Spectre (2015)

Director: Sam Mendes

Cast: Daniel Craig, Christoph Waltz, Léa Seydoux, Ben Whishaw

Have I Seen it Before: Sure.

Did I Like It: Does the plot of a Bond movie really matter? If they do, then this one suffers a bit. It tries to ape the “greatest villain reimagined” motif that The Dark Knight (2008) made de rigueur and movies like Star Trek Into Darkness (2013) drove into the ground. The story of the resurgence of Blofeld (Waltz) feels like it has come too late to the party to be anything other than lame. Bond movies are no stranger to feebly chasing after the current moviegoing trends, with equally shaky results. I refer the jury to Moonraker (1979).

Really, truly, the film is actually too late for two separate parties. The Spectre aspects of the Bond mythology had spent decades tied into endless copyright disputes by the time Roger Moore had taken over the tux and martini. Corporate mergers collided with the death of intransigent rights holders so that every possible atom of the Bond property could once again be wielded by EON Productions. Did they try to bring us a new version of Spectre and Blofeld, re-combining the parts we knew into something new? No, they tried to retcon the man and the organization as the mastermind of every event in the Daniel Craig era. The results, as I have said, are still somewhat awkward.

And yet, I may be beyond complaining about Bond movies at this point. Maybe its that No Time To Die feels further and further away the more it is delayed. Maybe I’m just—like Craig—mellowing in my old age. Maybe its that at its core, all I need from a Bond is some gadgets, a couple of set pieces, and a man at the center of it all that exudes such confidence and swagger forging the fantasy that a human could walk the Earth completely divorced from the notions of angst or klutzyness. It’s an enduring—if admittedly toxic—fantasy in machismo. Each of the actors in the role had that ineffable quality, and Craig has had it in spades throughout his tenure, and in great supply here. It can keep a Bond movie afloat, and this one manages.

The Green Hornet (2011)

Director: Michel Gondry

Cast: Seth Rogen, Jay Chou, Christoph Waltz, Cameron Diaz

Have I Seen it Before: I have a distinct memory of seeing the movie in theaters, but beyond noting that the only mildly interesting use of the 3D was during the end credits, I had next to no memory about the movie itself.

Did I Like It: That last thought ought to tell you something.

It’s odd, but at the same time intuitive in the way only film executives could come up with, that in the television landscape of the 1960s, Batman was played for laughs, while The Green Hornet was plated deathly serious. Fast forward 45 years are so and we are no deluged with deadly serious Bat-films, and so the makers of The Green Hornet decided to opt for counter-programming and re-introduce millionaire publisher Britt Reid to the populace by way of a Seth Rogen buddy comedy.

And that’s about all I—or from a quick Google search, most of the of the people associated with the making of the film—could say that’s interesting about it. Even if somehow Rogen and company worked under a studio that had any interest in making an R-rated comedy version of the film, but even then, Rogen would have been miscast. It feels almost as if the film were originally written for Rogen buddy James Franco to star as Reid, but he had enough sense to pass on anything more than a cameo.

Maybe a Hornet movie played for laughs was the wrong move to begin with. All I know is that I was maybe a third of the way through the film before I was wondering how I might find a way to watch the TV series. I’m pleased to report that they are all available on Youtube, in relatively okay quality bootleg versions. Go check them out. The first episode has the Hornet and Kato taking out a crook named Trump. It has real charm. A legitimate release of that would be something I’d be imminently interested in watching.