What I'm watching

Hi all, this tumblr mainly exists as a way of tracking all the movies I've been watching and some of the initial thoughts, and general feelings, I've had about them.

5/5 - Fantastic movies; movies which need to be seen and enjoyed by everyone.

4/5 - Movies which are very good but don’t have that spark which compels you to make others watch them as well.

3/5 - Average movies; watchable and enjoyable, but nothing which elevates them higher. The baseline all movies are given before watching.

2/5 - Can be watched but really bland and forgettable.

1/5 - Minimal to no reason to watch these films. It may have some redeeming factors e.g. it’s so bad it’s good or there’s one character that’s awesome enough to make it not a total waste of time.

0/5- Total waste of time. Nothing redeemable about these films.

As with every review blog/site, this is all my own personal opinion so feel free to take everything with a grain of salt.

Also I'm Scottish so all reviews will be in UK English. Get used to theatre, colour and words ending in -ised.

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Catching Elephant is a theme by Andy Taylor

 

#431/#148 Skyfall James Bond (Daniel Craig) must return to duty after being thought dead when MI6 is attacked and M’s (Judi Dench) life threatened. For those who don’t follow me, or started following me after May 2011, you may not know that I’m a huge James Bond fan. So much so that I reviewed all 22 official James Bond films last April (links to all of which can be found here). It’s one of the few franchises I actually fanboy out over and, as such, a quick recap of my feeling on the series are in order before the main review. I don’t like Danial Craig in the role of James Bond. It’s not a knee-jerk thing because he’s not the typical Bond actor or a slight against him as an actor (I actually quite enjoy his performances when he’s not showing up in franchises I love) but a dislike of the way he presents the character. Craig’s Bond is a thug who’s only use is as a blunt weapon. He can’t quip, he isn’t suave and he looks out of place in every situation where he isn’t beating someone up. That’s not Bond. As such I haven’t cared for his run of Bond films. Casino Royale is a great action movie but it is not a good Bond movie and Quantum of Solace is just bad in every sense of the word. Regardless of this however, I was quite excited to see what Skyfall had to offer. Q was back, there seemed to be an interesting villain being played by a good actor, it wasn’t a direct sequel and we had dealt with all the annoying origin story issues thus freeing Bond up to go back to the good old days of stand alone, non-personal missions. So did it work?…sort of. Most importantly, the majority of the film actually feels like a James Bond movie. The opening sequence is strong, the premise engaging and the action suitably rewarding. I was fully willing to accept that this was a return to form we hadn’t seem since the World is Not Enough, and then the last 1/2 hour of the film happened. They just couldn’t help themselves from trying to be Jason Bourne once again and it killed it for me. I like both franchises but they’re two separate animals and shouldn’t be trying to be one another. Skyfall pulled it up at the end for a really good closing sequence but the entire Scotland section didn’t need to happen. All of the major emotional elements which happen there could have been done earlier in London (possibly motivating a revenge fueled run at the criminally underused villain’s lair location for a more Bond-esk ending). Cast-wise I have no complaints. Dench was fine as always while the newcomers of Naomie Harris as Eve, Ralph Fiennes as Mallory and Ben Whishaw as Q all filled some sorely lacking roles missing since the reboot. I look forward to their contributions in future installments. Berenice Marlohe, while a fairly throw away character who fills almost an identical role to that of Scaramanga’s mistress in the Man with the Golden Gun, was absolutely stunning to behold; top notch Bond girl. Javier Bardem also does a great job creating certainly the most memorable Bond villain since Goldeneye. Again I felt his character weaken once he gets to the Scotland section, but for the rest of the film he is really fun to watch. Even Craig impressed me this time around. There were moments in Shanghai where he managed to even reminded me of Connery in the role a little but then he would try to quip and reality quickly came crashing back in. On the whole I’d say I liked Skyfall, and it’s the first of Craig’s films I truly accept as a James Bond film. Despite this however, it’s nothing particularly worth writing home about. It’s pretty middle of the road as an action film, as a Bond film and as a film in general. It’s also far too long, and could have done with being cut down a little. It’s Craig’s Thunderball or Man With the Golden Gun; a couple of good elements but nothing that memorable about it. I’m more interested now to see what comes next 3.5/5 and in case of interest I’d rank it as my new no 11, above Moonraker but below Licence to Kill on my person Bond ranking list.

#431/#148 Skyfall

James Bond (Daniel Craig) must return to duty after being thought dead when MI6 is attacked and M’s (Judi Dench) life threatened.

For those who don’t follow me, or started following me after May 2011, you may not know that I’m a huge James Bond fan. So much so that I reviewed all 22 official James Bond films last April (links to all of which can be found here). It’s one of the few franchises I actually fanboy out over and, as such, a quick recap of my feeling on the series are in order before the main review.

I don’t like Danial Craig in the role of James Bond. It’s not a knee-jerk thing because he’s not the typical Bond actor or a slight against him as an actor (I actually quite enjoy his performances when he’s not showing up in franchises I love) but a dislike of the way he presents the character. Craig’s Bond is a thug who’s only use is as a blunt weapon. He can’t quip, he isn’t suave and he looks out of place in every situation where he isn’t beating someone up. That’s not Bond.

As such I haven’t cared for his run of Bond films. Casino Royale is a great action movie but it is not a good Bond movie and Quantum of Solace is just bad in every sense of the word. Regardless of this however, I was quite excited to see what Skyfall had to offer. Q was back, there seemed to be an interesting villain being played by a good actor, it wasn’t a direct sequel and we had dealt with all the annoying origin story issues thus freeing Bond up to go back to the good old days of stand alone, non-personal missions. So did it work?…sort of.

Most importantly, the majority of the film actually feels like a James Bond movie. The opening sequence is strong, the premise engaging and the action suitably rewarding. I was fully willing to accept that this was a return to form we hadn’t seem since the World is Not Enough, and then the last 1/2 hour of the film happened. They just couldn’t help themselves from trying to be Jason Bourne once again and it killed it for me. I like both franchises but they’re two separate animals and shouldn’t be trying to be one another. Skyfall pulled it up at the end for a really good closing sequence but the entire Scotland section didn’t need to happen. All of the major emotional elements which happen there could have been done earlier in London (possibly motivating a revenge fueled run at the criminally underused villain’s lair location for a more Bond-esk ending).

Cast-wise I have no complaints. Dench was fine as always while the newcomers of Naomie Harris as Eve, Ralph Fiennes as Mallory and Ben Whishaw as Q all filled some sorely lacking roles missing since the reboot. I look forward to their contributions in future installments. Berenice Marlohe, while a fairly throw away character who fills almost an identical role to that of Scaramanga’s mistress in the Man with the Golden Gun, was absolutely stunning to behold; top notch Bond girl. Javier Bardem also does a great job creating certainly the most memorable Bond villain since Goldeneye. Again I felt his character weaken once he gets to the Scotland section, but for the rest of the film he is really fun to watch. Even Craig impressed me this time around. There were moments in Shanghai where he managed to even reminded me of Connery in the role a little but then he would try to quip and reality quickly came crashing back in.

On the whole I’d say I liked Skyfall, and it’s the first of Craig’s films I truly accept as a James Bond film. Despite this however, it’s nothing particularly worth writing home about. It’s pretty middle of the road as an action film, as a Bond film and as a film in general. It’s also far too long, and could have done with being cut down a little. It’s Craig’s Thunderball or Man With the Golden Gun; a couple of good elements but nothing that memorable about it. I’m more interested now to see what comes next 3.5/5

and in case of interest I’d rank it as my new no 11, above Moonraker but below Licence to Kill on my person Bond ranking list.

final thoughts and future musings

Well that’s it for James Bond Month (and a 1/2), I’ve had a lot of fun going back through and watching all of films and I got to discover a lot more about them than I had previously known. For those that joined me during this time I hope you stick around to hear all my other very important musings on other films (and by very important I of course mean the completely unimportant immediate thoughts of one random guy with way to much free time on his hands at present).

For my existing followers, those of you who stuck with me even though they had no interest in James Bond, well played Sir or Madam, you can stop scrolling past my posts now. I tried to keep it pretty even between random other films and the Bond ones so as not to saturate any one audience and I hope I pulled it off. Back to the usual from now on.

My final thoughts on Bond are that with Bond 23 having been relaunched and Daniel Craig set to reprise his role 2 more times, what I would like to see happening with the series now is a shift back to a more Brosnan style film. We’ve now done the origin story and everything in them has been wrapped up into a nice little bow. It would be nice now to see Craig just going on a mission and not being so scowly all the time. Let him face some sort of megalomaniac intent on world domination. Have it be a member of Quantum, or better yet let Quantum turn out to only be a smaller subsidiary organisation of a rebooted SPECTRE. There have been rumblings of Michael Sheen being suggested as the new Blofeld and I think that would be great. Maybe not for the next film but if they set up it could be the main plot of Bond 24.

Also bring back Moneypenny and Q. I miss them. There is no reason not to at least have Moneypenny now. Bond is more controlled in his actions, he’s gotten over Vesper so now he’s going to be doing the bed them and leave them routine while on missions but he can still interact with the newly appointed secretary to M before he goes off on them. We could see the beginning of the Moneypenny/Bond dynamic. It would be like 1-2 minutes worth of screen time and then have her walking with M handing her files as M does all the stuff she has been doing in the last 2 films for the rest of it. Q could be the same. It doesn’t have to be a super duper gadget, just something you could see a spy actually using like the attache case from FRWL or even just being given his new gun like in Dr No would work and would help Craig’s Bond feel less like a generic action film and more like a Bond.

Saying all this ideally what I would want is Craig to leave at let a new actor have a go. The cycle has been: great actor, shit actor, good actor but stayed to long, good actor which stopped the silliness but too serious, great actor which started strong but got to silly again by the end, ok actor stopped the silliness but is getting too serious. We’re due another good to great actor to come in and do a couple films but it looks like it could be at least 3-4 years before that’s even a possibility.

Finally, thanks to everyone that liked any of my posts and special thanks to 0equalz2 who damn near liked every piece of Bond trivia I produced. It helped to know I wasn’t just talking to nothing with these reviews.

David

How I rank the James Bond Movies #1 Goldfinger 5/5 #2 From Russia With Love 5/5 (These two are basically joint first. Goldfinger is a better Bond film while FRWL is a better film overall) #3 The Spy Who Loved Me 4.5/5 #4 Goldeneye 4.5/5 #5 Casino Royale 4.5/5 (This would be #16 If taken purely as a Bond film rather than a really good action film) #6 The Living Daylights 4/5 #7 You Only Live Twice 3.5/5 #8 Tomorrow Never Dies 3.5/5 #9 Live And Let Die 3.5/5 #10 Licence To Kill 3.5/5 #11 Moonraker 3/5 #12 The Man With The Golden Gun 3/5 #13 The World Is Not Enough 2.5/5 #14 Dr No 2.5/5 #15 Thunderball 2.5/5 #16 For Your Eyes Only 2/5 #17 Diamonds Are Forever 2/5 #18 Quantum of Solace 1.5/5 #19 View To A Kill 1/5 #20 Die Another Day 1/5 #21 Octopussy 1/5 #22 On Her Majesty’s Secret Service 0.5/5

How I rank the James Bond Movies

#1 Goldfinger 5/5

#2 From Russia With Love 5/5

(These two are basically joint first. Goldfinger is a better Bond film while FRWL is a better film overall)

#3 The Spy Who Loved Me 4.5/5

#4 Goldeneye 4.5/5

#5 Casino Royale 4.5/5 (This would be #16 If taken purely as a Bond film rather than a really good action film)

#6 The Living Daylights 4/5

#7 You Only Live Twice 3.5/5

#8 Tomorrow Never Dies 3.5/5

#9 Live And Let Die 3.5/5

#10 Licence To Kill 3.5/5

#11 Moonraker 3/5

#12 The Man With The Golden Gun 3/5

#13 The World Is Not Enough 2.5/5

#14 Dr No 2.5/5

#15 Thunderball 2.5/5

#16 For Your Eyes Only 2/5

#17 Diamonds Are Forever 2/5

#18 Quantum of Solace 1.5/5

#19 View To A Kill 1/5

#20 Die Another Day 1/5

#21 Octopussy 1/5

#22 On Her Majesty’s Secret Service 0.5/5

Order in which I rank the James Bonds #1 Sean Connery (Dr No, From Russia With Love, Goldfinger, Thunderball, You Only Live Twice, Diamonds Are Forever) - The first and the best. #2 Pierce Brosnan (Goldeneye, Tomorrow Never Dies, The World Is Not Enough, Die Another Day) - Made Bond fun again after the seriousness of the late 80’s. #3 Timothy Dalton (The Living Daylights, Licence To Kill) - A little bit too intense in the role but what the series needed after the descent into comedy with Moore. #4 Roger Moore (Live And Let Die, The Man With The Golden Gun, The Spy Who Loved Me, Moonraker, For Your Eyes Only, Octopussy, A View To A Kill) - A different type of Bond but enjoyable all the same. Stayed with the series to long however. Should have stopped after FYEO. #5 Daniel Craig (Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace, signed on to do Bond 23 and Bond 24) - Good actor but trying to make Bond too real. Bond needs a touch of the extreme and the fanciful to work properly. To much of a thug. #6 George Lazenby (On Her Majesty’s Secret Service) - Bland Bond in a Bland film. Glad he only did one.

Order in which I rank the James Bonds

#1 Sean Connery (Dr No, From Russia With Love, Goldfinger, Thunderball, You Only Live Twice, Diamonds Are Forever) - The first and the best.

#2 Pierce Brosnan (Goldeneye, Tomorrow Never Dies, The World Is Not Enough, Die Another Day) - Made Bond fun again after the seriousness of the late 80’s.

#3 Timothy Dalton (The Living Daylights, Licence To Kill) - A little bit too intense in the role but what the series needed after the descent into comedy with Moore.

#4 Roger Moore (Live And Let Die, The Man With The Golden Gun, The Spy Who Loved Me, Moonraker, For Your Eyes Only, Octopussy, A View To A Kill) - A different type of Bond but enjoyable all the same. Stayed with the series to long however. Should have stopped after FYEO.

#5 Daniel Craig (Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace, signed on to do Bond 23 and Bond 24) - Good actor but trying to make Bond too real. Bond needs a touch of the extreme and the fanciful to work properly. To much of a thug.

#6 George Lazenby (On Her Majesty’s Secret Service) - Bland Bond in a Bland film. Glad he only did one.

My Top 10 Villains/Henchmen from the James Bond Series #1 Oddjob (Goldfinger) #2 Auric Goldfinger (Goldfinger) #3 Red Grant (From Russia With Love) #4 Ernst Stavro Blofeld (You Only Live Twice) #5 Jaws (The Spy Who Loved Me, Moonraker) #6 Francisco Scaramanga (The Man With The Golden Gun) #7 Hugo Drax (Moonraker) #8 Xenia Onatopp (Goldeneye) #9 Alex Trevelyan aka 006 aka Janis (Goldeneye) #10 Karl Stromberg (The Spy Who Loved Me)

My Top 10 Villains/Henchmen from the James Bond Series

#1 Oddjob (Goldfinger)

#2 Auric Goldfinger (Goldfinger)

#3 Red Grant (From Russia With Love)

#4 Ernst Stavro Blofeld (You Only Live Twice)

#5 Jaws (The Spy Who Loved Me, Moonraker)

#6 Francisco Scaramanga (The Man With The Golden Gun)

#7 Hugo Drax (Moonraker)

#8 Xenia Onatopp (Goldeneye)

#9 Alex Trevelyan aka 006 aka Janis (Goldeneye)

#10 Karl Stromberg (The Spy Who Loved Me)

My Top 10 Leading Ladies/Femme Fatales from the James Bond Series #1 Anya Amasova aka Agent Triple X (The Spy Who Loved Me) #2 Tatiana ‘Tanya’ Romanova (From Russia With Love) #3 Natalya Simonova (Goldeneye) #4 Vesper Lynd (Casino Royale) #5 Xenia Onatopp (Goldeneye) #6 Elektra King (The World Is Not Enough) #7 Fiona Volpe (Thunderball) #8 Kara Milovy (The Living Daylights) #9 Aki (You Only Live Twice) #10 Tracy Bond (On Her Majesty’s Secret Service)

My Top 10 Leading Ladies/Femme Fatales from the James Bond Series

#1 Anya Amasova aka Agent Triple X (The Spy Who Loved Me)

#2 Tatiana ‘Tanya’ Romanova (From Russia With Love)

#3 Natalya Simonova (Goldeneye)

#4 Vesper Lynd (Casino Royale)

#5 Xenia Onatopp (Goldeneye)

#6 Elektra King (The World Is Not Enough)

#7 Fiona Volpe (Thunderball)

#8 Kara Milovy (The Living Daylights)

#9 Aki (You Only Live Twice)

#10 Tracy Bond (On Her Majesty’s Secret Service)

Casino Royale imitated Dr No by having Daniel Craig rise out of the water in much the same fashion as Ursula Andress. Quantum of Solace did something similar by having Agent Fields (Gemma Arterton) killed by being drowned with oil and then covered in it in a similar fashion to Jill Masterson (Shirley Eaton) in Goldfinger. This was to signify oil has now replaced gold as the more precious material.

Casino Royale imitated Dr No by having Daniel Craig rise out of the water in much the same fashion as Ursula Andress. Quantum of Solace did something similar by having Agent Fields (Gemma Arterton) killed by being drowned with oil and then covered in it in a similar fashion to Jill Masterson (Shirley Eaton) in Goldfinger. This was to signify oil has now replaced gold as the more precious material.

#134 Quantum of Solace (Rewatch) Still reeling from the death of Vesper in Casino Royale, James Bond (Daniel Craig) is on a mission to track down the organisation which brought about the situation which caused her demise. In doing so he uncovers a new plot to buy up land in Bolivia and stage a coup to destabilise the region under the guise of environmentalism by Dominic Greene (Mathieu Amalric). Will Bond stop them in time or will his anger and plans of revenge cloud his judgement enough to throw him off his game? And so we reach the final film in the series so far. This film would mark two significant changes in the series. Firstly, this is the only direct sequel to any of the Bond films. Elements have been referred to, or hearkened back to, in previous films but at no other point have the events of a previous movie so influenced the events of the following. Secondly, and less importantly, the gun barrel sequence does not appear at the beginning of the movie but only at the very end. Where Casino Royale had a good plot and great action to compensate for its lack of Bond attributes, QOS is a pretty mediocre to bad action film with a silly plot and minimal Bond attributes. This makes it rather boring to watch and as such this viewing of the film was only my second outside of my initial viewing in theatres. Any interest I had in Bond and his origin story had been dealt with in the previous instalment. We did not need another one. This film has a car, foot, boat and plane chase and not one of them leaves any lasting impression on the viewer. While Casino had Jason Bourne like elements throughout, QOS seems to have taken its cinematography stylings as well, making everything fast and shaky. I hate this! The worst thing the Bourne series did to modern action movies was make every director think they need to also do this to make their action scenes work. They don’t. Casino’s stunts were great, you got some up close fights but it also panned back so we could see what the hell was going on every so often as well. Our villain has taken a massive step down in this installment as well. I watched this film yesterday but I had to look up the villains name again before writing this because of how little impact he leaves. His plan to steal water supplies, while an actual real life problem which is only going to get worse in future years, doesn’t make for a good Bond villain plan. Previous villains: I want to nuke Fort Knox, I want to start my new underwater nation, I want to repopulate the earth with superior people, I want to EMP London etc. Now: I want to control the irrigation of Bolivia…oh dear God, this totally sounds like a job for James Bond. The ladies this time around, while no Vesper, are both pretty good. Our main leading lady Camille Montes (Olga Kurylenko) is out for revenge for her family and sits well with Bond’s mentality in this film. I also think she’s the first main leading lady not to sleep with Bond at any part in the film. Strawberry Fields (Gemma Arterton) is the more usual random chick Bond boffs before being killed but she’s interesting enough to set herself a little higher than most of the regular girls who’ve fit that definition throughout the years. I don’t like this iteration of Bond, I don’t like this film and the action can’t save it this time making it one of my least favourite Bond films 1.5/5

#134 Quantum of Solace

(Rewatch)

Still reeling from the death of Vesper in Casino Royale, James Bond (Daniel Craig) is on a mission to track down the organisation which brought about the situation which caused her demise. In doing so he uncovers a new plot to buy up land in Bolivia and stage a coup to destabilise the region under the guise of environmentalism by Dominic Greene (Mathieu Amalric). Will Bond stop them in time or will his anger and plans of revenge cloud his judgement enough to throw him off his game?

And so we reach the final film in the series so far. This film would mark two significant changes in the series. Firstly, this is the only direct sequel to any of the Bond films. Elements have been referred to, or hearkened back to, in previous films but at no other point have the events of a previous movie so influenced the events of the following. Secondly, and less importantly, the gun barrel sequence does not appear at the beginning of the movie but only at the very end.

Where Casino Royale had a good plot and great action to compensate for its lack of Bond attributes, QOS is a pretty mediocre to bad action film with a silly plot and minimal Bond attributes. This makes it rather boring to watch and as such this viewing of the film was only my second outside of my initial viewing in theatres. Any interest I had in Bond and his origin story had been dealt with in the previous instalment. We did not need another one.

This film has a car, foot, boat and plane chase and not one of them leaves any lasting impression on the viewer. While Casino had Jason Bourne like elements throughout, QOS seems to have taken its cinematography stylings as well, making everything fast and shaky. I hate this! The worst thing the Bourne series did to modern action movies was make every director think they need to also do this to make their action scenes work. They don’t. Casino’s stunts were great, you got some up close fights but it also panned back so we could see what the hell was going on every so often as well.

Our villain has taken a massive step down in this installment as well. I watched this film yesterday but I had to look up the villains name again before writing this because of how little impact he leaves. His plan to steal water supplies, while an actual real life problem which is only going to get worse in future years, doesn’t make for a good Bond villain plan. Previous villains: I want to nuke Fort Knox, I want to start my new underwater nation, I want to repopulate the earth with superior people, I want to EMP London etc. Now: I want to control the irrigation of Bolivia…oh dear God, this totally sounds like a job for James Bond.

The ladies this time around, while no Vesper, are both pretty good. Our main leading lady Camille Montes (Olga Kurylenko) is out for revenge for her family and sits well with Bond’s mentality in this film. I also think she’s the first main leading lady not to sleep with Bond at any part in the film. Strawberry Fields (Gemma Arterton) is the more usual random chick Bond boffs before being killed but she’s interesting enough to set herself a little higher than most of the regular girls who’ve fit that definition throughout the years.

I don’t like this iteration of Bond, I don’t like this film and the action can’t save it this time making it one of my least favourite Bond films 1.5/5

I can’t think of any other interesting facts, lines or gadgets which are specifically interesting from Casino Royale so here’s Eva Green looking rather hot in one of the promotional pictures. Enjoy.

I can’t think of any other interesting facts, lines or gadgets which are specifically interesting from Casino Royale so here’s Eva Green looking rather hot in one of the promotional pictures. Enjoy.

And here we have the final Bond, James Bond. Better than Lazenby’s but probably only as good as Daltons. Again this is in more of a combat situation than a social one, so it was never going to be as good as Connery, Brosnan or Moore’s. He also seems to be channeling Connery’s accent a little bit for some reason when he says James Bond.