The Best Bond?

One of the reasons I restarted these reviews was that I forwarded a link to my ancient, fawning, opinion on Timothy Dalton’s acting when a friend of mine started posting something on Facebook. He said it was good and I should try writing this sort of thing again.

Well among other things it got me thinking about James Bond in general and I want to take this opportunity to do a deconstruction of Bond. What I think works and what I think, in retrospect, didn’t.

So, lets start at the beginning with the creator; Ian Fleming. Here’s the thing a lot of people gloss over, Fleming was the original super spy agent. This is not a joke, it’s completely true. He was part of the founding team of MI6 and was behind one of the most infamous spy operations of the second world war, Operation Mincemeat. If you don’t know the story behind Mincemeat you owe it to yourself to look it up, it is a hollywood drama. It just actually happened!

Anyway after basically inventing the real modern spy industry Fleming created Bond as the ultimate gentleman spy. Cultured, refined, ruthless, charming and ultimately without morals. He was written as an anti-hero, the anti-hero. Not someone to look up to but still respect. The idea was that the bad guys aren’t going to play fair and rather than being the good guy that wins despite this Bond was going to fight dirty first.

This was new at the time. If you look at the classic setup the hero is the so called white hat and always a good guy no matter what and the villain twirls his moustache as he does evil things, evilly. As soon as Bond comes into popularity the Anti-hero is more recognised and that moral black and white we’re all so comfortable with in action get thrown out the window. So the impact of Bond in popular fiction is very, very important and we’re still coming to terms with it in some cases. 

Bond was massively popular when it started as pulp novels, one coming out every year like the latest blockbuster movie. People flocked to the shops to buy the latest adventure to read on holiday, so naturally with such a willing market films were going to follow.

The first Bond film was Dr No (1962) and looking back on it today it is horribly dated. With a lot of visual gags and references going completely over people’s heads. For example there’s one shot, shortly after Bond meets with Dr No, where he sees a painting resting against a banister. It means nothing today, but at the time that was supposed to be a reference to a famous painting that had been stolen a year earlier and was still missing at the time (its since been recovered).

There’s quite a lot of these little facts, enough to keep IMDB trivia hunters occupied for days and that’s something you have to take into account when looking back at Bond over the years. What worked then doesn’t work now. For example Connery’s Bond would often slap and abuse women he thought were hiding something from him, or if they were hysterical. This casual sexism was risqué at the time, done to show he wasn’t a good man, but today it is utterly unacceptable. Moore’s version casually bedding anything with a skirt at the time showed he was virile and charming. Today? Not so much. With our rose-tinted nostalgia glasses firmly in place I’m going to try and review all the actors to play Bond and try and understand the impact they had on each other and the Character as a whole…

Film Review:- Tomorrowland A World Beyond

Well I'm back. I'm going to start trying to write reviews again and I'm got to start with what I think is a hidden gem, that I'm sure is going to become a cult classic in a few years.

Tomorrowland A World Beyond

Now I'm going to try and avoid spoilers, because while the twist is sort of obvious, especially in hindsight, its important you follow the journey with the characters. Having someone like me just blurt out whats going on does take something away from the film and I don't want to ruin it.

It didn't do very well in theatres, and has been a slow burn on DVD / Video / Download and there are a number of reasons for it. The trailers had no idea how to market this movie, trying to portray an action adventure film. Oh it's certainly an adventure film but the action isn't as important as the message. Lots of professional critics latched onto that message and didn't like it, accusing the film of being too preachy and pointing out that the solution was too simple for what is a very complicated problem. Ironically that was the argument from the film, it knew the answer sounded simple in principle, difficult in execution but worth it in the end.

But I'm getting ahead of myself, we need to get some context. First of all its based on a Disney theme park ride and that puts you on the defensive immediately. Sure Pirates of the Caribbean was good, at first. It all went down hill quite quickly as it became an overblown mess. Then you have other films with the same principle, like Eddie Murphy's Haunted Mansion, and the alarm bells start ringing. In fact it was because of this I avoided the film in the cinema and despite my curiosity I only picked it up a couple years after it came out. Which was a shame. In truth it takes a really good director, that has the complete faith of the studio, to take a tricky premise and make it work. The co-writer and director was Brad Bird. Skill and faith wasn't the problem, Brad Bird has films like The Iron Giant and The Incredibles under his belt and also did a fantastic job with his first live action film Mission Impossible - Ghost Protocol. He'd proven his mettle and the studio backed off just enough to give him the room he needed to tell the story he wanted. Now sure he wasn't alone in writing and Damon Lindelof, he of Lost fame, was also involved but he was just the co-driver. Bird had his hands on the wheel and it was his baby

Next up we have to look at the cast because aside of two big names, George Clooney and Hugh Laurie, the cast is full of relative new comers. Including Britt Robinson (who does have a long list behind her IMDB page but Tomorrowland is her first "big" role) and Raffey Cassidy. Both young girls are fantastic actors that had great chemistry with each other and the rest of the cast. I will be very surprised if the two of them don't go on to have legendary careers. All this together you have a recipe for a very good movie.

End of year Doctor Who review.

Alright. The year ends and I’ve got a job to finish. Now I’ve tried reviewing recent Doctor Who adventures all year but life, being what it is these days I’ve never had the chance. Now I do.

So what am I gong to review here. In short; Matt Smith’s last two adventures and whatever I can tag on…

So to begin the 50th anniversary special, Day of the Doctor. I loved this episode, great fun to watch and well written. Tenant slipped back into the role like he was riding a bike, he even still fit the old brown suit (something he and Piper joked about behind the scenes). Smith bounced off both him and Hurt expertly, having buckets of fun along the way laughing at himself. Hurt was going to be my big sticking point, I couldn’t be sure he would be the Doctor or a parody. No disrespect to his acting (he is good) but you need time to create and settle into a role. Coming in for a one off special doesn’t give you that time. I forgot about Moffat’s writing, Hurt hit all the right notes to be one of the best Doctors we never had.

Supporting cast had to pull up their game to match these three and they did. Piper came back, but not as Rose. Big point that. As I’ve said before I hate Rose, she was badly written to start with. While we were told she was kind, and cared all we saw was a silly girl more than willing to sacrifice the whole world for a sleeting selfish moment. Instead of the badly written Rose Piper came back as the Bad Wolf / interface of The Moment. Proving that while I might not like the roles she played Piper is actually a good actress.

Linkara's Creative Challange

Okay Linkara (AKA Lewis Lovhaug) An on line video reviewer just posted a creative writing challenge. I've been thinking about this and here we go.

First of all background; during his reviews of comic books both old and new Linkara has vast storylines with some fairly competent plots. Basically it's his way of saying "Yes I can do it too, and better than you" to the comics he reviews. Believe me when I say he really can. Having little to no life to speak of I've been following these storylines for awhile and enjoyed them. 

The challenge is how would you defeat a villain like the Entity? Now the Entity was one of the threats that Linkara has faced. A non-corporal creature with the ability to create glitches in the fabric of reality. Erasing people objects and things from existence at a whim. As it self is a glitch it exists outside of what we would call reality, making it invincible. An unstoppable force of pure chaos it considered itself a Lovecraftian Outer God. Skipping across all realities, inhabiting all and none of them. A true multi-versal being  

Linkara defeated it (spoilers by the way) by using the Kirk method of the logical half nelson. Basically convincing it that it's endless conquering of existence would and could only end with it having to eventually destroy itself. Spurred on by the classic; "If you know everything, tell me what happens when YOU die?" The Entity un-made itself.

So the question is how would I defeat it if I was writing it. The logical half nelson works pretty well, but I'd have gone a different route. Multi-verse theory states that every decision and every possibility must happen, just some where else. The Multi-verse is simple too big. Imagine the million possibilities and decisions we make every second. One person, everything we do is a decision. The amount of ways I could write this article is almost uncountable, and those spelling mistakes I catch and those I don't. So while Linkara's option was "What then?" my first reaction is to point out just how futile the idea is in the first place.

Another option would be the recursive "Why" trick. Just respond to every answer with the question "But why?" Eventually you unravel their intentions to the point where even they aren't sure why they are doing anything. That or when you have the ultimate motivation you shred that with common sense, more logic and of course common sense.

They are still both variations on the same theme, I on the other hand always like to be a little more original. So how would I go for it? Appeal to another Outer God, warning them of the problem and letting them deal with it? Time travel to before it became a threat and lay a trap before giving myself the ability to travel in time, Bill and Ted style? Convince it to divide by zero? Appeal to it's vanity and convince it to spare me in the name of entertainment while it gobbles up all the rest of existence? 

All valid plans, in context at least, but no. They all have too many holes, relying on outside forces that may or may not work. If I was going to gamble I'd gamble big. I'd have challenged it to a game. It would have to be chess, or some other game with strict rules that it would have to agree to, but that's the best alternative. Or mix it with the Kirk method. Talking while playing.

There's enough evidence that this would work, during the storyline the Entity toys with, plays with Linkara as a cat would play with a mouse. It's obviously looking for entertainment. From my understanding of the character it would jump at the chance to prove just how clever it was, how superior. Hubris is often the best weakness to exploit. Even knowing what you're doing your opponent will still walk right into it.

That's my answer to your challenge Lewis. Challenge The Entity to a game:- the winner lives, the loser dies. The game in question however would not be chess, but Yu-gi-oh! Oh and your finishing trick, the item in you're third inventory slot could have been a Kuriboh card… Boom, using the entity's own trick against it!

Enjoy!

At Worlds End Review

You ever watched a football match, or Cricket, or any sport really and this happens:- It's your favourite team, they're legendary in your eyes, and been a good match so far. Sure there's something off about the way your team's playing, but you chalk that up to nerves, or that they're playing tactics you're not familiar with. Then, in the last few minutes, the other side scores an equaliser. Your heart's in your mouth as the ref calls extra time. Boom, they come out swinging while your team just flounders. The match is lost and you head down to the pub to blitz the whole thing from your memory.

That is exactly what happens in Pegg and Wright's new film At Worlds End. They had all the ingredients, but in the end it all went wrong. And, more importantly, I can tell you why and exactly where it fumbled. And that's the end of that metaphor, I hope.

Quick summery, and there are spoilers so if you don't want them you've already got my opinion. Good start, fun middle, botched ending but still worth seeing.

Man Of Steel Review

Trying to review Man Of Steel is more difficult than you might think. You see it's like the egg fried chilli chutney sanwidge (see Red Dwarf) All the ingredients are wrong. The director is wrong, Zack Snyder is only slightly better than Michael Bay when it comes to hack direction. Just see 300 and Sucker Punch. David S. Goyer is infamous for balls-ing up his own scripts. Seriously he might have done the first take on Batman Begins but he is also directly responsible for both the abysmal Blade Trinity and Nick Fury, Agent of Shield (back when it was played by the Hoff. Seriously look it up) So he's hit and miss. Christopher Nolan, most famous for his Batman Films, is great with psychological stuff but that's just an aspect of Superman. Not the whole thing.  On top of that we have a complete reboot of the franchise. Always decisive.

These are all bad ingredients, but together they sort of worked. It's first hurdle was to set itself apart from the Chris Reeve movies, which it did. It's second was to not distance itself too much from the source, again made a good job of that. We got some nice motivation from Zod and Jor-El that played into the overall plot, but not enough exploration of that concept. At least for me, but more on that later.

Spoilers after the Jump but if you just want an arbitrary score, Good film that has it's flaws, but still very enjoyable. If you like action, Superman or just a couple hours of mindless entertainment go and watch but it ain't as good as it could have been

So, Jump

Doctor Who:-The Bells of St John

Alright, I might as well write a review about this episode. I've tried to write reviews for all the episodes recently but got nowhere with time being a problem. Still this episode deserves an in-depth look. Or at least as in depth as I can get.

First things first, the so called bells of StJohn. Yes it was the TARDIS phone ringing. Next. Well not quite, lets look at this point for a second. The Doctor has retreated to a 13th century monastery and taken up the role of a monk in an effort to find Clara, the woman twice dead. When you have a TARDIS, something that has access to pretty much all the information in the universe, it might take awhile but just throw the TARDIS randomiser on and travel. If you're going to bump into her you will. I love Steven Moffat's run on Doctor Who, but these pointless asides are getting grating.

The whole point was the phone call and the line "Some woman in the shop gave it me, supposed to be the best helpline in the universe." Fan theories are ten a penny as to who gave Clara the number to the TARDIS. Most people betting on River. Me, I'm leaning in the direction of either Amy or Rose. But I'm fairly sure that it's a dead end. It won't effect the overall mystery of who, or how Clara is who she is. Speaking of which, neither will this episode. Other than the Doctor meeting her I highly doubt what happens here is going to have more than a tangential impact on the overall story, much like the giant floating Eyeballs in Amy's first episode. Still they are the focus of this episode so that's what I'm going to look at