Monthly Archives: November 2008

Film

Review Quantum of Solace

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So let’s get the obvious out of the way:  Daniel Craig is not the James Bond of decades past.  At least not largely.  This is probably ample material for a separate blog entry, but to make a long story short, his is a post-9/11, post-Jack Bauer, post-Jason Bourne Bond.  And as such, much of the excesses have been stripped away, leaving a good deal of room for character development and more intense action.  And as expected, it’s something of a divisive decision; Roger Ebert doesn’t care for it, and he’s far from alone.  Critical consensus for Quantum of Solace has been mixed at best, especially contrasted with the near-universal praise for Casino Royale.

But all the same, Casino Royale was, after Die Another Day, a breath of fresh air.  While Brosnan’s Bond movies were hardly economical spy thrillers, he was able to carve out his own niche as a Bond somewhere between Connery’s swagger and toughness and Roger Moore’s likeable wit.  Gadgets, though pleantiful, were never centre-stage.  At least for his first three movies.  Die Another Day was at least on-par with Roger Moore’s campiest outings, and while I enjoyed it, Bond looked closer to Austin Powers than ever thanks to contemporary spies like Jack Bauer and world events taking a sharp turn to chaos and uncertainty.

Exit Brosnan, enter Daniel Craig.  When Casino Royale gave the series (and the character) a fresh start, Daniel Craig had to both stay true to past incarnations and prove he could keep up with Jason Bourne and the like.  And he had to make the character his own.  And thanks to Martin Campbell’s direction, most agreed he delivered.  Quantum of Solace, Craig’s follow-up, continues in a similar direction, but isn’t quite as well executed.  While it’s by no means a poor addition to the Bond catalog, it does have it’s share of shortcomings.

The storyline is actually not too un-Bondian.  Bond, betrayed by Vesper Lynd, is out for revenge for her death, and as luck would have it, he stumbles upon a conspiracy much larger than his initial scope.  It echoes similar storylines from Connery’s first few outings as Bond, but manages to feel like a revenge tale all the same.

Where it most significantly differs from Casino Royale (and all previous Bond outings) is how economical it is.  This unfortunately works both for and against it.  A number of early action scenes feel too short, and the edits are simply too fast.  This is most prominent in the opening car chase, but the rooftop chase and hotel fight scene both were a little too close to similar scenes in the Bourne series for comfort.  Not necessarily bad things, but still alien to the series, and too quickly paced for my liking.

Similarly economical is the dialogue.  Bond has very little to say, especially since a still-green 007 lacks the confidence and cockiness to drop cheesy one-liners and ridiculous innuendo on a regular basis.  M’s role is expanded, but dialogue is still largely kept to a minimum.

But after the first act, things take a turn for the better.  It’s almost as if Director Marc Forster became more comfortable with the film as he went.  The turning point is Bond doing some legitimate spying at the Opera.  It’s one of the best scenes in the movie, and probably one of the best spy moments that a Bond movie has seen in quite some time.  From there, the movie resembles a Bond movie more.  Action scenes look a little more epic.  Bond’s women are a little less cold.  And Bond’s cold exterior warms up a little.  While Dominic Greene isn’t a cartoonish megalomaniac with a hollowed-out volcano, he still manages to be an effective villian, and the film ends with a very strong fight scene, and a great deal of promise for future installments.

While Marc Forster probably shouldn’t refocus his career to making big-budget action flicks, it’s still a solid entry in the Bond canon.  Make no mistake, this is a far cry from Roger Moore’s campy classics, but it’s taking a similar direction to Connery while making good use of Daniel Craig’s talent as an actor.  Of course, growing pains are to be expected with a series re-boot.  And Quantum of Solace doesn’t match Casino Royale.  But it’s beginning to look more like James Bond than it did at the end of Casino Royale.  Rebuilding a character as legendary as Bond from the ground up was an unenviable task, but I still believe that Daniel Craig will be remembered as the strongest rival to Sean Connery.

Daniel Craig is, sometimes in spite of the thin script and Marc Forster’s action scenes, giving Bond the proper 21st century makeover.  While I hesitate to say that we’ll have the good old Bond back sooner than later, Quantum of Solace is still a step in the right direction after Casino Royale.  How well it works might be easier to determine when the Quantum story arc has closed, but things are looking good, even without Q’s fancy toys.

As a Bond movie: B

Overall: B+

Film

Rental reviews Run Fatboy Run Where in the World is Osama bin Laden

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Run Fatboy Run – 2007 (dir. David Schwimmer) I greatly enjoy stories of actors who willfully drop way off the public radar to pursue something they really enjoy.  For example:  Michael Palin of the Monty Python troupe has done a handful of acting gigs since the group disbanded for good some decades back, but his main passion seems to be travel.  Obviously having the BBC bankroll and film your global escapades helps a lot, but he obviously had no intent to cash in on his fame by just taking on whatever projects come his way.  The same is true of Friends star David Schwimmer.

Save a particularly memorable role in Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg’s World War 2 miniseries Band of Brothers, Schwimmer has been keeping a very low profile since the show ended in 2004 by working primarily in the theatre and taking some stabs at directing.  Run Fatboy Run is his first Directorial effort for the screen, however.

The premise of the film is that Dennis Doyle (Simon Pegg) is a hapless mallcop who made the mistake of leaving his pregnant fiance Libby (Thandie Newton) at the altar five years ago.  He’s spent those five years doting on his son (though certainly an atypical father) and running the wrong way in life.  See what I just did there?  The movie does it, too.  After meeting Libby’s new boyfriend, the impossibly perfect Whit (Hank Azaria), Dennis decides that he needs to run a marathon to not just win Libby back, but get his life back on track.  Another running metahpor, I know.  But the movie’s about running, both literal and metaphorical.

David Schwimmer spent ten years intimately involved on Friends, and it shows.  It’s a very economical comedy in a number of ways.  Impressively, it never gets too self-involved with it’s own jokes.  A good example of this is the lockerroom scene between Pegg and Azaria.  A lesser director (and lesser actors) would have made every possible penis joke, but Pegg wisely gives a few choice reactions and Azaria never overplays it.  The blister scene seemed out of place at best (especially since it’s a far cry from a gross-out comedy), but it had a number of charming comic moments all the same, as well as one of the funniest fight scenes I’ve seen in a while.

But what really makes a comedy work are the moments that aren’t funny.  And the last act of Run Fatboy Run is comprised mainly of these.  And it works.  Scwimmer tries some clever scenes, and while they’re not flawless, they’re fun to watch, and they keep things interesting.  And it shows a lot of promise.

But it’s still a little bit short of being as good as it could have been.  I can forgive the Nike product placement, as Schwimmer told the AV Club that it was the only way to finance the marathon, and I don’t really care that Simon Pegg isn’t technically fat.  But it wasn’t a total wash, and there’s some good laughs to be had.

B-

Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden? – 2008 (dir. Morgan Spurlock) It’s so easy to call Morgan Spurlock the heir apparent to Michael Moore.  Too easy.  Both started their documentary careers from an underdog perspective (Moore went after General Motors, and Spurlock went after McDonalds as relative amateurs).  And both have worked on the small screen, as well as the big screen (Moore’s The Awful Truth and Spurlock’s 30 Days).  And both have political views best described as liberal (Moore’s been incredibly outspoken in his criticism of American conservatism, and Spurlock’s a card-carrying member of the ACLU).

The differences between them are, on paper, minimal.  But while Michael Moore is effectively a pundit with a multi-picture deal, Spurlock seems genuinely interested in generating dialogue about the subjects he explores.  But perhaps more importantly, Moore’s opinion dictates his films, but with Spurlock, it seems more like his experience is what runs the show.  Sure, he doesn’t shy away from presenting opinions, but that’s not his endgame.  On 30 days, he tackles heavy political issues head on, but he lets the dialogue between the two groups tell the story.  While he’s been accused of picking people who will come to his understanding of the issues, at least he’s presenting the view that most political issues are nowhere near as black and white as the media and politicians present.  It’s activist entertainment for moderates, if anything.

And that’s generally what he proposes with Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden.  As he attempts to explore the causes and consequences of Osama Bin Laden in Egypt, Morrocco, Israel/Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan and Pakistan, it becomes very clear that it’s an immensely complex problem.  It’s a bold choice for a follow-up to eating McDonalds for a month to dive right into the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and radical Islam, but the results speak for themselves.  Two scenes in particular were disturbing; Spurlock’s appallingly harsh welcome to a Jewish settlement in Israel, and a chilling interview with two Saudi teenagers (under the direct supervision of their teachers).  Obviously, those who prefer a black and white view of foreign policy will have difficulty with Spurlock’s conclusion, and American foreign policy takes a lashing, but it’s still an entertaining, if somewhat troubling documentary.

A-