Spectre.

Review #1891: Spectre.

Cast: 

Daniel Craig (James Bond), Christoph Waltz (Ernst Stavro Blofeld), Léa Seydoux (Madeleine Swann), Ben Whishaw (Q), Naomie Harris (Eve Moneypenny), Dave Bautista (Mr Hinx), Andrew Scott (Max Denbigh [C]), Rory Kinnear (Bill Tanner), Jesper Christensen (Mr White), Monica Bellucci (Lucia Sciarra), Ralph Fiennes (M), Stephanie Sigman (Estrella), and Alessandro Cremona (Marco Sciarra) Directed by Sam Mendes (#572 - Skyfall and #1585 - 1917)

Review: 

Go figure that this ended up being split into multiple paragraphs. Actually, this is the first Bond film I saw after deciding to start getting into the James Bond novels, you know, the ones that inspired the movies. So yes, Casino Royale was a pretty neat book, and I am curious for the other books done by Fleming and maybe I will look at the movies a bit differently by the time I finish them.

It is interesting to consider how people try to spin the wheel of continuing the James Bond franchise (as produced by Eon Productions) into another decade. The Daniel Craig era started in 2006 with Casino Royale, probably the best Bond film since either Goldeneye (1995) or Licence to Kill (1989), depending on your tastes. It did so with its attempt to inject a bit grittier realism into the series while keeping the entertainment level high. One never knows what to expect from a series created out of a character intended to be boring, as devised by Ian Fleming. Quantum of Solace (2008) was so much of a nonentity that I can barely remember watching it, but Skyfall (2012) certainly resounded better for all of its strange little quirks that came with attempts at emotional depth. The beauty of covering a film I took a pass on doing because it seemed too mild to watch in a theater seven years ago is that there isn't exactly much to spoil for those who do films. Of course, if you like surprises, go ahead with whatever you want to do. Besides, the Bond series would continue with Craig for No Time to Die (2021) after a number of years in development that retained certain actors from before. There were four writers: John Logan, Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, and Jez Butterworth. Mendes and Logan apparently came up with the main concept of the plot together before lingering dissatisfaction in script from key groups led to asking Purvis and Wade to step in for re-writes (Butterworth ended up stepping in for the screenplay), and you may remember that Logan & Purvis had served as writer on these films since The World Is Not Enough while Logan helped to write Skyfall. So, three years later, with the same director in Sam Mendes from the previous film, who decided to do the film after initially saying no (Nicolas Winding Refn had said no in the meantime), here is another one of these Bond movies. Oh, but it's not any kind of mild follow-ups, no, it's the kind of sequel that tries to go all out in all the narrative and epic pulls you might see in a franchise blockbuster of the 2010s. 

Guess what? It isn't particularly good. It reminds me of a goldfish in a fishbowl: the fish seems to be happy in the bowl, and it gets to look something nice outside the bowl, but its memory span will prove forgettable despite all the food (spectacle in this case) you give it. In short, it manages to show not the strengths of spectacle in locations and budget but rather the weaknesses of trying to use it to hide a limp story that runs at 148 minutes for reasons I can't really comprehend. You may or may not remember that the character of Blofeld had been featured in physical form as the primary villain in four movies (one being a non-EON feature), but none since the 1980s. Of course, you would hope in that time spent away dealing with litigation with Kevin McClory that EON found folks that could make a quality adversary that would make the best portrayal (Telly Savalas) proud. Nope! Being overshadowed by Bautista playing a heavy with one word to say is bad, being nondescript and being brought down by narrative choices is just as bad. He manages to be like a shadow, non-descript in menace because of the choice of time given to Waltz (because hey, time to visit another country on the plot that is totally not familiar). And yes, there is a twist to help connect these previous films together: Quantum is basically a subsidiary to the real power behind the throne of secret doom: Spectre (no, not SPECTRE), complete with being linked together because someone found a ring that had everyone's fingerprints all over it (get it?). Spectre and the master plan involves surveillance that seems cribbed from both a 1984 ripoff and the "Cain and Abel" narrative. Maybe I wouldn't have seen the twist coming if I never saw the villain having a connection to the spy in "family"...in Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002). The idea of one adoptive brother wreaking havoc on the other adoptive brother is hysterical in its ridiculous contrivances - remember that after Blofeld reveals his whole "daddy liked you better" spiel to Bond and mildly tortures him (tied to a chair, but thank goodness for watches), his next brilliant plan is to go to an abandoned building and taunt Bond to find him with arrows pointing where he is while trying to do the "save yourself or save the girl and die"...totally not a parody to guess how that goes. Exploding watches are one thing, but somewhere you have to draw the line (that line probably gave up when it heard about smart blood). It almost clouds the fact that the "surveillance angle" the film tries to play is the bare minimum of an angle, which would not be a problem if you have a striking villain or actual conviction to do something beyond "Is James Bond still relevant?" again. Simply having an adventure while tinkering with the tiniest things of the formula is too much, nah, you have to play it really safe or throw as much spectacle in digital effects to distract from this being a neutered average movie (unless you count not shooting someone as innovative). Having the illusion of an opening sequence done in one take is probably the best trick the film plays in a movie that seems to have no idea where the third act is going to go besides just throwing things up in the air and "leaving it to God" (which is probably how they decided on Sam Smith being the title singer for the film rather than Radiohead). 

You know you might be in trouble when you have not one but two Bond romances to go around, and one of them is basically a glorified cameo that really is there for info-dumps than actual passion (Bellucci, in a role I imagine had a nice paycheck, because "oldest Bond girl" means diddly squat). Seydoux reminds me of a broomstick in that things are meant to happen, but you completely forgot why you had it there because you fell asleep. The chemistry of Seydoux and Craig is amusingly dry (the age difference has never been more apparent, going from 10-11 in the previous three to...seventeen), inflicting only the bare minimum of what you might expect from a Bond romance arc...but of all the ones where you see the two do a walk off into the sunset, this is not even in the top half of being convincing. Perhaps not surprisingly, the parts that work to the usual Bond formula (a Q, a M, and a Moneypenny) do pretty well when it comes to seeing Fiennes try to make his first mark as M or the small moments of Harris and Whishaw when paired with Craig, whether that involves seeing how James Bond lives for the first time in a while or hijinks with tech. Bautista does make a useful adversary in the art of quick-skilled brutality (mostly in his first scene) that contributes to an involving chase scene or two that works best among the rest of the muddy foundation points, which goes with Scott and his "totally not a bad guy" presence and Christensen...uh, I will be honest in forgetting who he was supposed to be (Casino Royale had him get shot in the leg and that's all I remember). Of course, Craig still seems like the stellar man to play the lead role, one who has the confidence required to pull the film away from being the total disaster it might have been with someone who can't have a little bit of fun with some of these lines. In other words, he still seems likes the kind of person who can pull off being an odd man that big things happen around him (while not reminding one of late 1980s Roger Moore). As a whole, I really did want to like the film. I wanted to like the idea of a James Bond feature that continued the thrill of where the previous venture left off and see where one can go further in spy adventure as the series goes past its 50th anniversary. And yet, somehow, I found it to be probably the most mind-boggling misfire since Die Another Day (2002). In trying to dazzle the audience with new tricks, all they managed to do is show an empty hand. It may be a nice film in parts, but it is a dull stinker in all the other ways that make it a muddle to sit through. It isn't the worst Bond film, but it is probably the most confounding, and I imagine whenever I see the next one I can only have the slightest of expectations that they found a way to just, you know, do a Bond movie that isn't a big muddle when everything else is fine.

Overall, I give it 6 out of 10 stars.

1917.

Review #1585: 1917.

Cast: 

George MacKay (Lance Corporal William "Will" Schofield), Dean-Charles Chapman (Lance Corporal Thomas "Tom" Blake), Mark Strong (Captain Smith), Andrew Scott (Lieutenant Leslie), Richard Madden (Lieutenant Joseph Blake), Claire Duburcq (Lauri), Colin Firth (General Erinmore), Benedict Cumberbatch (Colonel Mackenzie), Daniel Mays (Sergeant Sanders), and Adrian Scarborough (Major Hepburn) Directed by Sam Mendes (#572 - Skyfall)

Review: 

“I wanted something that had the quality of a dream at times, but had real-life stakes. Any narrative, any fiction is a compression in time, a compression of character. You’re trying to find the tip of an iceberg. And if the tip is well done, the iceberg becomes clear. You don’t have to see it if you know it’s there.”

Most films in some form have something to do with family. Sam Mendes was inspired to do the film from stories that were told to him by his grandfather Alfred Mendes about his service in World War I. The elder Mendes was born in Trinidad in 1897, with chances of study in university being curtailed by the start of the Great War (also known as World War I). He served in the war under the 1st Battalion King's Royal Rifle Brigade and carried messages between no-man's land through the muddy trenches of war. After his war service, he wrote short stories and novels while working in provisions and civil service. His grandson Sam was the son of an author and a professor, who first developed an interest in cinema from a young age. His studies at Peterhouse, Cambridge helped him find interest in theatre as well, where he directed a number of plays at the Marlowe Society before his graduation in 1987. He soon became a director for plays in the theatre that rose in prominence over the next decade and a half before being brought in to direct his first ever film with American Beauty (1999), a tremendous success (he aspired to make films like the ones he had seen at Cambridge, such as Paris, Texas (1984), Repo Man (1984), and River's Edge (1986)). Other films (mostly successes) followed in its wake, with this being his eighth feature film (and first script written, done with Krysty Wilson-Cairns). He described his idea to do a film based on a messenger on a short time period to where he needs to go in the trenches of war that he described was "fundamentally about paralysis and stasis", one that would appear as two continuous shots (with the use of long takes). The primary stars and supporting characters are fictional, but the film's inspiration is Operation Alberich, in which Germany made their withdrawal to change their positions on the Hindenburg Line that happened in the span of a month in 1917 (as opposed to the date of April 6, 1917 that the film begins its story). 

There have been quite a number of war films over the years, with a portion of them revolving around World War I in some manner, whether that involves the silent era with The Big Parade (1925), or with sound in novel adaptations like All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) and Paths of Glory (1957) or further down the line of perspective with Gallipoli (1981). To me, the sense of urgency that comes with the film seems a bit reminiscent of Saving Private Ryan (1999, a messenger film of sorts) or perhaps a more modern example would be with Dunkirk (2017, which dealt with an escape through three storylines and minimal dialogue), and the enjoyment of the film comes from how much of its filmmaking reaches you in interest for its urgent pacing for 119 minutes. The camera almost seems like a person following these two main characters at times, as cinematographer Roger Deakins weaves together a dynamic look and execution to following along with the span of one moment in time. For better or worse, the film is more a technical achievement than an achieved war film - it is fairly entertaining, in the same way that it will generally keep you on your toes for what could come around the screen next, but it can be easy to see a small divide between viewers that find marvel with its shot structure and others who find it more distracting to the real sense of the war as a whole. Having just two main characters mixed in with a group of glorified cameos also in some ways seems to tinker with its magnitude of war. MacKay does well with a role on the routine, having to move fast with bits and pieces of useful dialogue mixed in with the sounds of war that are fine without being wooden - in other words, we can follow him fine in those long takes without constantly checking our watch. Chapman does alright as well with his time to spend on screen, as each make for a useful duo that can have small exchanges beyond just the mission, such as when they have to get through a trapped place with one blind leap. The others come and go in parts, notably with Firth as the one detailing the mission, Strong as one of the leaders in transport, and Cumberbatch as the person to focus on to end the goal, and they all do fine here (it isn't exactly a role to mug the scenery if the camera is on the move anyway). As a whole, it is generally engaging with its intent of urgent moviemaking that will likely prove fascinating for those looking to find films of its era that capture curiosity in technical terms with a good hand guiding the way to looking back to the past as a way to keep it around in the present.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

And so this ends the Tribute to the Decades project (January-October). This was the largest project that Movie Night has ever had, and it is that drive to do ten months of reviews to cover a wide range of films that led to this being the greatest year ever for writing (the previous record was 242 in 2012), and it isn't quite over yet. Plans for what happens next will be on a smaller scale (namely, not more themed months for a while), but I hope you all enjoyed this project for what it covered and what it could have covered - Thanks, folks.