Knocking
Due to the recent unpleasantness, a knocking policy will be instituted. The rules are now as folllows.
1. If the door is closed, knock. If it is a Wednesday or Friday, do not knock, but snap your fingers loudly in a 4/4 rhythm.
2. If the door is ajar, push it open silently with the top of your head. Stare into the room with one eye. If you do not like what you see, I don't blame you.
3. If there is a sock on the door handle, take it off. There should not be a sock on the door handle. That is not what they are for.
4. If the blood of an animal is smeared on the door, use a non-abrasive cleaner.
5. If you hear French being spoken inside the room, force open the door by administering a powerful kick to the area just below the handle. Burn the speaker with a harsh chemical agent.
6. If you hear Italian or a Slavic dialect, run. Don't think, just run like hell.
7. Do not allow children, parents, or feral animals to open or otherwise operate the door unless they have a handler's certificate and all their shots.
8. Licking the door is not permitted. Rubbing the door for luck is allowed if it is done quietly.
9. Do not taunt the door. It is doing the best it can.
Thursday, 23 July 2009
Thursday, 9 July 2009
Review of All 23 Bond films
These films are rated with an Overall score out of 10. (Dear god don't watch any with a score of 4 or lower. Actually, you should probably limit yourself to the five which score 7 or higher.)
1. Dr. No
Overall: 8
Manliness: 8
Quality: 5
The first Bond, a well-modulated and enjoyable film, followed a popular series of books by Ian Fleming. It was made cheaply in England and Jamaica (the awkward special effects being particular testament to the budget) as Bond breaches the island lair of a mad scientist with nuclear ambitions. Connery plays the kind of capable, sweaty hero familiar to audiences of WW2 flicks like 'The Guns of Navarone'. Admirably directed, but terribly rushed at the end.
2. From Russia With Love
Overall: 5
Manliness: 7
Quality: 4
A dithering effort, 'From Russia With Love' never quite gets off the ground. Although it roams all over (and under) Istanbul, it is an awfully small-feeling film. Perhaps this is why it succeeds only within the narrow confines of the train scenes of the third act, after which it slides back into slapdashery. Russia is never featured, but both the femme-fatale and the femme-wielder-of-a-shoe-knife both call Moscow home.
3. Goldfinger
Overall: 5
Manliness: 7
Quality: 4
While it is many fans' favourite, 'Goldfinger' is poorly shot and cast. Bond is captured by a a jeweller who has his eye on Fort Knox's gold reserves. The scenes range all over with few attempts to preserve continuity, and henchman Oddjob has lapsed, through the passage of time and miscegenation laws, into an insulting stereotype. This is the closest the Bond franchise came to a 'Thunderbirds' episode.
4. Thunderball
Overall: 4
Manliness: 8
Quality: 5
Cousteau fever. The underwater sequences drag 'Thunderball' out to two hours, which is about an hour longer than the story deserves: SPECTRE number two Mr. Largo steals nuclear weapons and holds the world to ransom from his Bahaman resort. Connery is on to his fourth Bond and is starting to look bored. The film did well at the box office, but hey, so did the second 'Transformers' film.
5. You Only Live Twice
Overall: 7
Manliness: 8
Quality: 6
Connery is in Japan, and is given a fake funeral beforehand for reasons that are never quite clear. The screenplay is by Roald Dahl and the film has the first decent fight scenes of the series. While Bond's makeover as a Japanese peasant merely strains credulity, the revelation of a milquetoast Blofeld as the underwhelming head of SPECTRE disappoints. The film is fun without being ridiculous and holds interest throughout -- not something that could be said for any in the series since 'Dr. No'.
6. On Her Majesty's Secret Service
Overall: 4
Manliness: 3
Quality: 3
George Lazenby's sole outing as an apologetic Bond is indifferently directed in an overlong alpine melodrama. See Bond operate a photocopier! Thrill as Blofeld toboggans! Puzzle as girls are hypnotized to commit biological warfare! Disparate Bond-esque scenes are cobbled together lazily; the low point has to be a blue-screened ski chase, but it comes late in the film when the viewer's thumb rests firmly on fast-forward.
7. Diamonds Are Forever
Overall: 2
Manliness: 7
Quality: 2
A much older-looking Connery makes a valiant attempt to save what was possibly the worst Bond film ever produced. The casting, mainly from Las Vegas, is horrendous -- no-one but Bond and Blofeld offers a line reading above a high-school level. Particularly awful are Mr Wynn and Mr Kidd, who appear to have been recruited directly from an I.T. department. Connery would never reprise the role (officially) and 'Diamonds' was part of a slide in budget and quality that was to continue for decades.
8. Live and Let Die
Overall: 6
Manliness: 4
Quality: 5
Roger Moore's first iteration of Bond barely inhabits the screen, all quizzical looks and coiffed thatch. In 'Live and Let Die' it doesn't matter, because the supporting cast is a circus of delightful overactors determined to render deathless what will most certainly be their only fifteen minutes of fame. Bond shuttles between Harlem and the Caribbean in search of a voodoo drug baron, with extended sequences in New Orleans, not least of which is a waterbourne Dukes of Hazzard-style chase. Despite Moore's uninspired presence, the plot carries the film along by sheer momentum.
9. The Man With the Golden Gun
Overall: 3
Manliness: 4
Quality: 5
As mild a plot as one could expect of any in the series, 'Golden Gun' has the distinct blandness of an episode of 'The Love Boat'. Villainous playboy Scaramanga ostensibly assassinates for a living, but the film is memorable for his midget manservant Nick Nack who pops up in all the wrong places. Bond tracks his adversary to Hong Kong, engaging while there in a checklist of activities 1970's audiences probably regarded as exotic. Not even the late appearance of flying cars can lift this dreck beyond a hazy, half-forgotten series of misadventures.
10. The Spy Who Loved Me
Overall: 3
Manliness: 4
Quality: 5
An utterly forgettable chapter in the Bond factory line. The secret agent is thrown together with a female Russian agent called Triple X who seems to have been constructed for the film from cheekbones and shampoo. A mad scientist captures submarines and plans to launch missiles at major cities and create a magical new world under the sea; Egypt is featured early on, for no particular reason. Roger Moore's insufferably smug expression goes some way to explaining why so many people, at random intervals, try to kill him.
11. Moonraker
Overall: 5
Manliness: 5
Quality: 6
I was anticipating 'Moonraker' as a return to form for the series, as the original novel was my favourite. Alas, it was not to be; 1977 was the year of Star Wars, so the story was cast into space, painted bright yellow and had an American flag inserted non-orally. Hugo Drax plots destruction from California, via an orbiting platform. Roger Moore rides through Venice on a hovercraft-ized gondola, prompting a double take from a pigeon. A merciless Japanese henchman fails to destroy our hero, while Jaws, whose presence prevents the farce from descending into trash, gleefully chews the scenery.
12. For Your Eyes Only
Overall: 4
Manliness: 4
Quality: 6
Director John Glen took the helm in the '80s, delivering competently-made films without the gratuitous silliness of Lewis Gilbert's '70s offerings. In the first of these, Bond is sent to Greece to recover a sunken code machine. The ambition and range of chase scenes is a step above any in the series since 'Thunderball', but there is little else to enjoy in the film. The plotting falls flat, and the general tone is that of a middling 'Magnum P.I.' episode.
13. Octopussy
Overall: 3
Manliness: 3
Quality: 5
Roger Moore was 56 when 'Octopussy' was released, and it shows. His Bond is content to lounge around islands with harems for extended periods; there is little of the urgency which defines the series to be found here. Director John Glen fights against both the script and the Indian setting which conspire to hijack the tale with hijinks, replete with carnival folk and elephant rides. The plot picks up in the last act with the very first foray into Russia, foreshadowing a number of scenes in the sole remaining Russian setting in 'Goldeneye'. Skipping the first eighty minutes of this film improves it immensely.
Never Say Never Again (non-official)
Overall: 5
Manliness: 5
Quality: 6
Also in 1983, a 53-year-old Sean Connery returned in a 'non-official' Bond role, essentially a rewrite of 'Thunderball'. These two facts would suggest that the film is unnecessary to the point of being ludicrous; and it would be, were the casting not so perfect. Klaus Maria Brandauer plays Largo with nuance wholly unexpected of a villain, and Barbara Carrera inhabits the role of Fatima Blush. Carerra was the first Bond actor nominated for a major award (a Golden Globe), while Brandauer went on to win a Golden Globe and an Oscar nomination the following year for 'Out of Africa'. Together they could not save the film, but rather allow it it's niche as a curiosity: a Bond film that is as character-driven as it is cartoonish.
14. A View To A Kill
Overall: 4
Manliness: 3
Quality: 6
Roger Moore at 58 completes his transformation into Adam West: shiny, cadaverous and puzzled. The much younger Christopher Walken tries to destroy Silicon Valley via natural disaster, a description that also applies to his henchcreature Grace Jones, who lunges angrily and shouts her lines like a prop-forward. The action-packed end sequence runs for almost 40 minutes, a counterpoint to the smooth, dull 80 minutes that precede it; Roger Moore's Bond reign dies with both a bang and a whimper.
15. The Living Daylights
Overall: 7
Manliness: 3
Quality: 7
Just a few years after touring with the Royal Shakespeare Company, Timothy Dalton took on the Bond mantle in the most traditional treatment of Ian Fleming's work in the series. Moving between English country houses, Vienna and Afghanistan, Dalton's gentleman spy is both quintessentially British and surprisingly modern; this is the first Bond film which feels paced to today's standards. It is a revelation to see Fleming's world represented clearly, unencumbered with gimmicks, gadgets, and outré fashion statements. Oh, and the plot features a cellist and a Soviet general.
16. Licence To Kill
Overall: 3
Manliness: 3
Quality: 4
It's a safe bet that Timothy Dalton's career at no other point involved being attacked with a stuffed marlin in a bar brawl, though in 1975 he starred in 'Permission to Kill', a more fitting title for this melange of late '80s cinematic swill. Set rather aggressively in Miami and a mock-Panama with drug dealers and DEA agents, and pulling shark scenes from the novel 'Live and Let Die' and most other elements from 'Miami Vice' or a poor 'MacGyver' episode, the film is a waste of two hours, of Dalton, and of a fresh-faced Benicio del Toro. It made less at the box office than any in the series and it was six years until another Bond film was made.
17. Goldeneye
Overall: 9
Manliness: 7
Quality: 9
In what was to many the best Bond film, Pierce Brosnan's shaken-but-not-stirred persona injected new life into a trope which had teetered on the brink of irrelevence for some time. The series reboot succeeded critically and commercially, and ensured Brosnan the role for the next decade. Bond's adversary Sean Bean plays a turncoat 00 agent who gathers a rogue's gallery of Russians to hijack a satellite and wreak havoc on London. Several chase scenes rank among the best in the series, the tank rampage through the streets of Moscow being particularly memorable.
18. Tomorrow Never Dies
Overall: 5
Manliness: 7
Quality: 9
The follow-up Brosnan picture has the look and feel of a sequel; full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. Murdoch-esque media mogul Eliot Carver attempts to spark a war to boost ratings, but actor Jonathon Pryce sucks all the oxygen out of the room with a wooden performance. Teri Hatcher and Michelle Yeoh are no better, and at 33 and 35 are among the oldest Bond girls in existence. Perhaps hiring the director of 'Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot' was a bad idea.
19. The World Is Not Enough
Overall: 5
Manliness: 7
Quality: 9
As an act of penitence for the series' former sins, Michael Apted, President of the Director's Guild of America, was in command of the 19th Bond. On his team are Pierce Brosnan, Robbie Coltrane, Judi Dench, and John Cleese; opposing are Denise Richards, Sophie Marceau, DJ Goldie, and the script. Robert Carlyle is less a villain than a bewildered onlooker as the two forces battle. Would the film be a resounding success, or a clunking failure? The Apted team shows promise early on, but the Richards team triumphs through relentless assaults upon the viewer's credulity, the result being a competent but deeply flawed film.
20. Die Another Day
Overall: 6
Manliness: 8
Quality: 9
A panaromic and frenetic production which begins with a thrilling opening and continues with the best use of the title sequence in the series. Lee Tamahori ('Once Were Warriors', 'The Edge') directs Brosnan in his last appearance as Bond, who pursues a North Korean colonel from Cuba to Iceland. Unused elements of 'Moonraker' have been appropriated. The generous budget allows for sweeping vistas and huge explosions. There's a workmanlike feel to the production and it moves along nicely, ticking all the Hollywood boxes, but there is little resolution; it is simply a chapter.
21. Casino Royale
Overall: 8
Manliness: 10
Quality: 10
The Kiwi director of 'Goldeneye', Martin Campbell, sat at the helm of another franchise reboot, his two 'Zorro' films in the interim somehow inspiring investor confidence. The casting of Daniel Craig as a creature more pitbull than man was a reaction to the kinetic Jason Bourne films, and he presents Bond as a man whose knuckles are equally at home dragging along the floor as they are rearranging someone's dentistry. His nemesis, by way of contrast, is named 'Le Chiffre', whose superpower is the inability to control his tears. It is at no point a fair fight.
22. Quantum of Solace
Overall: 4
Manliness: 10
Quality: 9
Like a meal made of appetizers, this most brutal of the Bonds is cobbled together from vicious action sequences with no serious attempt at a plot. Director Marc Forster arrived fresh from 'The Kite Runner', so one can only conclude that the film died in the editing studio, all quick cuts and terse sentences. The overall effect is that of an extended trailer, and is as impersonal as a bullet.
1. Dr. No
Overall: 8
Manliness: 8
Quality: 5
The first Bond, a well-modulated and enjoyable film, followed a popular series of books by Ian Fleming. It was made cheaply in England and Jamaica (the awkward special effects being particular testament to the budget) as Bond breaches the island lair of a mad scientist with nuclear ambitions. Connery plays the kind of capable, sweaty hero familiar to audiences of WW2 flicks like 'The Guns of Navarone'. Admirably directed, but terribly rushed at the end.
2. From Russia With Love
Overall: 5
Manliness: 7
Quality: 4
A dithering effort, 'From Russia With Love' never quite gets off the ground. Although it roams all over (and under) Istanbul, it is an awfully small-feeling film. Perhaps this is why it succeeds only within the narrow confines of the train scenes of the third act, after which it slides back into slapdashery. Russia is never featured, but both the femme-fatale and the femme-wielder-of-a-shoe-knife both call Moscow home.
3. Goldfinger
Overall: 5
Manliness: 7
Quality: 4
While it is many fans' favourite, 'Goldfinger' is poorly shot and cast. Bond is captured by a a jeweller who has his eye on Fort Knox's gold reserves. The scenes range all over with few attempts to preserve continuity, and henchman Oddjob has lapsed, through the passage of time and miscegenation laws, into an insulting stereotype. This is the closest the Bond franchise came to a 'Thunderbirds' episode.
4. Thunderball
Overall: 4
Manliness: 8
Quality: 5
Cousteau fever. The underwater sequences drag 'Thunderball' out to two hours, which is about an hour longer than the story deserves: SPECTRE number two Mr. Largo steals nuclear weapons and holds the world to ransom from his Bahaman resort. Connery is on to his fourth Bond and is starting to look bored. The film did well at the box office, but hey, so did the second 'Transformers' film.
5. You Only Live Twice
Overall: 7
Manliness: 8
Quality: 6
Connery is in Japan, and is given a fake funeral beforehand for reasons that are never quite clear. The screenplay is by Roald Dahl and the film has the first decent fight scenes of the series. While Bond's makeover as a Japanese peasant merely strains credulity, the revelation of a milquetoast Blofeld as the underwhelming head of SPECTRE disappoints. The film is fun without being ridiculous and holds interest throughout -- not something that could be said for any in the series since 'Dr. No'.
6. On Her Majesty's Secret Service
Overall: 4
Manliness: 3
Quality: 3
George Lazenby's sole outing as an apologetic Bond is indifferently directed in an overlong alpine melodrama. See Bond operate a photocopier! Thrill as Blofeld toboggans! Puzzle as girls are hypnotized to commit biological warfare! Disparate Bond-esque scenes are cobbled together lazily; the low point has to be a blue-screened ski chase, but it comes late in the film when the viewer's thumb rests firmly on fast-forward.
7. Diamonds Are Forever
Overall: 2
Manliness: 7
Quality: 2
A much older-looking Connery makes a valiant attempt to save what was possibly the worst Bond film ever produced. The casting, mainly from Las Vegas, is horrendous -- no-one but Bond and Blofeld offers a line reading above a high-school level. Particularly awful are Mr Wynn and Mr Kidd, who appear to have been recruited directly from an I.T. department. Connery would never reprise the role (officially) and 'Diamonds' was part of a slide in budget and quality that was to continue for decades.
8. Live and Let Die
Overall: 6
Manliness: 4
Quality: 5
Roger Moore's first iteration of Bond barely inhabits the screen, all quizzical looks and coiffed thatch. In 'Live and Let Die' it doesn't matter, because the supporting cast is a circus of delightful overactors determined to render deathless what will most certainly be their only fifteen minutes of fame. Bond shuttles between Harlem and the Caribbean in search of a voodoo drug baron, with extended sequences in New Orleans, not least of which is a waterbourne Dukes of Hazzard-style chase. Despite Moore's uninspired presence, the plot carries the film along by sheer momentum.
9. The Man With the Golden Gun
Overall: 3
Manliness: 4
Quality: 5
As mild a plot as one could expect of any in the series, 'Golden Gun' has the distinct blandness of an episode of 'The Love Boat'. Villainous playboy Scaramanga ostensibly assassinates for a living, but the film is memorable for his midget manservant Nick Nack who pops up in all the wrong places. Bond tracks his adversary to Hong Kong, engaging while there in a checklist of activities 1970's audiences probably regarded as exotic. Not even the late appearance of flying cars can lift this dreck beyond a hazy, half-forgotten series of misadventures.
10. The Spy Who Loved Me
Overall: 3
Manliness: 4
Quality: 5
An utterly forgettable chapter in the Bond factory line. The secret agent is thrown together with a female Russian agent called Triple X who seems to have been constructed for the film from cheekbones and shampoo. A mad scientist captures submarines and plans to launch missiles at major cities and create a magical new world under the sea; Egypt is featured early on, for no particular reason. Roger Moore's insufferably smug expression goes some way to explaining why so many people, at random intervals, try to kill him.
11. Moonraker
Overall: 5
Manliness: 5
Quality: 6
I was anticipating 'Moonraker' as a return to form for the series, as the original novel was my favourite. Alas, it was not to be; 1977 was the year of Star Wars, so the story was cast into space, painted bright yellow and had an American flag inserted non-orally. Hugo Drax plots destruction from California, via an orbiting platform. Roger Moore rides through Venice on a hovercraft-ized gondola, prompting a double take from a pigeon. A merciless Japanese henchman fails to destroy our hero, while Jaws, whose presence prevents the farce from descending into trash, gleefully chews the scenery.
12. For Your Eyes Only
Overall: 4
Manliness: 4
Quality: 6
Director John Glen took the helm in the '80s, delivering competently-made films without the gratuitous silliness of Lewis Gilbert's '70s offerings. In the first of these, Bond is sent to Greece to recover a sunken code machine. The ambition and range of chase scenes is a step above any in the series since 'Thunderball', but there is little else to enjoy in the film. The plotting falls flat, and the general tone is that of a middling 'Magnum P.I.' episode.
13. Octopussy
Overall: 3
Manliness: 3
Quality: 5
Roger Moore was 56 when 'Octopussy' was released, and it shows. His Bond is content to lounge around islands with harems for extended periods; there is little of the urgency which defines the series to be found here. Director John Glen fights against both the script and the Indian setting which conspire to hijack the tale with hijinks, replete with carnival folk and elephant rides. The plot picks up in the last act with the very first foray into Russia, foreshadowing a number of scenes in the sole remaining Russian setting in 'Goldeneye'. Skipping the first eighty minutes of this film improves it immensely.
Never Say Never Again (non-official)
Overall: 5
Manliness: 5
Quality: 6
Also in 1983, a 53-year-old Sean Connery returned in a 'non-official' Bond role, essentially a rewrite of 'Thunderball'. These two facts would suggest that the film is unnecessary to the point of being ludicrous; and it would be, were the casting not so perfect. Klaus Maria Brandauer plays Largo with nuance wholly unexpected of a villain, and Barbara Carrera inhabits the role of Fatima Blush. Carerra was the first Bond actor nominated for a major award (a Golden Globe), while Brandauer went on to win a Golden Globe and an Oscar nomination the following year for 'Out of Africa'. Together they could not save the film, but rather allow it it's niche as a curiosity: a Bond film that is as character-driven as it is cartoonish.
14. A View To A Kill
Overall: 4
Manliness: 3
Quality: 6
Roger Moore at 58 completes his transformation into Adam West: shiny, cadaverous and puzzled. The much younger Christopher Walken tries to destroy Silicon Valley via natural disaster, a description that also applies to his henchcreature Grace Jones, who lunges angrily and shouts her lines like a prop-forward. The action-packed end sequence runs for almost 40 minutes, a counterpoint to the smooth, dull 80 minutes that precede it; Roger Moore's Bond reign dies with both a bang and a whimper.
15. The Living Daylights
Overall: 7
Manliness: 3
Quality: 7
Just a few years after touring with the Royal Shakespeare Company, Timothy Dalton took on the Bond mantle in the most traditional treatment of Ian Fleming's work in the series. Moving between English country houses, Vienna and Afghanistan, Dalton's gentleman spy is both quintessentially British and surprisingly modern; this is the first Bond film which feels paced to today's standards. It is a revelation to see Fleming's world represented clearly, unencumbered with gimmicks, gadgets, and outré fashion statements. Oh, and the plot features a cellist and a Soviet general.
16. Licence To Kill
Overall: 3
Manliness: 3
Quality: 4
It's a safe bet that Timothy Dalton's career at no other point involved being attacked with a stuffed marlin in a bar brawl, though in 1975 he starred in 'Permission to Kill', a more fitting title for this melange of late '80s cinematic swill. Set rather aggressively in Miami and a mock-Panama with drug dealers and DEA agents, and pulling shark scenes from the novel 'Live and Let Die' and most other elements from 'Miami Vice' or a poor 'MacGyver' episode, the film is a waste of two hours, of Dalton, and of a fresh-faced Benicio del Toro. It made less at the box office than any in the series and it was six years until another Bond film was made.
17. Goldeneye
Overall: 9
Manliness: 7
Quality: 9
In what was to many the best Bond film, Pierce Brosnan's shaken-but-not-stirred persona injected new life into a trope which had teetered on the brink of irrelevence for some time. The series reboot succeeded critically and commercially, and ensured Brosnan the role for the next decade. Bond's adversary Sean Bean plays a turncoat 00 agent who gathers a rogue's gallery of Russians to hijack a satellite and wreak havoc on London. Several chase scenes rank among the best in the series, the tank rampage through the streets of Moscow being particularly memorable.
18. Tomorrow Never Dies
Overall: 5
Manliness: 7
Quality: 9
The follow-up Brosnan picture has the look and feel of a sequel; full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. Murdoch-esque media mogul Eliot Carver attempts to spark a war to boost ratings, but actor Jonathon Pryce sucks all the oxygen out of the room with a wooden performance. Teri Hatcher and Michelle Yeoh are no better, and at 33 and 35 are among the oldest Bond girls in existence. Perhaps hiring the director of 'Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot' was a bad idea.
19. The World Is Not Enough
Overall: 5
Manliness: 7
Quality: 9
As an act of penitence for the series' former sins, Michael Apted, President of the Director's Guild of America, was in command of the 19th Bond. On his team are Pierce Brosnan, Robbie Coltrane, Judi Dench, and John Cleese; opposing are Denise Richards, Sophie Marceau, DJ Goldie, and the script. Robert Carlyle is less a villain than a bewildered onlooker as the two forces battle. Would the film be a resounding success, or a clunking failure? The Apted team shows promise early on, but the Richards team triumphs through relentless assaults upon the viewer's credulity, the result being a competent but deeply flawed film.
20. Die Another Day
Overall: 6
Manliness: 8
Quality: 9
A panaromic and frenetic production which begins with a thrilling opening and continues with the best use of the title sequence in the series. Lee Tamahori ('Once Were Warriors', 'The Edge') directs Brosnan in his last appearance as Bond, who pursues a North Korean colonel from Cuba to Iceland. Unused elements of 'Moonraker' have been appropriated. The generous budget allows for sweeping vistas and huge explosions. There's a workmanlike feel to the production and it moves along nicely, ticking all the Hollywood boxes, but there is little resolution; it is simply a chapter.
21. Casino Royale
Overall: 8
Manliness: 10
Quality: 10
The Kiwi director of 'Goldeneye', Martin Campbell, sat at the helm of another franchise reboot, his two 'Zorro' films in the interim somehow inspiring investor confidence. The casting of Daniel Craig as a creature more pitbull than man was a reaction to the kinetic Jason Bourne films, and he presents Bond as a man whose knuckles are equally at home dragging along the floor as they are rearranging someone's dentistry. His nemesis, by way of contrast, is named 'Le Chiffre', whose superpower is the inability to control his tears. It is at no point a fair fight.
22. Quantum of Solace
Overall: 4
Manliness: 10
Quality: 9
Like a meal made of appetizers, this most brutal of the Bonds is cobbled together from vicious action sequences with no serious attempt at a plot. Director Marc Forster arrived fresh from 'The Kite Runner', so one can only conclude that the film died in the editing studio, all quick cuts and terse sentences. The overall effect is that of an extended trailer, and is as impersonal as a bullet.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
