In a break with tradition, and in advance of the Pan's Labyrinth review, PCMR has felt compelled to make a posting without even a hint of a movie review... the reason for this? Well, who would have thought it, but it appears Daniel Craig has been replaced as James Bond... you have to say though, his replacement looks more than capable...
Kudos to the folks at Obsessed With Film for finding this little gem.
Even as event movies go, James Bond is one of those rare beasts: a franchise that seems to transcend audiences, appealing to many different types of cinema-goer. The old cliche of 'men wanting to be him and women wanting to be with him' is probably the easiest mental shortcut to make when thinking of double o'seven's appeal to a global audience. But Bond has been rather in the doldrums of late, even if the box office hasn't reflected the dip in quality of the franchise since 'Tomorrow Never Dies'.
And so with the event of this new Bond movie comes the added audience giddiness provided by a new James Bond. There can hardly be many ways of mainlining yourself more rapidly into the global cultural mainstream than by reprising the role of Mr. Bond. You know all their names, I'm sure, even if the names of other Timothy Dalton or George Lazenby movies don't spring to mind all that readily...
If you have read some of my other reviews on this site, you'll know I was happy with Daniel Craig's appointment as Bond after seeing Munich. However, I hadn't been interested in the Bond franchise at all since that one with Teri Hatcher.. even Halle Berry's presence just seemed to make Pierce Brosnan descend into hammy double entendre, and when Madonna was given a guest starring role in Die Another Day, well.. let's call it a bit of a low point for double o'seven.
I'm happy to say that this Bond is definitely different from Pierce Brosnan's outings. Paul Haggis - who also wrote the po-faced 'Crash' - was drafted into the writing team on Casino Royale, and the result of his influence is a script full of character, nuance and intelligence. Whether this is what the Bond faithful really want is another thing, but there is also plenty of crash bang wallop for the entry fee. Two memorable action set-pieces book-end the movie, and both are really high-octane episodes, and memorable for their originality. However, between these set pieces, there's.. well, Bond's budding relationship with Versper Lynd is developed, and after many flirty sparring sessions of wordsmithery between the two, we learn much about both. And this is what makes this Bond so different. Rather than presuming we know Bond, we are actually introduced to him in Casino Royale. Daniel Craig screams in pain in Casino Royale. He falls in love, he bleeds, he sweats and yes, he almost cries near the end... Sean Connery wouldn't have been caught bloody dead in this one, I can tell you!
There's a high-stakes poker game involved as the centrepiece of Casino Royale, and plenty of assorted unpleasantness for Bond to deal with in between hands while he tries to outwit the deeply unwholesome 'Le Chiffre', played with cold repulsiveness by Mads Mikkelsen.
The ambition appears to be to make Bond more real, someone audiences can relate to, and in my opinion, Daniel Craig's performance is strong enough to achieve this. His intimate moments with Vesper are as watchable as his assorted action sequences, where he regularly gets bruised and battered, but overall he should remove all doubt that he is a more than capable Bond.
The gadgets are numerous and integrate well with the story, even if there is no 'Q'.. or 'R'. (Still not sure about that whole John Cleese episode either..) And the cars, well they gradually improve throughout the flick, and by the end, Bond is driving a rather nice Aston Martin DB9 which will provide a pleasant distraction for all the blokes in the audience while some of the boring chick flick bits are going on!
More importantly than simply being a good movie in its own right though, Casino Royale has, for me, re-invented the Bond franchise. As Casino Royale ends, we're left with little doubt that Daniel Craig's Bond is meaner than the one we met at the start of the picture, and you get the impression that next time round, we'll have a very different movie as a result. Roll on Bond 22 but if the Bond producers are reading, dudes, you gotta make it shorter! Two and a half hours of any Bond is too much... unless it's Thunderball, then it's ok! Oh, and if you're still listening, Quentin Tarantino's available to direct...
Verdict: Bond, but not as you know it.. a solid reboot for a previously tired franchise.
Rating: 7/10
In Hollywood, a thirty second 'pitch' can make or break careers. Time is money and all that, so if large bellied cigar-smoking Hollyood fat cats cannot digest the entire premise of your movie idea in thirty seconds flat, chances are they won't give you the sacred 'green-light'. If I was ever in the unenviable position of needing to pitch a movie idea to a Weinstein or one of his mogul cronies, I think I'd be comfortable if it was something like Crank, confident even. So my pitch for this one would go as follows:
"Ok, Harvey baby, this is a sure-fire winner. Stick with me now, ok? Action movie. Hard core. No special effects though, gritty violence, with a Grand Theft Auto sense of humour, you got me? (For the kids these days, know what I'm saying?) Ok, the story, here it is: a guy wakes up. He's a hitman, but he's been poisoned and is going to die unless he finds an antidote. But here's the thing: the only way he can stop the poison from working is to keep his adrenaline levels as high as he can! So this guy (we're thinking Jason Statham, you know, the big british kid) he's got to keep himself pepped up, moving fast and get into as many dangerous situations as he can, just to stay alive."
I imagine Harvey slowly raising an eyebrow, puffing on his Dominican stogie, and asking "how much?" or possibly "will there be titties?".
A simple idea then. But to really profit from a good idea, you need all the elements of your movie to pull together, and in this case, it seems to have happened. Crank is a mature action movie, and is all too aware of it's reason for being. Put quite simply, this is lively, ballsy entertainment. Jason Statham is perfect in the lead role of the hitman who has been double-crossed, and now needs to max his adrenaline to survive. Much has been made of Daniel Craig's screen presence lately, but Statham really makes a case for himself as a leading man in Crank. In Munich, I got the sense that Craig was pretty dangerous, and this convinced me of his Bond credentials (Casino Royale review to follow folks!) However, Statham is as convincing a deranged lunatic as any I've seen on screen recently. He also looks like he would break you in two, a quality lead for an actioner like this.
It's interesting to chart the progress of someone trying to make it big in Hollywood. Statham has taken a route that is difficult territory: he wants to be an action hero. Looking at the choices he has made though, I have to say I think he's doing a pretty good job. Since 'Lock Stock' and 'Snatch' he's picked his roles carefully, and has craftily cultivated an image of himself as the next Bruce Willis (but more British). Movies like 'The One', 'The Transporter' and 'Mean Machine' are gradually making Jason Statham a very bankable star. Hollywood likes bankable stars. Watch this space folks, for he'll be earning $20 million a picture soon.
Anyway, back to Crank. The action scenes are very well constructed, in that there is no reliance on intricate special effects sequences, no martial arts, no cyborgs, there aren't even many big guns to speak of. Crank's action relies on primarily on car chases and in-your-face fist fights to drive the adrenaline levels up.
However, the action alone isn't all there is, the sense of humour on display in Crank is really excellent. There are some great lines, and not of the Arnie-style catchphrase variety, genuinely good lines. Watch out for when Statham asks his girlfriend to "save my life baby", priceless!
Amy Smart has a nice turn in Crank as Statham's ditzy stoner girlfriend, and although she's not the feminist's idea of a three-dimensional character, she's a welcome foil to Statham's driven rampaging.
Much of the action takes place while Statham is busy sorting out his next move on his mobile phone, and this device means that the audience has to multi-task, taking in the action while registering the dialogue. It's an interesting technique, and means that even though the action is impressive, it never dominates proceedings at the expense of a good one-liner or more importantly, a plot!
If this movie was a man, it would be 'Duffman', saying 'booyah" repeatedly, and thrusting his pelvis like Gary Neville at Anfield. Watching Crank, I found myself laughing out loud more than once, and the action sequences genuinely do get the adrenaline levels going. This is a real alpha male of a movie, and definitely worthy of a look.
Verdict: Booyah! If you're looking for an hour and a half of polished action with a great sense of humour, then you really could do a lot worse than Crank.
Rating: 8/10
Since watching 'Munich' recently, I've drunkenly argued that Daniel Craig will make a good James Bond at least once. Casino Royale is released on November 17th, allowing audiences to decide on the merits of Craig as Bond in an actual movie however, rather than simply on the appearance of the actor. Maybe the jury is still out... At least in Layer Cake, Craig gets the chance to simply be a leading man in a straight-forward gangster movie, without all that Bond baggage hanging over him.
Given that Layer Cake is a gangster movie, and an English production, you could be forgiven for putting it in the same category as something from the pen of Guy Ritchie. Indeed, perhaps the reason why Layer Cake hasn't had the same level of success as, say, 'Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels' is audience fatigue with the tongue-in-cheek Cockney gangster flick. However, to simply write off Layer Cake as another Lock Stock is unfair, as there is enough quality on display in the movie to differentiate it from the slew of copycat efforts that were churned out following Guy Ritchie's success.
First of all, the characters in Layer Cake are not simply cardboard cutouts. Yes, some of them have dangerous sounding nicknames, but hey, so do the real life bad guys. The thing that makes Layer Cake interesting is probably Daniel Craig's character. His brand of gangster is a cocaine-dealing businessman, experienced in making sales, but lacking in exposure to the sorts of criminal acts that mean he needs to get his hands properly dirty. He is not a weary, wise-cracking wideboy. His character has to face up to violent situations for the first time, learn how to handle guns, and generally think his way out of various situations involving numerous unsavoury characters, and Craig does a good job of portraying his fear, his inexperience, and his general distaste for the nasty side of the business he finds himself embroiled in, and all just when he was about to retire from the business...
Ok, so now we're talking about a criminal who's about to retire. Well, I didn't say Layer Cake was entirely free of cliches now did I!? It does many things well, and is a good representation of the genre, but let's be honest, it's not ground-breaking in its originality!
It looks great, and director Matthew Vaughn has a good eye for light and colour, which transfers very well to the screen. The script is intelligent, the dialogue is zippy but never self-conscious or too clever, and the action is slickly crafted, with a pace to keep even short attention spans happy. Also, the third act twists and turns so much, you'll be unlikely to guess how it all pans out. The rest of the cast, including Colm Meaney (who I dont think has ever played a similar character to this) and George Harris as Craig's sidekick Morty (an angry man) are quite good, and the dialogue isn't just witty one-liners and rhyming slang, it's intelligent and well-delivered.
However, despite a very good opening hour, the third act of Layer Cake left me a little cold. I was always interested to see how the story panned out, but I found it a case perhaps of one twist too many in the end.
Verdict: In a word, good. Not worth going out of your way for, though.
Rating: 6/10
Ah, Steven Spielberg, so fundamentally part of the Hollywood establishment, the modern American archetype of the popcorn auteur, delivering cinema with mature themes and challenging our views on important issues, all packaged in box-office vehicles replete with the required levels of Star Power... what happened to the man who made 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' I ask you?! Gone it seems are the ripping yarns and memorable adventures of unlikely heroes such as Dr. Jones, replaced instead with conflicted concentration camp managers, gore-spattered soldiers storming beaches, and most recently, the existentially motivated, emotionally complicated political assassins of 'Munich'...
Spielberg's segue into cinema of artistic merit is to be applauded, there's no doubt about that. The man is obviously keen to leave behind him a body of work containing more than juvenile fantasies, adolescent adventures and a robotic shark. I have every respect for this change of direction, and Spielberg's own sincere attempt to raise his personal creative bar. However, as movie-goers, we can only evaluate his success based on what we see on-screen.
Schindler's List was very dramatic, but had its flaws. Saving Private Ryan was a great cinematic experience, and probably Spielberg's best movie in the last fifteen years. However, in terms of a movie experience, Munich may have set the bar a little too high for Mr. S.
It is set in the aftermath of the Munich 1972 Olympics, when Palestinian terrorist group 'Black September' orchestrated events resulting in the deaths of 11 Israeli athletes, as well as many of the Black September activists involved in the operation. The event was extensively covered by the world's media, and watched by a global audience - even the terrorists themselves as the German authorities surround the Olympic enclosure in the midst of the siege.
Israel reacts to the tragedy by organising a hit squad of Mossad agents, charged with eliminating the 11 Black September members who pulled the strings behind the disaster. Avner (Eric Bana) is given the undercover mission, with apparently unlimited resources from the Israeli government to aid him in his task. Working for him are an unlikely team, including an inexperienced bomb-maker, an antiques dealer, a member of the ANC (Daniel Craig) and a more mysterious team member, who is evidently more experienced in these matters than the others.
Bana is selected as he has no prior experience of field operations, but has European roots and is good with languages. The Israeli authorities choose him for these reasons, not only because the mission will be based in Europe, but also because he will ideally be able slip in under radar, and track down the Black September members without fear of being identified as a known activist, at least not straight away. So, he leaves behind Israel, his home, and a heavily pregnant wife and travels to Switzerland, to return home when all targets have been eliminated.
However, Bana is a sensitive soul. As his mission progresses, he becomes more and more disillusioned with the knowledge that killing Palestinians only galvanises the supposed enemy, and renews their will to fight for what is their ultimate goal, a homeland. It seems also that as the Black September targets are eliminated, they are replaced in their positions with characters of more violent disposition, prolonging the war even further.
Eric Bana works very well with this role, and is exceptional in the middle third of Munich, for me the most effective section of the film. The supporting players, in particular Ciaràn Hinds and a menacing Daniel Craig, are also well above average, and their interactions and reflections on their mission add impetus to the change in Bana's mental state, which becomes visible before too long. Michael Lonsdale also has a curiously ambiguous supporting role, and adds a welcome, interesting tangent to proceedings.
Munich is a sumptuous film to look at. Speilberg is obviously enjoying himself back in Europe, and although in every country he visits, he seems to delight in displaying national stereotypes to set the scene (garlic in France, canals and bicycles in Holland etc) he makes the most of the locations, and represents them beautifully on screen.
The political side of Munich is handled gently, and never dominates proceedings. Spielberg could have been a lot more heavy-handed in this, but appears to have made an effort to be balanced at every turn. The Palestinians in Munich are not all two-dimensional monsters, like the Nazis from Schindler's List. They are real people who explain their actions, and when Bana is exposed to this, his troubles increase. His personal struggle to complete his mission and return home is pitted against the Palestinian desire for a country of their own to call home, and this contributes to Bana's growing malaise with his grisly project.
There is much to enjoy in Munich, and I hope I've managed to put that across. The thing is, I think Spielberg has slightly overextended the scope of his ambitions for a project obviously very close to his heart. At two hours and forty minutes, the runtime will give you an idea of how much there is in the movie for the audience to digest. With a more ruthless editor, much of the excess weight could have been shed from the story, and the important messages delivered more coherently.
In addition, Spielberg has imprinted some moments of Munich with his more juvenile trademarks, and at times, this jars with what the characters are actually doing. The bomb-maker character uses various gadgets to plant his murderous wares, and the scenes where he unveils his creations evoke moments from more tongue-in-cheek action flicks. These seem genuinely out of place in a context where the central characters are struggling to justify killing in the name of their country.
So is it worth seeing? Well, I wouldn't slate the film, it definitely has a lot going for it. Eric Bana is really staking his claim as a great leading man - at times I could have sworn it was Liam Neeson up there on screen. (I don't know if it's that they're both around seven feet tall, or is it Bana's Israeli accent hitting my ears in some unusal brogue, but there is definitely a likeness!) Daniel Craig, too, is impressive as a threatening henchman, and has a physical presence that will definitely reassure Bond fans of his ability to do well with the role. Also, as a film with political themes at its core, the message in Munich is not gift-wrapped - the script ain't half bad. To be honest though, I was ultimately left a little cold by the last hour of the film, where the pace really lets it down.
The final shot of the movie should leave the audience with little doubt of Spielberg's wish to be relevant, ambitious and politically aware with 'Munich'. He has definitely convinced me of this, I just think that, on balance, he could have made a better movie.
Verdict: confident, well executed, flawed film-making. Political, weighty and a little sluggish. Great performance from Bana.
Rating: 6/10