I've decided to list all the films I watched for the first time in 2015. I've already listed the 19 I saw in the cinema in another post because otherwise this would be crazily long. As previous, I've listed these films in the order I saw them rather than in order of quality. As I saw them on TV or DVD, some of them are a few years old, although some were released this year.
Freebirds
A fairly poor animation about a group of turkeys who travel back in time to try and stop the tradition of eating turkey at Thanksgiving (and the resultant slaughter of turkeys in the present day). It had its moments, but none of them memorable enough for me to recall for this review. The notion that turkeys suffer because humans want to eat them isn't really explored in any depth, but this film could provide a useful discussion starter with kids about animal welfare and vegetarianism, if you wanted something like that. But then Chicken Run probably does it better.
Identity Thief
Melissa McCarthy steals Jason Bateman's identity and he has to track her down to clear his credit rating. McCarthy is an acquired taste, but I quite like her. Jason Bateman raises the film slightly and it's nice to see him playing the wronged victim for a change.
The Smurfs 2
Sequel to The Smurfs from a couple of years ago, For me, the new characters didn't really work that well, but Hank Azaria as Gargamel puts in another scenery-chewing performance that ensure the film is better than many animated sequels. It's not as good as the first one, which I really enjoyed.
Hoodwinked Too
I didn't think I'd ever see this sequel to Hoodwinked, as it got pulled from cinemas before release for some reason. However, a fellow animation fan had it on imported DVD and loaned it to us. It was very funny, like the original, although not all the characters returned, sadly. It also suffered from the trope of 'baddie was just misunderstood and decides to help the good guys after a short heart to heart conversation', which even in a cartoon isn't really that believable. But easily deconverted villain aside, it was generally well-scripted and quite fun.
10 Years: The Reunion
A cheapie DVD we bought because it had Chris Pratt in it. (After Guardians of the Galaxy and Parks and Recreation, we got slightly obsessed with him.) So, about this film... It's basically the most photogenic bunch of friends who ever went to high school in America reunite for their reunion. Nothing much happens in the course of the film and there are no big questions here. Chris Pratt plays an obnoxious, high-spirited individual and gives some comedy value to the proceedings, but generally this is a forgettable film.
Delivery Man
I quite like Vince Vaughn and he lends a certain air of quality to this fairly average story that illustrates the 'great concept / poor story' conundrum that many films fall into. Vince plays a man who discovers his deposits in a sperm bank have been used to father over 500 children, many of whom are now joining together to find out who their biological father is. Unwisely, he starts to interact with them and it all gets a bit messy. Chris Pratt is his best friend and legal counsel and manages to steal the scenes he is in. Worth a watch, but not one for repeated viewings.
The Nut Job
Animated adventure featuring squirrels trying to steal enough nuts for winter after an accident wipes out their food supply. Covering similar ground to A Bug's Life and Over the Hedge and with a fairly obvious story, this was enjoyable, but not great.
The Five Year Engagement
Jason Segal proposes to Emily Blunt but then life gets in the way and the engagement drags on. It's a sort of anti-romantic comedy up until the happy ending. The stand out moment is Chris Pratt (again) doing a rendition of Billy Joel's 'We Didn't Start the Fire' listing all Jason Segal's former girlfriends at the meal celebrating his engagement. Cringe-inducing but hilarious. Rhys Ifans is also great as a seedy professor with eyes on Emily Blunt.
Crazy, Stupid Love
Steve Carrell is known for slapstick comedy, but it's his darker turns where he really shines. However, he kind of stumbles through this slightly sad film. When his character's marriage breaks down, he comes under the tutelage of ladies man Ryan Gosling who turns him into a hit with the ladies that doesn't help with the hurt and loss he is feeling. There's a twist at the end I didn't see coming and also a highly inappropriate plot-line involving someone taking nude photos of themselves. Despite an almost happy resolution, the film left me feeling a bit gloomy.
Mr Peabody and Sherman
A big-budget flop and it's not hard to see why. The script cuts so many corners I imagine it was printed on circular paper. There's a villain who is a villain for no other reason than the plot needs a villain. Characters switch allegiances way too easily. The jokes don't work. It feels criminal to waste the talents of Ty Burrell (Phil from Modern Family) in this, but this is the second poor film I've seen him in after the Muppets sequel. Maybe he doesn't have what it takes to make the leap to the big screen.
Quantum of Solace
I watched this on TV to fill in the gap before going to see Spectre. It was alright. Not really sure it added much to the Bond mythos at all. The trope for the Daniel Craig era Bond films tends to be the women he sleeps with end up dead. It happens in this one too as Gemma Arterton gets drowned in oil. Bond doesn't seem to care. The next conquest will be along in a minute. It also suffered from the villain's base having 'Death Star syndrome' as the whole building blows up with the minimum of effort.
Cinderella
Disney's live action version of their cartoon. I really liked this, mainly for the theme of 'Have courage and be kind' - what a great motto! - and for Helena Bonham Carter as the Fairy Godmother. I don't like watching cruelty on-screen so actually found wicked stepmother Cate Blanchett quite hard to watch. They also made Prince Charming into an actual person with his own moral dilemmas. So, all told, well worth seeing.
Elf: Buddy's Musical Adventure
This is an animation using songs from the stage show and the plot-line of the film, Elf. Confused? Well, it's enjoyable nonetheless. The animation is pretty good. The songs are pretty funny. A good film for repeat Christmas-time viewings.
Home
This animation didn't do that well at the box office but I really liked it. The main character, an alien called Oh who is voiced by Jim Parsons (Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory), is a bit annoying, but bearable. The plot isn't totally unique but has enough charm to get past that. The bad guys have a reason for being bad guys, which gives the film an unexpected turn, and overall, this is different and funny enough to justify watching it more than once.
The Muppets: Letters to Santa
Before the Disney-backed revival the Muppets released occasional straight to DVD films. This one is from 2008. It's not terrible, but it's not brilliant either. The film title tells you what you need to know. There's a fun musical number in a post office. Uma Thurman and Nathan Lane appear in cameos. The late Richard Griffiths plays Santa. There's a heart-warming moral, as you'd expect.
Maleficent
Disney's live action retelling of Sleeping Beauty that explores the story of the villain, Maleficent. Some grown up themes of greed and betrayal, loss and vengeance, and a pre-Frozen exploration of the idea that a 'true love's kiss' might not be from a handsome prince. Overall I was impressed with the film. Angelina Jolie is other-worldly as fearsome faerie queen Maleficent, and Sharlto Copley plays the King, and father of Sleeping Beauty, with the right mix of wickedness and tragic doom.
Into the Woods
Disney does Stephen Sondheim in a musical mash-up of various fairy tales. It's very dark. We watched this on New Year's Eve and finished it just past midnight, but I'm counting it in the 2015 list. James Corden is a better actor than you might think and carries this. Emily Blunt is also very good. Johnny Depp steals his scene as the Wolf who encounters Little Red Riding Hood - "There's a difference between nice and good." I also like the Prince's line: "I was raised to be charming. Not sincere."
So, that's 17 films on TV or DVD, making for a grand total of 36 films I've seen for the first time this year. That's 3 a month. Not too shabby.
Showing posts with label James Bond. Show all posts
Showing posts with label James Bond. Show all posts
Friday, January 01, 2016
Thursday, December 31, 2015
2015 in review: Films I saw at the cinema
I've decided to list all the films I watched for the first time in 2015. I've split them into cinema releases and movies I watched on TV or DVD, some of which are a bit older - those follow in another post because otherwise this would be crazily long. FYI, I've listed these films in the order I saw them rather than in order of quality.
Kingsman ~ The Secret Service
Comedic take on spy films based on a comic book. Despite the ludicrously over the top violence, I enjoyed this apart from the controversial brief sexual content right at the end. Although the big names in it were Colin Firth, Samuel L Jackson and Michael Caine, it also offered a rare cinematic outing for Mark Hamill, who didn't have much to do except look surprised.
Big Hero Six
Disney animation based on a comic book. A genius kid inherits his brother's robot nurse (naturally, being a Disney film, family members die) and turns it into a super-hero. It was a good film, but the supporting hero team weren't necessary and the villain's actions didn't really make any sense. So it turned into one of those films with some good central characters and not much of a plot.
Selma
Moving drama about the events in Selma, Alabama, during the height of the Civil Rights movement. It really made me aware of how the racism of powerful institutions worked to keep black people subjugated, and the sheer strength of character shown by Dr Martin Luther King and other leaders. I blogged about it here.
Chappie
South African-set science fiction action drama about a robot programmed to become self-aware. I quite liked this because it seemed quite realistic in portraying how a machine would feel when it came alive - shocked and awkward.
Avengers: Age of Ultron
Latest chapter in the Avengers franchise. Didn't really do much for me. Also about machine intelligence, but fell too easily into tropes. Why would a robot decide to create multiple copies of itself when theoretically it could just take over any machine going? Also it passed over spending time with characters in favour of MORE EXPLOSIONS!
Tomorrowland
Disney live action science fiction story starring George Clooney and Hugh Laurie. It had a surprising theme of hope in the future despite the way the world has been exploited and ruined to the point where it's on the brink of destruction.
Jurassic World
Basically, this is Jurassic Park, except the park and the dinosaurs are bigger. It had a more callous approach to human victims than the original, especially one character, an Executive Assistant, who was marked for death early on because she had a British accent. Chris Pratt starred, continuing his A-list trajectory that started with Guardians of the Galaxy last year.
Spy
Melissa McCarthy divides opinion. But this film was funnier than the trailers would have you believe. Also featured Alison Janney (yay) and Miranda Hart ( no, seriously) along with Jude Law as a slimy James Bond-spoofing chick magnet spy. But Jason Statham stole the show for sending up so many of his own films.
Moomins on the Riviera
A slow animated adventure based on an early Moomins story. If you like Moomins then it's one for you. It's European origins are very obvious.
Minions
The Despicable Me prequel. Being fair, it had some great set pieces. The first 20 minutes or so were fab. But the point about the Minions is they are knockabout background characters and asking them to carry a movie is a bit much. Although the showing we went to see did have the added bonus of a chap showing up in an adult Minion onesie, much to the embarrassment of his friends.
Terminator Genisys
I really enjoyed this. It took the Terminator mythos and turned it on its head. Arnie was back, which was the big seller, and they incorporated his real-world ageing well into the film. He was also deadpan funny. In many ways every Terminator movie is about the same thing - avoiding the fate that seems unavoidable, and this wasn't too different, but the plot was suitably complex to keep me interested. Matt Smith, former Doctor Who, has a small but important part as well.
Ant-Man
I knew very little about this going in, except that it was Marvel Comics and the trailer looked good. It was very enjoyable, different enough from the main story arc to not feel like a retread of the same old ground (unlike Age of Ultron). In fact, the bit that jarred was the unnecessary attempt to tie in the wider Marvel franchise with an appearance by The Falcon. Although that did lead to a fun on-screen fight. Paul Rudd made a likeable leading man. Michael Douglas is always good value. And the final showdown involves a model train set. Could you ask for anything more?
Inside Out
The summer's big Pixar movie, starring the emotions inside a little girl's head. As usual for Pixar, this is a top concept and very cleverly done. The basic story is the 'main characters are exiled and need to get back to their home' that worked very well in Toy Story, but didn't work so well here. It does have what I would contend is the cleverest joke to appear in any Pixar movie as a throwaway gag that I think most people missed. My main complaint, however, is the way Pixar allowed their main characters to shill for Sky and Subway, with them appearing in adverts before the film came on screen, That spoiled it for me. There was also an ad for the toys that gave away a key plot point. It would have been a better movie without these commercial spoilers.
Song of the Sea
This is my movie of the year. It's a beautifully drawn animation based on an old Irish legend about a little girl who is a selkie and the last hope of the faerie folk trapped in the human world. The artistry of the animation is gorgeous. The story deals with love and loss and I'm not ashamed to say I was blinking away tears at the end. Thoroughly recommended.
Suffragette
Before seeing this movie I hadn't fully grasped what it meant to be denied the vote and various rights on the basis of what genitals you were born with. I thought the subject matter was well-handled. It didn't glorify acts of terror, but it did made me think about how the boundaries blur. I recognise the sacrifices of the suffragettes, but setting off bombs and destroying property aren't really actions to endorse. Or are they? I've written more about it here.
Spectre
James Bond does what he does best - following his own orders, killing people mercilessly and exploiting vulnerable women for sex. I've written about glorifying a sexual predator here. On the other hand there was a lovely shot of a train in the North African desert, which if you like trains is worth watching the film for.
The Good Dinosaur
Pixar's first flop? Certainly the first Pixar film that I thought borrowed too heavily on other films. A bit of A Bug's Life as Arlo the dinosaur doesn't fit in and makes a mess of things, a bit of the Lion King (why do parents always die in Disney films?). The similarities to non-Disney franchises like Ice Age were also surprising. This film took ages to get to screen apparently and had been in production almost a decade. And yet, while beautifully animated even by Pixar's high, high standards, it was still let down by the story.
Star Wars: The Force Awakens (seen x3)
Also known as Episode VII. This was great. Long review WITH SPOILERS here. My Mum loved it as well. In her words "So good to get away from the awful prequels."
Charlie Brown and Snoopy: The Peanuts Movie
I have to admit I found this a bit slow. It is a very loving tribute to the original TV cartoons but there isn't much of a script. However, Cathy is probably one of the biggest fans of Peanuts there is and she really enjoyed it, so that's all that really matters. I did enjoy Snoopy acting out his dogfights with the Red Baron, prompting phone calls from worried kids all over the neighbourhood to Charlie Brown.
And that's it. 22 trips to the cinema to see 19 different films makes for a very full year of movie-going.
Kingsman ~ The Secret Service
Comedic take on spy films based on a comic book. Despite the ludicrously over the top violence, I enjoyed this apart from the controversial brief sexual content right at the end. Although the big names in it were Colin Firth, Samuel L Jackson and Michael Caine, it also offered a rare cinematic outing for Mark Hamill, who didn't have much to do except look surprised.
Big Hero Six
Disney animation based on a comic book. A genius kid inherits his brother's robot nurse (naturally, being a Disney film, family members die) and turns it into a super-hero. It was a good film, but the supporting hero team weren't necessary and the villain's actions didn't really make any sense. So it turned into one of those films with some good central characters and not much of a plot.
Selma
Moving drama about the events in Selma, Alabama, during the height of the Civil Rights movement. It really made me aware of how the racism of powerful institutions worked to keep black people subjugated, and the sheer strength of character shown by Dr Martin Luther King and other leaders. I blogged about it here.
Chappie
South African-set science fiction action drama about a robot programmed to become self-aware. I quite liked this because it seemed quite realistic in portraying how a machine would feel when it came alive - shocked and awkward.
Avengers: Age of Ultron
Latest chapter in the Avengers franchise. Didn't really do much for me. Also about machine intelligence, but fell too easily into tropes. Why would a robot decide to create multiple copies of itself when theoretically it could just take over any machine going? Also it passed over spending time with characters in favour of MORE EXPLOSIONS!
Tomorrowland
Disney live action science fiction story starring George Clooney and Hugh Laurie. It had a surprising theme of hope in the future despite the way the world has been exploited and ruined to the point where it's on the brink of destruction.
Jurassic World
Basically, this is Jurassic Park, except the park and the dinosaurs are bigger. It had a more callous approach to human victims than the original, especially one character, an Executive Assistant, who was marked for death early on because she had a British accent. Chris Pratt starred, continuing his A-list trajectory that started with Guardians of the Galaxy last year.
Spy
Melissa McCarthy divides opinion. But this film was funnier than the trailers would have you believe. Also featured Alison Janney (yay) and Miranda Hart ( no, seriously) along with Jude Law as a slimy James Bond-spoofing chick magnet spy. But Jason Statham stole the show for sending up so many of his own films.
Moomins on the Riviera
A slow animated adventure based on an early Moomins story. If you like Moomins then it's one for you. It's European origins are very obvious.
Minions
The Despicable Me prequel. Being fair, it had some great set pieces. The first 20 minutes or so were fab. But the point about the Minions is they are knockabout background characters and asking them to carry a movie is a bit much. Although the showing we went to see did have the added bonus of a chap showing up in an adult Minion onesie, much to the embarrassment of his friends.
Terminator Genisys
I really enjoyed this. It took the Terminator mythos and turned it on its head. Arnie was back, which was the big seller, and they incorporated his real-world ageing well into the film. He was also deadpan funny. In many ways every Terminator movie is about the same thing - avoiding the fate that seems unavoidable, and this wasn't too different, but the plot was suitably complex to keep me interested. Matt Smith, former Doctor Who, has a small but important part as well.
Ant-Man
I knew very little about this going in, except that it was Marvel Comics and the trailer looked good. It was very enjoyable, different enough from the main story arc to not feel like a retread of the same old ground (unlike Age of Ultron). In fact, the bit that jarred was the unnecessary attempt to tie in the wider Marvel franchise with an appearance by The Falcon. Although that did lead to a fun on-screen fight. Paul Rudd made a likeable leading man. Michael Douglas is always good value. And the final showdown involves a model train set. Could you ask for anything more?
Inside Out
The summer's big Pixar movie, starring the emotions inside a little girl's head. As usual for Pixar, this is a top concept and very cleverly done. The basic story is the 'main characters are exiled and need to get back to their home' that worked very well in Toy Story, but didn't work so well here. It does have what I would contend is the cleverest joke to appear in any Pixar movie as a throwaway gag that I think most people missed. My main complaint, however, is the way Pixar allowed their main characters to shill for Sky and Subway, with them appearing in adverts before the film came on screen, That spoiled it for me. There was also an ad for the toys that gave away a key plot point. It would have been a better movie without these commercial spoilers.
Song of the Sea
This is my movie of the year. It's a beautifully drawn animation based on an old Irish legend about a little girl who is a selkie and the last hope of the faerie folk trapped in the human world. The artistry of the animation is gorgeous. The story deals with love and loss and I'm not ashamed to say I was blinking away tears at the end. Thoroughly recommended.
Suffragette
Before seeing this movie I hadn't fully grasped what it meant to be denied the vote and various rights on the basis of what genitals you were born with. I thought the subject matter was well-handled. It didn't glorify acts of terror, but it did made me think about how the boundaries blur. I recognise the sacrifices of the suffragettes, but setting off bombs and destroying property aren't really actions to endorse. Or are they? I've written more about it here.
Spectre
James Bond does what he does best - following his own orders, killing people mercilessly and exploiting vulnerable women for sex. I've written about glorifying a sexual predator here. On the other hand there was a lovely shot of a train in the North African desert, which if you like trains is worth watching the film for.
The Good Dinosaur
Pixar's first flop? Certainly the first Pixar film that I thought borrowed too heavily on other films. A bit of A Bug's Life as Arlo the dinosaur doesn't fit in and makes a mess of things, a bit of the Lion King (why do parents always die in Disney films?). The similarities to non-Disney franchises like Ice Age were also surprising. This film took ages to get to screen apparently and had been in production almost a decade. And yet, while beautifully animated even by Pixar's high, high standards, it was still let down by the story.
Star Wars: The Force Awakens (seen x3)
Also known as Episode VII. This was great. Long review WITH SPOILERS here. My Mum loved it as well. In her words "So good to get away from the awful prequels."
Charlie Brown and Snoopy: The Peanuts Movie
I have to admit I found this a bit slow. It is a very loving tribute to the original TV cartoons but there isn't much of a script. However, Cathy is probably one of the biggest fans of Peanuts there is and she really enjoyed it, so that's all that really matters. I did enjoy Snoopy acting out his dogfights with the Red Baron, prompting phone calls from worried kids all over the neighbourhood to Charlie Brown.
And that's it. 22 trips to the cinema to see 19 different films makes for a very full year of movie-going.
Thursday, November 26, 2015
James Bond Spectre review, or, How to write a sexual predator character who becomes an icon
Spectre is one of the most successful British films ever, and probably the most successful Bond film. It has received rave reviews. It also has the honour of being the first James Bond movie with a theme song that became a number 1 hit single. For a while the news feeds were dominated with news about it. As a film, it is touted as one of those 'must-see movies'. So I went to see it.
Back in 2012 I wrote a review of Skyfall, where I said I was uneasy with the predatory activity of MI6's most well known double-O agent. Specifically, a barely consensual shower sex scene when Bond forces himself onto a frequently-trafficked woman, who is later shot dead in front of him.
The same tropes crop up in Spectre, which for all it's glitz and hype suffers from three key failings: a reliance on magic, conspiracy theory 'explanations' and sexual predation. That last charge is the worst one, but I will deal with the other two first.
What do I mean by magic? Well, we have a massive secret base in the manner of the best Bond films of old. But it suffers from what I call the 'Death Star flaw', by which I mean it can be totally destroyed by one well-placed shot. Seriously. Bond shoots one little gas pipe and the whole place goes up in multiple explosions. At some point that goes beyond good marksmanship and becomes magic.
The conspiracy theory explanation was tiresome as well. I'm pretty sure the Skyfall villain spent some time explaining how he was behind all the terrible things that happened to Bond. Now the main villain in Spectre does the same thing. Apparently the events of all four films starring Daniel Craig were all orchestrated by this one guy as some sort of revenge for the villain's Dad liking James more when his family fostered him. It seems like a lot of effort to go to.
The 'it's all a massive conspiracy' idea is quite popular in movies. I think this is because movie-makers are trying to tell a story and actually the real world isn't set up for stories. Most events don't have a beginning, middle or end, nor are there neat causative processes that can be easily narrated. People want to believe in conspiracies, and large shadowy criminal organisations pulling the strings behind the scenes, because the idea that things happen at random and chaotically is terrifying. There is no way to control much of the random stuff that happens in reality. But you can do it in the movies. Take out the mastermind and the terror stops.
And then we have the third problem. The predation. Bond wastes no time at all bedding a widow the evening she returns from her husband's funeral. He then promises her protection, but not from him, from someone else he knows. I wouldn't put too much faith in that, but it might be better than any protection Bond would offer. In Skyfall Bond spectacularly failed to protect a woman he had just promised to protect. In Quantum of Solace a casual lay from the diplomatic service is found tortured to death in his hotel room shortly after they did the deed there.
But widows aren't enough. Bond soon latches on to a recently orphaned young woman and by the end of the film, has seduced her. Widows and orphans? There seems to be no emotionally vulnerable group that Bond won't exploit.
So, what's good about this film? Well, there are stunts. There is a lovely tracking shot of a train in the North African desert. There are stunts... Yeah, that's about it. The thing is the stunts and cinematography can't mask the sucking hole at the centre of the film, the aggressive sociopathic sexual predator called James Bond, who we, the audience, are meant to root for as the hero.
There is even an attempt at exoneration. Ralph Fiennes, taking over as M now that Judi Dench has moved on, gives an impassioned defence of the Double O programme at one point. To the career civil servant he says that having a licence to kill is a terrible burden because you have to look into a man's eyes and decide whether to kill a fellow human being or not.
I can see that being a difficult thing to do. I don't see any evidence that Bond sees this as a difficult thing to do.
As this film makes clear, human beings are expendable to James Bond, whether its his sexual conquests, or the careers of colleagues who he asks to deliberately disobey orders and operate outside their jurisdiction.(And that's another contradiction in the Bond films - any agent hat goes rogue is presumed to be bad and kill-worthy for 007, but he effectively goes rogue here and takes several important colleagues with him. Talk about subjective morality - it's OK for me to ignore orders that I decide are unjust, but anyone else who doesn't follow orders goes on the death list. Wait, why?)
So, this is where we are. A career sexual predator with a callous disregard for human beings who cross his path is apparently an icon.Quite what this shows about our culture is hard to fathom. The most worrying thing is that very few people seem to question this. We just munch our popcorn, go 'ooh' at the explosions and let James carry on with what he does.
Back in 2012 I wrote a review of Skyfall, where I said I was uneasy with the predatory activity of MI6's most well known double-O agent. Specifically, a barely consensual shower sex scene when Bond forces himself onto a frequently-trafficked woman, who is later shot dead in front of him.
The same tropes crop up in Spectre, which for all it's glitz and hype suffers from three key failings: a reliance on magic, conspiracy theory 'explanations' and sexual predation. That last charge is the worst one, but I will deal with the other two first.
What do I mean by magic? Well, we have a massive secret base in the manner of the best Bond films of old. But it suffers from what I call the 'Death Star flaw', by which I mean it can be totally destroyed by one well-placed shot. Seriously. Bond shoots one little gas pipe and the whole place goes up in multiple explosions. At some point that goes beyond good marksmanship and becomes magic.
The conspiracy theory explanation was tiresome as well. I'm pretty sure the Skyfall villain spent some time explaining how he was behind all the terrible things that happened to Bond. Now the main villain in Spectre does the same thing. Apparently the events of all four films starring Daniel Craig were all orchestrated by this one guy as some sort of revenge for the villain's Dad liking James more when his family fostered him. It seems like a lot of effort to go to.
The 'it's all a massive conspiracy' idea is quite popular in movies. I think this is because movie-makers are trying to tell a story and actually the real world isn't set up for stories. Most events don't have a beginning, middle or end, nor are there neat causative processes that can be easily narrated. People want to believe in conspiracies, and large shadowy criminal organisations pulling the strings behind the scenes, because the idea that things happen at random and chaotically is terrifying. There is no way to control much of the random stuff that happens in reality. But you can do it in the movies. Take out the mastermind and the terror stops.
And then we have the third problem. The predation. Bond wastes no time at all bedding a widow the evening she returns from her husband's funeral. He then promises her protection, but not from him, from someone else he knows. I wouldn't put too much faith in that, but it might be better than any protection Bond would offer. In Skyfall Bond spectacularly failed to protect a woman he had just promised to protect. In Quantum of Solace a casual lay from the diplomatic service is found tortured to death in his hotel room shortly after they did the deed there.
But widows aren't enough. Bond soon latches on to a recently orphaned young woman and by the end of the film, has seduced her. Widows and orphans? There seems to be no emotionally vulnerable group that Bond won't exploit.
So, what's good about this film? Well, there are stunts. There is a lovely tracking shot of a train in the North African desert. There are stunts... Yeah, that's about it. The thing is the stunts and cinematography can't mask the sucking hole at the centre of the film, the aggressive sociopathic sexual predator called James Bond, who we, the audience, are meant to root for as the hero.
There is even an attempt at exoneration. Ralph Fiennes, taking over as M now that Judi Dench has moved on, gives an impassioned defence of the Double O programme at one point. To the career civil servant he says that having a licence to kill is a terrible burden because you have to look into a man's eyes and decide whether to kill a fellow human being or not.
I can see that being a difficult thing to do. I don't see any evidence that Bond sees this as a difficult thing to do.
As this film makes clear, human beings are expendable to James Bond, whether its his sexual conquests, or the careers of colleagues who he asks to deliberately disobey orders and operate outside their jurisdiction.(And that's another contradiction in the Bond films - any agent hat goes rogue is presumed to be bad and kill-worthy for 007, but he effectively goes rogue here and takes several important colleagues with him. Talk about subjective morality - it's OK for me to ignore orders that I decide are unjust, but anyone else who doesn't follow orders goes on the death list. Wait, why?)
So, this is where we are. A career sexual predator with a callous disregard for human beings who cross his path is apparently an icon.Quite what this shows about our culture is hard to fathom. The most worrying thing is that very few people seem to question this. We just munch our popcorn, go 'ooh' at the explosions and let James carry on with what he does.
Friday, January 04, 2013
Movies of 2012
Most surprising movie
Disney/Pixar's Brave was a big surprise. I'd been very disappointed by Cars 2 and didn't think the trailers were anything special. I thought it looked like a Scottish-set version of Mulan or something, but the story veered off in an unexpected direction. The animation was top-notch, it had some very funny scenes, and generally I thought it was excellent.
Most underwhelming movie
Prometheus promised much and delivered very little. It somehow managed to combine pretentious ambitions with weak characterisation and a plot that seemed to be mainly made up of holes. Very, very disappointing.
Movie that made me think a bit harder than I expected
I really liked Looper, although I'm pretty sure the central plot device of time travel unravelled right at the end. But it was very well acted - Joseph Gordan-Levitt was excellent, as was Bruce Willis - and the story kept me guessing right to the end. All-in-all, a sci-fi move that was well worth watching.
Enjoyable action movie of the year
I really liked Avengers Assemble. It may not be as cool as the recent Batman films, but it was fast-paced, the actors took the job seriously, but most of all it was the culmination of a series of films that all fed into a much larger picture. As such, it was a believable 'cross-over' film. The characters had back-stories, but this was a move forward for all of them. It maybe was a bit long, but that's about the only criticism I can make.
Movie that made me feel a bit 'meh' afterwards
Two movies vie for this award - The Dark Knight Rises and Skyfall. I don't think either enriched my life. The Batman film had an interesting political edge to it - that without the ruling 1%, all you get is anarchy and terror, while the James Bond film was nihilistic in the extreme (as I said when I reviewed it before). Nihilism can work in a movie (for example, I thought Dredd was very well done), but Skyfall was unremitting for a movie ostensibly about a 'hero'.
Comedy of the year
I didn't see that many comedies this year. Ted was funny, but a bit rude, so I'm going to give this one to Ice Age 4: Continental Drift, mainly because it made a joke about a previous installment in the series involving dinosaurs and said that it "didn't make a lot of sense." That amused me.
Film of the year
And so to the big one - my personal favourite film of 2012 and it has to go to... (drumroll) The Muppets. As I said when I reviewed it back in February, I liked the way the film treated the original Muppet ethos with respect. Disney did a very good job at capturing what made the Muppets work a few decades ago, and it was just a great family movie, with several jokes that made me laugh out loud. On another note, the recent acquisition of the Star Wars empire by Disney hasn't really worried me - given how Disney treated the Muppets, I have high hopes they will capture the spirit of Star Wars in the right way. (And as Cathy has pointed out, they really can't mess it up as badly as George Lucas did with the prequels.)
I'm already looking forward to some of the films due out in 2013, but that was 2012.
Thursday, November 29, 2012
Skyfall - a review and a reviewer's unease
I watched the latest James Bond film, Skyfall, recently with my cinebuddy, Connor (shout out to him!). I know the critics seem to have been lining up to praise it to the rafters, but it left me feeling a real sense of unease.
***From here on in there will be spoilers, because this is a critique***
Technically and cinematically, there's not much to criticise, but I don't want to do that thing of saying how well it was made and then raise a few queries about the content. Instead, I think that's part of the problem with films, people see the stunts, and the nicely framed, well-lit scenes and it stops them thinking about what they are really watching.
Bond has become an antihero. An alcoholic, remorseless killing machine, who describes his employment as murder. He is so emotionless in this film he may as well be a replicant. People criticise Daniel Craig's woodenness, but alternatively, he is playing a character who has gone so far through trauma he has emerged on the other side of insanity.
Bond has always been a rogue, but in this film his character is truly amoral. He promises to save a beautiful woman who has been used as a sex object since childhood, but then doesn't even flinch when she is brutally executed in front of him, mere seconds before the cavalry show up to rescue them.
Along the way Bond assumes she wants to have sex with him and joins her in a shower. It's not exactly non-consensual, but this scene turns Bond into another person to use her sexually. She obviously didn't mean anything to him, even if as the man who promised to save her, he meant something to her. Krish Kandiah has pointed out how uncomfortable this made him feel. And it should make us feel uncomfortable, otherwise we are ourselves halfway to reducing women to vessels for sex.
I found the relationship with 'M' as disturbing. After she admits that she handed over the one-time spy who is now the 'villain' of the piece to another country's secret police, who tortured him to the point where he tried to kill himself, Bond says nothing. There is no judgement made of M's actions. She shows no remorse for betraying someone else's trust.
What are we meant to make of that? The film doesn't ask whether M deserved to be targeted for revenge. It seems to imply that doing something wicked for the greater good is acceptable, but I don't buy that. Betrayal is always betrayal, just as murder is always murder. Killing in the name of the greater good is just as morally reprehensible as killing in the name of God, profits or 'the people'.
So, that underpinning ethic left me feeling very uneasy. And then, there's Bond himself. When he returns to London M asks him where he's been and he says 'Enjoying death'. But that seemed to ring hollow. We'd seen his preceding activities and he looked to not be enjoying himself at all.
For me, it would have been much more satisfying if he had been reintroduced playing football and bantering with some new found mates on a Brazilian beach rather than trying to outdrink a scorpion (or whatever that was). Then he would hear about the bombing in a copacabana sports bar surrounded by rejoicing team-mates who loved the fact he'd just scored the winning goal over their fierce rivals, and realising that he had to leave this new life behind to go back to save Blighty again. That would be a heroic giving up of an 'enjoyable afterlife'.
But, no. The real reason he went back was because he had nothing else to do in his life, but gun up and start killing again. He doesn't seem bothered that M lied to him about his fitness for duty - another betrayal in M's catalogue of crimes against her own agents. He doesn't care about his own safety because he doesn't care if he lives or dies.
And that. ultimately is what depressed me most, that we are supposed to root for a man who is despairing. There is nothing heroic about nihilistic self-destruction. It is the ultimate form of narcissism - to declaim that there is nothing worth loving in the world, including yourself. And I just couldn't bring myself to buy in to that bleak view of the universe.
***From here on in there will be spoilers, because this is a critique***
Technically and cinematically, there's not much to criticise, but I don't want to do that thing of saying how well it was made and then raise a few queries about the content. Instead, I think that's part of the problem with films, people see the stunts, and the nicely framed, well-lit scenes and it stops them thinking about what they are really watching.
Bond has become an antihero. An alcoholic, remorseless killing machine, who describes his employment as murder. He is so emotionless in this film he may as well be a replicant. People criticise Daniel Craig's woodenness, but alternatively, he is playing a character who has gone so far through trauma he has emerged on the other side of insanity.
Bond has always been a rogue, but in this film his character is truly amoral. He promises to save a beautiful woman who has been used as a sex object since childhood, but then doesn't even flinch when she is brutally executed in front of him, mere seconds before the cavalry show up to rescue them.
Along the way Bond assumes she wants to have sex with him and joins her in a shower. It's not exactly non-consensual, but this scene turns Bond into another person to use her sexually. She obviously didn't mean anything to him, even if as the man who promised to save her, he meant something to her. Krish Kandiah has pointed out how uncomfortable this made him feel. And it should make us feel uncomfortable, otherwise we are ourselves halfway to reducing women to vessels for sex.
I found the relationship with 'M' as disturbing. After she admits that she handed over the one-time spy who is now the 'villain' of the piece to another country's secret police, who tortured him to the point where he tried to kill himself, Bond says nothing. There is no judgement made of M's actions. She shows no remorse for betraying someone else's trust.
What are we meant to make of that? The film doesn't ask whether M deserved to be targeted for revenge. It seems to imply that doing something wicked for the greater good is acceptable, but I don't buy that. Betrayal is always betrayal, just as murder is always murder. Killing in the name of the greater good is just as morally reprehensible as killing in the name of God, profits or 'the people'.
So, that underpinning ethic left me feeling very uneasy. And then, there's Bond himself. When he returns to London M asks him where he's been and he says 'Enjoying death'. But that seemed to ring hollow. We'd seen his preceding activities and he looked to not be enjoying himself at all.
For me, it would have been much more satisfying if he had been reintroduced playing football and bantering with some new found mates on a Brazilian beach rather than trying to outdrink a scorpion (or whatever that was). Then he would hear about the bombing in a copacabana sports bar surrounded by rejoicing team-mates who loved the fact he'd just scored the winning goal over their fierce rivals, and realising that he had to leave this new life behind to go back to save Blighty again. That would be a heroic giving up of an 'enjoyable afterlife'.
But, no. The real reason he went back was because he had nothing else to do in his life, but gun up and start killing again. He doesn't seem bothered that M lied to him about his fitness for duty - another betrayal in M's catalogue of crimes against her own agents. He doesn't care about his own safety because he doesn't care if he lives or dies.
And that. ultimately is what depressed me most, that we are supposed to root for a man who is despairing. There is nothing heroic about nihilistic self-destruction. It is the ultimate form of narcissism - to declaim that there is nothing worth loving in the world, including yourself. And I just couldn't bring myself to buy in to that bleak view of the universe.
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