What was the last film you watched?

[Willie Oleson]

A View To A Kill (1985)



"Has James Bond finally met his match?" falsely hints at the termination of the beloved character and his film adventures.
But, as it happens with the various interpretations of The Doctor, this will be final curtain for Roger Moore in the role of the British Secret Service agent.
In the first act he teams up with another agent played by Patrick Macnee and these scenes have a pleasant Holmes & Watson vibe.
A scheme with racehorses reveals the disturbing background of A View's super-villain Max Zorin played by the actor with the strangest hair - regardless of the colour - Christopher Walken.

Grace Jones plays his deadly henchwoman May Day, possibly inspired by non-EON Bond assassinette Fatima Blush.
Apparently, Dolph Lundgren is in it too but I didn't spot him.
As expected there's an abundance of spectacle and chase scenes and I'm sure it looks even better on the big screen.
The ski chases are becoming a bit stale now and the escape in the fire engine is pretty awful (not to mention the J.W. Pepper knockoff) but there's also a zeppelin disaster and I just happen to love zeppelins.

Tonally it's closer to For Your Eyes Only than to Octopussy, which is definitely a good thing. There's nothing in it that makes the story drag and it's pretty much high-octane from start to finish without being hysterical.
The violence seems a bit glorified even by Bond standards but I guess that's part of the development of the film series. It always needs to be a bit more...something.

I could point out (once again) Roger Moore's visible aging, but Moore himself was very aware of that and in later interviews he displayed a healthy dose of self-mockery (which I always find a very British thing to do).
I believe his last two roles as 007 was a matter of loyalty to the Bond Team rather than the desire to keep playing 007.
It's true that none of that should concern the viewers because they are paying for the end result.
All things considered I think Moore gave it his best shot and let's not forget that our perception of age has changed a lot over the years.
Today, 58 is the new 38 and it's perfectly all right for these actors to play the romantic action-hero type.


Ranking the Connery/Lazenby/Moore years:

1. From Russia With Love + On Her Majesty's Secret Servive
Impossible to choose because they're both the best for different reasons.
2. Thunderball
3. Goldfinger
4. Dr. No
5. Diamonds Are Forever
6. Live And Let Die
7. Moonraker
8. Never Say Never Again
9. For Your Eyes Only
10. A View To A Kill
11. The Man With The Golden Gun
12. The Spy Who Loved Me
13. You Only Live Twice
14. Octopussy

Roll on 007 #4 (I think I've watched these two films only once and have virtually no memory of it. How exciting!)

One of those fabulous modern trailers:

 

[Seaviewer]

he Man With The Golden Gun (1974)

The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)

Moonraker (1979)

I found The Man With the Golden Gun a bit of a let down after Live and Let Die but The Spy Who Loved Me is back on track, arguably the best of the Moore outings. I do enjoy the over-the-top Moonraker more than most, but I agree that it's all downhill from there.

Never Say Never Again (1983)

I think of Never Say Never Again as an alternate timeline in which Bond retired after Diamonds Are Forever and the intervening Moore movies didn't happen.

 

[Mel O'Drama]

The Choral (2025)

The pairing of Alan Bennett and Nicholas Hytner is an established one. Hytner has previously directed the screen adaptions of The Madness Of King George, The History Boys and The Lady In The Van (also producing the latter two, as he does with The Choral). I had an idea what to expect.

Firstly, the North Yorkshire scenery is gorgeous and filmed well. There's lots of golden sunshine to add to the warmth of the film. The music enhances things further. How funny that I've so recently begun (re)watching Bergerac, with its gorgeous theme by George Fenton and here I am watching a film he's scored four and a half decades on and with a distinguished career behind him. In a way I didn't notice the score, but this is a huge compliment. It just fitted in so well not just with the events onscreen but with the diegetic classical pieces. I also had no idea this was going to be so Elgar-heavy, and it's no bad thing (Edward Elgar himself is a character in the film, bizarrely played as a rotund old man even though he would have barely been into his Twenties at this time).

It's mostly good news with the cast. The key roles are very well cast with a real gravitas from actors like Ralph Fiennes, Alun Armstrong and Roger Allam paired up with a cheeky kind of charm from some of the younger actors. It's not perfect in its casting, though. Actors in some of the much smaller parts struggle to conceal some of the more ungainly dialogue. This, unfortunately, was evident in the earliest scenes when the first woman received the news of (presumably) her husband's death but struggled to convey what she needed to with the very brief screen time and less than sparkling dialogue (Child: "Who's [the telegram] from"? Woman: "The King" End scene).

Two of the clunkiest scenes were the hospital visit, (Brusque Nurse: "These men are ill. Why should they want to sing? They don't have the energy. Can any of you patients sing?" All the men on the ward: "Yes please") and the court-martial which is perhaps my least favourite of the entire film because of the failed potential. The casting and lack of gravitas of the left-handed captain (a left-hander educated in Victorian England!) and the Thatcheresque woman who claimed she would love to go to the front made the delivery rather one-note exposing, any lack of punch in the writing in the process. This undermined an important scene, and one that could - and should - have been among its most powerful. Fortunately, Ralph Fiennes and Roger Allem's deeper, more nuanced readings really deliver in this scene, which saves it.

With films like this, I wish at times I wasn't so hyper-vigilant when it comes to anachronisms (potential or actual).

I spotted a number in speech patterns, pronunciations and delivery. One borderline offender was the pronunciation of "patriotic", where everyone rhymed the first syllable with "day". I don't know if this is retroactive grey squirrelling or simply how it would have be said in working class Yorkshire, even in the early 20th Century. For my sanity I opted for the latter.

Others were more difficult to overlook, with the poor gay pianist the worst offender on the basis that the character was southern and evidently university educated. His very contemporary RP/Standard Southern British accent - with its abundant T-dropping and use of contractions - simply did not exist in this form 110 years ago and so was very jarring. He sounded like generic London Millennial talking loudly over his flat white with oat milk in 2025 (close your eyes and he's Tom Hiddleston).

There were also anachronisms, too, in cultural attitudes. Bearing in mind that the film is set in a Northern industrial village in 1916, the elephant in the room was attitudes towards race. Mary, one of the only black people in the village, is welcomed into the choir, given a lead role in the production and develops romantic feelings for a young white man which are actively encouraged by everyone from his friends to her friends to her mother. In fact, I don't believe her colour is mentioned once during the entire film. The only "big obstacle" to their relationship is her affiliation with the Salvation Army. It's lovely to think this is the way life was - and perhaps it's accurate of some experiences - but at a time when there were relatively few non-white faces in the country I'm just not sure that societal attitudes were quite so inclusive. It's curious for a film that openly addresses anti-Germanic and homophobic bigotry to drop the ball here, so I can only assume the character wasn't written as specifically black. If so, it's an example of why colour-blind casting can be problematic when it comes to period films. The end result dilutes the overall tone and the film becomes less a reflection of how things were and more a vision of how we wish things had been. The story was already pushing things with the inclusion of the gay choirmaster, but at least that was addressed in passing. I feel not acknowledging this potential challenge actually did the characters a disservice.

One other minor disappointment was finding that a number of the lead actors had singing voices dubbed by other actors. Watching without knowing this it was fine, and I was impressed by the multi-talented cast. Learning the truth this morning, I feel duped. I'd have preferred they cast this theatrically as it shouldn't be that difficult to find actors who can sing (or singers who can act) to provide the most authentic experience.

Still, imperfect as it is, this is a very watchable film that's going to please most.

I appreciated the unapologetically mercenary attitudes that wartime brought. It's established in an early scene where a delivery boy knocks doors with news of loved ones' deaths ("Sorry Missus") while his friend hangs round a couple of doors down for them to pick up their conversations ("You could have been in with that one", says the friend after one bereaved widow embraces the delivery boy. He goes on to say that grief is an aphrodisiac). There's also the morally questionable character whose loved one is missing, presumed dead, but who is - in 21st Century parlance - damned thirsty and spends her time flirting with men (at one point she expresses her wish to get the news that her boyfriend is dead so that the men would reciprocate and be less respectful). And that's the tip of the iceberg with that one. I'm not sure if the village sex worker is specifically a wartime thing. None of the women are away, so presumably men were using her services beforehand, but she does get the young man about to go to war who doesn't want to die a virgin, which kind of makes sense.

Its message is a good one, and the humour is gentle-but-effective. I particularly enjoyed the running gag of everyone gasping in collective shock whenever Fiennes's choirmaster spoke in German.

I've just checked out Mark Kermode's review to see how his experience compared with mine (spoiler: similarly) and he sums it up perfectly as "Goes down well with a cup of tea and a biscuit on a Wednesday afternoon Missus."

 

[Willie Oleson]

I think of Never Say Never Again as an alternate timeline in which Bond retired after Diamonds Are Forever and the intervening Moore movies didn't happen.

NSNA should have opened with James Bond in the shower.


The Living Daylights (1987)



The third revamp in the series, plus a new James Bond and a new Miss Moneypenny.
I've said it before, I consider sixties Bond the best era because it seemed like the perfect Cold War escapism, and combined with the casting of the incredibly charismatic Sean Connery it was a match made in heaven.
On the other hand, it doesn't make much sense to make sixties movies in the 1970s, and although the Roger Moore movies were a mixed bag it was probably the only way to continue the series.
A lot of that 1980s soapy-glossy glamour is toned down in Daylights, and instead of the larger-than-life super villain it shows a slightly more realisitc political climate as the backdrop for "ordinary" weapon dealers and fraudulent KGB agents.

There's still a lot of fantastical stuff going on and the stunts look wild and amazing, but overall it looks like the John le Carré-esque template for future Bond films especially the Daniel Craig era.
All these significant differences make it very difficult to rank the Bond films, and then there are several other things to consider (e.g. the villains, the Bond girls, the locations etc).
James Bond himself also has a new attitude, not quite as strong as in the next film but he's definitely become less jolly. Since Dalton never really wanted to play Bond I could almost interpret it as a passive-aggressive performance. Ha!
Physically he certainly looks the part (I think he also was the best Heathcliff) and I wish we had seen his younger version in previous Bond instalments.
Jeroen Krabbé plays the KGB agent Georgi Koskov who needs to be aided to defect to the West. Naturally, they would never-ever cast a Continental European actor to play a good guy, which spoils the twist a little.

The formula is very simple, actually.
American films > British villains
British films > Continental villains
Continental films > Burt Lancaster (villain or not)

Krabbé is funny and probably the only male villain who has kissed a James Bond, but the character never becomes a force of nature.
The most hateable villain is sexy henchman Necros (love that name) who is basically a remake of For Your Eyes Only's Kriegler who was a remake of From Russia With Love's Grant played by Robert Shaw.

In some ways an upgrade but it also sacrifices a bit of charm and epicness that worked so well in previous 007 chapters.
The theme song, eh....not so great.

 

[Willie Oleson]

Licence To Kill (1989)



Wait. James Bond hangs out with friends now?
A wedding that becomes a nightmare is almost comically foreshadowed by big knife shenanigans and an enthusiastic cigarette lighter.
No more mister nice hero, James wants revenge! The Secret Intelligence Service is having none of it and revokes his licence to kill.
He literally stops being a spy so how much Bond are we going to get in this one?
They kept as much as possible, the vodka martini is still shaken not stirred and Q becomes a full-on sidekick (like so many movie grandpas in kids adventures).
It has the gorgeous sets and travelogue grandeur and also one of the most likeable Bond girls ever, Pam Bouvier.

Like the previous film it's more about practical earthy crimes rather than hijacking submarines or the whole solar system.
The revenge angle gives it an after-the-fact feel although it's always admirable to sabotage a drugs dealer with franchise on his mind.
It's traditionally over-the-top combined with gruesome violence, and as far as explosions go Licence takes it to a whole new level of ridiculousness.
Villain Sanchez, a remake of Live And Let Die's Mr. Big, has an iguana pet and a girlfriend who looks like Rachel Zegler.
I wouldn't say that he's upstaged by any of the other bad guys but I really like henchman Dario, I think he's Sanchez's nephew, and he reminds me of The Sopranos character Christopher.

There's some red/blood in his eyes that makes him look super-psychotic.

Licence To Kill is very exciting and very entertaining, it's James Bond for the DIE HARD generation, it's the movie answer to Falcon Crest's last season.
Sure, it's not Goldfinger but they've already done Goldfinger and the Bond series must find ways to stay somewhat relevant.
Speaking of Falcon Crest, what I'd love to see in a future Bond film is an extremely powerful villain who reveals herself as James Bond's...mother. Gasp!

Vanessa Redgrave, if possible. Thank you.

 

[Willie Oleson]

GoldenEye (1995)



Perhaps it was the end of the Cold War that sent our beloved British Spy on a very long vacation, but after 6 years there's new trouble in paradise and so Bond returns - rather aptly - with a new face.
The pre-opening credits scene starts very promising and then...it happens: the jump the shark moment, which is literally jumping after a diving plane and take control of it.
And to highlight a moment in the Bond series as "jump the shark", well, that's really saying something.
Right there and then I was tempted to abort my rewatch but instead I buckled up because I needed to know how to rank it.

Luckily, there's enough going on to distract me, most noticeably the female empowerment.
M's successor is a woman (Judi Dench), Bond is being evaluated by a woman, and Miss Moneypenny has a serious chip on her shoulder.
"You've never had me" she tells James, and even playfully hints at reporting him for inappropriate behaviour (!!)
GoldenEye villainess Xenia Onatopp has the physical strength of Diamonds Are Forever's Bambi & Thumper on steroids, combined with the psychopathy of Fatima Blush.
She kills because she can, for the heck of it.

Compared to the 1990s, the female empowerment of the 1980s seems more like A Licence To Bitch.
As it happened in the film from 1994, Disclosure, things are getting more serious and it's quite amazing to see that happen in a James Bond film (of all films).
Of course, at that time we didn't think anything specific of it, perhaps it was perceived as amusingly subversive.
A lot of things have happened since then, and female empowerment in film is now often clickbaitingly presented as girlboss propaganda.
Somehow they don't understand that it happened long before MeToo, it's not a new "thing".
However, I do agree that the sisterhood vibe in many modern films seems a bit unrealistic, and sometimes at the expense of good writing for the male characters. Replacing one extreme with another is not real progression.
Anyway, that is certainly not the case in GoldenEye, and when James bursts through a wall driving a big tanker he sort of reclaims his phallus masculinity previously dismissed by his female peers.
Epic chaos ensues, but that goes without saying.

The fights and spectacle provide a lot of fun, and with the post-Die Hard competition it simply needs to be good. The Mission:Impossible series started only one year after GoldenEye.
It's not a very pretty or glamorous film, there appears to be no room for anything vintage except for Q's funhouse laboratory - which is my favourite part of this Bond film.
The dialogue is well-written and that also has a positive effect on the traditional jokes and double entendres.
Sean Bean plays the 00villain with a unique revenge angle, and there's something very daring about James Bond admitting to "not our finest hour".
To put this into perspective, the Union Jack parachute scene in The Spy Who Loved Me resulted in a standing ovation by the Royal Family.

It's all great entertainment and my love for Bond is unconditional anyway, but this is not one of the first Bond films I'd like to rewatch again.

 

[Mel O'Drama]

Drop Dead Gorgeous (1999)

Tonally, this film could only possibly have been released in 1999, matching up perfectly with the likes of Election and Jawbreaker, both from the same year and featuring similar themes. It resembles Election more heavily thanks to its premise taking an All-American rite of passage and exposing the ruthlessness, hypocrisy and ugliness that drives those involved, but there's no denying that its cold and nasty young women are very much in the style of Jawbreaker (which itself draws upon the likes of earlier films such as Heathers).

Cementing its similarity with Election in my mind, the DDG soundtrack came to my attention some years ago thanks to seeking out a track from the same artist as the one that brought the Election soundtrack onto my radar. I've yet to find a reasonable copy of Election, but have been enjoying Mandy Barnett's gorgeous version of Beautiful Dreamer on the DDG soundtrack for a few years now. It's good to hear it in context, playing over a key scene towards the film's end. The rest of the soundtrack is mostly immaterial to me, and is the usual era mix of a few clips of dialogue peppered in between one "classic" track (Elton John's Saturday Night's Alright For Fighting) and a number of heavy rock tracks including a couple of covers. Most notable of these for meHad I not watched the film a couple of years ago I would not have understood the relevance of Joan Jett's rendition of Love Is All Around. Fortunately, having watched The Mary Tyler Moore Show recently, I can appreciate how perfect this is for the Minneapolis setting, the wide-eyed optimism of its lead character and her journalistic ambitions (even if this is not a version I'd care to play for pleasure).

The cast is full of faces who were everywhere at the time. Smirky Denise Richards - fresh from being a Bond girl - reprises her smirky ambitious beauty queen who will do anything to win from Melrose Place a few years earlier. Here as there she has a pushy enabling mother, and this time it's Kirstie Alley who is scarily convincing as the passive-aggressive jingoistic "god-fearing" conservative, whose fixed smile and dead eyes hide a seething cauldron of hypocrisy, festering resentment and potential violence. Brittany Murphy reprises Tai from Clueless, giggling a lot and being part-sweet, part-outspoken. Kirsten Dunst is effectively the film's protagonist and carries it well.

This is one of those films that's probably a one-time only thing, and that's fine.

 

[Toni]

Thanks a lot to you all for your informative reviews, you make my choice of films easier. @Willie Oleson, your comments on the Bond saga make feel like reprising my own rewatch. I got stuck at the film before "Moonraker", I don´t know why. There´s a lot to like for me in them, though some of the antics are outdated. I´m indifferent to Mr. Moore, but I didn´t love Sean either, of whom I think was a screen personality and not a super-gifted actor.

 

[Willie Oleson]

Tomorrow Never Dies (1997)



The Janus Syndicate in GoldenEye still had that fantastical element of the classic Bonds, this second Pierce Brosnan film harks back to the semi-realism of Licence To Kill.
The scope is ambitious and perhaps it could be seen as a cautionary tale (except that people refuse to learn anything from past mistakes, and many satires are about us, not them).
On the whole it seems like a fresh and intriguing idea but that's not exactly how it pans out.

The plot is revealed right from the start and throughout the film the audience is being reminded of that plot in the most unsophisticated ways.
Jonathan Pryce's villain Elliot Carver is supposed to be a sinister media puppeteer and it clashes with the other side of Elliot Carver who's constantly chewing the scenery.
This time I was not very impressed with the action scenes. It's got that frenetic unfocused editing that would become the standard fare in action blockbusters, and it doesn't help that these scenes go on forever, making it a bit of a mind-numbing experience.
The shootout in the last act is very similar to the one in The Spy Who Loved Me, and while I appreciate the effort to stage this spectacle (the parts that I could follow anyway) there's nothing charming or cleverly Bond about it.
If Rambo Bond is your jam you're going to get a kick out of this one.

That said, there's a lot about this film that still feels very "physical". The special effects in modern films are much much better but unfortunately they make everything look special-effecty, sort of like an animation within animation.
I'm sure Pierce Brosnan had his stunt double but it never shows, so that's a plus.
Michelle Yeoh plays the pre-Kill Bill type of action woman who doesn't want any help from Bond - he needs to save her all the time - but she's also Batgirl with her own uniquely disguised hideout full of deadly techno gadgets.
Bond's remote control car is arguably the best gadget they've ever used and it's entertainingly ridiculous to watch.

Desmond Llewelyn always finds a way to have good chemistry with his Bonds, and female M gives it a bit of a personal touch.
Naturally I also need to mention Moneypenny's jaw-dropping reference to James as being a "cunning linguist".
Götz Otto plays the eurotrash henchman Stamper who exudes the menace of a fitness magazine model. My favourite special guest character is Stamper's mentor Dr. Kaufman, a very charming and funny hitman who wouldn't go amiss in a Coen Brothers crimi.

It's a tonally inconsistent Bond entry, alternating between extremely evil and boringly unconvincing, and it often looks as if they want to have their cake and eat it.
A strange mix of good, bad, very bad and so-bad-it's-good, but still essential viewing for any Bond fan. I'm going to put it at the bottom of my list, ranked between The Spy Who Loved Me and You Only Live Twice. It's a combination of those two films anyway.
The theme song by Sheryl Crow is the least appealing so far, and the only nice thing I have to say is that it will be negatively (thus positively) overshadowed by bigger stinkers in some of the subsequent Bond films.
To add insult to injury, TND has a traditionally magnificent song playing over the end credits. It's downright puzzling.

 

[Mel O'Drama]

The theme song by Sheryl Crow is the least appealing so far, and the only nice thing I have to say is that it will be negatively (thus positively) overshadowed by bigger stinkers in some of the subsequent Bond films.
To add insult to injury, TND has a traditionally magnificent song playing over the end credits. It's downright puzzling.

Yes. k.d. lang's Tomorrow Never Dies was intended to be the opening song, and it really should have been. It was even co-written by the film's composer, David Arnold (along with Don Black, one of the writers of the Diamonds Are Forever and Thunderball themes) who worked the melody into key parts of the score (which can still be heard in the finished film). But then apparently k.d. wasn't considered "commercial" enough by The Powers That Be so her version was hastily retitled Surrender and relegated to the end.

Here's a nice article which covers the song in more detail.

David Arnold got the gig off the back of his 1997 album Shaken And Stirred, and I think his "John Barry On Steroids" sound brings something very special to the franchise that just fits late Nineties Bond perfectly. The intended title track is very much an extension of this, harking back to the Bassey belters while giving it a contemporary polish.

 

[Willie Oleson]

The World Is Not Enough (1999)



A film with a lot of techno-babble. If you put plutonium in X then the result is Y. Well, okay, if Denise Richards says so.
There's something oddly likeable about her clunky expository delivery to get the audience on board with the technical goings-on - and then I still had to take it at face value.
It's a miscast, obviously, but it's an entertaining miscast so I'm going easy on her.

Overall, the dialogue is not the best which makes some scenes unnecessarily cheesy, especially for a late 90s film.
Like GoldenEye, the story's villainous conspiracy is partially rooted in personal revenge and it works out rather well for the plot developments, but James Bond is not really the kind of film to explore psychological drama and so it ends up being a bit undercooked anyway.
I chuckled every time Sophie Marceau as Elektra King mentioned "my people" although it didn't sound much better in Ben Hur when Charlton Heston made a point about his people.
I guess it's one of those phrases that always rubs me the wrong way.

The action sequences in TWINE are serviceable and in my opinion an improvement over Tomorrow Never Dies. I will go as far as saying that it has one of the best pre-opening credits scenes, it's almost like a mini-movie before the movie.
This was an easy and entertaining watch and I consider it one the best lower tier Bonds.
As I mentioned before, the Brosnan era did not produce the most visually pleasing series of films, and I also miss the villain residence with nasty booby-trap exits for disloyal or underperforming assistants. It's the Bond equivalent of the staircase melodrama, isn't it?

I like the theme song but I've noticed that the songs sound a bit muted in the film credits as opposed to hearing the song in isolation on CD or youtube.
I don't know if this is how it was in the theatrical releases or an unfortunate alteration in the streaming version. I don't have this on DVD so I can't compare.
Oh, and one thing I completely misremembered: the execution of Elektra King. I believed it was sort of a Mexican standoff between Bond, Elektra and Christmas Jones and that James in a split-second twist shot Christmas instead of Elektra, thus revealing that character as the treacherous schemer.
Does that happen in another film? If anyone knows please reply (unless it happens in Die Another Day, then I don't want to know).

Roll on Bond film #21. Gosh! Like the Sons & Daughters rewatch this was totally unplanned.
I don't think I can watch all the Daniel Craig films before Monday so I may have to return to prime and beg them to take me back.

 

[Mel O'Drama]

Masterminds (2016)

A blind and spontaneous watch, chosen because it was short, looked lighthearted (from the thumbnail) and is due to leave Prime in a matter of days.

I find it frustrating that contemporary films don't have opening credits as it would be nice not to have to spend time wondering who this actor or that actress is. As I watched I didn't recognise any of the cast apart from Owen Wilson, but I thought the woman might be Jennifer Aniston until I saw a profile and realised this actress had a small, far less distinguished nose and deduced I had not watched her in anything. Turns out it was Kristen Wiig whom I've previously watched in the godawful Ghostbusters reboot and playing a very badly-cast Cheetah in Wonder Woman 1984. Perhaps the no credits thing worked out after all... I enjoyed her very much in this, without the baggage of my previous unpleasant experiences weighing me down.

A lot of the cast are associated with Saturday Night Live, and the director had previously worked on films like Napoleon Dynamite and Nacho Libre. This probably gives a good idea of the film's tone. The broad strokes were quite welcome last night and the gross out aspects of the humour tolerable.

When it was intimated at film's end that it was based on a true story I found myself thinking that it was too ridiculous to be true. But I was wrong again... it is a comic retelling of the October 1997 Loomis Fargo robbery (AKA The Hillbilly Heist).

Art this isn't, but it entertained me nicely for an hour and a half.

 

[Willie Oleson]

Die Another Day (2002)



James Bond and his unknown 00-companions storm onto the set in full soldier mode, three minutes later that set is blown to pieces.
It's a strange way to introduce a spy story and it's even stranger that, after being captured, the opening credits shows a long montage of James Bond being tortured.
He needs to take a good beating every now and then but I don't like to revel in our hero's agony. Madonna's song did absolutely nothing to relieve my distress.
Oh yes, I had a very bad feeling about this, but - to quote myself from a previous post - that's not exactly how things panned out.

Starting with the song, I still don't like it very much but I realised that the pleasantness of a Bassey belter wouldn't work for these opening credits.
If the song is annoying at least it's aptly annoying.
It's our first (and only?) look at Bond with long hair and a beard, still looking hot of course, and after a political exchange of prisoners he ends up in the MI6 hospital.
M is not amused to say the least, and I think it's a bold move to portray the character in the cold and ruthless manner that she sometimes needs to be.
Other Ms have been difficult and demanding but never like this.
On top of everything, his "00" is revoked again but James is determined to avenge the betrayal, possibly from the inside. Shades of Licence To Kill.
I honestly believed that his physical and mental condition made him "die another day" but no, he uses himself as a gadget to fake his own flatlining!
It's so outrageous I don't even know what to say, but it certainly was the moment that made me sit up and pay close attention.

After his escape he quickly moves from Hong Kong to Cuba (as Bonds usely do) where he meets Halle Berry as his soon-to-be Bond girl.
They sneak into a sinister clinic on a sinister island and this part introduces the storyline of DNA restructuring in the style of Face/Off.
Is it too much, is it tearing up the rulebook? No actually it's not because 1970s Blofeld made it possible to clone himself.
Combined with the diamonds and the Icarus satellite it really feels like a Diamonds Are Forever for the 21st century, Christopher Nolan style.
Anyway, combat ensues but James & Jinx find a way to escape, leaving the clinic blown to pieces.

The confrontation with henchman Zao leads to the introduction of another villain: the delightfully despicable egomaniac Gustav Graves.
It doesn't take long before James and the love-to-hate Gustav lock horns, quite literally in an exhilarating swashbuckler scene.
It's funny to see the servants in the background, quietly removing the expensive antiques that were destroyed in the fight.
Nevertheless, Graves invites Bond to his frozen palace in Iceland (move over, Disney) which is exactly the kind of Bond glamour I like to see.
In the meantime, M realises that she may not have seen the bigger picture and tells Bond he's back on the job. No apology, nothing.
NuQ played by John Cleese arms 007 with the latest Secret Intelligence Service gadgets, in fact so secret that James' new car is invisible (!!)
This film is just one non-stop gasp fest.
The other gadget is a ring with the power to break glass and it's used in one of my favourite scenes when all the characters crash through a glass floor, just before one of the "I'm going to execute you but not before I've said my long-winded bla bla" cliffhangers.
Q picks up some MI6 gadgets from the past, but the murderous knife-shoe is actually a Russian invention, not British. Continuity error! Disrespecting the fanbase!

James and Agent Frost (ha) make love as a cover-up and there's a nice little reference to Teri Hatcher's line in Tomorrow Never Dies "Do you still sleep with a gun under your pillow?"
Just when you think the story can't get more outlandish, Gustav Graves is revealed as the body with Colonel Moon's DNA transplant.
Now, to be honest, I had almost forgotten about him and the whole Korea plotline, and in that moment I wished it was the real Gustav who had taken over the role of main villain.
Luckily, the switcheroo pays off big time in the soapy father-son confrontation in the final act. It's sort of Luke Skywalker in reverse.

From the melting ice castle disaster to the cargo plane showdown in which Halle Berry has to pull a Sandra Bullock, including the long overdue Bond girls catfight, Die Another Day simply never lets you catch your breath. It's the Pump Up The James of Bond films and a very worthy bookend to the classic Bond series.
I consider it a Bond "climax" film, a culmination of what had gone before. On Her Majesty's Secret Service has that same quality, and Moonraker ended Bond's 1970s pop culture trend with the biggest and long-lasting blockbuster genre, the space opera.
The epilogue shows what I've been waiting for my whole life: the passionate kiss between Bond and Moneypenny. But oh fek it, it turns out to be Q's virtual reality trickery.
Well at least it's not as disastrous as the previous virtual reality scene in which Bond finds Moneypenny assassinated on the job, which literally made me scream "No, it cannot be!"
Still, changing the Bond vs. Moneypenny agreement would have been fitting for this particular film, and the scene even got me a little misty-eyed, the poor romantic sod that I am.
Of course the real romantic epilogue happens between James & Jinx, and my final thought during this film was "American slut !"

In a Fifth Bond retrospection I will say that it was the most innovative era since sixties Bond, albeit with very mixed results.
It is unquestionably the era with the best double entendres and Pierce Brosnan does it so cool and understated that it wouldn't surprise if I have missed some.
"I have been known to keep my tip up" is my favourite from DAD (hm, that sounds weird).

Unfortunately I also have to highlight the extreme low point that is the infamously CGI'd ice surfing scene. Not only is it badly executed - one moment he's hanging on an ice rock, next moment he's alread down - but it looks painfully ugly. And I don't consider myself very demanding when it comes to vintage special effects.
It's so bad it took me out of the fantasy just like the plane dive in GoldenEye did.
I am vehemently against A.I. tampering with art but I'd make an exception if they could "clean up" this mess.
Still, it's top tier 007 for me and I have it ranked between Licence To Kill and Dr. No, which is a very good place to be for a 21stC Bond film.

And speaking of wishful alternatives, wouldn't it be great if the theme song had been this perfectly on-topic piece of pop perfection?

I think I'm going to save Daniel Craig's NuBond for another time. I'd have to watch 5 films in two days and I imagine that the Bond fatigue would kick in pretty fast which could impact my impression of these films. Besides, I'm still reeling from Die Another Day and I like the feeling.

 

[Crimson]

I saw GOLDENEYE in theaters when it was released with a friend who was a hardcore James Bond fan. As we left, she dismissed it as a "Bond film for people who don't like Bond films". I couldn't say what she meant, but I couldn't disagree. I dislike Bond films and I like(d) GOLDENEYE; the only JB film I've ever particularly enjoyed and the only that I've found rewatchable.

It probably helped that Brosnan is the only Bond to resonate with me. I grew up with Moore and Dalton. I don't recall watching the films but I was at least aware of them. Brosnan seemed like a good balance between Moore's campiness and Dalton's flintiness. Even still, I didn't enjoy his other movies as much, finding them to be, at best, minor entertainments. Connery is overall my favorite of the Bond actors, but I didn't like any of his Bond films I've seen.

As for the theme songs, the only two I have really liked are Tina Turner and Madonna's but they might just be due to liking Tina Turner and Madonna. I think "Die Another Day" is one of her better songs and I'm still amused at how much the crusty old Bond fans hated it.

There's some evidence that Bond, like the other franchises that have been kicking around since the 60s to the 80s, isn't connecting with younger audiences. To that I say, Good! The embalmed nostalgia of Gen X and Millenials have resulted in decades of cultural stagnation. I hope Gens Z and Alpha reject all of them -- Bond, Star Trek, Star Wars, Ghostbusters, Dr. Who, Marvel, Dc. Let all those tired corporate IPs finally die.

 

[Willie Oleson]

I think "Die Another Day" is one of her better songs and I'm still amused at how much the crusty old Bond fans hated it.

It's no big deal if the "crusty old Bond fans" hate it as a pop song or Madonna song, it's another thing when that song of all songs becomes the Bond theme.
Bond is not a music chart, that theme song only happens a few times per decade so I can understand that they're hoping for a somewhat traditional song that they're going to like.

 

[Seaviewer]

It's all great entertainment and my love for Bond is unconditional anyway, but this is not one of the first Bond films I'd like to rewatch again.

My personal Bond canon ends with License to Kill. It's all the same character until then, despite being played by four different actors. It seems that they swing back and forth between comedy and cruelty with each change, and , after the Connery-lite Dalton, with Brosnan we get a return to the Moore-esque self-parody - and a soft reboot as well with the history supposedly intact but everyone suddenly younger. The Craig films of course are a full-fledged reboot and amount to a self-contained saga.

 

[Seaviewer]

Tombstone (1993)
This was on free-to-air TV the other night. I hadn't seen it before but heard it was a modern classic so I watched it. Not much to say really; it is what it is.

 

[Mel O'Drama]

47 Metres Down: Uncaged (2019)

The sequel to a film I haven't watched. And yet it became free to watch on Prime and I think it's obvious to anyone with a pulse that continuity simply isn't a concern with these films. I hadn't felt I'd missed anything as I watched, and a quick search afterwards confirmed that this is entirely standalone and unrelated to the first.

Expectations were low and in many ways they were exceeded, certainly in the film's opening act. It took its time to establish its characters and to set the scene. Even once they got them into the water, it was a little while before there was a sniff of a shark. In this regard, I was reminded of 2010's The Reef (still, for my money, one of the few genuinely good killer shark films).

Since I appreciated this relatively slow build, I didn't object to the obligatory soap opera element with the blended family and the struggle for the stepsisters to adapt and learn to live harmoniously (the redemption arc was very loudly telegraphed and played out exactly as one would anticipate).

More difficult to overcome when it came to the cast, characters and dynamics is how rigidly gynocentric it is in tone. Around 18 months ago I watched the sequel to The Reef, made a couple of years after this and this element positively stank up the ocean. Watching Uncaged, it's easy to see from where that film had ripped off that element. Again we have four friends striking out on an adventure buoyed by the sisterhood. The male characters in Uncaged are at least presented somewhat sympathetically. It's just unfortunate that they tend to be peripheral and expendable. There are three named male characters in the film. They are the first three characters to be killed by the sharks. Because in 2019 men are not permitted to be "survivors".

The sharky stuff begins promisingly. Our first glimpse comes in a confused moment where a structural collapse in the underwater city (yes - an underwater city) causes silt to rise, reducing visibility drastically. Behind one of the women, a shark glides past nearby like a ghostly apparition. It's so subtle I questioned if I had even seen it.

If only it had built on this. Instead that's the only good shark shot in the entire film and it's immediately followed up with a barrage of poorly computer generated sharks. And they can't be regular sharks, can they? They're enormous White Sharks that have evolved to living in the darkness and so lack vision but have heightened senses in other regards.

In fact this film throws science out of the window. Not only are they bloodthirsty, they live and hunt in pairs (unlike real Great Whites which are solitary creatures and not a bit social), they can move backwards, and they apparently stay cooped up in this restricted space, despite most White Sharks travelling thousands of miles each year. How they have survived for long enough to evolve (thousands of years? Many generations) in a place where there is no real food source is a question that isn't answered. The lack of science isn't just restricted to sharks as well. One "scare" comes when a cave fish screams at the girls. It. Literally. Screams.

There is some attempt at logic when it comes to the setting of the submerged Mayan city. It feels like something that could exist, and the narrow labyrinthine tunnels through which the girls swim to reach it (before getting lost) genuinely feel like my idea of the seventh circle of hell. Ultimately, though, the darkness means this is not a pretty film to watch. The lack of light strained my eyes, and once the attacks begin this was compounded by the noisy score (full of stings) and the screaming characters. There's a sense of urgency (helped by the ticking time bomb of their air tanks running down towards zero), but it's a very exhausting film to watch, and mostly not in any good way.

It also has to be said that the setting also evoked the underwater kingdom from Jaws 3-D, the chase through the sunken galleon in Jaws The Revenge and the "sharks indoors" from Deep Blue Sea, none of which is really A Good Thing (on the subject of Deep Blue Sea, one "saviour" character dies midway through a motivational monologue. It all fell rather flat here, though). That's a problem of this film's really. It's not original, but the homages to earlier shark films feel like they're intent on paying homage to bad ripoffs and sequels. Even a scene with a head making a character jump feels more like Jaws 3-D's Overman than Ben Gardner.

Once the survivors surface (and yes, it's the most obvious ones. One could watch the first few scenes and know who would ultimately survive and why) there is a welcome mini-twist that ties it back to something from earlier in the film, but frankly, it then gives a few more minutes of action that are sillier than anything which came before it. The people on that glass-bottomed boats were the luckiest punters ever. Even before things kicked off, they were surrounded by seven or eight fifteen foot Whites. That's some chum they were using.

With this genre, I had a good idea what to expect, and this was it. For the ways in which it surpassed expectations, I'm appreciative. But these are only a tiny fraction compared with the many ways in which it runs true to the lazy "monster shark" film, which is why it never really rises above being derivative pap. Armed with this knowledge, someone might even enjoy it. With expectations around my ankles, I didn't hate it, even if I won't be back for a second viewing.

 

[Willie Oleson]

after the Connery-lite Dalton

Lite? I thought he was darker than Connery's Bond.

with Brosnan we get a return to the Moore-esque self-parody

Pierce Brosnan played it straight but there's got to be a funny comment every now and then. I didn't notice any self-parody.

and a soft reboot as well with the history supposedly intact but everyone suddenly younger.

Nothing was rebooted, the story stayed the same. although it's possible that Mrs. Bond's death certificate has been updated a few times. James Bond regenerates, that's the only way to keep it going.

Unless Craig's Bond has never been married I'm going to watch it as a continuation, not a new beginning.

 

[Seaviewer]

Lite? I thought he was darker than Connery's Bond.

I didn't mean it as "light" compared to dark. I meant that it was return to the more serious style of the Connery era but Dalton doesn't have his charisma.

Pierce Brosnan played it straight but there's got to be a funny comment every now and then. I didn't notice any self-parody.

Perhaps it's in the eye of the beholder. I saw it as a swing back to a more comedic style - but not to the Moore extreme obviously.

Nothing was rebooted, the story stayed the same. although it's possible that Mrs. Bond's death certificate has been updated a few times. James Bond regenerates, that's the only way to keep it going.

Isn't that what a soft reboot is? The principal events remained intact but were moved up a few years to allow for a younger cast.