Sonic The Hedgehog (2020)

Director: Jeff Fowler

Cast: Ben Schwarz, James Marsden, Tika Sumpter, Jim Carrey

Have I Seen it Before: Sigh. No. I’ve been resisting seeing it because I ultimately wasn’t aching to see a live-action Sonic movie (more on that later) and it felt like the time might come again fairly quickly wherein I could go catch it in a quick matinee. I eventually caved and watched it on demand.

Did I Like It: You know, kind of?

I’m a longtime player of the video games (or at least some of them), I can probably walk the Green Hill Zone, Act 1 in my sleep and get over 200 rings for my troubles. So, I’m not coming to the series blind, but I’ve never seen the point of any of the extended mythology surrounding the characters. The moment Knuckles the Enchida (which is a thing) arrives, there are far too many characters circling the series that are essentially repainted versions of the original blue streak*.

Thankfully, the movie eschews almost everything found in the nearly thirty years of history with the games. Aside from a cameo by Tails in a mid-credits scene and a brief prologue featuring one of the Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole (2010) (I think, honestly the opening is pretty weird) there is little mythology in sight, in favor of an agreeable abusing buddy road picture. The Chaos Emeralds are nowhere in sight, and some fans may blanche at that, but I maintain that we’re all better off. 

Ben Schwarz is always a welcome presence, and it’s nice seeing Jim Carrey return to the kind of schtick that made him famous. We probably don’t need two or three rubber-faced tirades a year, but a visit once in a while from a character not terribly removed from the 

Sonic as a creature doesn’t fully work, but one can imagine a large part of that is because of the film’s famed delays in production after we all collectively cringed at the unholy furry thing that greeted us in the trailer. Honestly, I think people would have gotten used to the new version of Sonic if he had been brought to full gestation, but we have what we have, and the fans are not rioting. That’s fine.

*Yes. I know Tails, Knuckles and the rest (the names of said characters escape me at the moment) all have slightly different approaches to and abilities in both the 2d and 3d worlds of the games, and no, I’m not terribly interested in discussing them. That’s kind of the point.

Super 8 (2011)

Director: J.J. Abrams

Cast: Joel Courtney, Elle Fanning, Riley Griffiths, Ryan Lee

Have I Seen it Before: Oh, sure. Hell, on some level I kind of lived it. No, my town wasn’t mysteriously taken over by a strange creature, unless you count the strange penguin statues that cropped up one day in 2002 and never completely left. It’s more that I spent some time while I was growing up screaming “production value” at my friends while we all tried with intermittent success to not get hit by oncoming trains.

Did I Like It: It’s sort of painful to say that this is the best movie J.J. Abrams has ever (and may yet ever, the way things are going) directed. Star Trek (2009), Mission: Impossible III (2006), and Star Wars – Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015) are all enjoyable romps, and I don’t want to entirely discount them, but this one reaches for actual characters, as opposed to trying to renew interest in television series that once starred Leonard Nimoy. Also, this has no discernable Beastie Boys in it, although I suppose at that point they would have to be called The Young Aborigines at the point in time that the film is set.

Whenever I see this film (it’s on semi-regular rotation at our house) I can’t help but feel nostalgic for that time when the most important thing in the world was making stuff with my friends. I was Charles Kaznyk (Griffiths) growing up, with all of the warts that entailed. The rest of the kids aren’t perfect analogues for the people I knew way-back-when, but they are imminently real and recognizable. There are too few films that depict kids in a way that feels anything like the childhood I enjoyed, and that alone is enough to make the film imminently enjoyable.

Some complain about the ending, and aside from a bit too much similarity in tone to the end of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), I’m fine with it.

Oh, on that note, there is also a monster in the movie, apparently. That seems sort of secondary to the proceedings, and that may be the distillation of its flaws. I am far less interested in this movie when Cooper the monster is featured, but I suppose that’s okay. They don’t give this kind of money to movies about weird kids with monster makeup. Production value, am I right?

The Flintstones (1994)

Director: Brian Levant

Cast: John Goodman, Rick Moranis, Elizabeth Perkins, Rosie O’Donnell

Have I Seen It Before?: I think so? I have some degree of memory that Halle Berry was in the film, but the rest of it is hazy. I actually have far stronger memories of commercials embedded in my VHS recording of the Star Trek: The Next Generation series finale than I do of the film itself.

Did I like it?: Early on, I became a little concerned that I may actually like the movie. The creature work is sublime, bordering on actually bringing the improbable location of Bedrock to something resembling life. Dean Cundey as DP is always the thing a 90s movie needs. Whatever happened to him? Rick Moranis is pretty well cast, and he doesn’t appear in movies at all anymore, so it’s worth relishing the time we do have with him. John Goodman is a delight, because he is himself a delight. Here, he is indentured to the movie simply because he kind of looks like Fred Flintstone, and is relegated to doing a 90 minute long impression of Jackie Gleason, but that is hardly his fault. This is a movie based on a TV show that itself was a shameless rip off of The Honeymooners.

And so one is tempted to give the film a pass. This has got to be the best possible version of a movie based on The Flintstones possible. If they had to make a movie based on the material (and one supposes that they did), things could have gone far worse. Right? I would have thought the same thing, too, but then I read the recent comic book series featuring the characters. It was subversive and satirical, whereas the writing on display here (legend has it that the script was forged by a never-ending army of screenwriters) doesn’t elevate beyond the blandest sitcoms of the era. This movie could have reached for that level, but if there is one thing that Batman Returns (1992) taught us, it’s that subversive doesn’t sell Happy Meals.

But then one sees what I imagine is a Loch Ness Monster swimming around Bedrock lake, or half the scenes involving Dino, and realize that there may not be a pixel of CGI that has a shelf life of anything longer than fifteen minutes. Ever time I saw one of these polygonal monstrosities, I winced, and I winced far more than I did for any other part of the film. If the movie had only been Henson puppets, I just might have given it that pass for which it was reaching.

Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: Kimmy vs. The Reverend (2020)

Director: Claire Scanlon

Cast: Ellie Kemper, Tituss Burgess, Carol Kane, Daniel Radcliffe

Have I Seen it Before: Nope. It’s a brand new but anticipated thing, which is a strange thing to have these days. Aside from still wanting to see No Time To Die and the increasing likelihood that The New Mutants will one day become The Day The Cried Clown of modern cinema, wanting to see a forthcoming movie feel like something from the before times.

Did I Like It: Now, that that is out of the way, it is almost impossible for this review to not take two different paths. How clever of me.

Does it work as a coda for the series? Yes, I would even dare to say more effectively than the last proper season managed. Finally bringing Kimmy (Kemper) face to face with the Reverend (Jon Hamm) and giving her the opportunity to stoop to his level—if righteously—or embrace the optimism that made her unbreakable in the first place was far more satisfying than making all of the characters successful in their careers and financially stable. One might take this opportunity to note that the proceedings are just as funny as the show’s first, superlative season.

There are plenty of more additional notes for the other characters to reach. If you play the story correctly (and there is a correct way, more on that later) Titus (Burgess) evolves ever so slightly past his self-absorption, becoming a better friend, an accidentally more professional actor and eats less dirt, while Jacqueline (Jane Krakowski) never has to confront a lie and avoids accidentally negating the entire #metoo movement. Everyone who might deserve a happy ending gets one, and the Reverend eats it with or without Kimmy’s vengeance.

Which is the only complaint I might have. Since I’ve done a little bit of work in the genre, I can say that the choose-your-own-adventure branching storyline doesn’t work nearly as well as it could have. There is really only one path that the story can take, and any deviation from that path invites disaster. Had there been two distinct storylines that the viewer decides on in the early proceedings, maybe each path would be shorter than what we’re presented with, but there would have been more satisfying avenues of exploration. 

Also, the conceit of a branching story like this presupposes that the viewer is able to make choices for the story, not control the realities of the story. At one decision point, the viewer is able to decide whether or not Titus actually does know “Freebird” before he takes the stage at a bar, or merely thinks he knows it. Two different bits follow, which is fine, but contemplating the reality that he both knows and doesn’t know the song before that point in time is enough to give Schrödinger a headache. The more I type this, the more I wonder if I dislike or love that different sensibility. One, you are in control of the character, but here it is as if you are part of the writing staff of the show, which is about as good a fantasy as I can think of.

Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)

Director: Gore Verbinski

Cast: Johnny Depp, Geoffrey Rush, Orlando Bloom, Keira Knightly

Have I Seen It Before?: Oh, sure. If you hadn’t seen it by fall of 2003, you were way behind the times. I even managed to stick around for the sequels, although for the life of me I can’t think of why I might have done this.

Did I like it?: I’ve often been struck by the difficulty to view a movie without measuring it against the context of the anemic sequels it spawned, or how we all feel about the star of the film. Given that this film legitimized the continuing of both long past the point we should have allowed, it’s hard not to reflexively judge the film as a mistake. Had this film tanked or not resonated with an audience, we’d probably not have to brace ourselves for more big budget missteps from Depp, or really have to hear about him at all.

But the film does resonate, though. The idea that a theme park ride could create such a singularly watchable film is further evidence that pretty much no one knows what they’re doing when they go about developing a big budget motion picture. The Lone Ranger (2013) should have been great on spec (and has much of the same creative talent), but wasn’t, and if anyone thought this would make great spectacle before the movie premiered, they would have been deemed a lunatic.

That’s because the movie is only occasionally interested in its source material. A shot here or there is taken from what visitors to Disney parks had seen for decades, but the movie is really about a character perpetually outmatched by the world around him, singularly possessed by a quest to regain the best parts of himself, using only his wits to win the day.

There’s also a love story with Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightly (Natalie Portman?)… You know, for the kids.

If only the sequels could have understood what made the first film work. If only Depp could have avoided letting this level of movie stardom go to his head. Maybe we would have gotten another movie approaching the fun displayed here, but, as I indicated above, getting even one film this good was more than we could have hoped for.

Zootopia (2016)

Director: Byron Howard, Rich Moore

Cast: Ginnifer Goodwin*, Jason Bateman, Idris Elba, Jenny Slate

Have I Seen It Before?: Never. But it has been on in the background during a series of facetime calls with my niece (or as she calls it, “FOXES!”), so I figured I needed to get with the times.

Did I like it?: I may be further showing my age by still being of a mind that films produced by Disney animation and not Pixar are somehow less than. It was certainly true back in the 90s and the 00s, but ever since John Lasseter** bridged the divide between the two animation houses, maybe Pixar films have been a little less special (not bad, just less special), and regular Disney pictures have increased in quality by quantum leaps. Wreck It Ralph (2012) immediately comes to mind.

The disparity in quality is just not there anymore, even as Lasseter’s era has come to an end. And so, Zootopia presents all of the visual inventiveness and humor we have come to expect from the mouse house. Far more interestingly, the world is an interesting speculative premise. What if the various animals of the world all evolved into a humanlike society? How would creatures that were once predators and prey come to interact with one another? Would they have nudity taboos? It’s a lot to take in for a kids movie. It leaves even larger questions that I’m not sure could fuel a sequel, but I keep thinking about a day after I watched the movie. Are there humans in this world? Did they not evolve? Do the species intermarry? It sure seems like Judy (Goodwin) and Nick (Bateman) seem to be awfully nice friends at the end of the film, but they can’t possibly have children, right?

Have I gotten to the point where I’m no longer in the right mindset for a bright colorful movie about talking animals? That’s probably the most pressing question of all.

*The role felt tailor made for someone like Amy Poehler, but Inside Out (2015) probably negated that possibility. It was only after looking up the stats on the film in anticipation of this review that I realized Judy was played by the ill-fated first Mrs. Cash. It’s a testament to the performance that it wasn’t immediately recognizable as someone, unlike the performances of either Bateman, Elba, or Slate.

** I know… It’s good for the culture that he is gone now, and it’s even better that he’s only kind of been able to land his golden parachute in the safe havens of Skydance Animation. But its impossible to deny that the man had an impact on the quality of animated movies over the last twenty-five years.

Conan The Destroyer (1984)

Director: Richard Fleischer

Cast: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Grace Jones, Wilt Chamberlain, Mako

Have I Seen It Before?: With so many series released slightly before my time, I feel as if I saw both of the Schwarzenegger-led Conan films in some kind of congealed blob on cable. I’m reasonably sure that I never say down with the specific intention of watching the movie, though.

Did I like it?: As I was watching Conan the Barbarian (1982), my wife found the notion that I was enjoying the film somewhat perplexing. I’ve never been a fan of fantasy in general. I’ve fallen asleep through most films based on the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, and I’d rather do almost anything than spend any time with C.S. Lewis. But there was something about the original film that works. It’s the singular nature of the character, and his ability to embody the spirit of the filmmaker in question while mostly avoiding sermonizing on the topic of its ideals.

Then they had to go and fuck it all up with a sequel. The first mistake was likely to drain all of the violence out of the picture, in an effort to somehow amplify the box office. It didn’t work, and we are left with a far less remarkable film. One might give it the excuse of being released mere weeks before PG-13 gave films some sort of middle ground between PG and R, but it does not change the fact that we are stuck with a toothless film.

It doesn’t make up for the loss in visceral action by making Conan more of hero, either. He is a bland cypher, content to swing his sword around and hint at the future where he will wear a crown upon a troubled brow. This film might have even benefited from being less subtle about its ideas, if they were truly intending the film to be for children, but those notions are gone for one of the blandest action fantasy films of the 1980s, and that is saying something. The original aims for ideals and ideas, and it’s reasonable to debate whether or not it hit those targets. This film aims for nothing, and somehow misses.

They Came Together (2014)

Director: David Wain

Cast: Paul Rudd, Amy Poehler, Cobie Smulders, Christopher Meloni

Have I Seen it Before: Yes. I’m strangely tempted to watch it whenever it shows up on a streaming service I’ve already paid for. Several years ago, it was Netflix, and when it came up on HBO, that temptation came again.

Did I Like It: On my second viewing of Wet Hot American Summer (2001) I was struck by a disheartening realization: after viewing the Netflix spinoff shows, I realized I liked those shows better than the movie. I bring this up here because I’m disappointed to report that I liked this film far less the second time around. It’s partially because those shows have the time to turn the absurdism up to the maximum without any need to ape the format of previous films.

So it is that They Came Together doesn’t work as well this time. Too much time is spent making sure we all know that we’re going through tropes that we’ve all seen. It borders on that type of humor that has been done to death in Cinema Sins youtube videos and the films of Friedberg and Seltzer, wherein pointing out something that another film does is the same thing as a joke. I get that the notion that “New York is another character in the film” is a hoary cliché, but there is a point in the life of dismantling a cliché that the dismantling itself becomes cliché.

Thankfully, one has no problem watching Paul Rudd and Amy Poehler do anything, so the time of disappointment goes by rather pleasantly, and the proceedings do reach for that sublimely ridiculous, even if it doesn’t do so as often as I might hope. The dead-eyed reactions of Bill Hader and Ellie Kemper went along with my own reactions, and the ultimate realization that Rudd and Poehler’s characters should never be together adds some semblance of sanity, even if things would have worked better if logic and reason had been abandoned altogether.

Conan The Barbarian (1982)

Director: John Milius

Cast: Arnold Schwarzenegger, James Earl Jones, Sandahl Bergman, Ben Davidson

Have I Seen it Before: I want to say yes, but the more I think about it, the more I become convinced that every memory I have of the movie is half remembered wisps from various partial viewings on cable throughout the years.

Did I Like It: This is an interesting border movie. Yes, it comes after the one-two-three punch of Jaws (1975), Star Wars – Episode IV: A New Hope (1977), and Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) in an age where films were slowly going to become more about spectacle and never look back, and when films more about ideas like anything directed by Francis Ford Coppola. 

Conan somehow miraculously straddles the line between the two worlds. On the surface, it is a high fantasy epic with swordplay, mysticism, and action to spare. It made Arnold Schwarzenegger a household name, which was no small feat as at that time all the Austrian Oak had to offer to the world of film was the documentary Pumping Iron (1977) and the sublimely, transcendently awful Hercules in New York (1969, AKA Hercules Goes Bananas). That alone would make it a staple of the action genre.

But there are ideas present here, thanks to the idiosyncratic hand of John Milius at the helm. It’s a deep dive into the Nietzschean ideal, and aside from an awkward title card as the first thing we see, it is all delivered subtly. It’s one of the most brashly atheist films ever conceived for a mainstream audience, with the film stopping for several scenes so that characters can debate about the value of their various arbitrary gods, only to then effectively dismiss their usefulness altogether. The third act hinges entirely on a mass cult meeting that unravels after their charismatic leader (Jones) is decapitated during a ceremony.

I’m not even sure I’m entirely on board with such slavish devotion to Nietzche, but the film could have been far more of a drag in its examination of those ideas. I’d imagine—and I’m basing this mostly off of a knowing viewing of The Big Lebowski (1998)—that I wouldn’t find Milus agreeable company, but one cannot deny that he made an imminently entertaining film that is steeped in his feelings about life and destiny. Star Wars might have had some ideas behind it as well, but I think we can all agree that there was a little bit more to the notion of selling action figures. No such luck here.

Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002)

Director: Jay Roach

Cast: Mike Myers, Beyoncé Knowles, Michael Caine, Seth Green

Have I Seen It Before?: More on that in a minute.

Did I like it?: Well, here we are again. The only thing that this movie has going for it is a sense of finality, trying to change the characters (sketches, really) enough that if the series were to continue things would never be the same.

But nothing in the films matters, so much so that it is impossible for jokes or gags to exist long enough to make us laugh.

The world is making an Austin Powers movie, complete with celebrity cameos, but the thought is quickly abandoned until the very end, just to fit one more celebrity cameo.

Dr. Evil hatches a plot, and it is forgotten almost as quickly.

A new villain, Goldmember (Myers) is introduced, and has shockingly little to do with the proceedings other than to be weirdly Swedish and eat his own skin.

A new love interest for Powers is introduced in the form of Foxxy Cleopatra (Knowles) and…

Well, she is the best part of the film, somehow managing to look not embarrassed by the proceedings, which should have automatically qualified her for some sort of special Academy Award.

Number Three (Fred Savage, peeking his head out of his grown-up actor retirement for just long enough to send him back to television directing) has a mole. That’s the whole joke. It is, thankfully, quickly forgotten.

Austin has something that might resemble an arc with his father, Nigel (Caine), but it never goes anywhere other than a needless revelation that Powers and Dr. Evil are actually brothers.

All of these notions are introduced and abandoned with the same level of energy that they could certainly put everything back the way they found it for a fourth film, and no one would care. If the world hadn’t moved on from yelling “Yeah, Baby!” to everyone they meet (just in time to start yelling “Why so Serious?” at everyone they meet), we might have had to sit through such a fourth film.

Which brings me to a forthright plea. So, please, Mr. Myers. Do not go back to this well. You’ve had a good run since then, and I’m not talking about the various Shreks or Gurus Love you might wander into. You’re a documentarian, with Supermensch: The Legend of Shep Gordon (2013), and a book, Canada. You were even in Inglourious Basterds (2009). You don’t need Austin Powers. We don’t need Austin Powers.

Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999)

Director: Jay Roach

Cast: Mike Myers, Heather Graham, Verne Troyer, Seth Green

Have I Seen It Before?: Yeah… Guys, it was the 90s. We didn’t know any better.

Did I like it?: The better question becomes, did I even like it way-back-when? The loving ribbing of early Bond films that was the entire rationale for the first film, Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997), to exist is largely gone. Although I now realize—having re-watched all three films in a row—that there is plenty left to drain from that tub. And here, the early days of Connery (and Lazenby, judging by Austin’s outfit) are abandoned for a lunar plot so inane that it makes Moonraker (1979) and the other Roger Moore movies look like John le Carré novels.

Maybe its unfair to criticize the plot of a movie that hinges on the hero accidentally drinking the bowel movement of one of the villain’s henchmen, but I maintain that is the case in point. The one gag of the original film that I can honestly say still works involves the villains trying to come up with the plot by which they might hold the world ransom. Hitting any number of walls, they shrug and decide to capture a nuclear weapon. Never has there been a more direct hit on the lazier aspects of the Bond films from which it stems. Here, there is nothing. It’s as if, in place of actually writing, a market research report took the knowledge that these films appeal to teenage boys, and subsequently abandoned everything that might have worked about its freshman effort.

And now that I think about, I was nearly 15 when came out. I guess I need to confess that it did work for me at the time. But the boy that this film did work for is a complete stranger to me.

Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997)

Director: Jay Roach

Cast: Mike Myers, Elizabeth Hurley, Michael York, Mimi Rogers

Have I Seen It Before?: I was 12, going on 13 when the movie came out. If there was anyone for whom it was made, it was I.

Did I like it?: We all remember for about half an hour twenty years ago, we all latched on to the notion of the Austin Powers. Not because he was terribly funny, not because his throwback to a simpler age appealed to us, but mainly because he was a Gollum of catchphrases that we all could sort of do an impression of. Time passed, probably a mixture of 9/11 and Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002) happened, and we all moved on.

But as I continue my willy nilly re-watch of the Bond films (I will eventually force myself to watch Moonraker (1979) again, I swear), I thought it might be time to give Austin and company another shot. The first one had to be somewhat good, right?

Eh.

There is a slavish devotion to the work of directors Guy Hamilton, Terrence Young and Lewis Gilbert, along with the delightful production design of Ken Adam and the brassy sounds of John Barry, but there’s not a lot of wit in those references. It is merely showing us things that we might recognize from other films, in hopes that it might elicit something resembling a laugh from the audience. This feels like the intermediate infection point between the sublime joy of films like Airplane (1980) and The Naked Gun: From The Files of Police Squad! (1988) and the witless pains of Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer. Tragically this film seems just as interested as lovingly referencing the early Bond films as it is in adopting an affect more akin to Casino Royale (1967).

Please, don’t make me re-watch the first Casino Royale feature. I beg of you.

And the humor that is on display here isn’t much to write home about. It aims at the lowest common denominator, and while that may make this reviewer read as stuffier than he might hope, I can only offer this in my defense: I remember laughing so hard in the 1990s that I hit my head at the sequence in the bathroom with Tom Arnold when Austin (Myers*) screams at a henchman, “Who does Number Two work for?” Today? Nearly nothing. I didn’t think the Swedish-made Penis enlarger was terribly funny on first blush, so the repeated call backs and the decades have done it no favors. Even the zany sort of non-sequiturs that absolutely rely on surprise to delight have long since lost their luster.

But I’m sure the series is just warming up, right?

*Still keeping a tenuous grasp on his Peter Sellers worship, although this will be the final film before the experiment completely escapes from the lab.

Doc Savage: Man of Bronze (1975)

Director: Michael Anderson

Cast: Ron Ely, Paul Gleason, William Lucking, Michael Miller

Have I Seen It Before?: Never. As much as I have steeped myself in the pre-Superman pulp heroes, I have only recently immersed myself in the exploits of Clark Savage, Jr. and the Fabulous Five. It even took some intrepid doing to track down a copy of the film on either DVD or Blu Ray.

That probably should have told me something.

Yes, I could have purchased the film on one of the many streaming services, but what the hell is the fun in that? Prior, of course, to the world flipping upside down on everyone?

Did I like it?: Man, I really wanted to, you know?

The film is almost well-cast, with the character actors rounding out the fabulous five doing so believably, but Ron Ely never quite brings Doc’s eccentricity to life. He was probably an able Tarzan on television, but here he’s dead weight in a film that didn’t need the additional load. Until recently, Dwayne Johnson was on deck to play Doc in a new movie (with Shane Black directing, no less). That project has fallen by the wayside in favor of a possible television adaptation. While television may serve the larger Doc canon well, it’s hard to see an actor better suited to the role than The Rock.

It’s easy to see why audiences didn’t take to the movie. It’s a bit too hoaky in an era that would see the dawn of Spielberg with Jaws just a few weeks later. The glowing green serpents alone are enough to turn off modern audiences as well. Who the hell thought just co-opting the music of John Phillips Sousa for the score? I’ve had to use public domain stuff for my own work, but that was mainly because I wasn’t friends with major motion picture composers. Why, whenever Mr. Sousa is referred in the credits do the last three letters of his name have to be in red, white, and blue, I’ll never know.

But as hoaky as it might be, it doesn’t embrace the whiz-bang pulp earnestness of the source material, either. There is just an ounce of camp and irony to everything done here, from the perpetual twinkle in Doc’s eyes, to the perplexing decision to have one of the henchmen (Bob Corso) sleep in a giant baby’s crib, the film tries to inject ironic detachment to the material. The problem is that when you are injecting this level of camp, it needs to come off funny for any of it to work. It’s the difference between the Adam West version of Batman and Batman & Robin (1997).

Live and Let Die (1973)

Director: Guy Hamilton

Cast: Roger Moore, Yaphet Cotto, Jane Seymour, Geoffrey Holder

Have I Seen it Before: Yeah…

Did I Like It: And so, we renew my vow to not be all that into the Roger Moore reign behind the wheel of the Aston Martin from Q Branch (or, as he so often inexplicably drives, a Lotus Esprit).

Things start off on a rocky note. One wants to give credit to Moore for making the dauntingly bold gambit of taking over for Sean Connery, especially when the last fellow to try that has spent most of the last fifty years pilloried for his efforts. But when the assignment from M comes not during a meeting at MI-6. This precludes the possibility of this new Bond having his moment with Desmond Llewellyn’s Q, which makes it hard to accept this as a Bond film at all, even if the gun barrel sequence helps. But far more unsettling is tiny little farce that plays out while Bond is trying to keep M (Bernard Lee) from realizing that he has a woman over. It’s so, un-Bondian. The literary Bond or even Connery’s Bond (and let’s get real, Lazenby wouldn’t give a shit, either) wouldn’t be so coy about relations with a woman. Maybe The Saint would be that precious, and that’s probably the problem.

But let’s talk about Racism! The film makes that fatal flaw of several of Moore’s later outings by trying to imitate another genre, in this case the blaxploitation films of the 1970s. But when the film is exclusive authored by white filmmakers, all we get here are the trappings, but none of the authentic style. 

But more importantly, let’s talk about sexism! Now that may seem like a strange criticism for a Bond movie. If I wasn’t budgeting for a certain amount of sexism, I probably should have watched a film from some other series. But every black man seems to be cunning, when the few scant women of color—mainly Rosie Carver (Gloria Hendry)—screech and faint their way through the movie. I can roll my eyes at the Stacy Suttons and Christmas Joneses of the world as much as the next guy, as their faux over capability beggars all believability, but a little bit of agency wouldn’t hurt, especially when by this point the series had a plenty of relatively self-possessed heroines. Even Jane Seymour has more of a certain serene aptitude about her.

That whole penultimate act, though… And that’s before I even approach the unslightly beginning of what would become the epic tragedy that is Sherriff J.W. Pepper (Clifton James). Roaring through the marshes of Louisiana is not exactly the Baccarat (or Poker) table at the Royale, but a Bond movie needs to be a little more exotic than that. Even Diamonds Are Forever (1971) brought Bond down to the banal world of the United States, but at least had the good sense of placing him in Las Vegas, a place I might believe to see a character like Bond. And here, Bond lifts himself out of his dilemma with Mr. Big’s (Cotto) henchmen with all of the lethality of Bugs Bunny.

Your individual feelings about this film will likely be tied directly to how you feel about Moore as Bond. Thus, if he’s your man with the License To Kill, then this is likely to be a highlight. For me, it’s just a portent of far worse things to come.

The Living Daylights (1987)

Director: John Glen

Cast: Timothy Dalton, Maryam d’Abo, Joe Don Baker, Jeroen Krabbé

Have I Seen it Before: I could keep going over the mid-90s heyday of the TNT Bond marathon and how it steeped me all things 007 during the height of the Pierce Brosnan era. Let’s just leave it at the fact that I’ve seen all of them.

Did I Like It: First of all, I like Timothy Dalton a lot. Screw you if you can’t deal with that.

This has almost nothing to do with the fact that he is in The Rocketeer (1991) and therefore deserves an appropriate level of adulation. Well, I’m pretty sure it has nothing to do with that. In truth, before Daniel Craig come on to the scene, Dalton was doing the brave and thankless work of picking up the pieces from the Roger Moore era and bringing the material back to its Ian Fleming core. Dalton even kind of looks like Hoagy Carmichael, long mentioned as the closest real-world equivalent for the look of the literary Bond.

This isn’t to say that Ian Fleming is a faultless paragon of literary virtue. Far from it, but when the film series was more interesting in adapting the Bond of the books, the films became much more interesting and far less fixated on reliving the format solidified by Goldfinger (1964).

The plot works, and even manages to keep me engaged through the long second act of Bond films, where you are most likely to find me slowly nodding off. The less said about the need of 1980s action cinema to turn the Mujahedeen into quirky allies the better, as that routine had a shelf life of about fifteen years before Bond would be sent to snuff out Kamran Shah (Art Malik) in my personal Timothy Dalton fan fiction*. 

The gadgets are great, aside from the racist-in-a-way-that-only-Ian-Fleming-would-like Ghetto Blaster. Sinful even more so because it has no role in the plot to follow, but the key chain and the Aston Martin V8 Vantage absolutely slaps. I will have words with anyone who says otherwise. A-ha’s title track is a toe-tapper, but the last time John Barry would hold a baton for a Bond film deserves much more of a moment in cinematic history than this film enjoys. The opening sequence that sees Bond the only survivor of a training exercise gone wrong is actually one of my favorite opening sequences, made only better by the fact that the rest of the film is imminently watchable.

Top all of that off with the realization that the death of Necros (Andreas Wisniewski) is the direct inspiration for one of my personal favorite pieces of short fiction I ever wrote, “50 Miles to Somewhere North of Cambodia.”

Is it possible The Living Daylights is actually one of my favorite Bond films. I’m going to call it. Yeah. It’s definitely up there with the Craig films for me, and even up there with the early Connery films. I’m owning that from now on.

*Which doesn’t exist. I assure you.

Empire Records (1995)

Director: Allan Moyle

Cast: Anthony LaPaglia, Maxwell Caulfield, Liv Tyler, Renée Zellweger

Have I Seen It Before?: For a movie that made just over $300,000 at the box office during its original theatrical run, it sure has a regular run in my house. I’ve also noticed that Rex Manning Day is like the only holiday people born in the 80s can agree on?

Yes, I’ve seen it. With unusual frequency.

Did I like it?: It is, without any irony, my wife’s favorite movie. Like, better than everything else. I know. That’s enough to recommend it, and apparently enough for me to watch it multiple times.

It is not my favorite movie, however. It’s not my favorite grungy-day-in-the-retail-life-with-a-curated-soundtrack film from the mid-90s. A movie like Clerks (1994), for all of its flaws and the irritation it brought to humanity, had an authentic youth-oriented voice*, whereas nearly second of this film’s runtime seems orchestrated to get us kids to buy a soundtrack album that doesn’t even have the common decency to have the Jimi Hendrix version of “Hey Joe.” The whole film is a mishmash of storylines, many of which never reach their conclusion. Even “Saved by the Bell” concluded their character’s addiction to uppers before moving on with other things. I’m not sure where many of the characters might be if they were revisited 25 years later, but I’d be willing to go out on a limb that both the record store is long since gone, and Corey Mason crashed real hard sometime in 1996.

It is, however, my favorite grungy-day-in-the-retail-life-with-a-curated-soundtrack movie from 1995 that is riding the coattails of Clerks. Sorry, Mallrats (1995). Also, every time I see the scene where Mark (Ethan Embry) imagines he both joins and then is maimed by the members of GWAR makes me laugh every time. Also, upon watching the end credits this time, it doesn’t seem like there was nearly as many entries in the soundtrack from the Warner Catalogue as I once thought. Maybe it isn’t 90 minutes of corporate synergy?

*A term that could only be written by someone who is at least in their late thirties. We’re all Joe now, aren’t we?

Skyfall (2012)

Director: Sam Mendes

Cast: Daniel Craig, Judi Dench, Javier Bardem, Ralph Fiennes

Have I Seen It Before?: It’s actually the only Bond film that I managed to talk my wife into seeing in the theater. I can report that she thought it was “okay.”

Did I like it?: As I continued to read through Nobody Does It Better: The Complete, Uncensored, Unauthorized Oral History of James Bond, I was mystified that somehow this film has reduced in estimation by the viewing community at large.

Is it quite as good as Casino Royale (2006)? That’s one of those classic comparisons that is in equal measures resoundingly unfair and completely unavoidable. Royale is the first legitimate interpretation of a Fleming novel since probably Goldfinger (1964) but really, truly From Russia With Love (1963). This movie doesn’t bother to do what every other Bond film does and try to synthesize the most time-worn wisps of a story around the barest elements of the Fleming canon. This one somehow re-examines the modern Bond and the literary Bond and manages to create something that Fleming would have been proud of. Or at least, something Fleming would have gotten embroiled into a decades long copyright that would make many of the subsequent films worse for the effort. Some might complain that we jumped from Bond’s earliest missions to the period in time when he desperately wants to hang up his Walther forever, but if I understand the realities of the 00-unit in the Fleming books, the limited shelf life fits.

Notice how I didn’t really answer the question? I don’t want to pick between these two. They’re the best (so far) in a run for Craig where the weak links in the chain would be the best film another Bond could ever hope to do.

So, let’s dwell on what the film does astonishingly well. The theme song from Adele is the greatest Bond opener since at least the brief experiment with New Wave during the bridge between Roger Moore and Timothy Dalton, and really, truly since Shirley Bassey last graced us with her presence in Moonraker (1979). I mean, it may be my favorite Bond theme ever, and that is some rarified company.

And then there is that ending. No, not the extended sequence borrowing heavily from Home Alone (1990) that some people seem bent out of shape about, although I have a feeling people would be more bothered by it if the original long-shot plan of having Sean Connery play the groundskeeper, Kincade (Albert Finney)*. I speak more of that final sequence where Craig abandons the prequel elements of his films up until that point and goes through the gauntlet of M’s (Ralph Fiennes) leather door to be finally a fully-formed Bond.

“Are you ready to get back to work?”

“With pleasure.”

Sure beats the hell out of “I thought Christmas only comes once a year” as far as last lines in Bond films is concerned.

Now if only that next film had capitalized on the promise laid here a little better. That would’ve been great.

*The notion that Connery would somehow skip out on Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008) but instead come out of retirement for an EON production is mystifying beyond my previous capacity for understanding. By all accounts—and the oral history mentioned above makes no reference to the notion—the Broccoli’s abandoned the notion before even approaching Connery. But what if they had gone completely crazy on the idea. They could have absolutely unified the continuity of the entire series if they slapped Pierce Brosnan in the Javier Bardem role? Yes, the movie would be an astonishing mess, and most of the 90s Bond movies would somehow mean even less, but we’d probably still be talking about it.

Batman Begins (2005)

Director: Christopher Nolan

Cast: Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Liam Neeson, Gary Oldman

Have I Seen it Before: Oh, man. Summer of 2005. The eventual release of this film and the abatement of the era of Schumacher were the only things getting me out of bed in the morning.

Did I Like It: It’s a strange thing from some different angles, but this movie is often overshadowed by the juggernaut that was The Dark Knight (2008). In some ways, that’s fair, as Nolan so succeeded with this freshman effort that he was subsequently given the same freedom to flex his creative muscles in the sequel that Tim Burton was given in Batman Returns (1992) and Schumacher (I guess) got in Batman & Robin (1997).

And it’s fair primarily in the sense that this film is somewhat mired in very basic film writing tools. There’s a big set piece at the end, featuring the monorail built by the Wayne family and Wayne Tower that is seeded in the films early minutes. There are a few call backs to early sections of the film that feel a little jokey. The dialogue for Ra’s Al Ghul (Neeson) that is far too on-the-nose villain speak. And there’s a moment that causes regular audiences—and even myself—enjoy, but in the verisimilitude Nolan is going out of his way to try to achieve, doesn’t make any sense. Why does Batman (Bale) use his first appearance to say “I’m Batman” when that seems like something that the media would attach to him after he begins to terrorize the underworld? Even the Zack Snyder films—a complete drag as they mostly are—manage to give the Dark Knight more of an urban legend quality. It is one of the few things that those films got right.

There’s also that sense, and I think it mainly comes from the Star Trek series, that if the second film in the series is the absolute best-case scenario for a film series, then it must be because there is something wrong with the first film. This really isn’t case, other than those nitpicks I indicated above. The film is interested in character development (even if some of the characters drift into archetypes, see above) and moving those characters forward. The toys, to borrow a term from Jack Nicholson, Batman uses are given origins that may not be realistic, but have a certain James Bondian logic.

The film would have scratched all of my various bat-itches by the end, and then there’s that final scene. I remember in the theater when Gordon (Oldman) turns over that playing card, I had an expression of pure joy. He was out there. And at that moment, he was all potential. The imagination tingled. It’s a great way to leave a film. Even now, when the rise of the Clown Prince of Crime in this series had been fully and delightfully realized (and had become the rallying cry of every idiot with a blu ray player until Joaquin Phoenix gave them something else to fixate on), it still sends a shiver down my spine.

It’s still a pretty great way to make a movie.

Quantum Of Solace (2008)

Director: Mark Forster

Cast: Daniel Craig, Olga Kurylenko, Mathieu Amalric, Judi Dench

Have I Seen it Before: Oh, sure.

Did I Like It: But I only think I’ve seen it once in the theater, and then again when I acquired the DVD*. That’s telling. It is a step down from the absolute transcendence that was Casino Royale, and it’s storyline is all afterthought material from that preceding film. The Bond films have quite rightly not needed to feed into material from the previous film, and even only occasionally tried to have any kind of continuity at all. The best Bond films are so fully themselves that the confidence of the filmmakers and the confidence of the main character fuse into one entity. 

Also, the successor to Royale may have always been doomed to be a letdown simply because it follows what might very well be the best films of their series, see Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984), The Dark Knight Rises(2012), or Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi (1983) for other examples.

But, as with all of those perfectly fine films above, this film probably gets an objectively bad rap. The direction from Mark Forester, then most famous for Stranger Than Fiction (2006), brings a precise visual scheme to the proceedings makes this look like no other Bond film before or since. Also, while the story is beholden to another movie, it definitely taps into that pure Fleming essence that Craig has tapped into so thoroughly. And I love the opening titles and theme song. That alone can go a long way towards leading me to feel more favorable about a particular Bond outing.

Were this an entry in any other Bond actor tenure (including Sean Connery) it would have been one of the best Bond films of all time. Sadly, it must become Craig’s weak link. One movie would have to be, and if this is the nadir, Craig’s status as the greatest since Connery will stand for all time.

*You can tell (minus the weird exception of Diamonds are Forever (1971)) which Bond films I enjoy the most by which I own on blu-ray. Casino Royale (2006), Skyfall (2012), From Russia With Love (1963), A View To A Kill (1985). This one I only have on DVD.

Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult (1994)

Director: Peter Segal

Cast: Leslie Nielsen, Priscilla Presley, George Kennedy, O.J. Simpson

Have I Seen It Before?: I wrote in my review of The Naked Gun 2 1/2: The Smell of Fear (1991) that the first two films in the series had largely conflated to the point where I was not sure I had seen either of the films all the way through at all. Here, I have no memory of the film that plays out and am reasonably sure I’ve never seen it at all.

Did I like it?: And I’m not necessarily sure that I was missing much.

Things open well enough with an extended homage to Battleship Potemkin (1925). Okay, it’s actually an extended reference to The Untouchables (1987), but I’m trying to give the film credit for at least aping a film that itself was aping high art. I also spent a few moments wondering how they managed to get a camera inside of a pinball machine for the ubiquitous police siren opening titles, but sometimes its best to let the magic of cinema wash over you.

From there, I’m witness to only a few moments of mirth. In fact, the biggest laugh the film got out of me was a throw-away gag where the words “Police Squad” were painted in different directions on a door window, so that only one words looked backwards. The non-sequiturs fly amusingly at the climax staged against the Academy Awards, but that’s slim pickings, if you ask me. Just a few lines from Anna Nicole Smith, and I’m immediately stuck by how much I underestimated Priscilla Presley’s competence as a film actress. It definitely doesn’t help that it is revealed at the end that her character has a penis, which inspires Drebin to become physical sick. With this film and Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (1994), what the hell was with 1994? That doesn’t even begin to cover the O.J. Simpson of it all.

One can’t help but wonder if this film was the first step in the long slow decline that was the career of Leslie Nielsen. Oh well, we’ll always have Airplane (1980) and for that matter, Forbidden Planet (1956).