Rio Rancho Film Reviews: James Bond

GoldenEye

Sunday, June 15, 2008

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.

Clifton James

Live and Let Die

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

I can remember as a kid being somewhat frightened by Live and Let Die. I'm not sure what it was – whether it be the freaky Baron Samedi, the crocodiles or seeing more black people than you'd see on an average episode of Sesame Street (poor whitey had probably only encountered one black person at that time) – but like the supposedly kid-friendly Raiders of the Lost Ark, it freaked me out somewhat. Now, though, I'm not quite sure what the fuss was about. Live and Let Die is more camp than a row of tents.

Although, to be fair, the film does have it moments. For example, the opening sequence features three brutal slayings. Fair enough, the first one, with a British ambassador getting zapped, is rather comic, but after that we have a guy getting stabbed and a man getting bitten by a snake. No wonder it had me browning my pants as a child. And then there's the sadistic moment towards the end when Kananga (Yaphet Koto) slices Bond's arm. Once again the darkness is immediately relieved by the ludicrous way in which Kananga is dispatched (he literally goes pop: "He always did have an inflated opinion about himself"), but all those years back the damage was done.

There was also something rather unsettling about the rubber faced Mr Big and Tee Hee. And those scarecrows, too, gave me the creeps. But one thing that made me laugh as a kid and which still gives me the giggles now is Kanaga's lackey Whisper. You'd be hard pressed to find a more amusing Bond subordinate - a fat black man whose voice is perpetually hushed. Indeed, I only have to say to myself, in his silly voice, "Anybody home?...Your champagne…Shall I open it?...Shall I oooopen it?" and I'm laughing like an idiot. And what about the inflating couch that explodes from under him? Bloody hilarious.

Also hilarious is Bond's attitude to sex in this film. Every single lay is achieved via nefarious means – with the Italian girl he indirectly forces her to hide in the cupboard and then sneakily unzips her as she coos over him like a schoolgirl; with Rosie he lets her make a fool of herself before nailing her and then shoving a gun in her face; and with Solitaire he steals her virginity via a set of trick cards. What a rake.

But the very idea of Jane Seymour playing a meek virgin makes me laugh as well. She's one of those women, like Elizabeth Taylor, who made a habit of playing the English rose – women of principles and purity – who behind the scenes were getting more knob than a squad of streetwalkers. You just can't believe that Bond's the first to go there. But it says something for Bond that he's prepared to break her in. Black or white; good or bad; virgin or slut – Bond will shag them all.

But to be honest, the Bond girls in this film are rather sub-par. Rosie is played as a dimwit and Jane Seymour is, well, Jane Seymour. She's just a poor actress with too much hair. And it says something about her and her character that after her first shag she becomes obsessed with sex – all she goes on about is sleeping with Bond or finding a bed in which to sleep with him. And, of course, Bond is happy to comply. And this actually leads to a rather funny moment in the film. In a roundabout way Seymour asks Bond to service her again, and after acquiescing, he says there's no sense in going off half-cocked. How right you are, Rog.

However, Bond doesn't get his way with every woman. In one of my favourite moments in the film, Moore is watching a cabaret singer sing a rendition of 'Live and Let Die'. Moore smarms it up like crazy – as he nods his approval you can see him thinking, "I'd do her" - but before he can start working his magic, he disappears through a hole in the floor. The one that got away, eh? Oh well, there's plenty more fish in the sea.

Another detail that makes me laugh is the fact that there's only one point in the film where Bond looks genuinely worried. I mean, he faces crocodiles and sharks and does it with confidence. But when he's captured by Kananga and it's suggested that his more vital extremities might get cut off, a flicker of concern flashes across his face – for Moore's Bond there's no fate worse than having your cock snipped off.

Another amusing part of this scene are the chair restraints that hold Bond down. They look like they wouldn't hold back Stephen Hawking. And I also love the way that Bond gets knocked out by Tee Hee. He doesn't get hit so much as brushed, yet he goes down like a sack of spuds. Oh, and the 'butterhook' line a few moments earlier in the scene is delivered with toxic levels of smarm.

Perhaps the biggest laugh in the film, though, comes during the boat chase. Sheriff J. W. Pepper, hick extraordinaire, is waiting by the riverside for his cracker brother-in-law to come round the bend and chase Bond in his speedboat. Pepper is proudly telling his pals that if one side of the family doesn't get him, the other side will. And it's then, as Pepper's back is turned, that you see a big black guy driving the boat. It's a wonderful bit of comedy.

Having said that, as funny as the film is, I do prefer the more serious Bond films – with the Moore films I'm usually groaning as I laugh. However, Live and Let Die stands up as one of Moore's best entries. And after having seen the film more times than I care to mention, I only just noticed a wonderful detail rather late on in the film. In the fight at the end with Tee Hee, Bond defends himself by throwing a deck of cards in his face. A deadly weapon that – paper cuts are lethal.

007

Moonraker

Sunday, July 15, 2007

Moonraker aims for the stars and ends up somewhere around your anus. It's a dire Bond film; a Bond film lacking in plot, excitement and interesting characters. Everything feels tired and half-baked – it's the Bond franchise running on empty.

Rather predictably for a Moore Bond film, our first glimpse of our hero sees him copping off with some floozy. All is well in Bond-land, you think. But after a couple of amusing double entendres, and an enjoyable action scene that sees Bond steal some hapless lackey's parachute, we're confronted with what's in store, namely lots of lousy attempts at humour. In this case we have Jaws tear the rip cord from his parachute and then fall into a circus tent – it makes you groan to see the worst excesses of The Spy Who Loved Me (Jaws being impervious to any type of accident or injury) played for comedic effect instead of dramatic effect. No longer is Jaws a credible threat – he's a lovable buffoon.

Which brings me to Jaws falling in love. I know Jaws was a victim of his own success and as such could no longer really remain a villain, but his romantic scenes are entirely out of place in a Bond film. They make you yearn for the good old days when Sean Connery would slap women on the arse and tell them to fuck off while he had a serious chat with one of his colleagues.

But Jaws' more 'serious' scenes don't fare much better either. Something that immediately springs to mind is the cable car fight. What should ordinarily be an edge of the seat encounter is rendered unintentionally laughable by the way Jaws jumps from car to car (he doesn't so much jump as float upwards) and the way the fisticuffs turn into a weird variation of a wrestling scaffold match – both men are so high up and have so little room to manoeuvre that they simply grab hold of each other and pretend to scrap while they try not to plummet to their bloody deaths; the scene has no drama. Plus, even though it's a Bond film, I can't help but wonder why Jaws doesn't pull up alongside Bond, and rather than jump from one car to the other, just pull a gun out and shoot him in the face (this film would drive Scott Evil crazy).

But this film must score pretty high in the number of ridiculously convoluted attempts to kill Bond stakes. First of all you've got the pre-titles sequence and then you've got scene in the centrifuge. Yeah, let's spin him to death! Then after that there's a hunting scene. Drax, the head villain, gets Bond to try and shoot some pheasants while a lackey hides in the trees with a rifle. Of course, the underling gets shot, but after disarming our hero, rather than give up and blow him away himself (he's carrying a gun for fuck's sake), he lets him go! But the film hasn't finished yet. Later on Drax tries to crush Bond to death with a snake. This doesn't work, but Drax is nothing if not persistent. After telling Bond all his plans, rather than cave his head in, or gut him, or toast him with a flame thrower, or shoot a rocket propelled grenade at his face, he tries to fry him with the boosters on one of his shuttles. Needless to say this requires Drax to leave Bond unsupervised and allow him to figure out a cunning escape. 'Just shoot him' you end up screaming at the screen! Yes, every Bond film relies on ridiculous escapes, but Moonraker takes it to extremes.

However, I think Drax's thinking is impaired, mainly because he always has the horn. You don't believe me? Just remember his evil plan – he wants to kill every human being so that he can repopulate it as a bearded Nazi overlord. And what's he going to do in the meantime when everyone on Earth is dead and he's stuck on his galactic stud farm? He's going to be abusing himself rotten and possibly making dirty movies while watching his 'perfect' specimens go at it – he like a cross between Adolf Hitler and Max Hardcore; he's so appalled at his hideous physical state that he has to have our wonderful planet populated entirely by Penthouse models (his space station should have a sign on it reading 'No Munters Allowed').

Speaking of the horn, I can't say that Bond is much better in this film. Not only does his appearance feature him getting off, but he nails some naïve French chick a couple of minutes after meeting her (her name is Corinne Dufour – Duphwoar perhaps?), bangs a Brazilian agent a whole two seconds after their first exchange (a case of meeting and then meating) and has zero G relations with Holly Goodhead (it may be a lousy Bond film, and she may be a lousy Bond girl, but what a fabulous name). Rog just can't keep it zipped. (Phallic symbol alert: watch the binoculars when Bond spots Goodhead looking at the runway in Rio – the way the long piece of steel pops up is obscene; Rog is cocked and ready to go.)

But while the sex provides a couple of laughs, some other scenes do nothing but dismay. The most hideous example is the action scene where a gondola turns into a hovercraft. It's one of the most absurd, poorly thought out, out of place moments in any Bond film, and it's not helped by some of the inserts – the double-taking pigeon made me cringe. It's the suave, deadly superspy as a camp laughing stock. And did I mention that Bond wears a poncho in this film? Or that zero G is simulated by everyone moving very s-l-o-w-l-y? And the less said about the final space battle the better. My oh my, what a wretched film…

007

Casino Royale

Sunday, July 01, 2007

It’s strange, but despite being an excellent 007, Pierce Brosnan only made one truly great Bond film – that being Goldeneye. The others were either mediocre (Tomorrow Never Dies, The World is Not Enough) or downright dreadful (Die Another Day). Therefore the Bond producers had a mammoth task on their hands in order to rescue Bond, to move it away from the jokey, CGI-ridden, clusterfuck mess of the last adventure and back to what made the franchise so enjoyable in the first place – cool action, sexy women and a ruthless hero.

Loud, obnoxious objections were made when Daniel Craig was cast as Bond (oh my fucking god, he’s blonde!), but he’s long since proved his detractors wrong. His Bond is quiet, determined and a bit of a bastard. He’s the complete opposite of Roger Moore, who you felt was more happy firing one liners and drilling bimbos than busting heads and blowing people away. Therefore Craig’s Bond has more in common with Connery and Dalton, which can only be a good thing.

However, Casino Royale must be the first Bond film where 007 himself is the main piece of ass. Time after time we’re confronted with Craig’s bulging muscles. It’s enough to remind you of 80s action films, where the men, much more so than the women, were the main object of longing. Indeed, in the marvellous torture scene, Le Chiffre even compliments Bond on his physique as he prepares to hammer his ball-bags. His dialogue is delivered with such admiration that I couldn’t help but wonder if Le Chiffre was going to oil his pecs and wank him off rather than beat him up.

But homoerotic or not, the scene, for once, shows Bond in real peril. And for once Bond actually gets the crap beaten out of him and doesn’t escape the villain’s clutches via some convenient gadget. But having said this, Bond does show remarkable fortitude for someone who’s having his testicles smashed. He taunts the villain and laughs in his face. Ordinarily, this in itself would be laughable, but seeing as it’s 007 you can’t help but get a kick out of it. That’s our boy – his gonads may be wrecked but he’s still the man.

As well as being a tough Bond film, quite a bit has been written about 007 showing his softer side. For the most part, the scenes with Eva Green work well. The scene in the shower, for instance, where Bond comforts Vesper and sucks her fingers is very sexy (I’m sure it wet the drawers of many a housewife). But some of the later scenes, where the two decide to run off to Venice, feel a little pap. They’re never risible – mainly because Green and Craig have a lot of chemistry together – but they could have been improved. And their first encounter on the train is also a little lacklustre. Part of this is because Green, for all her style and charisma, never looks as if she’s 100% comfortable in the part (sometimes she seems to be trying too hard), but it’s also due to the writing. I mean, all the amateur psychoanalysis is incredibly heavy-handed and the stuff about Bond’s watch is just plain awful. ‘Rolex?’ ‘Omega.’ ‘Beautiful.’ Ker-ching! (By the way, anyone working for Omega who’s reading this: I have one of your watches; can I have some money, too, and some free gifts?)

But aside from these minor complaints, the film works like gangbusters. It’s truly up there with On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, From Russia With Love, Goldeneye and Licence to Kill as one of the best Bond films. In particular what I like is just how ruthless Bond is in this film. As much as I get a kick out of dear old Rog delivering one liners and judo chops, I prefer Bond to be a cold-blooded murderer. I want him to seem like a physical threat. I don’t want him just to be a ladies man. Therefore I love seeing Craig strangle, drown and stab bad guys. And I like seeing him shoot people without batting an eyelid. In too many films these days we have the tortured hero; it’s nice to just have someone who’s unapologetically mean.

One of my favourite little Bond moments in this film is when he defeats a bad guy at poker and wins the man’s Aston Martin. The casual way that Bond asks for the valet ticket is a joy to behold. As is the moment when a couple of fat German tourists mistake Bond for a hotel employee. Again, I love the casual way that he smashes their Range Rover and tosses their car keys. This is the Bond we’ve been waiting a long time to see; a Bond of action rather than groansome quips.

Not that there aren’t some good lines in the film. There’s a nice little bit of humour after Bond nearly has a heart attack. ‘I’m sorry. That last hand. Nearly killed me.’ And I love Bond’s reaction to how he wants his Martini, shaken or stirred. ‘Do I look like I give a damn?’ You finally get the feeling that the series is shaking off the ghost of the past. It finally seems to be heading in a new direction.

Whether this new attitude is maintained, though, remains to be seen. After all, Goldeneye gave me false hope that the franchise was going to be reinvigorated and it quickly fell back into its old ways. But regardless of whether that happens, what we have here is a great Bond film. Or should I say, a great pre-Bond film, as it’s only in the final scene that we finally see the true 007 – this movie is all about how he became. And the final moment, where Bond finally becomes Bond, is maybe the highlight of the movie. Let’s hope it’s not downhill from here.

GoldenEye

Live and Let Die

Moonraker

Casino Royale

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