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The all singing, all dancing, answer to overfishing.
Happy Feet (2006)
Directed: George Miller
Written: Warren Coleman, John Collee, George Miller and Judy Morris
Voices of: Elijah Wood, Brittany Murphy, Nicole Kidman, Hugh Jackman and Robin Williams
There are times when a movie tries so hard to make a point that it forgets to tell a story, and unfortunately the otherwise promising Happy Feet falls victim to the very arguments it is trying to make.
Following the exploits of tone deaf but tap happy emperor penguin Mumble (Elijah Wood) and his quest to discover the aliens who have been taking all the fish (no really that's the long and the short of it), this movie takes itself and its issues of environmentalism and individualism so far that the viewer feels that they're on the underside of an ecological fire and brimstone pulpit. This isn't to say that the not important issues - they are, and they become more so every day, but some of like a little subtlety in our storylines.
While well made and generally well acted (Robin Williams naturally steals the show, while Nicole Kidman's Marilyn Monroe impression did nothing for me), the movie suffers from a chronic lack of plot, a seriousness that just doesn't work in a kids movie and the overwhelming sensation that one is being hit over the head by a GreenPeace sign.
Save the Penguins, not the dancing Penguins
5/10
Casino Royale (2006)
Directed: Martin Campbell
Screenplay: Neal Purvis, Robert Wade & Paul Haggis
Based on the Book by: Ian Fleming
Daniel Craig, Eva Green, Mads Mikkelsen, Judi Dench
Blonde Bond was way Overdue.
I don’t think that before I saw this movie I ever really understood how much thought must have gone into the character of everyone’s favourite secret agent. As readers of this blog must know by now, I always considered him as a mere caricature of every adolescent male fantasy - the cars, the gadgets, the women – all seemed designed to fulfil an ideal rather then to show a real man, and in some way that has always been the point - James Bond is a cartoon character made flesh, an impossible hero who triumphs no matter what the odds and has a great deal of fun doing it. He never gets hurt, never loses his heart, and most importantly of all – never approaches anything close to reality. His latest reincarnation, in Casino Royale, could not be more different.
In CR we follow the newly promoted 007 on his first mission, from Africa to the Caribbean and on to Europe, and watch as he first loses his heart, then eventually himself, changing as I would imagine any hired gun would have to change, from real human being into something that can cope with the emotional rigours of the job.
But Bond’s emotional journey is not the only that separates this film from its predecessors. There are no gadgets here, and (regrettably) no Q. Neither are there the usual plethora or badly acted female characters, Eva Green making perhaps the first ever believable Bond Girl and Judi Dench shining as always in the role of M. And, while bad guy Mikkelsen does indeed have the traditional oddity (in this case grossly weeping blood), his motives are at least partially understandable. As a friend of mine mentioned at the time, there is also a shortage of rockets, satellites, or radio discs – possibly a first in a Bond film.
All in all, I loved this film. The action sequences are brilliant (especially the first foot chase through the embassy), I think Daniel Craig is hot (a subject of much debate among my friends), it’s at least partially believable and, best of all, explains many of the foibles of a much loved character. Purists may deplore everything from Craig’s hair colour to the lack of cheesy lines but I say even a cultural icon can be updated for the twentieth century. My favourite Bond film ever.
8/10
GoldenEye (1995)
Directed: Martin Campbell
Based on the Characters by: Ian Fleming
Written by: Michael France, Jeffrey Caine, Bruce Feirstein
Pierce Brosnan, Sean Bean, Izabella Scorupco, Famke Janssen, Judi Dench, Robbie Coltrane, Alan Cumming, Desmond Llewelyn
Non-Blond James Bond
The highly anticipated new Bond movie Casino Royale comes out this week in my part of the world, and I for one am hanging out to see it. And so I decided, in a salute to the incoming Bond Daniel Craig, that I would check in with how his immediate predecessor wore the famous black suit and tie.
GoldenEye was the first in Pierce Brosnan’s attempt at the role and the first of what can be called the modern era Bond films, it spawned three others (Tomorrow Never Dies, The World is Not Enough and Die Another Day), before Brosnan finally decided to pass on the mantle.
There's an argument to say that if you’ve seen one Bond film, then you’ve seen them all, and certainly GoldenEye contains nothing that hasn’t been seen before. Here are all the old clichés - the girls, the fast cars, the gadgets, the impossible stunts and, not least, the corny innuendoes – it’s all there and all wonderfully unchanged from the incredibly sexist Sean Connery films of the sixties, but then, as M says in the film, Bond is something of a dinosaur.
Admittedly 007 is not everybody’s cup of tea. Feminists and physicists will be equally dismayed by the unlikely scenarios, apparently irresistible sexual magnetism and frankly ridiculous plot but in some ways that’s not the point. No one, least of all the producers has ever said that you’re meant to take it seriously. Bond is what he has always been, a male fantasy brought to life, and watching the films is not so much a willing suspension of disbelieve as a joyful flight into the realm of a particularly adventurous imagination.
If therefore, it is measured as an ordinary film, it is necessarily a complete failure, the plot is foolish in the extreme, the characters unbelievable and the situations impossible, judged as a Bond film however, it actually isn’t too bad. Brosnan is a capable Bond (indeed it’s the only type of character he has ever been able to play with conviction), the lessor characters are well cast (Judi Dench as M is a stroke of genius, and Desmond Llewelyn a legend in his own right), the Bond girls are as laughably bad as always (Famke Janssen’s hysterically hyperbolic Russian accent very nearly steals the show), and the bad guys (principally Bean, Coltrane, and Cummings) all know what they are doing, acting as both comic relief and cannon fodder.
Mindless, middling, and somewhat moronic, but not a bad way to spend an hour and a half.
7/10
Bring it On.
Okay. It's not a movie. Technically it isn't even a TV show. But quite frankly that doesn't stop it from being the most watchable thing on the box at the moment
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BlackAdder (All four Series)
Rowan Atkinson, Tony Robinson, Tim McInnerny, Hugh Laurie, Miranda Richardson, Stephen Fry
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Comment by Georgie
on Review of Casino Royale
It's not anything like the slightly hokey (or very hokey) Pierece Bronson Movies - although I'd say their not entirely without their charms (laughing at the really stupid plots/Bond girls)
Sean Connery may be the best Bond of all time (he is Sean Connery after all), but I'd put Daniel Craig as a pretty good second.