Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968)

I think in my head Chitty Chitty Bang Bang was similar to a Herbie film, so I wasn't really expecting a great deal.  What I certainly didn't expect was a slew of 007 connections.  For a start, the novel was written by Ian Fleming, with a screenplay created in part by Roald Dahl (You Only Live Twice) with additional dialogue by Richard Maibaum (various screenplays from Dr. No through to Licence to Kill); and the production design was by the mastermind of the volcano base - Ken Adam.  It was even a Cubby Broccoli production!

I’m not even on to the cast yet.  The nasty Baron Bomburst is none other than Goldfinger himself: Gert Frobe; Desmond Llewelyn makes a cameo appearance as Coggins the garage owner who is selling CCBB, and even Vic Armstrong (seasoned 007 stuntman - later stunt coordinator) is involved.  Phew, I think that’s it; answers on a postcard (or in the comments if you prefer) if you think I’ve missed any Bond connections.

As far as the movie itself goes, well, I'm the first to admit that I don't like musicals, but I actually rather enjoyed CCBB.  For two reasons probably.  The first is Dick Van Dyke.  His cheery eccentric inventor is quite an infectious character (and surely the inspiration for the most famous of inventors; Doc Emmet Brown - even his dog is called Edison), his personality perfectly encapsulated by the name Caractacus.  I know him primarily as Dr Mark Sloan, and I was aware that he could sing, but I didn't realise how well.

Which brings me to the second reason I enjoyed the film; the songs aren't that irritating.  Even the main song which is reprised endlessly is rather a fun ditty.  Those tunes that aren't so good are for the most part completely forgettable, so can't get lodged in your head and drive you mad (Suddenly Seymour I'm looking at you).  The children were for the most part pretty good and not so whiney and annoying, the introduction of the sinister child catcher keeps them on edge and if anything allows Caractacus and Truly Scrumptious (yes that's actually the name of the love interest) to act like children themselves.  Speaking of Scrumptious, Sally Ann Hayes is a good counterpoint to zany Caractacus, even if she doesn't do women drivers any favours by repeatedly driving into the same pond.

Apart from all the obvious (dance numbers, nice special effects on CCBB) Ken Hughes' direction isn't too shabby either.  The camera work is usually quite fluid, and was creative enough even during the slower songs.  Choreography of the dances was very good, in particular the performance in the circus was quite amazing, not least because it must have been really hard for DVD to have been half a move behind everyone else at the beginning.

So there we have it; I don't think I'm particularly becoming a convert to musicals by any stretch, but given the right cast, choreography and tunes I can quite enjoy them.  But, well, you know, that’s just, like, er, my opinion, man.

The World is Not Enough (1999)

Following the cool reception of TND by my fellow Blogalongabonders, I’m expecting a frosty one for The World is Not Enough. Having said that, I quite liked TND, so what do I know?

A plot involving competing oil pipelines through the Caspian has 007 tracking the progress of Elektra King (Sophie Marceau), daughter of Robert King, who is a close friend of M. Playing the victim, Elektra is actually working with known terrorist for hire Renard (Robert Carlyle) and has a plan to detonate a nuclear device near Istanbul, rendering competing pipelines useless, so all oil must flow through the King pipes.

Once again, the action can’t be faulted, Vic Armstrong again showing us how inventive he can be. His remit for the boat chase was simply that Bond’s boat would leave MI6 pursuing a female assassin, and that the Millenium Dome and a hot-air balloon had to be involved! After this dramatic boat chase along the Thames, there is one of the series best opening songs. The World is Not Enough is belted out by Shirley Manson, the only trouble is, it doesn’t get better than this.

Brozza is fine, and Judi Dench is as good as ever; but everyone else is either pointless or disappointing. Carlyle has the potential to be a brilliant villain, but pulls his punches too much; Renard has none of the edge of Begbie or the psychopath from Cracker. Sophie Marceau also has potential as Elektra, but her performance is just vapid. My James Bond Encyclopedia says “With Elektra, Bond thinks he has found Tracy (from OHMSS) but he’s really found Blofeld.” Erm, didn’t get that at all; Elektra is about as Tracy as Christmas Jones. Speaking of which, there have to be few Bond Girls as pointless as Denise Richards. Why does 007 let her hang around (beyond the obvious)? She’s a nuclear physicist, once she has disarmed the bomb in the pipeline she has no other function. She’s just a hanger-oner. Then there’s a mute heavy that hangs around Elektra, at least Stamper had some function in the plot of TND; and the less said about John Cleese’s appearance as Mr Bean the better.

In the midst of all this I did enjoy the recurrence of Valentin Zukovsky, Robbie Coltrane is almost always worthwhile; and Goldie was fun as Bullion, one of Zukovsky’s stooges. But this really is like finding a pound coin in a dog turd. Most offensive was the ludicrously idiotic idea to build a pipeline on a glacier. I had to rewind several times to make sure I had seen correctly!

I also thought it was very silly of M to travel out to see Elektra, simply because Bond hadn’t made her a post-coital breakfast. She’s head of MI6, doesn’t she see

In case you hadn’t noticed, I didn’t really like TWINE. A nice idea using the world’s dependence on oil as a tool for the villain, but of course 6 months after the completion of the pipeline, the glacier will have shifted enough to break the pipe and we won't get any oil at all thanks to a contaminated Bosphorus! Fantastic action set pieces, but far too many under-developed or pointless characters to make this any more than a mediocre film.

Order of Preference so far:

You Only Live Twice, Goldfinger, The Living Daylights, Licence to Kill, Tomorrow Never Dies, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, Goldeneye, Live and Let Die, The Spy Who Loved Me, For Your Eyes Only, From Russia with Love, Dr No, The World is Not Enough, The Man with the Golden Gun, A View to a Kill, Octopussy, Moonraker, Diamonds are Forever, Thunderball

Spider-man - Amazing and Regular (2002 - 2012)

                             

I must admit that when I first heard about The Amazing Spider-man project I was intrigued. Andrew Garfield sounded like an interesting choice as Peter Parker, and I wondered how 500 Days of Summer director Marc Webb was going to handle the super-hero genre. When I saw the trailer however my thought was “aren’t they just rehashing Sam Raimi’s genesis story from 10 years ago?” What’s the point in that? Won’t it be completely redundant? Well, yes and no.

First of all, Peter Parker. Andrew Garfield is certainly a better actor than Tobey Maguire, but perhaps almost too good. I feel that Peter Parker works better as an awkward geek (just my opinion from the films, I’ve never read any of the comics), and Garfield comes across as being too confident and almost a bit cocky; Tobey is far more awkward and this makes his transformation into a physically stronger super-hero more convincing. The relationship between Parker and Gwen was good (perhaps this is Marc Webb’s forté), but again I felt that it was a bit too familiar. This of course is explained by the history between Gwen and Peter. Compare this to MJ not really knowing who Peter is despite him living next door, and Peter only gets the confidence to talk to her once he has his alter-ego. Both of these scenarios are valid enough I guess, I just prefer the route of the geeky awkward PP.

The transformations themselves were dealt with differently, and again, I think I prefer that of regular Spider-man. Like I’ve already said, I’m not familiar with traditional Spider-Man canon, but to me it makes more sense that one of the abilities that is conferred having been bitten by an engineered spider is being able to spin webs. Having to make your own web-slingers is rubbish! Though I preferred Peter going home, feeling rotten, falling asleep and then finding everything had changed; I did like the apologetic way that Garfield’s Peter beat everyone up on the Subway! However, I don’t remember Garfield’s spider-sense ever tingling; not very amazing.

I feel like I’m continually dissing the Amazing Spider-Man here (only purely in comparison to Sam Raimi’s film), but Rhys Ifans’ Lizard is nothing compared to Willem Dafoe’s Green Goblin. Ifans certainly doesn’t have the presence or gravitas that Dafoe does. There was even a scene in the sewers as Dr Curt Connors (Ifans’ character) argues with himself about taking another dose of whatever it is that makes him the lizard, clearly mimicking the brilliant scene in Spider-Man when Norman Osborne has the schizophrenic argument with his Green Goblin persona.

I could maybe compare more, but I feel that I’m really slagging The Amazing Spider-man, which isn’t my intent. There is much to like. I’ve already mentioned that I think Garfield is a better actor than Maguire, but the choice of Martin Sheen as Uncle Ben was also a good one. He breathes far more life into his brief screen time than Cliff Robertson does. I also liked the character of Captain Stacy (though I want to say his name in a Cap-tain Scar-let kinda way!), he gave Spidey an internal ally as well as a verbal sparring partner when they first meet. However the conclusion to this scene is Parker’s reveal to Gwen, which I thought was all too sudden and impetuous.

“Wristslap”; I’m being negative again. The Amazing Spider-man is a good film, it is a great cast, cool story, and lots of great action (thanks to Vic Armstrong), and there are some nice camera moves & first person web-shooting/swinging. The mistake I’ve made is watching Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man immediately afterwards, and I just prefer the decisions made in this film compared to the Amazing one, that’s all. That’s, just, like, er, my opinion man!

Mission: Impossible III (2006)

Following on from Brian De Palma's first film and John Woo's second, J.J. Abrams takes the helm for his first feature film to bring us a third instalment of Ethan Hunt's IMF activities. MI:III is a very slick and stylish film with some tremendous action sequences; stunt director Vic Armstrong designed the stunts so that Tom Cruise could do them all, and he did! This only egged Philip Seymour Hoffman on to get involved too, and so the final showdown fight is actually Tom and PSH throwing each other through doors and windows. This all adds a certain amount of realism to the proceedings.

Tom is fine as usual as Ethan Hunt; more than anything else he is an action star, and for this he is just right. PSH is an unusual choice as a baddie, but his gravitas really works and gives his character Owen Davian much greater depth. I had to look up his character's name on IMDB, and that's perhaps a criticism of the film; you don't really feel that you bond with any of the characters. I mean, we know Ethan, but I don't feel that we get to know any of the other characters or know the justification for their actions.

However, MI:III is an action film first and foremost, and as such completely succeeds. Competently directed, well acted and some thumping action.

Tomorrow Never Dies (1997)

There’s no news, like bad news.

Hardly a classic 007 adventure, and full of cliches such as a maniac principle henchman, secret villain lair and atrocious Bond kiss-off lines; yet I have always found Tomorrow Never Dies really entertaining and one of my favourites of the series. I’m not sure I’ve ever really been able to put my finger on why, so here are 5 reasons that I really like TND.

Songs
Goldeneye was the beginning of a recent trend of brilliant Bond songs, and Sheryl Crow’s entry continues that trend. Her title track is full of quiet verses and rousing choruses, as well as that unmistakable James Bond ambience. The end credits song Surrender, written by David Arnold and performed by K. D. Lang is perhaps better and is a real homage to the early Shirley Bassey tunes.

Action
Of course Bond is all about the action, and recently has really seen a step up in scale (tank chase in Goldeneye); and with legendary stunt coordinator Vic Armstrong directing the second unit TND doesn’t disappoint. If you wanted to know what Vic looks like, here he is.

A truly explosive start to the film, I love M saying “He’s doing his job!” What? Blowing shit up? Never mind, cool job, and it does look tremendous. While the car chase around the car park is certainly impressive, there are too many stupid moments to be a really enjoyable scene. Sledge hammers don’t damage the windscreen but as soon as 007 is in the car and they start shooting at it with shotguns, the windscreen breaks? I was also very impressed that the thin metal doors to the car park were impervious to rockets! However, the motorbike chase through Saigon is all very cool. Two people driving the bike one hand each, jumping around on the bike, and jumping over a helicopter all looks amazing.

Plummy British accents:
I always love films which are overtly British, and nothing says British more than an outrageous accent. With acting talent such as Geoffrey Palmer, Julian Fellowes and Michael Byrne, plummy-ness abounds. Stealth boat Sir? They have gone mad!

Jonathan Pryce:
Ever gleeful that he is causing havoc in world politics, Carver is a Bond villain for a new age. Rather than just wanting to extort money out of a government, Elliott Carver’s end game is news broadcasting rights across the whole world, and China specifically for the purposes of the film. Jonathan Pryce is always calm, and ever so slightly smarmy, he only really completely loses his cool just as Bond slams the sea drill into his face. Jonathan’s performance is all quite understated, I feel that many other candidates for the role may have really hammed it up, but I feel that Carver is spot on. It was interesting that when we first see Carver he is often backlit, or in very subdued lighting as if initially we are not supposed to know whether he is the main villain of the piece or if he is being used by someone else.

David Arnold:
A new regular composer for the series, David Arnold’s score is most definitely Bond but has a far more modern twist to it. Whereas I hardly noticed Eric Serra’s score in Goldeneye, Arnold’s score for TND was outstanding in the way that it complements everything perfectly.



As I say, this is hardly a masterpiece of Bond, in particular it’s a shame about some of 007’s Moore-esque one liners, but I really enjoy TND. Most of all, there is a welcome return of furniture fighting, which I feel has been quite absent recently.

Order of Preference so far:

You Only Live Twice, Goldfinger, The Living Daylights, Licence to Kill, Tomorrow Never Dies, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, Goldeneye, Live and Let Die, The Spy Who Loved Me, For Your Eyes Only, From Russia with Love,  Dr No, The Man with the Golden Gun, A View to a Kill, Octopussy, Moonraker, Diamonds are Forever, Thunderball