Jack Reacher (2012)

Starring: Tom Cruise, Rosamund Pike, Richard Jenkins, Werner Herzog, David Oyelow, Robert Duvall

Director: Christopher McQuarrie

Genre: Action, Crime, Thriller

Rating: B+

I am not a Jack Reacher fan.  I've never read the books, had never even heard of them before the movie caught my interest.  As such, I have no clue just how wrong for this role Tom Cruise is or just how much they messed up the book.  And, in all honesty, I don't really care - while I am all for trying to be true to the books as much as possible, not knowing the books I can say that this was a good movie and Tom Cruise was great in this role.

In Pittsburgh a man goes to a parking garage, pulls out a sniper rifle, and kills five people.  The case, headed by Detective Emerson (Oyelow), appears to be quickly solved, with all the evidence being linked to former U.S. Army sniper James Barr (Joseph Sikora).  When interrogated by the Detective and the District Attorney Alex Rodin (Jenkins), Barr is given a choice between confessing and facing the death penalty - and instead instructs them to find Jack Reacher (Cruise).  Reacher is a former U.S. Army Military Police Corps Officer who now exists as a drifter and has a history with Barr.  The question is, can Reacher prove Barr's innocence - and does Reacher even want to do so?  Rounding out the case is Barr's defence attorney, and the D.A.'s daughter, Helen Rodin (Pike), who believes that if the case goes to court Barr will not get a fair trial, owing to her father's tactics.  Oh, and then Barr is brutally attacked by fellow inmates and put into a coma, the question now being whether or not he'll be considered fit for trial at all.

I really liked this movie.  The action is great - I particularly loved the car chases which did away with a lot of the jumpy confusion typical of the genre - the humour is snappy, the suspense is sound.  I like how you know whether or not Barr's innocent from the get go, but you still get to watch Reacher and Helen put things together - and see as their opponents try to prevent them from being able to do so.  Pieces start to be put together, but it isn't until closer to the end of the movie that you have it all, and you're liable to be surprised by the picture that you end up seeing - it's not necessarily the one on the box.

I'm not going to comment too much on the book-to-movie transition, because as I've already mentioned, I haven't read the books.  I will say, for those who are unsure of Tom Cruise as Jack Reacher because of the books, the casting came with the support of the author.  In the books, Reacher is a giant of a man and Tom Cruise... well, Tom Cruise is not (although, credit goes to the way they chose to film this, which kind of hides how short he really is... granted, that's a common theme in Tom Cruise movies).   Lee Child has said "Reacher's size in the books is a metaphor for an unstoppable force, which Cruise portrays in his own way" and that "With another actor you might get 100% of the height but only 90% of Reacher. With Tom, you'll get 100% of Reacher with 90% of the height."  Yes, Tom Cruise is short, but there was never a moment in this movie when I thought that he was really anything less than intimidating and a very viable threat.  He definitely portrays an unstoppable force, regardless of how tall he is (or is not).

My final note here is regarding the potential sequel.  There are something like 17 stories written about Jack Reacher, the bulk of which are novels.  It's being reported that a sequel is unlikely due to the film's box-office performance (while it's done well and made more than double what it cost to make, it's about $100 million short of what they wanted if they were to do a sequel), I do hope that they go for it.  This seems like it could be a fun franchise; it's up Tom Cruise's alley, and really I don't need to see another Mission Impossible.  It'd be nice to see Tom Cruise embark on a new franchise.  That being said, I'm also still hoping that Christopher Nolan decides to do another Batman movie with Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Nightwing.  I can't be the only one.

The Ledge

Starring: Charlie Hunnam, Terrence Howard, Liv Tyler, Christopher Gorham, Patrick Wilson

Director: Matthew Chapman

Genre: Drama, Thriller

Rating: C

Athiest Gavin Nichols (Hunnam) is about to commit suicide by jumping off a ledge.  Detective Hollis Lucetti (Howard), who is having a particularly bad day to begin with, is responsible for negotiating with Gavin and attempting to get him to come down.  Over the course of the film the story goes back and forth between the present and the past, following the events that lead to these two men being there - for Hollis, it's what happened after he discovered that he's sterile and his kids aren't his kids, and for Gavin it's the development of a relationship with his neighbour, Shana (Tyler), who is married to the Christian fundamentalist Joe (Wilson).

Okay, so to start, I loved the ending of this film.  It wasn't what I expected at all, and I love how they decided to just go with it.  I really liked it.

The ending was probably the only thing that I liked about the film, though.  I found the characters portrayed by both Hunnam and Wilson to be unlikable - I thought that both of them were trying to go to great lengths to offend the other, which in turn just offended me.  It bothered me that the whole thing was based on the idea that the two of them were going to be trying to force their religious beliefs (or lack-thereof) on the other, and then that Hunnam's character decided to sleep with Shana in an attempt to get back at Wilson's character for being religious.  In the end, I think I really understood Wilson's character's motivation the most.  Even though I didn't support him, or even like him, at all, I could at least see his reasoning.

As for Terrence Howard's character... I really didn't see how his back story was relevant to the rest of the film.  It was unnecessary and kind of stupid.  That being said, I did really like the way that they handled the actual negotiation.  I liked the relationship that was built between Howard and Hunnam.  Asides from the conclusion, that was possibly the best part of the film.  There was this potential here, and they just kind of wasted it.

Skyfall (2012)

Starring: Daniel Craig, Javier Bardem, Judi Dench, Ralph Fiennes, Albert Finney, Naomie Harris, Bérénice Marlohe

Director: Sam Mendes

Genre: Action, Adventure, Thriller

Rating: B+

During a mission in Turkey Bond (Craig) is shot by another MI6 agent, Eve (Harris) and presumed dead.  The mission was an integral one, an attempt to retrieve a stolen computer hard drive that contained details of almost all undercover NATO agents in terrorist organizations. With Bond presumably dead, however, the thief gets away.  Fast forward a couple months and M (Dench) is being pressured to retire by Intelligence Security Committee Chairman Gareth Mallory (Fiennes).  Then MI6 is hacked, an explosion occurs in the offices, and the names of several NATO agents are released.  Bond hears of the attack and decides to come out of the retirement that he had decided to take following his presumed death.

I really liked this movie.  Two things pop out right away; first there's the fact that while the story isn't a continuation of Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace it's still a sequel to this new Bond, and it really pays tribute to things that we saw being developed in these earlier films.  The second thing is that, in continuing with this tribute, Skyfall also pays tribute to the older Bonds, especially the original ones.  There are a lot of little references and allusions to the origins of Bond, which I absolutely loved.  There's even a point when Bond and villain Silva (Bardem) simulate a sort of "toast" with a 1962 whiskey, in tribute to the 50th anniversary of Bond.

Beyond that, I liked the plot of the movie overall.  It goes back to the rouge agent plot, which Bond really likes playing with, but also nicely plays off the pairing of Bond versus someone who really was his predecessor. There's a lot of build up on the relationship between this Bond and this M, which I loved. I also really liked the action sequences, from the really extravagant ones to the less extravagant ones - personally, I really loved the silouhetted fight between Bond and Patrice (Ola Rapace) in Shanghai.  It might have been my favourite moment, or at least fight scene, out of the movie - which says a lot because there were a lot of really good ones.

There's also a lot of humour here.  It doesn't descend into the campy level of previous Bonds, and at times is intentionally uncomfortable, but I liked it.  I like the idea of Bond being funny, as long as it's not ridiculously so.  There are some great moments between Bond and most of the characters.  I thought it was well done.  What I didn't think was well done was Naomie Harris' Bond girl.  I really wasn't a big fan of her character in general, and she kind of left me with a sour taste in my mouth following the movie.  I understand where they were trying to go with her, but I wasn't a fan.

Quantum of Solace (2008)

Starring: Daniel Craig, Judi Dench, Olga Kurylenko, Mathieu Amalric, Gemma Arterton, Jeffrey Wright, Giancarlo Giannini

Director: Marc Forster

Genre: Action, Adventure, Thriller

Rating: C+

I'm not sure I entirely get the hate for this movie.  It's definitely not the best in the series, but it's far from the worst - editor of Famous Marni Weisz said of the title "Yes, it's a bad title," but "At least it's not Octopussy."  I kind of felt that way about a lot of the movie in general; yeah, it's not great, but at least it's not Octopussy, or really any number of bad Bond movies.  At least it wasn't Die Another Day or Moonraker - and I could go on here.

In what is really a direct sequel to Casino Royale, Bond (Craig) is back and this time looking into the organization Quantum, the organization behind the events in Casino.  It has been revealed that Quantum's reach is far greater than previously believed, even going so far as to have placed a double agent as M (Dench)'s bodyguard.  Bond discovers that Quantum, through its leading member Dominic Greene (Amalric) is presently helping an exiled Bolivian general to overthrow his government, and Bond sets out to stop them.  Everything goes to shit, however, when Bond kills an advisor to the British Prime Minister and has his privileges revoked - causing him to once again turn into a rouge agent.

Despite being an action flick this was a rather slow movie, which hindered it a lot.  It was also a complicated one, which once again was a hinderance.  I liked the idea of Quantum and look forward to it being revisited in later films - it's very SPECTRE-esque, and I liked SPECTRE.  I think, however, in portraying Quantum here they got a bit carried away.  It's rather disappointing; the thing that made Casino Royale so great was its sheer simplicity and the way it balanced the poker game with the action sequences.

The one thing that I did really like about Quantum, however, was the many allusions it makes to previous films.  Still no Q or Moneypenny, but there are other little references to the earlier films.  My favourite has got to be the moment when Bond found the dead girl on the bed, covered in oil.  It was a really good shout out to Goldfinger and, in my mind at least, showed that while this Bond is far more serious than his precursors, he's still Bond and he knows what came before him.

Casino Royale (2006)

Starring: Daniel Craig, Judi Dench, Eva Green, Mads Mikkelsen

Director: Martin Campbell

Genre: Action, Adventure, Thriller

Rating: A

I loved this movie.  That's something I haven't said about any of the Bonds so far, but I did.  There was a lot going on, but at the same time it was so simplistic that I was able to really get into it and completely follow what was going on.  Plus, there's the whole Bond (Craig) in the blue swim trunks thing - this is something that they've done a couple times with Bond girls, but never really with a Bond, and really never before has a Bond looked so good.

The plot here is pretty simple: Casino Royale is an origins story for our Bond and serves to really reboot the series - all of the stupid shit that Bond got up to in the previous films no longer counts.  I like that, he got up to a lot of stupid shit and the idea that each movie was related to the previous ones was getting to be a bit much.  On one of his first missions Bond prevent a terrorist attack at Miami International Airport, during which time Bond foils the plans of banker and terrorist financer Le Chiffre (Mikkelsen).  This leaves Le Chiffre under pressure to recoup his clients money, which leads to him setting up a high stakes Texas hold'em poker tournament at the Casino Royale in Montenegro.  Reenter Bond, who is sent to enter the tournament by MI6.  He's put into touch with Vesper Lynd (Green), who is a Treasury agent and provides the $10 million buy-in, and René Mathis (Giancarlo Giannini), Bond's contact in Montenegro.  Also introduced to us here is regular Bond acquaintance, CIA agent Felix Leiter (Jeffrey Wright), who is also playing in the tournament.

I loved this movie.  Have I said that yet?  The lead in was a bit much, but that's pretty typical of a Bond film.  Once it got into things, with the Casino and what not, it really got rather solid.  The way it juxtaposed the seemingly intense poker scenes (which, I suppose would have been more intense had I known absolutely anything about poker) with the intense action scenes was great.  There really was no moment in this that I found myself staring at the screen going "are you fucking serious" - which is not something that can be said for, really, any previous Bond film.  It's not hokey or lame, or ridiculous and over the top.  There are a couple moments that kind of push it, but the film always reeled things in before crossing the line.

The other thing that I really liked about this movie was how much it alluded to previous ones, while still being original.  There's a lot of moments that remind you of earlier Bond films, including Bond walking out of the water in the blue bathing suit, but none that make you want to roll your eyes and go "I've seen this before."  This is something that really continues on throughout the Daniel Craig films and is, in my opinion, really well done.  Also, have I mentioned that I love Judi Dench's M?  She's just absolutely awesome, and continues to be awesome in Casino Royale.  Which, really, goes without saying, it's Dame Judi Dench.

Die Another Day (2002)

Starring: Pierce Brosnan, Judi Dench, John Cleese, Halle Berry, Toby Stephens, Rick Yune, Rosamund Pike, Will Yun Lee, Michael Madsen, Rachel Grant

Director: Lee Tamahori

Genre: Action, Adventure, Thriller

Rating: C

I'm not entirely sure how I feel about this movie.  While it does escape from the evil Soviets plot, the twist did surprise me, and I really liked a lot of the references and allusions to previous Bonds, it was also overly complicated, cheesy, and a bit too much.  Roger Moore said of the film "I thought it just went too far – and that’s from me, the first Bond in space! Invisible cars and dodgy CGI footage? Please!"  That's actually pretty much exactly how I feel.  I like Brosnan overall as a Bond, but this movie in general felt like it should have been a Roger Moore one - and in my opinion, that's not a good thing.

The background to this is that Bond (Brosnan) was captured by the North Koreans while on a mission related to illegally traded African conflict diamonds.  After 14 months of captivity Bond is released in exchange for the release of North Korean agent Zao (Yune), whose face had been disfigured by diamond fragments during the struggle with Bond.  Once released, Bond is suspended from active duty because M (Dench) doesn't believe that he hasn't leaked information, so Bond escapes to complete his mission.  In Havana (because that where you go when your mission involves North Korea) Bond meets NSA agent Giacinti 'Jinx' Johnson (Berry), who he follows (along with Zao) to a gene therapy treatment, where more conflict diamonds are discovered, this time with the company crest of British billionaire Gustav Graves (Stephens).  Bond returns to England to continue the investigation, where he meets fellow MI6 agent Miranda Frost (Pike), who is undercover as Graves' assistant.  Points if you guess who's sleeping with who!

There's a lot about this movie that is really classic Bond and in a way, I admire Tamahori for trying to recreate that feel of the series.  The problem is, however, that you really can't go back.  What made movies like Dr. No work only worked because of the time in which they were created.  Outside of the sixties and seventies, classic Bond doesn't work as well; that was one of the problems of the Roger Moore films.  Die Another Day fails even more because in addition to trying to grasp that classic feel it also tries to incorporate new technology, namely CGI.  The result is rather disastrous.  No, the result is horrendous.  Actually, there's more to it than that.  Another part of the problem is that while trying to envoke a lot of the old classic feel Die fails to intentionally invoke the humour and the cheese.  As such, it's a lame and cheesy movie that fails to realize it's as much.  It's okay to be ridiculous, when you know that's what you're doing - that's why Dr. Strangelove is so awesome.  If you take yourself seriously but fail to be serious, you just don't work out in the end.

The World is Not Enough (1999)

Starring: Pierce Brosnan, Judi Dench, Sophie Marceau, Robert Carlyle, Denise Richards

Director: Michael Apted

Genre: Action, Adventure, Thriller

Rating: C-

I didn't actually need to watch this movie to know what would happen in it.   A plot twist is always great, and their are some movies (as well as other works of fiction) that handle the twist so adeptly that when it happens you're left flabbergasted.  Others you can figure out easily enough, but the way it happens is still enjoyable so even if you're not surprised it's still great.  The World is Not Enough, however, is so predictable that you can figure out the bulk of the plot, twist included, by the time M's finished her initial brief.  There's no suspense, no surprise, nothing.

A British oil tycoon, who happened to have been M (Judi Dench)'s friend, has been killed and his daughter, Elektra King (Maurceau) has been threatened.  Bond is sent to investigate and protect Elektra, during which he uncovers a plot that involves Soviet terrorist Renard (Carlyle) and nuclear physicist Christmas Jones (Richards).  Renard previously kidnapped Elektra, and it's believed that he's going to make an attack on her again, while Christmas fits in in a weird way.... there's an oil pipeline and a silo and it's needlessly complicated.  If you've started making connections and figuring out who's good and who's bad, and what blows up what you're not alone.  Oh, bonus points as usual if you guess who sleeps with Bond.

I'm really not sure what to say about this movie beyond the fact that it was predictable to the point that I couldn't enjoy it.  It was just... disappointing.  One thing I did like, however, was the introduction of the new Q, or in this case the Q-to-be.  Here he's called R (John Cleese), although jokingly so, and is introduced as the current Q (Desmond Llewelyn)'s assistant.  From what I understand, there weren't actual plans to have Llewelyn retire from the franchise and "R" was just introduced as a bit of a joke gag, and it's done wonderfully so.  Llewelyn's death prevented his return to the franchise in later movies, so in Die Another Day Cleese steps up.  As such, this is Llewelyn's last film in the franchise - after having been in 17 films, and having worked with five different Bonds.

Tomorrow Never Dies (1997)

Starring: Pierce Brosnan, Judi Dench, Jonathan Pryce, Michelle Yeoh, Teri Hatcher

Director: Roger Spottiswoode

Genre: Action, Adventure, Thriller

Rating: C+

Bond (Brosnan) is back, saving the world from another techno-terrorist.  Media baron Elliot Carver (Pryce) has a plot to provoke a war between China and the United Kingdom, in a manner that would give him the exclusive broadcasting rights to it.

This was not the worst Bond film. I think that might be the extent of the good things that I can say about it.  Actually, that's a lie: I also liked the fact that the bad guys this time round were neither Russians nor Soviets but rather a good ol' British (well, Welsh) mogul, a combination of Robert Maxwell and Rupert Murdoch gone horribly, horribly wrong.  The best thing about this film is the villain, which is always a good sign of a Bond film.  I also do really like Brosnan's Bond.  He's slick and suave.  He's got the confidence and arrogance of previous Bonds, but doesn't push it too far, and is definitely starting to break free of the sexism and racism.  There's definitely a "I've seen this stuff before" feel to the movie overall, but I'm comfortable with the lead, which puts it a bit higher than some of the previous films.

GoldenEye (1995)

Starring: Pierce Brosnan, Judi Dench, Sean Bean, Izabella Scorupco, Famke Janssen

Director: Martin Campbell

Genre: Action, Adventure, Thriller

Rating: B

"You don't like me, Bond. You don't like my methods. You think I'm an accountant, a bean counter more interested in my numbers than your instincts." "The thought had occurred to me." "Good, because I think you're a sexist, misogynist dinosaur. A relic of the Cold War, whose boyish charms, though wasted on me, obviously appealed to that young woman I sent out to evaluate you." "Point taken."

How to summarize the plot without spoiling... Nine years after the death of agent 006, Alec Trevelyan (Bean), during an infiltration of a Soviet chemical weapons facility, Bond (Brosnan) is charged with following Xenia Onatopp (Janssen), a member of the Janus crime syndicate.  After killing a Royal Canadian Navy admiral Xenia and a colleague massacre a bunch of people and steal the control disc for the dual GoldenEye satellite weapons, which emits electromagnetic pulses and destroys computers basically.  But, of course, Bond is on the mission, and is aided by the only survivor of the massacre, Natalya Simonov (Scorupco).

My big problem with GoldenEye is that there was a huge set up for the villains to be the Russians.  I got bored with the Soviets as villains in the previous films, I'm not looking forward to it's slightly different but basically the same variation now that the Cold War has ended.  That being said, though, I really like the direction that the movie then decided to go in.  The whole rouge agent plot is awesome, especially if you realize that they did it from the other angel in Licence to Kill, where Bond was the rouge.

My favourite moment in this movie, however, is when M (Dench) called Bond out on his behaviour.  Everything that she said in the line (which I quoted at the top) is exactly what I've been saying for a lot of movies now. Bond is sexist and myogynistic.  He's also a relic of the Cold War simply because so many of these movies have to do with the idea of Soviets/Russians being the villains.  I only hope that by calling him on it M is predicting a change in the movies, a leap forward.  Another thing, weirdly enough, that I liked was that Bond showed no problem with the idea of killing Xenia.  When she was introduced I was kind of worried that they would go the way of May Day (Grace Jones) in A View to Kill, but I was happy that they didn't.  Bond's changing, however slowly.

Argo (2012)

Starring: Ben Affleck, Bryan Cranston, Alan Arkin, John Goodman

Director: Ben Affleck

Genre: Biography, Drama, Thriller

Rating: A-

"The whole country is watching you, they just don't know it."

I'm just going to start this by stating that I'm not an American.  I do not now live in the States, nor have I ever lived there.  As such I really don't buy into the whole "rah, rah, yay America!" act that a lot of movies do.  I am, however, a historian, and as such I love historical films because in my opinion history is always an interesting story and has so much drama to it... in a story like the one of the Canadian Capers, you don't need to add fictional elements - the story is already there.

Argo is the story of the Canadian Capers, although to my disappointment it does do a lot of fiction weaving within the story.  During the 1979 Iranian Revolution the U.S. embassy in Tehran is taken over by Islamic militants, with the bulk of the American employees being taken as hostages.  Six of them, however, managed to escape and take cover in the home of the Canadian ambassador Ken Taylor (played by actual Canadian Victor Garber).  Enter the CIA: specialist Tony Mendez (Affleck) is brought to help come up with a way to get the Americans out of Iran, and he comes up with the idea of posing as a film crew in Iran scouting locations for a science fiction movie.  With the help of Hollywood make-up artist John Chambers (Goodman) and film producer Lester Siegel (Arkin) Tony creates an elaborate plot, goes in to Iran, and sets out to save the Americans.

In regards to the necessary components of a good film, Argo really does have it all.  There's suspense and action, and it really makes your heart race.  Even going into the movie with a basic knowledge of what happened and the end results, I was sitting on the edge of my seats anxious to see whether the Capers would make it out, and if so just how. There's a lot of humour to it too, some of it appropriate and some of it less so, but all of it good.  One of my favourite lines was when one of the Capers said that they were a Canadian, then tossed in the obligatory "eh."  Somehow I think the laugh in the Canadian theatre that I was in was somewhat different from the one that was intended to get from that.  There were a lot of laughs like that, one liners that you really weren't expecting but had everyone in the theatre laughing.  Some were lines that you saw in the trailer, but in the actual film it was somehow funnier.

That being said... as both a historian and a Canadian, I do have problems with this movie.  It was really enjoyable, I'll give you that, and I can even understand why it's getting Oscar buzz.  However, there are huge liberties taken with the history of this film (and the portrayal of the characters within it, Affleck's getting a fair bit of flack for choosing to portray the Latino Mendez).  The story itself is changed in order to create some sort of suspense and an action sequence, particularly in the latter third of the film.  I really can't see how this is necessary, and as someone who's read a bit about this incident and who is interested in history, it bothers me that filmmakers (in general, not just Affleck) feel the need to do this.  The story is already there, they don't need to change it in order to make it better.  The reason why the Canadian Caper is such a great story is not because Affleck was able to introduce a good chase scene, it's a great story because it's about people coming together to do what many would think to be impossible.  When you couple it with the postscript that initially accompanied the film (which I haven't read itself, but reports of it say that it essentially indicated that the CIA let Taylor take credit for the incident, implying that he doesn't really deserve the accolades he (and the Canadian government) received because this incident), it becomes a bit of an insult and a piece of pro-American propaganda.  That in itself was a disappointment.  While the postscript was changed, the film itself still keeps much of that tone.

Licence to Kill (1989)

Starring: Timothy Dalton, Carey Lowell, Robert Davi, Talisa Soto

Director: John Glen

Genre: Action, Adventure, Thriller

Rating: B

This was not a Bond film.  It was about 007 and was a part of the franchise, but it wasn't a Bond film, not in the way that we've come to know (and love?) Bond.  In a lot of ways it actually really reminded me of On Her Majesty's Secret Service, except with a better lead.

Bond (Dalton) and his DEA friend Felix Leiter (David Hedison, last seen in Live and Let Die) come together to assist in the capture of drug lord Franz Sanchez (Davi) before going to Leiter's wedding.  All is fine and dandy and the wedding goes off with a hitch... until Sanchez escapes and attacks Leiter and his wife, raping and killing her and having him maimed by a shark.  Bond finds out and embarks on a mission of revenge, without the approval or assistance of MI6 (although Q (Desmond Llewelyn) does pop in for the typical gadget giveaway).  Fortunately, though, he does have the assistance of ex-Army pilot and CIA informant Pam Bouvier (Lowell), because all Bond really needs is a mission, a few gadgets, and hot chick by his side.

There was a lot about this movie that really reminded me of On Her Majesty's Secret Service, although not really in a good way.  There's a lot that seems to be trying to set Bond up as something more than a playboy, and throughout the entire wedding scene I couldn't help but feel like the film was going to end with another wedding scene (and subsequent death), like it's precursor did.  Let me make this clear; I think Bond is somewhat of a sexist pig, constantly going from one sexual conquest to another, at times even having multiple consorts at one time.  It's what makes Bond Bond though, and attempts to change that - especially when they forget that they changed it for the next movie.  There's a sort of consistency that the movies where he's just a playboy has, and a disconnect that the ones where he tries (or pretends) to be something more have.  It's rather annoying.

Playboy issues aside, the whole drug lord revenge plot was both really good and really not Bond.  Part of who Bond is is this element of MI6, and removing him from that in such a way - for the revenge of the death of this woman we've never seen before and this man who we don't really remember from a Bond several movies back.  While I don't mind the idea of Bond going rouge, it just doesn't work as well with the incarnation of this Bond - especially if you think about the emphasis that they put on him being the guy who follows the rules (kind of) in The Living Daylights.  It was a good plot idea, and it was a good movie overall... it just wasn't very Bond-y.

The Living Daylights (1987)

Starring: Timothy Dalton, Joe Don Baker, Maryam d'Abo, Art Malik, John Rhys-Davies, Jeroen Krabbé

Director: John Glen

Genre: Action, Adventure, Thriller

Rating: B

The Living Daylights returns us to the USSR and issues with the KGB.  This time, Bond (Dalton) is searching for KGB General Georgi Koskov (Krabbé), who defected to the British only to be abducted and presumably taken back to Moscow.  Being the gentleman that he is, Bond uses cellist Kara Milovy (d'Abo), Koskov's girlfriend, in an attempt to track down Koskov.  He's also been directed to track down General Leonard Pushkin (Rhys-Davies), who has allegedly revived the KGB policy of Smert Spionam, or Death to Spies.  Meanwhile, arms dealer Brad Whitaker (Baker) is in the process of procurring American arms for the Soviets to use in Afghanistan.

Dalton's Bond isn't as slick as his predecessors, both in appearance and technique.  While he's sill got that charm and arrogance he appears to rely more on the gadgets and what not - and while I was willing to forgive the cliches of the earlier movies simply due to their age, I'm less willing to forgive the cliches of these later movies.  Shooting lazer beams out of a car is just lame, regardless of the decade.

Despite the fact that Dalton isn't as slick as Roger Moore was, I think I actually might prefer him.  Yes the movie's cliched, Bond is too dependent on his gadgets, but at least this movie wasn't completely ridiculous and over the top.  You can kind of tell that the filmmakers are trying to shed some of the humour of the earlier Bond films, which given the way the humour's been going in the last few films I don't really see that as being a bad thing.  The Living Daylights isn't nearly as tongue in cheek as it could have been, but it's not as ridiculous either.  It definitely went on a bit long, but I overall enjoyed it.

A View to Kill (1985)

Starring: Roger Moore, Christopher Walken, Tanya Roberts, Grace Jones, Robert Brown

Director: John Glen

Genre: Action, Adventure, Thriller

Rating: D

Bond (Moore) is at it again, this time investigating something to do with microchips and atomic bombs and what not and it all really made absolutely no sense to me.  What I did follow, though, was the girl, Stacey Sutton (Roberts), who is the daughter of an oil tycoon whose company has been taken over by the villain, Max Zorin (Walken).  Definitely not my favourite Bond girl, but I did really like Walken as the villain.  I've found that it really doesn't matter what it's in, when Walken acts it's great.  He doesn't necessarily save the movie, but he does make it a bit easier to take.

What helps Walken is the overall stunts.  View's biggest problem is the plot is absurd and Moore is, at this point, becoming a bit old to play the character of Bond, and the overall gender of one of the villains (May Day, played by Grace Jones) makes it so that Bond can't comfortably kill her.  Where the film attempts to redeem itself is in the stunts, which are fun and pretty much what you expect from an 1980s era action film, and Walken is definitely a great villain worthy of a classic Bond film.  In the last few movies I've been a bit bored by the villains and annoyed by the fact that they all either seem to be a part of a government organization or just weird individuals who have too much money.  While Walken's Zorin isn't part of some greater organization like SPECTRE and has ties to the KGB we still at least get some idea of who he is and why he is that way.  Honestly, I didn't think I'd ever say it, but I kind of miss SPECTRE.

A couple notes.  With this film, we're saying good by to a few people.  The most obvious is, of course, Roger Moore, who retires as Bond after this film.  So far, I'd say he is my second favourite Bond, well above  George Lazenby, but far below Sean Connery.  The second goodbye is to Lois Maxwell who played Miss Moneypenny in the first fourteen Bond films.  One of the best parts about these movies is the dynamic between Moneypenny and Bond - the woman who's always present, often flirting, and yet never in Bond's bed.  A far more subtle leaving is Maud Adams, the only Bond girl to appear in three Bond films.  Adams was first seen in The Man in the Golden Gun then again in Octopussy, where she played Bond's love interest of the film, first Andrea Anders then Pussy Galore.  In View she only plays the role of an extra, but it's still significant if only because she's the only Bond girl to appear in three films.

Octopussy (1983)

Starring: Roger Moore, Geoffrey Keen, Maud Adams, Louis Jourdan, Steven Berkoff, Desmond Llewelyn, Kristina Wayborn, Kabir Bedi, Robert Brown, Douglas Wilmer

Director: John Glen

Genre: Action, Adventure, Thriller

Rating: C

I went into this movie with a lot of doubt and hesitation.  One of my biggest complaints about this series as a whole has been the depiction of women and I was rather concerned when I saw the title.  I mean... Octopussy?  Really?  It's not the worst name for a woman that the Bond films have used, but it's pretty much up there.  The fact that this is one of the more recent films - it's from the eighties! - makes this a more bothersome fact.  I would hope that these movies would be getting less misogynistic as they go on, but alas.

Octopussy sees Bond (Moore) investigating the murder of another MI6 agent, 009 (Andy Bradford), and the replacement of a Fabergé egg with a fake.  Bond travels the world in order to find 009's killer and... along the way meets a woman named Octopussy (Adams) and uncovers a plot to detonate a nuclear warhead on an American army base.  Along the way there's also a ridiculous bit at the circus, because everyone wants to see Bond dressed up as a clown.

Honestly, I'm really not sure just what the hell happened in this movie.  It was just.... so very, very weird.  I'm not sure if I would say that I disliked it so much as it confused me and left me uninterested.  It tries to be serious but at the same time fails to be so in a way that just doesn't really work.  When it was on I wasn't really annoyed by it, but when it was over I wasn't really disappointed that it was over.  Actually, I was more relieved, which is never really a good sign for a movie.  James Bond, you can do better.

For Your Eyes Only (1981)

Starring: Roger Moore, Julian Glover, Carole Bouquet, Chaim Topol, Lynn-Holly Johnson

Director: John Glen

Genre: Action, Adventure, Thriller

Rating: C

James Bond (Moore) is back, this time in an attempt to retrieve the Automatic Targeting Attack Communicator (ATAC) from a British spy boat that has sunk in the Ionian Sea.  While there, Bond must also investigate the deaths of marine archaeologist Sir Timothy Havelock (Jack Hedley), who had been trying to locate the sunk boat for the British prior to his death.  If you suspect that Sir Timothy had a daughter who Bond ends up sleeping with, you'd be right. Her name is Melina (Bouquet), and she covers both For Your Eyes Only's racist and misogynist components.  Honestly, a part of me is starting to wonder if I'll miss the misogamy and racism once we start to get to the really contemporary films.  Rounding out the film is Greek intelligence informant Aristotle Kristatos (Glover), who guides Bond in Greece, Kristatos' protegee, figure skater Bibi Dahl (Johnson), smuggler Milos Columbo (Topol), and Columbo's mistress Countess Lisl von Schlaf (Cassandra Harris).  Surprisingly, only one of the two women in that list sleep with Bond, although not for lack of trying, but I'm not going to tell you which one fails to succeed.

A review of For Your Eyes Only by Derek Malcolm in The Guardian states that the movie is "too long...and pretty boring between the stunts."  This is pretty much exactly how I felt about For Your Eyes.  The stunts themselves were cool, but the movie overall was just long, dull, boring, and forgettable.  Having watched it all I can say is that I don't really care about it enough to comment much on it. It was unremarkable, and to comment further would be to pay too much attention to such a movie.  I will say, though, that I'm looking forward to being done with the Roger Moore Bonds.  I'm not a big fan of his.

Looper (2012)

Starring: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Bruce Willis, Emily Blunt

Director: Rian Johnson

Genre: Action, Sci-Fi, Thriller

Rating: A+

Lately I've been watching a lot of movies that I've either found to be outright bad or else simply not good.  A lot of them have failed to meet my expectations - a lot have made me question my expectations.  Looper is not one of these movies.  In fact, Looper is one of those movies that just absolutely blew my mind.  It is everything that a time travel movie should be.  Everything that a science fiction movie should be.  Everything that a movie should be.

In the not too distant future time travel will have been invented.  Immediately outlawed it is only used by the mob when they wish to get rid of someone; they send the person back in time, thirty years, where a looper executes them.  Sometimes the mob wishes to close loops; they seek out former loopers and send them back to be executed by themselves.  The looper is then given a sum of gold and the next thirty years to live out their life. One day Joe (Gordon-Levitt) discovers that his loop is being closed and makes the unforgivable mistake of letting his elder self (Willis) escape. Joe must find himself and kill him before it's too late - and all he has to go on is a piece of a map with a farm belonging to a woman named Sara (Blunt) and her son Cid (Pierce Gagnon).

This movie did not meet my expectations.  I went into it thinking that it was going to be about one thing and go in one direction and be good at what it did, maybe even great.  It didn't take me long to realize that it wasn't going in that direction at all and after a bit of discomfort I went with it - and I'm glad I did.  What Looper did was so much better than what I was expecting it to be.  It's so intricate and complicated and yet so amazing.

I love the world that they created here.  It's the future and has a lot of the typical futuristic elements that you expect - time travel, telekinesis, hovercars - but it also has a lot of really old world elements.  There's a lot to it that makes it feel like it's set in the 30s or 40s instead of the future, which I felt was just a really nice touch.  The movie doesn't over do the sci-fi or the futuristic elements, making things feel a lot more real than they do in most sci-fi movies.  Sure, time travel hasn't been invented yet an people can't make coins float, but a lot of what happens in Looper feels like it could be real.  A lot of the characters feel like real people.  The issues maybe not so much, but definitely the people.

The thing that really wowed me about Looper, though, was the ending.  It was something that I didn't see coming at all - aided heavily by the fact that I spent at least half the movie not exactly sure who I wanted to win or how I thought things were going to play out.  I had some elements of things figured out before hand, but not most of it so the ending was just this amazing surprise.  Looper distracts you, making you think about possibilities for some things and thus leaves you rather blindsided by other things.  Oh! And another thing that's awesome about this movie is Joseph Gordon-Levitt himself, and all the detail that they put into making him look like Bruce Willis.  I've watched Bruce Willis films for a long time now and Gordon-Levitt really reminded me of the other actor when he was younger.  The fact that they even had similar mannerisms and spoke in a similar way just made it all that much better.  You often see movies that have a young and an old version of the same character (although, rarely do they share scenes), but never before have I seen a film go to such lengths in order to ensure that they were so easily identifiable as being the same person.  It was that detail that really sold this movie for me in the trailers, and it was that detail that really helped sell the movie itself.

Moonraker (1979)

Starring: Roger Moore, Michael Lonsdale, Lois Chiles, Richard Kiel, Bernard Lee

Director: Lewis Gilbert

Genre: Action, Adventure, Thriller

Rating: C+

Bond (Moore) is back, this time investigating the disappearance of the space shuttle Moonraker.  His investigation brings causes him to look into Hugo Drax (Lonsdale), the owner of the company that made the shuttle, and Dr. Holly Goodhead (Chiles), an astronaut who is also investigating the disappearance.  Guess who turns out to be the bad guy and who turns out to screw Bond.

I think at this point the Bond movies are beginning to fall into a bit of a tired forumla; they open with something that probably has little to do with the current film (but might tie into the last one) and usually features Bond about to sleep with some woman, credits role, Bond is given a mission, he meets the bad guy who is pretending to not be the bad guy, he meets the woman, he flirts heavily with the woman while defeating the bad guy then screws the woman and all is good.  Honestly, it gets kind of boring after awhile.

Frequent Bond screenwriter Richard Maibaum has said of this movie that "[w]ith Moonraker, we went too far in the outlandish," which means that I'm allowed to critique Moonraker for its outlandish-ness.  I've criticized previous films for their outrageousness and it's been a frequent comment in these reviews that I've found myself saying "are you fucking serious."  While I've been trying to just go with it, in Moonraker I was back at the "are you fucking serious" state as problem after problem piled up.  I did enjoy the ending, I will admit that, but I wasn't really a fan of the journey to get to it.  It was, as Mauibaum put, "too far in the outlandish."  Even with a suspended disbelief, I couldn't really bring myself on board to the whole concept.

The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)

Starring: Roger Moore, Barbara Bach, Curd Jürgens, Richard Kiel, Geoffrey Keen, Walter Gotell, Bernard Lee

Director: Lewis Gilbert

Genre: Action, Adventure, Thriller

Rating: B

Where to start... Okay, well, credit where credit is due.  Once I stopped taking the series seriously I did in fact start enjoying them more.  I somehow doubt that I'll ever be a big Bond fan, but I'm not hating the movies so that's something.  I'm also really starting to enjoy Moore's Bond, possibly even more than Connery's (as I type this I can practically hear my brother shaking his head with disappointment).

Bond (Moore) is at it again, this time pairing up with his Soviet, female counterpart. When British and Soviet subs start mysteriously disappearing Bond is summoned by MI6 and Major Anya Amasova (Bach) is summoned by the KGB in order to investigate.   The two team up and eventually discover that scientist and anarchist Karl Stromberg (Jürgens) is behind it all.  It's up to the two of them to stop Stromberg and have hot sexy times, although not necessarily at the same time.

So, as it has become impossible for me to broach a Bond movie without mentioning the sexy times, let's start with a discussion of the Major, also known as Triple X.  This was probably the first Bond film where I felt that the relationship with the woman was neither demeaning to her nor out of context with the series.  So far, Barbara Bach just might be my favourite Bond girl.  She was a strong, independent woman who just happened to screw around with Bond during their mission.  He didn't demean her by doing things like hide her in a closet while he sleeps with another woman, and she also serves as more than just a damsel in distress for Bond to save.  In this movie I really felt like Bond found someone equal to him.

What else... the action was fun, although I would appreciate it if Bond movies stopped having underwater lairs.  These movies tend to be a bit repetitive, or at least the villains are.  Either they're really ridiculous and have me going "are you fucking serious" or it's the same thing over and over.  Plus the whole concept of an underwater lair makes for lame action sequences.  It's a pain to determine who's fighting who and the like when everyone's underwater wearing scuba gear.  Just saying.  While we were saved from this in Spy it wasn't from lack of trying.

The Expendables 2 (2012)

Starring: Sylvester Stallone, Jason Stratham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Randy Couture, Terry Crews, Chuck Norris, Liam Hemsworth, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger

Director: Simon West

Genre: Action, Adventure, Thriller

Rating: C

Okay, so I actually really enjoyed this movie.  Like it's predecessor, The Expendables 2 is lame and ridiculous in its plot, but it's also fun and action packed.  I saw this with my little brother and he made the comment that he thought some of the action sequences were extended just so that the movie could be a full length film; I on the other hand thought that the dramatic sequences were extended for the same purpose.

Barney Ross (Stallone) and his crew are back, this time joined by new comer Billy (Hemsworth).  Ross is approached by Church (Willis), who gives him a mission that he's forced to accept - following the events in The Expendables Ross owes Church.  The Expendables travel to Albania to retrieve an item from a safe in a downed plane; they're joined by technical expert Maggie Chan (Yu Nan).  Things go to this from there, and the Expendables come across arms dealer Jean Vilain (Van Damme).

Once again, this movie is lame and ridiculous.  It's fun though, and the action sequences were great.  I actually really liked that I saw it with my brother; periodically we'd turn to each other and make a comment, often along the lines of "do you think x is going to happen, or y?"  The Expendables 2 is horribly predictable, pulling out all the classics of an action movie, but it succeeds in remaining fun while it does so.  My favourite part of the film was the one liners and the fact that they made fun of themselves.  There was probably at least one part of the movie - a stunt, a line, whatever - referencing some other movie that the major players were in.

My one problem with the film is that Liam Hemswroth doesn't really fit into this movie, and sadly not in a good way.  His character clashes with the overall tone of the film and, to be honest, I really didn't buy him as an ex-soldier turned mercenary.  I understood the significance of the character, I just didn't really feel Hemsworth in the role.  He didn't fit in.

The Expendables (2010)

Starring: Sylvester Stallone, Jason Stratham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Randy Couture, Steve Austin, Terry Crews, Mickey Rourke

Director: Sylvester Stallone

Genre: Action, Adventure, Thriller

Rating: C

This was not a good movie.  The plot was lame, the acting was mediocre, the…. Really, the everything was not good.  The thing that I liked about The Expendables, however, is that it is exactly what it presents itself as.  This movie is little more than a mindless action flick filled with a bunch of old action stars.  It’s not trying to be anything more than that, it’s not pretending to be anything more than that.  Consequently, while the movie itself is definitely bad it’s also fun.

Because the plot technically is important, I’ll summarize the premise.  The Expendables are a group of bikers and elite mercenaries, lead by Barney Ross (Stallone), and composed of a ragtag group of fighters, many of whom look like they’re dangerously close to overdosing on steroids.      Ross is given a contract to overthrow a dictator in an island in the Gulf of Mexico, where things all go to shit.

This movie is unbelievably predictable and ridiculous and tried and tested and true.  And it’s awesome because despite all that it’s fun.  It’s totally the movie that you watch after a long day when you just want to see stuff blow up.  To be fair, though, that’s what most of Stallone’s movies are like, along with most of the rest of the cast.  This isn’t good, but it’s fun.