Film Favourites 3: GoldenEye

It’s time for another film favourite and today the DeLorean takes a trip to 1995, nearly 20 years ago.  The times were different.  My biggest concern was whether or not I would get to eat hot dogs for lunch and Bill Clinton was well on his way to disappointing left-minded people the world over.

This was also the year that a dashing Irishman would assume one of the most iconic film roles ever: British super spy James Bond.  Pierce Brosnan was going to succeed Timothy Dalton as the MI6 agent in the first Bond film since Dalton’s abysmal License to Kill (1989).  The spy film was highly anticipated and not just because it was a James Bond Film.  Significant world events had occurred that would have to be incorporated into the James Bond universe.  Between Dalton’s final turn as Bond and Brosnan’s first, the Cold War ended with the fall of the Soviet Union.  The James Bond films had heavily relied upon cold war tensions as a plot device as early as the 1962 cinematic debut of the franchise and it would be interesting to see how this new world would be adapted to the Bond fiction.

The film ended up being a fantastic success, earning more than $352 million world wide, and cemented Brosnan as an international superstar.

Fast Facts

• Release Date: 1995
• Director: Martin Campbell
• Starring:  Pierce Brosnan, Sean Bean, Famke Janssen, Izabella Scorupco, Alan Cumming
• James Bond Film: #17
• Trivia: Joe Don Baker, who plays Bond ally CIA Agent Jack Wade, appeared as the antagonist Brad Whitaker in Dalton’s 1987 Bond film The Living Daylights.

The films’ plot revolves around a renegade Russian (ex-Soviet) General working with a terrorist known only as Janus (Yan-us, as in the two faced Roman god) to steal control of a weaponized Soviet satellite (GoldenEye) that emits an electromagnetic pulse (EMP). Pretty outlandish, but hey, it’s James Bond. It does an excellent job of embracing a post-Cold War western world and much of the underlying dialogue discusses the lack of an enemy to the western powers.

Brosnan and Bean as 007 and 006.

One of the best examples of this is when Bond crosses suspected Janus operative Xenia Onatopp (Famke Janssen) in a European casino.  Their sexually-charged conversation turns to her Georgian accent and how Russia is now a “land of opportunity.”  Janssen actually does an excellent job of playing a femme fatale that uses sex as one of her greatest weapons, as her trademark move is squeezing her victims to death with her thighs… like a hot boa constrictor.  This may seem ridiculous, but it beats a diminutive Korean wrestler that can decapitate you with his bowler hat.

Brosnan’s Bond doesn’t just engage in sexual innuendo with Onatopp, he sort of engages it with everyone.  He plays Bond to be a deeply loyal patriot with a good sense of right and wrong but to also be deeply ingrained in  his vices.  Gone is the smoking Bond but Brosnan drinks, gambles and drives with reckless abandon.  He is a mix of a brawny Bond and a gadgety Bond, as he makes effective use of a wrist-mounted watch laser and an explosive pen in situations with exothermic results.

This Bond seems more vulnerable and more willing to trust others, which ultimately ends up doing him a disservice when the antagonist is revealed.  Janus turns out to be his former ally and friend, Agent 006 Alec Trevelyan (Sean Bean), who is “killed” in the opening’s pre-credit sequence that takes place 6 years before the events of the film.  Sean Bean’s villainous aim is essentially robbery with the stolen GoldenEye satellite, but is motivated to do so as his parents were Cossacks.  Cossacks were a group of Russians who collaborated with the Nazis in the Second World War, and apparently Trevelyan’s parents were killed by the British government he had once served.  While this motivation is pretty thin, it works well when considering the difficulty move makers were having developing spy films at this time.

Sean Bean eats up every scene he is in, playing Trevelyan as calm and collected.  Despite this, the character is very cold and has absolutely no regard for human life.  There are instances when he willingly lets his partners and henchmen die for his own personal interests.

This movie definitely has a cheese factor and I feel it is important to do that.  Consider this:

• It’s a pre-Daniel Craig Bond movie, so expect classic Bond cheese
• The CGI is really… really…really terrible
• The dialogue is loaded with quips and action movie one-liners
• It’s almost twenty years old, so technology in this film is hilariously obsolete

That being said, this is probably Brosnan’s best Bond performance before they really went full-cheese with Tomorrow Never Dies, The World Is Not Enough and Die Another Day.  It’s cheesy in a classic way.  It’s good for cheap laughs and classic Bond action and persona.

An old friend of mine and I used to watch this at x1.5 speed, which I recommend for hilarious results.

Film Favourites 2: Batman

Writing Film Favourites is way too much fun, so I’m going to do another one.  This week, I offer up Tim Burton’s Batman from 1989.  A wild success upon its initial release, the recent Batman films have somewhat overshadowed it- and given it unwanted criticism.  The film is, after all, 24 years old.  It is certainly aged upon viewing.  Instead of the very real Chicago-turned-Gotham that Christopher Nolan utilizes in his Dark Knight Trilogy, Tim Burton opted for classic set design on a sound stage.  While this is slightly evident aside from a few street scenes, it really doesn’t take away from the movie if you consider the thematic ambiance Burton is striving to portray.

Fast Facts

• Release Date: 1989
• Director:  Tim Burton
• Starring: Michael Keaton, Jack Nicholson, Kim Basinger, Michael Gough
• Interesting Tidbit: The theme was composed by Danny Elfman, who also has composed famous themes for The Simpsons, Spider Man, Beetlejuice, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Good Will Hunting and Men In Black.

What Makes Batman Awesome

As this was the first Batman feature film since the campy Adam West Batman: The Movie in 1966, the movie was both heavily anticipated and heavily criticized during production.  Comic book writers of the 1980’s had worked diligently to isolate Batman from the absurd camp that he had come to be associated with in the 1960’s and 1970’s.  He was made a gritty character, an anti-hero and story lines moved away from cartoonish villains with goofy plots to grizzly murders, vile acts and brutal violence.  A great example of this is Frank Miller’s graphic masterpiece The Dark Knight Returns or Alan Moore’s The Killing Joke.  These two violent Batman tales would be used by Burton as his influence for his vision of Batman.

Michael Keaton, once he was controversially cast, also used The Dark Knight Returns to prepare for the role of Bruce Wayne/Batman.  Keaton pulls this off reasonably well, especially when he is the lone focus of the screen.  His pensive face emotes without emoting, allowing for his eyes to convey the inner torture of Bruce Wayne- a lust for justice motivated by the murder of his parents.   He also conveys a calculated wit, showing emotion only because it is the most tactful response to a given situation.  Keaton conveys the numbness of Bruce Wayne by putting forth convincing, but ultimately forced, emotion.

Michael Keaton’s Bruce Wayne broods in the Batcave.

While Keaton portrays the eponymous protagonist, he ultimately plays second fiddle to Jack Nicholson who gives The Joker a manic and psychopathic embodiment with the cunning of a Mafia Don.  Nicholson’s Joker is a laughing shark, stalking silently but striking violently.  This is portrayed in numerous scenes that Nicholson does nothing short of dominate, whether it be an eerie interruption of an evening news broadcast or a flamboyant desecration of the Gotham City Museum of Art.  The latter scene is matched with music from Prince, a masterful contrast that makes each viewing delightfully creepy.

The Burton Joker will inevitably be compared to Nolan’s, portrayed by the late Heath Ledger, and this is simply unfair.  They are very different but simultaneously close to perfect when considering the director’s vision.  Burton is widely noted for his eccentricity and off-the-wall style and this is exactly what Nicholson delivers.  When considering the aforementioned comic material used to influence the film, a case can even be made that The Joker is also the truest character to the source material in the film.

The Joker’s cover-up is washed away, revealing the face of the killer clown.

Rounding out the characters is a decent portrayal of photojournalist Vicki Vale by Kim Basinger, who replaced previously cast Sean Young after Young was injured in a horse riding accident.  Basinger is not a traditional damsel in distress and portrays a photo journalist that has been hardened by covering war atrocities with confidence.  Michael Gough is memorable as Bruce Wayne’s faithful butler Alfred despite limited screen time.  Whereas in the recent films Nolan opted for Michael Caine’s Alfred to vocally oppose Batman’s war on crime, Burton has Gough portray Alfred as faithful but silently conflicted.

Finally, Batman may have dated set design but not enough can be said about how well it portrays Gotham City.  It’s gritty, dirty and defiled by criminals.  The Victorian Gothic architecture blends well with the marvels of a modern city of the late 1980’s.  It gives Gotham City a distinct feel and oozes what can only be described as Burton Noir from the blood soaked alleyways to the gargoyle adorned towers and spires.

Batman may be a bit off the wall and take some creative liberties with the source material, but ultimately it achieves what it was intended to do.  It serves as the destination that comic writers of the era idealized Batman to be.  It’s dark, it’s moody, it’s sometimes uncomfortable and it’s bizarre.  It may even have aged a little, but if viewed with the right mindset this aging can be akin to that of a fine wine rather than of a faded glory.  It’s still entertaining and definitely worth your time.

Film Favourites 1: Raiders of the Lost Ark

Taking a cue from classmates, I’ve also decided to add a “series” component to my blog.  Also, given that my last post was about sports, I thought I would breach over into pop culture this week.

Welcome to Film Favourites, where I slather various movies with buttery praise and salty recognition.  I like a wide variety of movies, and I will very rarely turn a movie down.  You’re reading the words of a guy who paid to see Snakes on a Plane in the theatre four times.  For my first Film Favourite, I will be discussing what is in contention to be one of my most favourite movies of all time:  1981’s Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Fast Facts

• Release Date: 1981
• Director: Steven Spielberg
• Executive Producer: George Lucas
• Starring: Harrison Ford, Karen Allen, John Rhys-Davies

What Makes Raiders of the Lost Ark Awesome

This is a movie that has elements of absolutely everything contemporary cinema tries to employ.  You want action?  It’s there.  You want suspense?  Mhmm.  Romance (you know, for the ladies)?  Raiders has it.  Humour? You’ll chuckle.  Definable good versus an objective evil? Well, the bad guys are Nazis.

Raiders of the Lost Ark simply has it all.  The story follows archaeologist Dr. Henry “Indiana” Jones (Harrison Ford) on his quest to find the Ark of the Covenant.  The Ark, said to have housed the the original stone tablets of the 10 Commandments, has had a mysterious history.  It is so divine and so powerful, it is said that any army that possesses the Ark cannot be defeated.  So, aside from the obvious, why would the American government task Indiana Jones with finding it?  Well, because the year is 1936 and Nazi German dictator Adolf Hitler is said to covet it.

The movie then moves from exotic locale to exotic locale with aplomb.  Indiana Jones recruits his former lover and the daughter of his mentor, Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen), in Nepal and while here discovers that the heart of the Nazi expedition for the Ark is in Cairo, Egypt.  Once in Cairo, the pair enlist the help of Sallah (John Rhys-Davies), a local ally who is working on the Nazi dig site.

The Cairo aspect of the movie ranks among the best acts in movie history.  A sneaky assassination attempt, a gunfight in the street, a pit of poisonous Egyptian asps and a desert car chase pace the movie in a way that develops the plot without ever becoming too monotonous.  There is never an overabundance of dialouge or a thick layering of action.  If the balance isn’t perfect, it’s the closest thing to it.

One of the quirkiest moments is a great bit of adlibbing on the set by Ford.  The script called for Indiana Jones to pursue a kidnapped Marion through the streets of Cairo, dispatching bad guys along the way.  It was to culminate with a 1 on 1 showdown with a skilled henchman with a sword in a brutal fist fight.  However, Ford was not feeling well on the day of the shoot and expressed his disgust at having to film the scene with an improv that actually made it iconic.  Check it out:

That’s awesome.  This also made Jones’ fist-fight with a beefy Nazi around the operating propeller of a German bomber later on in the movie much more compelling and unique.  I won’t spoil how that one ends if you haven’t seen it.

This fight scene deserves “props.”

To top it all off, the movie ends with the Nazi bad guys’ faces MELTING OFF.  This, for the 1980s, is truly special effects. It makes me miss the days when stuff like this actually required effort and ingenuity instead of a computer screen.  How horrifyingly cool is this?

Finally, what really makes Raiders of the Lost Ark a great movie is the character of Indiana Jones himself.  He’s part adventurer, part MacGyver and part normal guy.  He doesn’t win every fist fight easily.  He relies on his intelligence as much as his brawn and doesn’t even plan out how he is going to act.  He is an impulsive, dynamic character.  He is reactionary as much as he is a catalyst to the story.

Raiders of the Lost Ark is truly a timeless classic.  It’s a quintessential movie experience and you’ll probably start geeking out over it as much as I do if you give it a fair shot.  As Indiana Jones would say…