BONDATHON: LIVE AND LET DIE

They had tried this before, this recasting of Bond. George Lazenby filled out the tux in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, the most ambitious and unusual film in the series. But Lazenby didn’t work. Not because he was a bad actor, but because he was forced to imitate Connery, in look and manner. It didn’t work. The answer to how you replace an iconic actor is that you don’t try to replace him at all. For an audience to accept a new Bond, he would have to be different enough from Connery to be able to grow into an icon in his own right. As a result Roger Moore was cast for 1973’s Live and Let Die, the most trashy and cartoonish entry in the series yet.

The big problem with the last entry, apart from a visibly bored Connery, was the lack of a clear villain or threat worthy of James Bond. Live and Let Die does better in this regard. Several British agents have been killed and MI-6 feels that it might be connected to Dr. Kananga (Yaphet Kotto), the prime minister to a small Caribbean Island. Bond heads to New York where he sees the United Nations before heading to Harlem and meeting a bunch of Blaxploitation stereotypes and Kananga’s woman/virginal Tarot card reader Solitare (Donna Summers). Later in his travels, he is joined by Rosie (Gloria Hendly), cinema’s most incompetent CIA agent ever (she doesn’t even know how to take off a gun’s safety catch). Rosie screams and has nervous fits while Bond seduces Solitare and uncovers Kananga’s plans to monopolize the world’s heroin supply.

Roger Moore is, whatever you think of him, a very firm contrast to Connery.  While Connery came off as rough and a working class secret agent, Moore comes off as slick and privileged. They both represented old imperialism, but Roger Moore does it much more stereotypically. He’s an Englishman first, James Bond second. A concerted effort was made to differentiate him from Connery, he doesn't drink martinis and as a presence, he’s a softer, goofier Bond. The shift towards broader comedy can't be blamed solely on Moore, the trend had started in earnest with Diamonds Are Forever (remember that elephant gambling scene?) and could arguably be traced back further, but Moore’s facility with the jokes helps put the trend into overdrive and is indicative of many franchises that grow sillier as time goes on (Superman, the first Batman series). Moore's 007 doesn't miss one opportunity to crack a joke or make a pun. Nothing in this film can be taken seriously even for a second.

This extends to the action scenes which are really, truly bizarre. In one scene Bond hops across the back of several alligators to safety. There's also a 12 minute boat chase that focuses not on Bond or his pursuers, but on a hillbilly cop (Clifton James). The cop, who we've never met before in the film, spends most of the chase pursuing, but never quite catching up to, the boat chase. Oh, and one character is dispatched by being inflated like a balloon. Yes, you read that right.

These ridiculous gimmicks are not fantastic, but are ultimately for the best because they soften the movie’s pulpier elements, which are really racist. The books, and to a lesser extent the films, have always been very pro-imperialist and Live and Let Die is one of the most naked examples of this. Kananga is the prime minister from San Monique, a fictional country standing in for any number of Caribbean colonies that the British used to own (particularly Jamaica), and so the entire plot could be seen as 'Bond keeping the old colony in line.' But the problem isn’t that the film has ethnic villains, it’s that it has so many of them. It’s possible that the producers had seen Shaft and decided they wanted to exploit that audience but didn’t understand that Blaxploitation was about empowering the community by letting black audiences see themselves as anti-establishment heroes, not as thugs to be defeated by Whitey. As a result, the film ends up perfectly reflecting the worst fears of the white establishment by showing a world where seemingly the entire black population of the Northern Hemisphere are in on the evil scheme. There are times where the film almost feels like James Bond vs. Black People.

In this scene Kananga hires half of New Orleans to kill one man.

Somewhat mitigating the choice of exclusively black villains is Kananga himself. He’s probably the smartest, most fully realized villain in the series so far. For the first time in eight films I was nodding my head while the villain explained his evil plan and thinking, “Yes, that could actually work. Bravo sir!” Now he does not have the wherewithal to actually kill Bond when he has the chance (this is a Bond film after all), but still, a plausible plan is a rarity for these films. He also has an interesting relationship with Solitaire. The Bond series has made it a tradition of having Bond seducing the villain’s woman as a symbol of his masculinity surpassing that of all other men. But she isn’t like the other women in that she is a virgin. Kananga keeps her virginity intact because it is the source of her psychic powers. The link between virginity and magical power is a standard mythological trope but its inclusion in a series built on the frankness of the sexual revolution is interesting to say the least. It also shifts the light in which we see the characters. Whatever Kananga’s anterior motives are, he does try and protect Solitaire’s virtue. Also, Bond’s seduction of Solitaire is a bit troubling because Bond always has ulterior motives when seducing women and also he explicitly tricks her into the deed by playing on her superstitions. Despite his reputation, Bond isn’t a very classy guy.

"I'm just using you to get to someone else. Wait, why are you crying woman?"

So what’s good about the film? Well, the song by Paul McCartney and Wings is magnificent. As is the opening title sequence which is easily Maurice Binder’s best since Dr. No, while has a lot of the standard Bond credit tropes, but he also gives us this flaming skull image which is one of the strongest in the Bond series.

Despite all the misguided racial politics which, let’s face it are in a lot of these films, Live and Let Die is kind of enjoyable. The camp aspects of the film may not be according to Hoyle Bond, but they work. This isn't a good film, but at least it's never boring and that's more than I can say for Diamonds are Forever.

Grade: B-

Previous Bondathon entries:

Dr. No

From Russia With Love

Goldfinger

Thunderball / Never Say Never Again

You Only Live Twice
On Her Majesty's Secret Service 
Diamonds Are Forever
Live and Let Die
The Man With The Golden Gun 
The Spy Who Loved Me
Moonraker
For Your Eyes Only
Octopussy 
A View To A Kill 
The Living Daylights
Licence to Kill
Goldeneye
Tomorrow Never Dies 
The World Is Not Enough  
Die Another Day 
Casino Royale 
Quantum of Solace
Skyfall

 

BONDATHON: DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER

How do you solve problem like James Bond? The producers did the best they could without Connery. They re-cast 007, hoping that it was the role, not the actor that made the series the monumental success that it was. Unfortunately the box office receipts did not bear that out. On Her Majesty's Secret Service wasn’t a flop by any means, it was one of the top grossing film’s of 1969, but it still earned far less than its predecessor and received very mixed reviews, many hostile towards new Bond, George Lazenby.

Knowing Lazenby was not a viable option and that Connery wasn’t interested in returning, producing partners Saltzman and Broccoli set about the unenviable task of re-casting James Bond yet again. Some felt that it was time to make Bond appeal to younger audiences by casting an American as Bond. Such a thing would be unthinkable today, but back in 1970, Saltzman and Broccoli where insistent on it. The pair even talked to Batman star Adam West before signing John Gavin (Psycho) to don the tux. That is until the studio insisted Connery return for the next installment. Despite his initial trepidation, he agreed on the condition he be paid a record breaking salary (which he donated to charity). It was firmly understood that Sean would only be returning for one film, and so a more permanent recasting of Bond was put off for another film and Connery returned to serve as a sort of band-aid for a franchise in need.

If On Her Majesty’s Secret Service was the ballsiest Bond yet (ending with the death of 007’s bride), Diamond’s are Forever is the safest. Considering the ending of that film, one would expect Diamonds to be something of a revenge film. Indeed the prologue shows Bond savagely hunting down and killing Blofeld (Charles Gray). Not knowing what to do with the rest of the film, M (Bernard lee) sends Bond off on the trail of African diamond smugglers. He attaches himself to smuggler Tiffany Case (Jill St. John). In a neat twist Bond kills Tiffinay’s real contact and switches wallets with him, leading her uttering best line of the movie: “You just killed James Bond!” It should be noted that Bond’s only form of I.D. seams to be his membership card to the Playboy Club.

This screen cap should constitute a spoiler as it's the best part of the film.

They grab some diamonds and head off to Vegas, which in this film is a circus dreamscape where elephants gamble and Bond rides around in a moon buggy for some reason. Eventually the supper-spy unravels some convoluted business involving a kidnapped Howard Huges surrogate (played by sausage magnate Jimmy Dean), Blofeld (not really dead) and his diamond powered laser satellite (no, really). Director Guy Hamilton tried to bring surreal touches to Bond when he made Goldfinger but these same instincts run amuck here and reek of desperation. It’s just amazing how thin this film feels. Nothing really feels connected to anything else. Bond wonders around being Bond. Women are slept with, thugs are punched, cars are driven. The films two Bond girls aren’t particularly memorable and come off a bit shrill. Connery is good half the time and visibly bored the rest of it.

But Connery could be giving the best performance of his life and it wouldn't matter in the face of the film's real problem, which is that there's no main villain till over an hour into the film. A genre film lives and dies by its villain. Even the worst Bond film’s so far have had a clear villain or threat right from the get-go. After saving the world six times, some loosely assembled diamond smuggling story isn’t enough to keep the story going until Blofeld shows up. but by then the movie is already dead. It doesn't help that Charles Gray looks and acts nothing like the Blofeld we've seen in any of the other films and his SPECTRE organization couldn't be mentioned because of rights issues. The film doesn't know what to do with him. I'll ask again, why wasn't this film all about killing Blofeld from start to finish? The producers insistence to make Diamonds as if Secret Service never happened kills the film because Bond has no real motivation. A modern franchise would try to play on the links between the films and creates a sense of continuity and resonance. Instead we're stuck in this land of sudo-reboots.

The closest we get to villains for most of the film are two assassins, Mr. Wint and Mr. Kidd (Bruce Glover and Putter Smith, respectively). Despite not being very menacing, they are the film’s most successful element. Up till now the series has had several homosexual characters. Their homosexuality was never overly explicit (censorship issues) and they where always villains. Wint & Kidd aren’t particularly different. They fall very squarely into the ugly 'gay killer' trope and their presence should date the film terribly, but the fact of the matter is that they are an adorable couple. You get the feeling they’ve been together for years but never left the puppy dog stage of infatuation. They finish each others sentences and murders. Props to the actors (particularly Putter Smith) for taking their roles just seriously enough to imbue them with affection. At any rate, as hammy as they are, they are the only characters in the film that feel alive in any way.

As for fidelity to the source material, a lot of the broad strokes are there, certain scenes and character names are the same and they do all go to Las Vegas, but that's about it. Diamonds was the third Fleming novel, written before Bond had graduated to saving the world. It's a mediocre detective novel, and a film version makes no sense at this point in the series which explains why so much was changed. Diamonds Are Forever the book and the film are not essential entries in their respective series, but the novel fairs a bit better if for no other reason than a great closing paragraph equating diamonds with death, something indestructible, unconquerable and eternal. 

Grade: C-


Diamonds Are Forever is currently streaming on Netflix Instant.

Previous Bondathon entries:

Dr. No

From Russia With Love

Goldfinger

Thunderball / Never Say Never Again

You Only Live Twice
On Her Majesty's Secret Service 
Diamonds Are Forever
Live and Let Die
The Man With The Golden Gun 
The Spy Who Loved Me
Moonraker
For Your Eyes Only
Octopussy
A View To A Kill 
The Living Daylights 
Licence to Kill
Goldeneye 
Tomorrow Never Dies 
The World Is Not Enough  
Die Another Day 
Casino Royale 
Quantum of Solace
Skyfall

 

BATMAN BEGINS AND THE TRILOGY BELT

There's been a lot of excitement and trepidation about The Dark Knight Rises. Rotten Tomatoes has suspended comments on reviews because fans have been threatening critics who dared to not like the film. It's a bit presumptuous of fans to critique a review of a film that isn't even out yet, but the urge is understandable. Christopher Nolan has, over the past few years, completely redefined the superhero genre with his Batman films, and as fans we want him to blow us away one more time with this final entry, but we have a secret fear that it might not succeed. Over the next few day's we're gonna talk about Nolan's batman films, but first lets talk about trilogies...

Making a great film is hard. Many films that start out good seem to run out of steam and then by the end just feel perfunctory. The problem of keeping consistent quality escalates ten fold when dealing with trilogies. Making one great film is hard enough, making three interlinking ones is next to impossible. Most often any sequels are a series of diminishing returns (Back to the Future). Other times the first sequel is even better than the original installment but then the disappointment of the final part seems to leave ultimate greatness just out of reach. Take the original Star Wars trilogy. The first one is quite good. It dazzled the world with a whirlwind of stylistic, genre bending influences that preempt Tarantino by a good decade. Then Empire Strikes Back went deeper into the world and told a more emotionally resonant story. But then Return of the Jedi came out. It’s a good film, and it finishes off a lot of the lingering questions left from previous entries, but it’s just not as good as Empire.

This same pattern has been seen again and again in film trilogies, notably in Sam Raimi’s Spider-man films and perhaps most infamously with the Godfather films. Now the Godfather films are not failures, they represent two wildly impressive achievements in cinema. But what if the trilogy didn’t fizzle out? What if all three volumes escalated in quality? A trilogy that did this, that started strong and topped itself with each entry would be a huge achievement in cinema. With so many trilogies out there and so many film-goers actively interested in the results, one might call it the world heavyweight championship of film. To the winner of this prize would go the trilogy belt.

Like this, but for movies.

Having come up with this theory, I looked around for clear winners.  Now this theory is more for fun than anything else, but there are some rules applied:

1. Escalation of Quality.  The series has to start strong and each successive volume must be measurably better than the last. This excludes Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings films as they are of such a consistent quality that choosing one over the other becomes a matter of personal preference.
2. It Must be a Trilogy. There must only be three installments in the overall series with a definitive resolution. Sorry to Star Trek II-IV which tell a self contained story but are part of a larger series (they would also not pass rule 1 as Star Trek III is not as good as II or IV)
3. No “Loose” Trilogies. The installments can tell standalone stories but must be connected in some concrete way, preferably following the same characters or sets of characters. This sadly excludes Park Chan Wook’s excellent Vengeance Trilogy or Spielberg’s supposed Running Man trilogy. In short, if you have to be told that it’s a trilogy—it’s not.
4. Continuity of Creation. All three installments must be said to be the work of one man, or at the very least, the same team. This disqualifies the Bourne films which switched directors after the first film, though it’s on the bubble because the films can be said to be authored by screenwriter Tony Gilroy who invented his own world rather than use the contrived doorstops he was supposed to be adapting (it’s all a moot point as a fourth Bourne film is coming out soon without it’s main lead, taking it out of compliance with rules 2 and 3).

Applying these rules to the great trilogies I find one, and exactly one, trilogy that satisfactorily meets the requirements. Sergio Leoné’s Dollars trilogy.

Started in 1964, A Fistful of Dollars is an engrossing western re-appropriation of Akira Kurosawsa’s Yojimbo (itself a reappropriation of Dashiell Hammett's novel Red Harvest). Fistful is an excellent film that reinvigorated a dying genre but its sequel For A Few Dollars More tells a more complex, more ambitious, and more rewarding story. The final installment in the trilogy, The Good, The Bad and the Ugly is a great, lightning bolt from the sky masterpiece that makes the first two look like field sketches for a great painting.

 It’s been nearly 50 years since that series concluded and no trilogy has managed to stick the landing and deliver on that promise of escalating quality. Of the incomplete trilogies out there right now, two can be firmly said to be in the running for the Trilogy Belt: Guillermo Del Toro’s Hellboy films and Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy which we will be discussing here in a sec. Both films had entertaining but, flawed first installment’s and dynamite first sequels. The possibility of Hellboy III being made at all is very much up in the air at the moment, leaving it up to Nolan. If Nolan, who’s action filmmaking facility took a huge leap forward with Inception, has managed to make the impending Dark Knight Rises better than it’s predecessor he would have won the belt for the first time in nearly 50 years. Over the next few days I’ll be reviewing Nolan’s Bat-films to track their overall quality and post a review of Dark Knight Rises early next week.

Which brings us to Batman Begins...

Until 2005, big-screen depictions of the Dark Knight have had a spotty track record. The ’66 Adam West film is gloriously silly, Burton’s wonderful, but Prince filled, 1989 version was good but seemed more concerned with German Expressionism and Citizen Kane references than being about Batman. Burton’s films had great style but light substance. The Shumacer era was light on anything to recommend. For all the supposed darkness these films had, they seemed to always be harkening back to the campy 60’s era of Batman which was fun (and accurate to the tone of the comics of THAT era) but had little to do with the Batman that Bob Kane created in the 30’s, or the one of the contemporary world. There where some attempts, Darren Aronofsky and Frank Millar (author of two of the most important Batman books of all time, also Sin City) notably worked on a film that would have depicted Bruce Wayne as the borderline Travis Bickle level sociopath he'd be if he existed in the real world. It was a ultimately too bold a venture for a studio that wanted a PG-13, but the idea of a more grounded Batman would eventually gain traction with a different indi-darling director.

Enter Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins which finds Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) in a Chinese prison camp. Having left his 1% lifestyle to learn more about the criminal element he yearns to fight against. Call it “method crime fighting.” He’s rescued by a mysterious warrior named Ducard (Liam Neeson), a representive of an ancient order called The League of Shadows headed by the mysterious R’as al Ghul (Ken Watanabe). Under his tutelage Wayne learns all sorts of martial arts as well as the discipline he needs. But when Bruce refuses to kill a man the League has found guilty, he breaks away and Ducard becomes his enemy.

Upon returning to Gotham, Bruce reconnects with a childhood crush Rachel (Katie Holmes) and begins to create a separate persona under which to rescue crime-ridden city. He starts by gathering tools he’ll need from his parent’s company’s Applied Sciences division headed by Q – I mean Lucious Fox (Morgan Freeman). Fox provides him with a bullet proof survival suit, a cape made of memory-cloth for “base jumping” and an old prototype “bridging vehicle” called The Tumbler.  Bruce starts off fighting mob-bosses and quickly graduates to supervillian/shrink Scarecrow (Cillian Murphy) and his mysterious employers who wish to destroy Gotham city.

It's a lot of plot for one film, but if Nolan is good at one thing, it's finding ways to stuff a lot of plot into a film and make it flow. This is an excellent Batman film. It's true, we've seen origin stories like this before, but never with this level of detail. Where as Spider-Man takes the costume for granted, Begins takes it all seriously. Watching Bruce slowly build the Bat-suit from of off the shelf parts and create his cover identity is honestly more interesting than the actual plot of the film. It's also nice to see that despite all his training, Bruce isn't very good at being Batman at first. He doesn't make every jump he takes and, quite frankly gets his ass handed to him by Scarecrow the first time they meet. We can tell he's on the right track but the film isn't called Batman Knows What He's Doing. It's that constant adjustment to his methods and costume that make the the first hour so good. So compelling are these sequences, that when the full plot finally kicks in, it doesn't measure up.

Now it's universaly agreed that Katie Holmes is the weakest link in the film. Romantic interests have never been the strong suit of Batman stories on the page or the screen. He’s always been something of an asexual character. He’s looking for justice, not love. Still Nolan gives us a love-interest, making her an ADA was a smart choice, casting baby-faced Katie Holmes isn’t. It’s not that she’s a bad actress (she's a blast in Thankyou For Smoking), she’s just horrendously miscast.

But the film has other problems too. Nolan had made only two feature length films prior to this and neither one of them featured the kind of action spectacle required of a film like this. Unfortunately, Nolan's action beats are confusingly put together. I’ve read arguments that the fight scenes in Batman Begins are designed to disorient the viewer, to be impressionistic of how it feels to be attacked by Batman. That’s a good justification, but they resemble the standard 2005 Hollywood style too much for me to completely buy that, and besides at some point I’m gonna want to clearly see Batman punch someone in the face. The action scenes are not bad by any means (the car chase where the Tumbler jumps from roof top to roof top is fun), but they just aren't up to the standard of the storytelling.

What’s interesting about this film is Batman and his incredibly skewed moral compass. Early in the film, long before be becomes Batman, Bruce tries to kill his parent’s murderer. He fails but learns his lesson. later he refuses to kill another murderer because he doesn’t want to be "an executioner." But here's the thing about Batman – He doesn’t kill people, except when he does. The fact of the matter is that Batman’s refusal to kill is a bit of a half-measure in a city as corrupt as Gotham, and in both films, circumstances eventually play out so that he is pushed into doing so. In that executioner scene, Bruce gets out of it by setting fire to the building he’s in. A fire that may very well have resulted in the death of the man he was trying to save as well as several dozen other people. One could argue that he realized that the League posed a threat to thousands, perhaps millions, of lives and that sacrificing a few would be in the interest of the greater good. But that’s the point. Batman is completely inconsistent in applying his moral code. Batman may understand this deep down, but doesn’t want to admit it and it’s intriguing to see how he spins it. (Spoiler Alert) During the film’s climax, he tells R’as al Ghul “I won’t kill you; but I don’t have to save you,” and then leaves him to die in a train crash that he caused. I don’t know what crime Batman would be charged with, but it’s at least manslaughter (End of Spoilers). The huge fascination of Nolan’s films is, despite all the literalism, seeing Batman make progressively more hypocritical choices while still claiming to be a symbol of incorruptibility. We’ll see even more of this in The Dark Knight, and it’s these moral quandaries that make the Batman character special, even more important that he doesn’t seem to mind his obvious hypocritical nature. His flexible nature has served him well so far in the series, but at what point will to start to become a problem?

Now this level realism doesn’t rule the picture. It’s still a Batman film, and a pulpy one at that. The League of Shadows as a terrorist organization was very topical and well done (they even have an ideology reminiscent of Al Qaeda), but it’s still a terrorist organization made up of ninjas using hallucinogenic’s to poison a city. It’s very pulpy in a very old fashion way that harkens back to the characters origins as a thinly veiled rip-off of The Shadow, right down to Batman praying on the fears of his victims. 

Batman Begins isn’t the best possible superhero movie, but it’s done as well the pre-existing, origin story formula can be done. The film’s action sequences may be lacking at times, but the film’s thoughtfulness and attempts to ground the source material in something remotely resembling the real world is admirable and exciting.

Grade: B+


Be sure to follow g-blatt's dreams on Facebook, and check out part's two and three of the series to see how Nolan's Bat-films fit into the Trilogy Belt theory:
Intro / Batman Begins
The Dark Knight
The Dark Knight Rises

BONDATHON: ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE

Bond producer's Saltzman & Broccoli had been trying to make On Her Majesty's Secret Service for a number of years. It was initially chosen to follow Goldfinger and then Thunderball but was always delayed for some reason. In the meantime Connery was growing restless. Being James Bond is tough. By the time You Only Live Twice was shooting, Sean Connery was getting tired of the whole affair, everywhere he went, he was hounded by press. There’s the famous story about Connery being followed into a bathroom by a reporter seeking an interview. On top of that, his commitment to the Bond pictures meant turning down lots of other movies. So Connery called it quits (for the moment) leaving producers in the lurch. Today the franchise would probably be rebooted with an all new cast, probably with the promise of getting back to Bond's edgy roots. But in 1969 there was no standard way to handle a situation such as this. At some point the decision was made to simply re-cast Bond and continue the series as if nothing had changed. To this end, producers selected Australian model George Lazenby to play 007 in one of the most unusual films in the Bond series, On Her Majesty's Secret Service.

In the two years since You Only Live Twice, Bond has been traveling the world looking for Super-villain Blofeld (Telly Salvalis stepping in for Donald Plesence). One night Bond is on a beach in Portugal, spying on a woman (this is Bond after all) when suddenly she tries to drown herself. He saves her. Later, he saves her again when she intentionally makes a bad bet. Her name is Tracy (Diana Rigg) and she loves danger. Women have always been a bit of an issue In the Bond cannon because they're so disposable. But Bond takes an interest in Tracy, and they fall in love. Not “action movie love” but full on “riding on horseback while Louis Armstrong plays in the background” sort of love and decide to get married. This comes in handy as Tracy’s father is a shipping magnet/criminal who has an idea on where Blofeld might be. So the now betrothed James Bond goes to Switzerland disguised as an expert on family trees and infiltrates Blofelds “allergy treatment clinic.” There are loads of beautiful women and Bond discovers that Blofeld has an evil plot to sterilize English crops and livestock using mind-control. As far as evil plots for Bond to foil go, I doubt the series will ever come up with a more natural threat for Bond to fight against than sterillty even if it isn’t his own.

The film has the potential to be one of the best Bond-films, but it also has a litany of problems. Firstly, Tracy is supposed to be the woman that Bond loves and the pivot of the whole film, but almost as soon as we really start to believe that Bond is really changing, she disappears for a good 40 minutes. She shows up again for the 3rd act and that’s all great, but her absence is felt by the audience, though not by Bond who continues to bed women like it’s 1969 (which, to be fair, it is). Bonds status as a timeless sex symbol is not served by such behavior. It's actually very typical of the Ian Fleming novels where Bond is usually introduced having some sort of interesting personal issue leaving the reader intrigued as to how Bond will deal with it... and then Fleming drops the issue as soon as Bond gets his main mission and never mentions it again (Goldfinger is the best example in which Bond experiences Spy Who Came In From The Cold level angst about his job, barely knows what country he's in and then all that is forgotten as soon as the plot shows up).

Then there’s the way he and Tracy fall in love. Tracy’s father basically offers her to him in exchange for Blofeld’s location. Why does the father do this? Because she’s too wild, “She needs a man to dominate her.” It's irritating because it really is fascinating to see Bond have something of an emotional arc. The idea of an action hero who changes and grows over the course of a series is something Hollywood is just kinda starting to figure out now with it's comic-book films (Spider-Man 2). Seeing a series attempt it in '69 is fascinating, no mater how cringe-inducing it's set-up is. 

None of this ambition is helped be Lazenby in the lead. Outside of a commercial, Lazenby had never  acted before and it shows. It’s not that Lazenby is bad, but he plays Bond too close to the Cary Grant mold that inspired the film version of the character. Connery arguably did the same thing, but added a blue-collar, rough and tumble twist to the persona. Lazenby plays Bond without such a twist, and since no one can play a better Cary Grant than Cary Grant, Lazenby just comes off as lesser right off the bat. It doesn’t help that longtime Bond screenwriter Richard Maibaum writes Lazenby’s Bond as if it where still Connery. He’s still obsessed with the temperature of his Don Peringione and able to tell you exactly where that caviar came from, never mind the continued direct references to the Connery films which do nothing but remind us that Lazenby is decidedly Not-Connery. The film spends so much time trying to convince us that this is the same Bond when it should be selling us on how great this new Bond is, even if he isn't.

At least this Bond has real hair.

Despite these serious issues, Her Majesty is still a very entertaining film. Part of it’s virtues is the direction by Peter Hunt. Hunt had edited all of the previous films and earned his chance to direct. His style can only be described as unique for this genre. It's easily the most visually striking film in the series so far

it seriously is.

He brings a dream-like, psychedelic feel to many scenes. Also, he amps up the high-speed editing style used on the previous films. Lots of sped up action and dropped frames during the action scenes. He’s not afraid to sacrifice spacial reasoning for visceral thrill. The result is still a recognizable, mainstream action film, but it does feel as if Hunt had been watching Breathless and The Prisoner (a psychedelic spy show that’s essentially the 60’s version of Lost). Also, whatever Lazenby’s issues are as a dramatic performer, it’s clear that the man is in better fighting shape than Connery was and the film reclaims the brutality that the last two entries lacked. On top of this, there are several very memorable action scenes. The opening fight on the beach is interesting. But there’s also a very extended escape from Blofeld’s compound on ski’s that’s exceptionally done and has been copied again and again (True Lies, Inception, other Bond films).  

It’s a shame that the film was made at this point in the series. To have made this film earlier, with Connery, with that ending, would have represented a huge shift in the series. What we get still suffers from a script that has no understanding of women. It's not the best Bond, but its strong, iconoclastic style, and attempts at greatness force it to rank as the best effort since Goldfinger.

Grade: B 

On Her Majesty's Secret Service is currently streaming on Netflix Instant.

Previous Bondathon entries:

Dr. No

From Russia With Love

Goldfinger

Thunderball / Never Say Never Again

You Only Live Twice
On Her Majesty's Secret Service 
Diamonds Are Forever
Live and Let Die 
The Man With The Golden Gun 

The Spy Who Loved Me 

Moonraker
For Your Eyes Only
Octopussy
A View To A Kill 
The Living Daylights  
Licence to Kill 
Goldeneye 
Tomorrow Never Dies 
The World Is Not Enough  
Die Another Day 
Casino Royale 
Quantum of Solace
Skyfall

 

BONDATHON: DR. NO

In 1951 a man was about to be married. Like many people he had cold feet. He trudged up and down the beach trying to work up the nerve to go through with it. To this effect, he created an alter-ego, and went on to write a book about him. The man’s name was Ian Fleming and the alter ego was James Bond. The books became successful, particularly after John F. Kennedy named them as  favorites. The first book Casino Royale was made into a relatively forgettable TV production, but eventually a proper film emerged from producing partners Harry Saltzman and Albert (Cubby) Broccoli. Based on the sixth novel in the series Doctor No. While the film was not without precedent (the films of Alfred Hitchcok, particularly North By Northwest had an enormous influence on the Bond films), it’s success spawned the longest running franchise in film history, and helped solidify the formula of the modern action movie. In anticipation of the latest film in the series Skyfall, g-blatt’s dreams will be reviewing all 23 official Bond films (one per week) as well as some "unofficial" entries. Also, where relevant, I will be comparing them to the books in order to gain a more definitive take on the films.

As a film Dr. No is a mediocre thriller. MI6’s man in Jamaica is assassinated along with his secretary before a check in. With lines of communication broken, MI6 head, known only as M (Bernard Lee), sends James Bond (Sean Connery) to investigate. Bond is not an ordinary agent, he is designated 007. 00’s are special agents with the license to kill when they please, whom they please, where they please. When he gets to Jamaica there is an immediate attempt on his life, which he foils with the smooth, yet ruthless aplomb that will become the characters trademark. Along the way, he meets CIA agent Felix Leiter (Jack Lord), and his assistant, a local fisherman named Quarrel (John Kitzmiller). Looming over the proceedings are rumors about strange happenings on a nearby island called Crab Key and its owner Dr. Julius No. (Joseph Wiseman). After way too many attempts on Bond’s life, including a ridiculous incident where someone attempts to poison Bond with a tarantula (they’re poisonous, but by no means deadly), he eventually figures out that the guy who owns a mysterious island with radioactive rocks is the villain (HUGE SHOCK!). On the island, Bond meets a sexy shell diver with the improbable name of Honey Ryder (Ursula Andress). Together they make their way to No’s island base, where the doctor reveals himself to be an agent of a terrorist group known as SPECTRE out to disrupt the American Space Program. SPECTRE is one of the more pulpy acronyms in fiction. It stands for (SPecial Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion).

Whatever shortcomings the plot has, it’s a great character introduction. Bond was a new kind of hero for a new age, reflecting the changing morays of the time. The film was one of a line of more explicit films that started to appear in the waning days of the Hayes Code. Bond doesn’t just have premarital sex, he has premarital sex with 3 different women. There is an implied rape and some actual blood is shown, all of this would have been unthinkable in a mainstream film a few years before.

Also, there the depiction of Bond as an anti-hero. At one point in the film a man enters his room at night and shoots at his bed until the gun is empty. Bond then reveals that he was not in the bed, but hiding in the corner. He coldly remarks that the assassin has a nice gun, but he’s had his 6 shots and then shoots him dead. In 1962 it was unusual and shocking for the hero of a movie to shoot an unarmed man in cold blood. Bond isn’t the first movie anti-hero, but he’s one of the best, and his appearance marks an escalation of how far their non-heroic qualities can go.

There are other results of the film being made in 1962 that are not as admirable. Being 50 years old, the film is not at its best when depicting women and non-whites. As this is a male fantasy, the women of the film all desire Bond, obviously. But they are all either feral, animistic creatures or somehow sinister.  More problematic are the Jamaican characters, who are depicted as a superstitious lot, impervious to physical pain. There is a sequence near the end where we are expected to believe that Honey and Quarrel mistook a painted tank for a dragon.

Pictured: Obviously not a dragon, but it would make a bitchin' Mad Max car.

These are people who would know better. Honey has lived all over the world. Quarrel is an experienced boat captain who works closely with the CIA. Surly they know what a tank looks like and can tell the difference between tire treads and footprints? It’s not the low-point of intolerance in 60’s cinema (or even of the Bond series) but it’s not good. At best it’s a badly executed idea, at worst it’s casual racism and sexism. Also, as good and menacing as Joe Wiseman is as Dr. No, he doesn't have the character's Chinese origin and plays the part in "yellow-face."

Being the first film in the series, not all of the formula elements are set yet. Bond will eventually become a genre unto itself, but for now it's still evolving. Dr. No has no gadgets, no prologue and no Bond Song (unless you count Under the Mango Tree, a "local" tune that recurs through the film to give "flavor"). It does have the famous James Bond Theme by Monty Norman. Also the film features sets by Ken Adam, who's incredible work on the series will make him a legend and the only production designer most people can name. The futuristic sets, particularly Dr. No's lair, really help make the film look classier than it is. Other tropes Dr. No introduces include the, "shaken not stirred," the flirtation with Moneypenney (Lois Maxwell), Bond girls, and the Mad Scientist who should really kill Bond instead of explaining his plan and making it easy for him to escape. Also, Bond's propensity for making jokes after people die. For now it's an amusing statement of Bond's blaze toughness, but eventually will start to devolve into a series of groan-inducing puns in later films.

Unlike later films, Dr. No is actually a fair adaptation of the novel. The movie has more chases, and more women for Bond to seduce but follows the arc well. The soviet agency behind the novel’s proceedings, SMERSH, was a real organization (although how faithfully it was portrayed is debatable) and the substitution of Russian villains for the politically neutral SPECTRE was an attempt by the producers to not add to tensions with the USSR.

Another of the major changes has to do with continuity. The previous book, From Russia With Love (which would be adapted next), ended with (spoiler alert) Bond’s apparent death (end spoilers). As a result, Fleming’s novel takes time to concern itself with Bond’s recovery, and subsequently his physical and mental health. An MI6 physician wonders if Bond can mentally handle another tough assignment. This is a major difference in the way Fleming depicts Bond and the way the film does. In the novel’s (or at least, these middle entries) is that Bond, in addition to being the things we expect him to be, is allowed to have doubts, to be flappable, vulnerable and human, which has the strange effect of making him more of a badass. The cinematic Bond was supposedly based, at least partially, on the personality of the films director, Terrence Young (particularly his dress sense and physicality). But also closely resembles the cool, confident persona of Cary Grant.

Bond, Terrence Cary Bond

In fact, producer Cubby Broccoli, a friend of Grant, asked him to play Bond. Grant agreed, but insisted it would only be for one film. As amazing as a Cary Grant James Bond would have been, it was for the best. Even if Grant could be persuaded to do more films, he was nearing 60 at the time and was a little old to be doing Judo flips.

Dr. No the film, is not the best of the Bond films, but it's not a bad one by any means. What it lacks in strong plotting and political correctness, it makes up for in style. It's full of iconic moments and characters and serves as a good introduction to the series.

Grade: B

Bondathon entries:
Dr. No
From Russia With Love
Goldfinger
Thunderball / Never Say Never Again
You Only Live Twice
On Her Majesty's Secret Service
Diamonds are Forever
Live and Let Die
The Man With The Golden Gun 
The Spy Who Loved Me
Moonraker
For Your Eyes Only
Octopussy
A View To A Kill 
The Living Daylights  
Licence to Kill 
Goldeneye 
Tomorrow Never Dies 
The World Is Not Enough  
Die Another Day 
Casino Royale 
Quantum of Solace
Skyfall

 

AVENGERS RECAP: THE AVENGERS

Marvel studio's epic 4-year plan to create a superhero team-up movie has finally come to fruition with this weeks release of The Avengers. It has been a grand experiment in corporate synergy that seems to have paid off financially. The film made $200 million domestically this weekend and if it's global numbers are any indication, the film will pass the $1 billion mark sometime in the next two weeks. But financial and artistic success are two different things. Those who have been following along with this series will know that Marvel often avoids distinctive directors and are willing to sacrifice good story elements if it means making a more lucrative product that wets appetites for the next installment. Even Iron Man, the best of these films, is flawed, and none of them have particularly good action sequences. The mantra from Marvel seems to have been "good enough!" Does Avengers break this mold?

Early in the film Loki (Tom Hiddleston), the evil brother of Thor (Cris Hemsworth), steals the Tesseract, A.K.A. the Cosmic Cube, a powerful weapon/energy source that fans will remember from Thor and Captain America. Loki want's to use the power of the cube to enslave mankind. Such planetary threats fall to Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) head of S.H.I.E.L.D..  If Fury can find Loki and the Cube in time, he might be able to save the planet. He decides that this looks like a job for... everyone.

The team he assembles is made up of Tony Stark/Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), Captain America (Chris Evans), Thor and Bruce Banner/Hulk (Mark Ruffalo). Joining them are power challenged heroes Black Widow (Scarlet Johansson), Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) and the always welcome Agent Colson (Clark Gregg).  Right away the team is at odds with each other and they bicker with each other in the language of beloved writer/director Joss Whedon.

Hiring Joss Whedon to write and direct The Avengers might be the smartest decision Marvel has ever made in making these films. It's not just because Whedon has written actual comic books, but because Whedon understands how to navigate an ensemble peace (see Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Firefly, Dollhouse, seemingly everything he's ever done). A film with four protagonists could have easily become muddled, or it could have become Iron Man and Some Other Guys but Whedon knows how to strike a balance. Everyone has a chance to shine and everyone has something to do. It's a testament to the film that many of these heroes, despite their diminished screentime, have more going on here then in the previous films that where dedicated to them. Captain America is a man out of his time, struggling to adjust to life in the 21st century, and Thor has to deal with his brother's betrayal in a much deeper way than before and is dangerously close to being an interesting character. Even a minor character like Black Widow, who was mere window dressing in Iron Man 2, is transformed into a compelling character by Whedon's script.

The best surprise of the film is the portrayal of Bruce Banner/Hulk. The character was played by Eric Banna in Ang Lee's misunderstood Hulk, and Edward Norton in the Avengers setup film The Incredible Hulk. Norton did not reprise his role for whatever reason and was replaced by Ruffalo (proving that Hulks other power is face changing). Unlike the other actors, Ruffalo doesn't play Banner as a gloomy, tortured man but instead creates a more interesting portrait of a man at peace with the monster inside him. Like a recovered addict, he knows his triggers and is tolerant of other people's skepticism about his control. Hulk as a special effect is also impressive. Until now they've never gotten the look right. Ang Lee's version was technically good but was colored a bright, neon green that distracted from the suspension of disbelief, and the later reboot, got the color right, but everything else looked so terribly wrong. After nearly 10 years of trying, The Hulk finally looks like The Hulk should look. 

Whedon's action beats are similarly impressive. It's clear that Whedon understands how to stage and shoot an action scene. There is a masterful and complex sequence on a flying aircraft carrier that really demonstrates the teamwork heroics that the Avengers are going to have to execute if they are gong to save the world. The climactic invasion of New York might remind some viewers of the Chicago siege in the most recent Transformers film, those viewers should also note that Whedon's version is infinitely better done and more interesting. Whedon's deft handling of character, action and humor also give the film something none of Marvel's films have had, a creative stamp. Avengers may not be the most Whedonesque project, but the man's thumbprint is thoroughly visible. It would have been enough if Avengers was just an well made, candy-coated summer blockbuster, but the fact that it also has personality and whit is a huge bonus.

Grade: A-

Note: There are not one, but TWO scenes after the credits. The latter scene is one of the best jokes in the film so be sure to wait.

Previous installments in this series:
Iron Man
The Hulk and The Incredible Hulk
Iron Man 2
Thor
Captian America

Blog Note: Thanks to everyone who made my Avengers Recap series so successful, you have obliterated all of my readership records. As a result I will be stepping up my game here at G-blatt's Dreams. There will be more reviews throughout the month and on May 25, I will start reviewing all of the James Bond films (1 per week). There will also be a recap of Nolan's Batman films in July AND sometime this summer I will be writing a special, top-secret series in conjunction with our sister site The Film Temple.

AVENGERS RECAP: CAPTAIN AMERICA

We're in the home stretch now. The last major character left to introduce is also the oldest. Captain America is a character from a different age and thus requires a slightly different kind of film. As a result Captain America: The First Avenger is a nice change of pace from the other Marvel films.

A prequel of sorts, Captain America takes place during WWII, or rather the Marvel Universe's version of it. It's the story of Steve Rodgers (Chris Evans), a sickly, skinny young man who want's nothing more than to serve his country. He tries again and again to enlist, even going so far as to falsify his enlistment form to get a better chance (a serious crime), each time he is stamped 4F. Eventually he's caught, but instead of jail he's given a chance. A government scientist named Erskine (Stanley Tucci) selects him for a secret program to make him America's first super-soldier. Why skinny ol' Steve Rogers? Because Dr. Erskine feels that a man without power will have a greater respect for it. Of course, history is full of people who are suddenly given power and abuse it, but Dr. Erskine never said he was a history buff, now did he?

Steve is injected with super-serum instantly giving him 100 pounds of pure, American beef muscle. A steroid soaked Audie Murphy, and before long he's waging a one man war on super-nazi  Red Skull (Hugo Weaving). Red Skull is an evil man, so evil that Hitler exiles him from the nazi party for being too evil! He's a fun villain, perhaps not as interesting as Hanz Landa from Inglorious Basterds, but when your head looks like a giant red Skull, you don't have to be. As if being Too Evil For Hitler weren't enough, he also has access to a mysterious artifact, the Cosmic Cube, powerful enough to power all sorts of fearsome retro-futuristic weapons he can use to - wait for it- take over the world!!!

Call it a hunch, but this guy might be evil

Director Joe Johnson (Rocketeer, Jurassic Park III) knows his way around a set piece better than most of these directors but having a real villain helps. The best being the Captain's one-man raid on one of Red Skull's weapon's factories. That sequence actually feels like a real act of selfless heroism (something that Marvel's superhero movies are strangely short on).

The biggest problem with the film is the pacing. I would not be surprised to learn that a great deal of footage was left on the cutting room floor. For instance, no one ever sits down and tells Rogers about the super-serum or what it will do to him, making him look like a bit of a dolt. Large parts of Cap's campaign against Red Skull are told in extended montage, giving the second half of the film a frustratingly undefined feeling. For instance, we know that Skull plans on attacking Hitler as well as the rest of the world, but we don't know if he actually did that or if he's fighting the Allies as well as his former masters. Does that mean that the Allies are fighting the Nazi's, the Japanese AND Red Skull? Shut up brain! Captain America is punching people in slow motion!

Another issue the film doesn't satisfactorily answer is that of race. During his campaign Captain America assembles a surprisingly diverse fighting force. Which is all well and good, except that the U.S. Army was very much segregated during the 40's. Does racism just not exist in the Marvel Universe? As cool as that would be, there is a fine line between escapism and white-washing history. I'm not sure if the film crosses that line, but it's close enough to be having the conversation. There's nothing malicious in Marvel's attempt to be politically correct, but some may feel that it diminishes the struggles of the real heroes who fought to desegregate the armed services.

Regardless, the film a mostly fun piece of escapism. It does a good job of replicating all the element's that made the golden age of comics fun. Evil as sin villains, ray-guns, Flying wings and brave, one-dimensional heroes who fight selflessly for their country. No one laughs maniacally, but that's all that's missing. There are times when Captain America feels almost like an Indiana Jones or Hellboy film without ever being as good as those.

Surprisingly Captain America does not shine brightly with the magic of corporate synergy. Apart from a framing device that brings the film into the present day, there are relatively few shout-outs to the greater Marvel universe. We get Tony Stark's father Howard, and the government agency that makes Rogers into Captain America is the forerunner of S.H.I.E.L.D.. These details feel more like easter eggs for fans, than anything that interferes, even peripherally, with the plot. Unlike Thor and Iron Man 2, Captain America actually feels like its own film that gets to stand or fall on it's own merit. The only true shout-out to Avengers is the Cosmic Cube (briefly glimpsed in Thor) which will play a significant role in the big team-up movie.

Dedicated readers will recall that I reviewed Captain America once before upon it's theatrical release. Back then I gave it a B-, but after viewing it in context with the series let's bump it up to a regular ol' B and be done with it. It's better than most of the other entries, but still not as good as Iron Man.

Grade: B

Previous installments in this series:
Iron Man
The Hulk and The Incredible Hulk
Iron Man 2
Thor

Future installments:

The Avengers