a good job as Q (er, I mean, Lucius Fox), Tom Wilkinson shines in the short amount of time he has and Gary Oldman does a decent job with the thankless role of Gordon – although for some reason the way he says ‘Kevlar’ at the end makes me laugh; just listen to the way he says it. And of course Christian Bale is excellent as Batman. He might not look as deranged as Michael Keaton, but in every other way he’s more convincing.

But Bale actually isn’t the best thing in the film. The best thing is the Tumbler. The car chase here is magnificent. The Batmobile flies over roofs, crashes through walls and blows shit up, yet it feels completely authentic. Quite a feat if you ask me. And it’s certainly one of the best action scenes in recent years. And it makes up for the rather bland fight scenes that pepper the film. They try and ape the ones in the Bourne films but they’re even more indistinct and hard to watch.

But even though I have reservations about certain things, the film is a massive success. The serious treatment of the characters has to be applauded and the film itself is engrossing and exciting. Here’s hoping the next one is even better.

There are three types of people who frighten me: people who have an intense love of popular romantic fiction; people who can't bring themselves to swear under any circumstances whatsoever and instead invent their own homespun swear-lite; and people whose heinous actions are supposedly ordained by god. All of these afflictions hint at an arrested development, an inability to deal with reality and a barely suppressed rage. So, needless to say, in light of her suffering from all three of these disorders, Annie Wilkes is a woman to be extremely fearful of.

But of course, at first, she seems so nice. She rescues Paul Sheldon from freezing to death after he crashes his car in a blizzard and then she gives him medical treatment in her own home. But no sooner has she opened her mouth than she's declaring him 'The World's Greatest Writer' and calling him a 'literary genius' - this she says of a man who loathes his own work and a man who hates the way he's become a manufacturer of bland product rather than a writer expressing himself. But even more worryingly she apologises for making him feel "oogy". The warning bells ring loud and clear.

But Annie's insanity doesn't get its first overt display until after she's begun reading the manuscript that was pulled from Paul's car – it's more personal work and it's a breakaway from the Misery tripe he's been getting rich off. She admits that it's well written but she says the profanity bothers her. And she flies off the handle completely when Paul insists that slum children do indeed swear. It's a great scene and Kathy Bates' delivery is perfect. It's both comical and unnerving.

However, more frightening than the loss of temper is the way that Annie apologises. She tells Paul she loves him. Paul's sphincter must be playing all kinds of tricks.

After this, the film plays the humour of the situation for a little while. We get a funny scene where Annie introduces Paul to her pig (which, surprise, surprise, is called Misery) and then there's a fantastic bit where Annie is talking about her failed marriage. At first it appears to be a serious scene, but then halfway through her spiel we find out that Paul has been urinating into a bottle while listening to her prattle on. And it becomes even funnier when Annie begins lecturing Paul while swishing the bottle of urine absently in her hand. The weird humour helps make Annie seem more believable (and therefore more terrifying).

Another funny moment is when Annie is talking about 'Misery's Child' (unbeknownst to Annie, it's Misery's final book – Paul's killed her off). She's about halfway through and she calls it divine. And then she asks this wonderful question: "What's the ceiling that dago painted?" "The Sistine Chapel," is Paul's incredulous response. "Yeah, that and ‘Misery's Child’, those are the only two divine things ever in this world." It's a funny moment because it reveals so much about Annie's character – she's totally ignorant and she's casually racist, too (so much for being clean and pure).

But the humour in the film comes to a bit of a halt when Annie finishes 'Misery's Child' and finds out about Misery's death. She terrorises Paul as he sleeps and then in the morning she makes him burn the manuscript of the new non-Misery book he's written. In a typical fundamentalist Christian sort of way she insists he must rid the world of this 'filth'. And in one of the most casually frightening bits in the film she walks around the bed absently squirting lighter fluid on his legs. It's only after this that Paul is persuaded to burn his book. And the look on Caan's face is wonderful. He's both completely heartbroken (he might as well have burnt one of his own children) and filled with rage – after this he quietly declares war on Annie.

But after the burning, the humour returns. However, it becomes more closely linked with the horror. For instance, there's a darkly amusing moment when Annie loses her temper when Paul shows that the expensive paper she's bought for him smudges. She begins shouting and then slams the paper into his lap. And then there's the rant she makes about chapter plays ("He didn't get out of the cockadoode car!"). I mean, it's nutty enough that a woman has her favourite writer held hostage in her house and she's making him write a new Misery book for her, but it's blackly comic that she becomes a violent one-person focus group. It must be every writer's worst nightmare – you've got to tailor your work to the whims of a nutball.

A fabulous scene illustrating how precarious Paul's situation is is when Annie begins talking to him in a depressed state. She goes on about how the rain gives her the blues and she says how fearful she is of losing him. And then she pulls a gun out. Again both Caan and Bates are tremendous. Caan barely suppresses his alarm and Bates casually says that she might put bullets in the weapon. Once again it's a small off-hand moment that is horrific in the implied threat.

And the famous hobbling scene is made more unsettling by the way Annie tells Paul she loves him after she's broken his ankles. Nothing says "I love you" like smashed feet, eh?

But although Bates rightly gets a lot of attention, I really must give Caan a lot of credit for his performance. He conveys the helplessness of his situation superbly and it's such a cathartic moment when he finally stuffs the charred remains of 'Misery's Return' down Annie's throat. But if I'm nitpicking I do have to say it's a shame that the fight at the end has the clichéd 'back from the dead' moment. It's the only wrong step in an otherwise fantastic film.

What happens when you take two of the world’s most over the top actors and put them in a film that forces them to over act even more than normal? Pure cinematic gold. That’s what happens.

The film begins with John Travolta as Sean Archer and Nicolas Cage as Castor Troy. Archer is a tightwad government agent whose idea of a good time is breaking balls, crying and grieving over his dead son. Troy on the other hand is a cool super-criminal, the sort of man who sucks tongues for breakfast and kills children for lunch. Therefore their world views are slightly, how you say, different.

The opening scene sees Archer with his young son Michael on a merry-go-round. Twinkly music plays and father and son laugh, and you immediately know something bad is going to happen, because they’re enjoying themselves far too much. Then Troy appears on a grassy knoll, complete with gun and porn moustache, and accidentally kills the child when trying to kill Archer. Yep, the loathing between the two characters is personal.

One should never expect subtlety from a film that’s called Face/Off, but the complete lack of restraint in the opening scenes pleases me a great deal. We see Castor Troy plant a bomb in an exhibition centre while dressed as a priest. And then when his work is done he comes across a choir singing Handel. With a big crucifix around his neck, Cage then proceeds to clap his hands and headbang. And then he sees a girl he likes. He talks to her for a bit and then grabs her arse. He then makes a face like he’s splattered his robe – he’s experienced an earth-shattering orgasm.

But then a bit later Castor Troy takes a flight on a private jet. Cage, for some inexplicable reason, starts talking in a fake British accent, saying he’s bored and that he wants the flight to take off. And then he spots what he thinks is a flight attendant (it’s really an undercover FBI agent). He gets the woman to sit on his lap and then asks her to suck his tongue, which she enthusiastically does. He’s kind of like a rock and roll star. However, there is one disturbing thing about this tongue sucking. Troy’s geeky brother Pollux watches the whole thing and then yelps like he’s pitched an aggressive trouser tent. I shudder to think what goes on in private between those two.

The action scene that follows sees Archer try and prevent Troy’s private jet from taking off. It’s fun stuff, but it’s the little details that make me laugh. For instance, at one point Troy shouts ‘Fly, bitch!’ at the pilot. I like that. I like it a lot. Although it must be noted that for years I thought the line was, ‘Fly, Mitch’ – for some reason the personal touch made the line even funnier to me, especially as he kills the pilot a few moments later. And then afterwards, when Archer and Troy are face to face with guns pointed at each other, Troy asks Archer whether his daughter is ripening and then begins barking. But then when he finds out that his gun is empty, he suddenly gets on his knees, fake sobs and begins singing. I love the scene chewing from Cage.

Therefore, with Cage getting to do so much fun stuff, you initially feel a bit sorry for Travolta. He has to play a humourless knob. I mean, there’s one scene, after they catch Troy, where his entire team applauds him. He’s even given a bottle of champagne. But then he bums everyone out by refusing the booze and by dedicating it to all the agents that died in the gnarly slow-mo action scenes. What a pisser.

But then we have the face switch. Of course the reasoning for the whole thing is complete bollocks. Basically, with Troy comatose, Archer needs to go undercover and find out from Troy’s brother, who’s in prison, where the bomb is. And in order to do this, he needs Troy’s face. But then would you believe it, once Archer has Cage’s face and is undercover in prison, Troy wakes up from his coma, round up lots of medical staff, has them put Travolta’s face on him and kills everyone who knows about the operation. Things just couldn’t get worse for Sean Archer, could they?

Well, yes they can, because now Castor Troy is living Sean Archer’s life. That includes living in his house, bringing up his daughter and fucking his wife. And the film has great fun with this. We see the Travoltered Troy woo Archer’s wife and treat her to a candlelit dinner. We also see him ogle her arse. She’s going to have more fun with him than she ever did with her real husband.

And there’s a great scene where the Travoltered Troy visits the Caged Archer in prison. Of course, Archer is rather surprised. And then Troy tells his nemesis that he now has a government job to abuse and a lonely wife to fuck. But then in a great piece of acting from Travolta, he backtracks and says, ‘Did I say fuck? Make love to.’ It’s really funny.

And after the beginning of the film it’s fun to see Travolta unleashed. He can eat up the scenery just as well as Cage. And there’s lots of comedy to be had in the fact that briefly this super-criminal becomes the ideal husband and father. He fucks his wife, which Archer hadn’t been doing, and then when Archer’s daughter begins to get harassed by a date, he kicks his foot through a Corvette window and beats the guy up. And then later he gives his daughter a knife for protection. Very briefly they’re a happy family.

But one thing puzzles me about the face/off operation. We hear that as well as changing faces, the operation will take care of love handles and a microchip in the throat will alter the voice. But what about cock? Did that get changed? And if not, wouldn’t Archer’s wife have noticed that her husband suddenly turned either into a donkey or a hamster? But I guess they could have the same size dong. But at the same time, I’m willing to bet that Troy is better hung. I just can’t see lardo Travolta having anything to boast about in the pants department. But even if the sizes were the same, wouldn’t a myriad of other penile quirks and characteristics give the game away to a loving wife? ‘Why does Sean’s dong point to the left now? What happened to Sean’s foreskin? How come Sean now knows what to do with his sword?’ Oh wait, I’m trying to bring logic to a film that’s about men having their faces swapped. Never mind.

But although the film is funny and incredibly violent, it’s also rather sappy. Archer, now with Cage’s face, has to seek refuge with Troy’s criminal friends. We then find out that Troy has a son. And would you believe it, he’s the same age as Archer’s dead son Michael. This temporarily makes Archer goes mental, squeezing the kid like mad and calling him Michael. But again, like Troy briefly becomes the ideal husband and father, Archer does the same with his new girlfriend and son. Both men thrive a little in their new lives.

But if there was a competition between the two for who best adapts to their new environment, Troy would win. There’s a great bit, after he finds and disarms the bomb that starts the film, where his team treat him to a hero’s welcome. Remember that last time, when Archer really was Archer, he bummed everyone out when they tried to celebrate one of his victories. But this time he laps everything up and his team loves him for it. And then to cap everything off, his secretary tells him that the President is on the line and that his wife is on line two. Troy then tells his secretary to put the President on hold while groping his secretary’s bum. What a guy.

But the good times can’t last for ever and eventually Archer’s wife finds out that she’s been getting porked by her son’s murderer. Cue doves, slow-motion and lots of guns.

The final action scene is a reminder of how much more fun action scenes are when stunts are used instead of CGI. We see speedboats race through piers and we see men hanging off boats, and even though sometimes the stunt doubles are far too obvious, it allows you to enjoy the scene much more than you would if it were just computer pixels.

But even for a silly film, the ending is ridiculous. Somehow, even though all the evidence for the operation is lost and all the medical staff are dead, Archer’s real face is restored to him. Phew. That was incredibly convenient.

And then on top of this, you have the scene where Archer returns home. It’s filmed through a dreamy haze, and then after he’s hugged his family and his daughter apologises for shooting him (the poor girl gets awful confused when she sees her dad with someone else’s face), he brings Troy’s son in with him – a readymade replacement for his dead son. It’s incredibly sappy, but like the rest of the film, I fall for it.

But still, I can’t help but contemplate all the psychiatry that these characters will need. First of all, you have a woman sleeping with her son’s murderer. Then you have a daughter shooting her dad. Then you have a daughter getting a gun pointed at her and getting licked by a man who looks like her dad. Then you have a man killing a man who has his face. You’d be so fucked up after that. But then again, apparently a cute moptop who’s the spawn of your son’s murderer will make everything a-ok.

GoldenEye marks the highpoint in Brosnan’s tenure as Bond. None of the subsequent films were as fun, as well written or as memorable. In fact, they were all disappointingly bland. Until Daniel Craig came along, the franchise regressed rather than moved forward.

But GoldenEye was a welcome return to form in 1995 (although I like the previous film Licence to Kill quite a bit) and it still stands up. The action scenes are superb, the dialogue is pithy and it has quite a few memorable characters, which makes the film stand out even more considering how forgettable most of the characters have been in subsequent films. I mean, who can forget that blonde bloke from Tomorrow Never Dies? Or the nuclear physicist with the large rack in The World is Not Enough? Or the bald geezer out of Die Another Day? They were characters for the ages...

But like I say, GoldenEye is stocked with great characters. Just take Xenia Onatopp. How can you not like a woman who crushes men to death between her thighs? Plus she also has a penchant for fascistic leather military uniforms and a desire to shoot people while moaning like a whore. I dig that. Then there's Alec Trevelyan – a plumy, lecherous, traitorous former MI6 agent who says things like, "You know, James...I was always better." I dig that too. And there's Zukovsky, computer geek Boris and General Ourumov. Out of these, Ourumov has to be my favourite, largely because he has a hip flask and a huge nose. Always a good combination. (I also have to mention that I love how camp his stance is when he 'executes' 006. All I'll say is, ‘I'm a little teapot.’) And Jack Wade is good too. Sure he's a concession to American audiences, but he represents them well – he's an overweight loudmouth.

Even the token totty stand up well. Izabella Scorupco is a fine looking woman, but, get this, she can actually act. And the fact that she can act makes it easy to overlook the fact that she's far too attractive to be a computer programmer. The same can't be said of Denise Richards in The World is Not Enough.

And Judi Dench is a great M and Samantha Bond is a fantastic Moneypenny. Although I have to say that I'm always distracted by Samantha Bond's nose. It’s got a life of its own. Take a look when you watch it next; it bobs up and down like crazy. (I've seen this film too many times…)

The only negative is that Desmond Llewelyn seems to be reading his dialogue from cue cards. He seems to be looking beyond Bond in their scene. I guess he must have had trouble remembering the jargon-heavy lines. But I still find it rather distracting. (Again, I've seen this film far too many times…)

But I guess what most people judge Bond films by, is the action. Well, in that regard, it's more than adequate. The opening stunt has to be the highlight. Stunts are so much more impressive when you're allowed to believe your eyes, when they're actually done for real. And the dam jump is possibly the best stunt I've seen.

After that you have the plane sequence. This bit is silly as hell. Bond rides off a cliff, catches up to a free-falling plane – despite it falling under both the force of gravity and its engines – and pulls it out of its descent. It's ridiculous, but hey, that's Bond. Since when have the laws of physics and plausibility bound this immortal? Better, though, is the tank sequence. It's a novel spin on the obligatory car chase and it's well done – although whoever was responsible for the Perrier product placement should hang their head in shame. But my favourite piece of action, aside from the dam jump, is the fight between Bond and Trevelyan. It's just a good no-frills, no-holds-barred piece of fighting between the two main characters – usually, at the end of a Bond film, Bond has to stop some bomb or some device, or kill loads of faceless henchman or some effete villain. Therefore it's nice just to have a straight up fight end a Bond film. Sure you have a bit of extraneous detail to tie up the plot, but, as ever, it doesn't matter. It's just background noise. But although I like the fight, there's still more silliness. After falling a few hundred feet to a concrete floor, Trevelyan is not only still alive but only has a slightly bloody nose. I'm sure it was a concession to the censors, but it's quite amazing how indestructible movie folk are.

But watching the film back I was quite impressed at how intelligent the film is, certainly compared to subsequent Bond films. There's some good stuff about the end of the Cold War and Russia's transition from communism to capitalism. And the scene between Bond and M intelligently addresses the fears that Bond, as a character, is too dated. Quite rightly the film ensures that it's only the world that changes – Bond remains the same. And there are references to Stalin, the Second Word War and Roman mythology. It may just be a Bond film, but at least it doesn't insult the audience's intelligence. (It's also a nice detail that Bond and Alec meet up in a Soviet graveyard full of communist relics.)

But the film also has an excellent sense of humour. There are some real corkers: "How do you take it?" "Straight up…with a twist", "I like a woman who enjoys pulling rank" and "She always did enjoy a good squeeze."

Add all of this to a fantastic score (which I'm unusual among Bond fans in liking), some excellent miniature work (always better than bad CGI...I'm pointing at you Die Another Day) and a superb Bond in Pierce Brosnan, and you have one of the best films in the series.