Casino Royale

Reboots are basically an admission that you failed. A successful franchise doesn't need a reboot, and if you're going in that direction you're basically assuming that everyone agrees your franchise is dead in the water. So, after the awful Die Another Day, it was a welcome announcement to hear that the James Bond series would get a fresh approach and cease to suck. The reboot in question, Casino Royale did in fact manage to revitalize the series, and using a template from an unexpected source.

See, the Bond series had been rebooted before - though they didn't bother to get a new actor at that time - and in much the same way. Like Die Another Day, Moonraker was pants-on-head retarded, and someone in charge saw that, in spite of the decent numbers, something had to be done. You can't just go to space for no obvious reason and expect a series to top it. As a result, For Your Eyes Only took a gritty approach. The plot would be realistic, Bond would be crueler, and the filming style would abandon the lighthearted muckety muck of the last four Roger Moore installments. Yes, they didn't actually have enough balls to fire Moore, but it went grittier, darker, and better all around. Incidentally, it actually convinced me that Moore was a fairly good Bond overall, a position I maintained until watching every Moore film. Now, I believe he was good in For Your Eyes Only, but generally pretty awful.

While Die Another Day didn't go to space, it did have an invisible car, and once you go invisible you've reached that ridiculous wall, again. So, they went the For Your Eyes Only route, again, except they didn't pussyfoot around this time. Pierce Brosnan was out, replaced with the gruffer Daniel Craig. It would go from being about being about an experienced and suave spy to a cocksure amateur. They wouldn't get rid of Judi Dench - because Judi Dench is just plain awesome - but they would make the spy action a lot grittier, more realistic, and with a stripped down reliance on gadgets. The experiment worked, and the series was saved forever.

In fact, action movies were saved, because finally someone dared to make a film which didn't rely solely on CGI to replace practical stuntwork. The breathtaking parkour sequence, for example, was done with real people actually jumping from great heights. The human movement is something that CGI has consistently failed to achieve, and as a result we have a sequence that is genuinely tense. The knowledge that these are real people doing real stunts just enhances the program.

A strange thing is that it also proved that basing an entire film around a high stakes poker game could work, provided there were enough distractions on the way. It keeps the tension high, even though the premise as a whole is ridiculous and requires an exposition man to keep the audience on track with the rules of cards. The entire purpose is to have a backbone on which to build tension, and it succeeds in that.

That said, the film isn't perfect, and to be honest simply doesn't know where to end. It seems as though it should stop somewhere in the middle of the almost happy ending, but then the movie keeps going, barreling headfirst into a final big action sequence. Great, you might think, but for a good portion of the film before that it seems to be wrapping up. Perhaps it's a way to lull the audience into the same sense of complacency as the hero, but instead one feels the need to gather their jacket or find the DVD case, as the film is plainly over.

For myself, I can't help but think the entire last sequence would have been better placed at the beginning of the next movie, for it would be as much of a shock, and also remind the audience of the stakes of the game. Now, the next movie in general wasn't as well written or Casino Royale, and often seemed like a delivery system for action scenes rather than a coherent story - it's a rare film that works just as well if you replace the soundtrack with your own - but I think having the audience reminded again of who and why Bond was out for revenge would have been to it's merit.

Nonetheless, this is arguably one of the best action films of the decade. It justifies reboots, and it was the first time in a while it seemed like someone at the helm of the Bond series knew what they were doing. For a life long Bond fan, that didn't come a moment too soon, I don't think I could have taken another Die Another Day.

A View to a Kill

Roger Moore gets a bad rap as a Bond. I never used to get that, since he was in the movie that got me hooked on the series, For Your Eyes Only. It was fantastic, an exciting and interesting film that I might cover one day, though I do own it so lord knows when. More importantly, Moore was good in it, giving me my initial idea of what Bond should be.

Well, around when Casino Royale came out, I decided that I should watch all the Bond films in order, and I got it. He really only had two great films, two acceptable ones, and three of the worst. This film was one of the acceptable ones, I thought, though the consensus seems to be that it was a series low light. Truth be told, it has some serious problems, but I can never say it's bad.

The oft cited problem with this film rests with Moore, specifically how he had aged into a creepy old man by the time shooting started. That age seeps into the film as a whole, starting in the stuffy world of horse racing. It seems to be a very interesting world only to those old enough to give a crap about top hats, so fairly dull for most people. That's not it though, Moore is much too comfortable in the role, often sleepwalking and pulling out his eyebrow ticks rather than acting, which becomes really obvious when better actors are on the screen.

There are other problems too. The evil scheme is basically lifted from Goldfinger, albeit with a geological twist. It is yet another film that suffers from what I'll call the Tara Reid Rule of Science, essentially stating that the girl least capable of conveying intelligence will always be cast as a scientist, in this case the mildly ditzy - though likable - Tanya Roberts.

However, there are things to like as well. Being obsessed with film stock, I love how it's an 80s film that actually looks good. The score is pretty great, apart from one really unfortunate audio joke in the first stunt sequence. Also, the last half hour is exciting and fun, elevating the movie to acceptable.

But the best part is the two villains, played by Christopher Walken and Grace Jones.
Walken plays a Nazi experiment gone horribly awry who wants to destroy Silicon Valley, and he clearly has great fun with the role. The only problem is he's so good he acts cartwheels around Moore whenever they share the screen, highlighting just how lazy Moore was being. Jones is an freakishly toned visual presence, who is absolutely fantastic just through her body language and her look. She's got a bizarre androgynous appearance, and it takes over the screen whenever she appears.

Between the two, they make the movie watchable, and elevate it from what should logically be a lesser Bond into a mid-range Bond. It would never be great, Moore was a bit too old and the series needed a little kick in the pants, but it's still enjoyable, and it's not a crushing piece of rubbish like his worst examples (Man with the Golden Gun being the most flagrant example). Still Walken and Jones save the movie from oblivion, if only they could have been in a finer example of the breed.

Quantum of Solace

Confession: Today's Movie at Random wasn't at random. In fact, I foolishly purchased it on impulse, and I'll probably buy it AGAIN on Blu Ray. The really sad thing is, I hadn't even seen it before I bought it, but then again I knew I'd probably like it. Why? It's a Bond film, I can't resist them.

A little bit of the origin story of this little project. Once upon a time, specifically the year before the release of the last Bond film, I had decided to watch all the Bond films in order, and post my impressions of them, on a Livejournal of all things. This is what got me hooked on talking far too much about movies. I actually managed to watch them all, though the series was abruptly halted after the last Sean Connery one due to various factors, including a big move and a flighty connection. Some were good, some really weren't, but even the really terrible ones (The Man With the Golden Gun, Die Another Day) I still treasure.

So, why do I like this series so much? Part of the reason has to be my love of action movies and car chases. A well done fight scene or car chase is more entertaining and difficult to execute than pretty much anything else. Do it wrong, and they can be a headache, but do it right they can be tense, gripping, exhilarating and even very pretty.

Just being a consistent action series doesn't really explain my love of the series though, there's something else. I like, more than anything, about how it's about a world governed by people with wealth and taste. Bond himself makes frequent reference to fine drink, clothes, and cigars. The villains' lairs are designed both to take over the world, but look really cool and modern, designed as much by modern interior decorators as the most evil engineers. Yes, the dastardly plans are often nonsensical, and everyone has an alarming tendency to over explain themselves, and nobody thinks that they should kill Bond right away, but that doesn't matter.

So, then Quantum of Solace, the newest one. Well, in an attempt to be topical, we've got a story based on the environment, with a villain named Dominic Greene just in case you didn't get it. More importantly, however, James and his new lady friend Camille Montes are out for revenge against people who killed their loved ones, and Greene is the connection to the people they personally want to kill. Plus, there's the new supervillain club, Quantum-because-some-other-guy-owns-the-trademark-to-SPECTRE, and governments making friends with known jerks to serve their own ends. This all sounds a lot more complicated than it is, because it's pretty much there to give an excuse for more action scenes.

Luckily, they're good action scenes, even though some use a lot of CG. I did prefer the lack of CG in Casino Royale, I'll admit, but the action here is well edited and the CG actually is pretty smoothly integrated. One of the great things is that there are often action scenes and another sequence edited in which comments on and enhances the action. The absolute best of these is Bond and his girl simultaneously in the final battle against the primary villains. It even has callbacks to previous films, one of which is actually much cleverer than the entire plot (a girl covered in oil posed like the Goldfinger girl).

It's also nice to see the film continuing trends set by Casino Royale, which was arguably the best film in the series. Daniel Craig's Serious Bond is a bit more believable than the former, less serious Bonds, and I like how he's becoming a character rather than a source of bullets and wisecracks. More importantly, the female characters are finally beginning to become real people, rather than some breasts that need to be saved. For a series that can be accused of objectifying women, it's interesting to note that the worst entries are the ones where the women aren't very compelling characters, and who can't really handle themselves without a man around (See again, Man with the Golden Gun, Die Another Day). Camille, played by Olga Kurylenko, might even be more capable than Bond, if less experienced in the killing arts. She knows how to manipulate the men around her, and if she's reckless in her quest for revenge, at least she has a pretty good reason to be. It isn't very often that Bond throws a hitch in the girl's grand plans. It's also a rare instance where Bond and his female friend actually need each other to achieve their distinct goals, and where they don't leap into bed together. Plus, I liked how her revenge informs Bond's decisions later on, and allows for some growth in his character.

The best female character though has to be M. Judi Dench - or rather, the writers realizing that they have Judi Dench in the role and she's a pretty great actor - transformed M from a man in a chair who gives the order to an active participant in the adventures. Her struggles with her wayward agent, and conflict about whether or not she should trust him or throw him to the wolves are probably the most believable moments of the movie. M is somewhere between boss and parent here, with Dench allowing her character some vulnerability beneath the hardass she has to be to maintain respect.

Since this is a Bond film, I feel the need to note the song, and this one isn't great. I suppose it's well composed, but there's the sticking problem of Alicia Keys' voice. I know, she's a famous pop star or whatever, but she doesn't have the range or power for the song. She sounds very thin on the high notes, and kind of weak compared to Jack White, who's also on the song. It's not very often where I find a voice conspicuously ill-matched to material, but here she sounded like she was picked out at random at an American Idol audition. Maybe she's better in her own material, so I don't want to be too mean to Alicia, but she almost ruined the song. That said it's not the worst song, it doesn't even approach The Man With The Golden Gun or Die Another Day.

There's also the matter of product placement, the problem being that there is a lot of it. There always has been, and I suppose at this point I shouldn't be bothered by it, but when a character shows up in a Ford Ka, which is a fairly dull, but recently introduced compact car, you know the branding has run amok. If she has to drive a Ford, give her something cool! Sony gets in there too, giving Bond a phone made out of lies. The interface works way too smoothly, and is a bit too obviously fake. Sure, the secret service probably has better phones than mere mortals, but can't they make the GUI even a little similar to real phones?

I admit that the plot was weak, and that it was just as much about clever editing as it was about the silly green storyline that was mentioned on occasion. But then again, I am a fan of clever editing, and I'm a fan of this film. Not the best in the series by any means, and I preferred Casino Royale with its story over this with its flimsy narrative between action scenes, but I liked it. It proves again that nobody can do explosions like the Bond series, and I'm eagerly awaiting the next installment.