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Non-Review Review: Die Another Day

This post is part of James Bond January, being organised by the wonderful Paragraph Films. I will have reviews of all twenty-two official Bond films going on-line over the next month, and a treat or two every once in a while.

A new watch. Your twentieth, I believe.

How time flies.

– Q and Bond go all meta on us

I next joined Pierce and co at the premiere of Die Another Day in 2002, which marked the 40th anniversary of the series. When asked later what I thought of the film, I merely said “interesting”. In truth I thought it just went too far – and that’s from me, the first Bond in space! Invisible cars and dodgy CGI footage? Please! They gave the public what they wanted, though maybe they too realised there was only so far they could push it before Bond became a caricature of himself, and the funeral directors were called in.

– Sir Roger Moore, who seems like a lovely guy

Truth be told, Die Another Day doesn’t quite deserve the reputation that it has earned over the years. But, then again, I can appreciate A View to a Kill, so what do I know?

Close, but no cigar...

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Captain America? &%#$ No! Thoughts on the Naming Controversy…

Last year, I remarked that – although it was perhaps the least likely of Marvel’s movies to be awesome – Captain America: The First Avenger was going to be the most interesting movie on their slate to follow, at least when it comes to international markets. Predictably enough, Marvel have decided that not everyone on the planet is going to be cool with a movie about a literal American super-patriot. They will be dropping the title “Captain America” completely, simply selling it as “The First Avenger” in Russia, the Ukraine and South Korea. I, for one, am quite disappointed.

Walk tall... and carry a star-spangled shield...

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Non-Review Review: Tomorrow Never Dies

This post is part of James Bond January, being organised by the wonderful Paragraph Films. I will have reviews of all twenty-two official Bond films going on-line over the next month, and a treat or two every once in a while.

What the hell is he doing?

His job.

– Admiral Roebuck and M watch Bond do the impossible before the opening titles

I have a confession to make. I unapologetically love Tomorrow Never Dies. It’s the first Bond movie I saw in the cinema, with my dad and brother while on a shopping trip up North. I believe the girls went to see Titanic. It’s my first cinematic Bond experience, a perhaps that’s why I am somewhat fonder memory of the film than most – but, even on reflection, I still hold the movie in high regard. I just think it’s the perfect companion piece to the superb GoldenEye. While Martin Campbell’s film was about deconstructing the spy, showing how useless he was in times of peace and arguing he was “a relic of the Cold War” who needed updating and introspection, this Bond film was about how he can do all the cool stuff he used to, even after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Sure, it’s not as deep, smart or sophisticated as the earlier film, but it’s an unashamed throwback to the classic Bond films – and what’s wrong with that?

By the way, how telling is it that – while Bond used to drive a snazzy sports car in the sixties – he drives a family sedan in the nineties?

I'm pretty sure that the only reason Tomorrow Never Dies is because Bond never tried to kill it...

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Non-Review Review: Licence to Kill

This post is part of James Bond January, being organised by the wonderful Paragraph Films. I will have reviews of all twenty-two official Bond films going on-line over the next month, and a treat or two every once in a while.

Licence to Kill is the Bond movie that almost killed the franchise. The gap between the release of this movie in 1989 and GoldenEye in 1995 is the longest period that the film series has been left dormant. Although the legal issues surrounding the series hardly helped ensure the British secret agent’s return to the big screen, there’s also the fact that this movie was something of a box office dud in the States. (Although it was quite successful elsewhere.) Licence to Kill is perhaps the most divisive of the Bond movies – even more so than On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. Detractors see it as a poor attempt to emulate Miami Vice, indulging in ridiculously over-the-top violence and darkness for the sake of darkness. Fans argue that the movie is a lot closer to Ian Fleming’s original novels, and feels more like the recent relaunch of the franchise – it’s a perfect bedfellow with Casino Royale or Quantum of Solace. My opinion is somewhere in the middle.

Bond always uses protection in bed…

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Is 300 Racist? A Counter-Argument…

I know that we’re officially about five years past this discussion, but I was thinking about it lately. 300, as imagined by Zack Snyder and Frank Miller, gets a lot of slack for its perceived Islamophobia and racism towards Persians (modern-day Iranians). There’s a rather excellent article here outlining one perspective, which makes the argument that it’s a fundamentally racist film. I sat down and I watched it, and I kept the ideas in mind, and I jotted down some thoughts. it should be noted that I’m just a layman, I’m an expert or a professor in film or literature, but it seemed to me that a lot of the critics were taking the film far too seriously at face value.

I'd want to make this argument on sure footing...

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Non-Review Review: Octopussy

This post is part of James Bond January, being organised by the wonderful Paragraph Films. I will have reviews of all twenty-two official Bond films going on-line over the next month, and a treat or two every once in a while.

Despite having quite possibly the most awkwardly unfortunate name in the history of the English language, the most enduring image from Octopussy is Roger Moore, flailing wildly and trying to be taken seriously, while dressed as a clown. Oddly appropriate, eh?

Moore, Moore, Mo- Too Much!

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Non-Review Review: For Your Eyes Only

This post is part of James Bond January, being organised by the wonderful Paragraph Films. I will have reviews of all twenty-two official Bond films going on-line over the next month, and a treat or two every once in a while.

The Bond film also known as “the one that even people who dislike Roger Moore Bond films enjoy.”

Bond plays “Eye, Spy”…

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Non-Review Review: Diamonds Are Forever

This post is part of James Bond January, being organised by the wonderful Paragraph Films. I will have reviews of all twenty-two official Bond films going on-line over the next month, and a treat or two every once in a while.

When George Lazenby refused to come back to do a follow-up to On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, the producers were left with a bit of a problem. Three actors playing Bond in three films would perhaps be a little bit too much for audiences to grapple with, so an emergency appeal was made to Sean Connery to return to the role which made him iconic. Charging a then-astronomical fee, which he donated entirely to charity, Connery donned the tuxedo once again. Reteaming with Guy Hamilton, the man who directed Goldfinger, once would assume that we were pretty much assured a winner – a return to the good old days. What we got was something of a flash-forward. If I didn’t know better, I would suspect that somebody had pulled a “George Lucas” on us, using wondrous new technology to digitally superimpose Sean Connery into a Roger Moore film.

Adam West was considered to play James Bond in this film. I think that tells us everything we need to know.

Sean Connery's Bond was never afraid of wetwork...

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The Devil Eire Effect: Historical Films and Villains…

I wrote a little while ago about how suspicious I am concerning “true stories” that make it to the big screen. Truth be told, life doesn’t exactly fit into the three act structure or one-hundred-and-twenty minutes of screen time – I understand that changes need to be made. Real life characters are often boiled down or reduced to mere collections of quirks, the hero faces a more streamlined obstacle than they did in real life and sometimes even ends up a far better person for it. However, I was sitting down watching The King’s Speech at the weekend and I couldn’t help wondering if we really needed for Albert’s elder brother David and his American fiancée Wallis to be portrayed as nothing more than scheming villains, just because we needed to root for Albert a little more.

The Simpsons?

Note: The ever-wonderful TV Tropes describe this as a “Historical Villain Upgrade” if you’re looking for more examples of what I am talking about…

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Non-Review Review: On Her Majesty’s Secret Service

This post is part of James Bond January, being organised by the wonderful Paragraph Films. I will have reviews of all twenty-two official Bond films going on-line over the next month, and a treat or two every once in a while.

On Her Majesty’s Secret Service is a relatively low-key Bond adventure. The action set pieces aren’t spectacular, it’s mostly confined to one geographical locale and it features a genuinely moving love story. Coupled with the fact that George Lazenby is replacing Sean Connery, you’d be forgiven for assuming that you’d accidentally been given the wrong video at the video store. It’s not that the changes are necessarily bad (though, to be frank, some of them are), just that it doesn’t exactly feel like the smoothest possible transition.

… And I thought Bond was only married to his job….

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