Diamonds are endeavor. A megalomaniac designs a satellite to harness the sun’s power. And James Bond is there to rain on his parade. Cold Open Pretty Orange Explosion Zone: James Bond 007 (Pierce Brosnan, in his 4th and final turn as the superspy) surfs some rad waves into North Korea (reflecting the tenor of the times, no more Russians), infiltrating … Read More
THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH
Rich people wanting richer. Another villain with a bomb. Another hero who must defuse it. That’s what the twisty confusing plot boils down to in the James Bond actioner THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH. The cold open features a rather tame, though humorous, escape for a Bond movie, as Bond easily rappels down an office building (tied around a man’s … Read More
TOMORROW NEVER DIES
When even Fake News was ethical. James Bond versus Fox News! And all disinformation breaks loose! Pierce Brosnan returns as James Bond 007 against Jonathan Pryce as Roger Ailes of Fox News—wait, sorry, Brit-evil Pryce is actually media mogul Elliot Carver, who goes to all the trouble of creating a stealth ship, stockpiling it with missiles of different nations, and … Read More
GODZILLA 1998
Milli Godzilli. Godzilla takes a bite out of The Big Apple. And Ferris Bueller is there to stop him. After Japan’s Toho Company killed off its greatest property in 1995’s GODZILLA VS. DESTOROYAH, TriStar Pictures sought to fill the vacuum with its own American Godzilla that would blow the Japanese version out of the water, by utilizing state-of-the-art CGI visual … Read More
INDEPENDENCE DAY
The Arrogance of Independence. The most likely circumstance is that extraterrestrial beings will look nothing like any organisms or machines familiar to us. Extraterrestrials will be the product of billions of years of independent biological evolution, by small steps, each involving a series of tiny mutational accidents, on planets with very different environments from those that characterize Earth. — Carl … Read More
QUANTUM OF SOLACE
Quorum of Stinkus. Stunt, stunt, stunt, crash. Stunt, stunt, stunt, crash. Explosion. QUANTUM OF SOLACE, directed by Marc Foster like a speed freak, and edited by Matt Chesse and Richard Pearson like a chicken fight in a monkey house, makes THE BOURNE IDENTITY look like MY DINNER WITH ANDRE. As I watched the opening car chase grind metal, and the … Read More
CASINO ROYALE 2006
Old Spy, New World, Tight Arse. International espionage will never be the same. It is now certifiably MAN-HOT. new bond: craig, daniel craig Last seen in London baking a LAYER CAKE (2004) and again in MUNICH (2005) ineptly gunning for terrorists, hawk-eye intense Daniel Craig is now the once and future James Bond. “Re-imagining” has become a dirty word, but … Read More