2015 - SPECTRE, more of the same

Daniel Craig, the actor who couldn't crack a joke if his life depended on in is back in his 4th and hopefully last Bond film.  This time the writers tried to give Craig a sense of humor with some Sean Connery or Roger Moore type of wisecracks but it's just not in him to have a light touch with a line of dialog.

The film itself is kind of a mess story wise, with the production team trying to tie together all of Craig's previous films into some kind of story telling epic, that doesn't succeed.  In fact the whole series seems just completely exhausted from a story telling point but what are they going to do but keep making Bond films.  The films still make money.

As with all Bond movies the production values are high.  The films are good to look at and the action stuff is fairly well done.  However there is an uncomfortable call back to previous Bond films particularly the Sean Connery films with many scenes borrowed and reworked for SPECTRE.

 

The film has take some heavy hits from some critics but really this is the same old stuff told in a rather pedestrian way. The last 20 minutes are probably the worst part of the film and it's a long film as well.

148 minutes, written by John Logan, Neal Purvis, Robert Wade and Jez Butterworth.

2012 - SKYFALL - the James Bond series keeps rolling along

 As the bad guy's helicopter with the high powered machine gun flew around James Bond's childhood home blasting it into a million pieces, I couldn't help thinking the perhaps the fun has finally drained out of the series.

I fully understand that the Sean Connery and Roger Moore, films in the series are a thing of the past.  Still it  seems that this serious streak the series is going through with the humorless Daniel Craig isn't much fun to watch anymore and maybe Craig could really start to lighten up a bit.  This is very apparent when the film rolled out the Aston Martin from Goldfinger for the last half of the film.  This was the only time in the theater the audience cheered.

The Bond series really seems out of ideas in this film.  The "put James Bond out to pasture" thing was already done in Goldeneye.  Also this cyber crime plot and focusing on the M character seems like pretty tired and unimaginative stuff.  Javier Bardern as the gay criminal mastermind is good but this character lacks the larger than life villainy that Joseph Wiseman, Lotte Lenya, Gert Frobe, Adolfo Celi and even Charles Gray brought to this stereotypical role.

Finally, this film is incredibly long,  coming in at over two hours with a very plot heavy story about James Bond's search for personal redemption blah blah blah.

But what do I know, this is one of the most successful films in the series.  Critics are critics fawning all over it and the the general public loves it.

143 minutes.

2002 - ROAD TO PERDITION, graphic novel and film

The Road To Perdition exists in 2 forms, a graphic novel and a film directed by Sam Mendes for Steven Spielberg's production company.

The graphic novel is a grim 300 page story about a hit man working for a Midwestern crime boss who along with his son is seeking revenge for his wife's death after the crime boss's son kills her.  The graphic novel is told from the point of view of the 12 year old as the hit man goes on a robbery and killing spree to get back at the crime boss.

The comic book panels are drawn very dramatically and the story has a lot of killing in it but since the pictures are in black and white the reader is sparred looking at some lurid violent images.  There is very little dialog in the graphic novel.  It's a quick read.  Some attempt is made at characterization, but for the most part it's just a series of pictures of people getting shot in the head.  

I'm not sure what Spielberg exactly saw in this story?  Perhaps the attempt to tell a story about a father and son and cast it as an American tragedy was the appeal.

The film is certainly a very good looking production.  The director Sam Mendes was still pretty hot having won and academy award for American Beauty.  The cinematographer Conrad Hall was one of the best technicians in Hollywood, he had achieved legendary status working during the 1960's and 1970's.  Tom Hanks and Paul Newman were the big stars.  The film had major award winner slobbered all over it.

Unfortunately the basic hollowness of the story defeats the film.  The graphic novel had to be changed and expanded especially in the second half of the film. You can't have two big stars like Tom Hanks and Paul Newman in a film and not have them appear together occasionally.  New scenes were written for them to do their acting stuff which really brought nothing to the story.  Another addition in the film is to create a creepy killer, who likes to take pictures of his victims after he kills them, ho hum.

Even with all the technical and artistic ability on hand, The Road To Perdition is an empty uninvolving film.  Another disappointment from Sam "the Man" Mendes.

2009 - AWAY WE GO with this piece of s**t comedy

Smarmy piece of miserable self important junk about a couple of pathetic losers about to have a baby. They travel all over the United States to find friends or relatives that will support them after their baby is born. They should have taken the seven million dollar budget for this film and used it for toilet paper, it would have at least provided relief for a few people. I can't even begin to convey the facile tone and shallowness in these characters and their situations. This smug and supposedly funny but in reality unfunny film is borderline offensive in it's condescending attitude to almost every character these people visit. Their final revelation, "there's no place like home. " The filmmakers apparently needed to stoop to stealing from The Wizard of Oz for their homespun morale .

Written by two American writers who apparently lived in a part of the United States only seen in a Mary Worth comic (go ahead and google that reference). This film was directed by Sam Mendes, the British theatrical director who had previously made American Beauty, Jarhead, and Revolutionary Road. Mendes has absolutely no feeling for or any idea about what American culture is even about.

 98 minutes.