Skyfall (2012) * *

Directed by:  Sam Mendes

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


After viewing this 23rd installment of the 007 Bond series, I'm left to wonder if there is really anything more that can be done to make the series fresh.    The players change, technology is updated, and there are newer computer-savvy villains, but to me Bond films are becoming like any other spy thriller.   They're well made, the performances are well done, but the entire enterprise is about to outlive its necessity.   We have enough Bond films so I wouldn't mind if they never made another one.

Skyfall is a film with a slow, drawn-out first half vs. a better second half.    The opening of the film begins with a very long chase scene, involving cars, trains, and construction equipment.   I'm rather weary of chase scenes by now.    During it, Bond is accidentally shot by one of his fellow agents and presumed dead.    Of course he isn't, otherwise there would be no movie.   But upon reflection, I don't even know why this angle was even introduced.    It went nowhere and has little effect on what follows.

Soon enough, MI6, helmed by M (Dench) is under siege in more ways than one.   First, M is forced into early retirement by the department's new overseer Mallory (Fiennes) and then MI6 headquarters is blown up into a million pieces via the aforementioned computer-savvy villain (Bardem).   Bardem is a former MI6 agent with a grudge against M which is later fleshed out in a jail scene eerily similar to Silence Of The Lambs.

As villains go, Bardem is fine, but I have to admit I was puzzled by his actions in the film's climactic shootout on the Scottish moors.   There are lots of chases and shootouts here which don't really distinguish themselves in Bond lore.    M is given more dimensions here than in previous Bond films and Fiennes' Mallory is also allowed some character wiggle room to make him interesting.   

The Bond series is trying very hard to keep up with the times, but is it even effective anymore?    Bond has been up against every kind of terrorist, drug lord, empire, and super villain you can throw at him.   He always comes out clean on the other side with a fresh tux and sipping his martinis.    There is really only so much that can be done before Bond grows stale.    Oh, and there is even a new Q.  And perhaps a whole new generation of gadgets.  

200 Cigarettes (1999) * *

Directed by: Risa Bramon-Garcia

Starring:  Ben Affleck, Casey Affleck, Kate Hudson, Jay Mohr, Christina Ricci, Courtney Love, Martha Plimpton, Paul Rudd


Set on New Year's Eve 1981, 200 Cigarettes is an ensemble comedy involving revolving storylines that come together at a party in which its host (Plimpton) is fearful no one will attend.    Funny thing is, people attend, but what happened there is told in narration and shown in Polaroid snapshots.    200 Cigarettes is more concerned with the events leading up to the party.    Most of what happens in trivial romantic comedy stuff with lots of dialogue, although not much of substance actually being said.    There isn't anything catchy about the film.   I can't remember a line of dialogue that stood out.   It's not awful, but as Dom Deluise said in History Of The World Part I, "Nice, not THRILLING, but nice."   Yes, I quoted History Of The World Part I.

The film is set in 1981, but there is really no reason for this except to have cool 1980's songs on the soundtrack.   I'm a big fan of Roxy Music's "More Than This" by the way, so that's always good to hear.   But the film could've easily been set on New Year's Eve 2011.   Actually, they made that film too.   It was called New Year's Eve, which like this film is innocuous and fleeting.

The performances here are mostly okay, although I could've done without all of Kate Hudson's pratfalls.  And believe me there is a lot of them.    Why her character is presented as such a klutz is beyond me, but she is certainly a pretty thing.   Christina Ricci really lays on the New Yawk accent too while no one else does.   Why this is I don't know either.    Dave Chappelle is the cab driver who at one point or another carries all of the film's characters in his cab acts as a narrator of sorts.   Naturally, he has a scene in which he smokes weed.    His film contracts must state that he gets at least one of these per film.

I'm guessing the film is called 200 Cigarettes because mostly all of the characters smoke a lot and maybe that is the total number of cigarettes smoked in the film.   I didn't count and I wasn't quite that bored that I even wanted to.   Elvis Costello appears in the film inexplicably and as far as I know, he didn't smoke.  At least he knows that stuff is bad for you.      

Criminal Law (1989) * *

Directed by:  Martin Campbell

Starring:  Gary Oldman, Kevin Bacon, Tess Harper, Karen Young, Joe Don Baker


Criminal Law starts out with slick courtroom theatrics played very well by Gary Oldman as a slick, theatrical lawyer named Ben Chase.    He is able to get his client off on a murder charge, but soon his worst nightmare comes true...his client kills again, setting off a moral dilemma for Chase and a cat and mouse game for the client, Martin Thiel (Bacon), who is slick, rich, and not one bit innocent.    I enjoyed the way Criminal Law started, but it dissolved quickly into an overly stylized film which goes way over the top in almost every way.   Even the score, heavy on synthesizer, is a little too noticeable as it underscores practically each scene.    I started to get a TV movie of the week feel from it.

Oldman's performance turns out to be uneven and every now and then a bit over the top itself.    Oldman is not a thousand miles removed from his work in The Professional or True Romance, where he threatens to eat the scenery and spit it out.     Worse yet, I found myself not caring about him or his dilemma much, which seems to follow the script more than it is felt.    Bacon is able to keep his yuppie psycho in check for most of the film, instilling his character with surface geniality and inner creepiness.    The reasoning for his murders seems taken from the headlines of the day, as if his character really needed a reason to be psychotic.

The film takes place in Boston, yet no one has a Boston accent, even the veteran cops.    Joe Don Baker has his traditional strong Southern drawl intact.   Turns out the film was shot in Montreal, so there isn't a lot of local Boston scenery to be shared.    It rains so much that the Peanuts phrase, "It was a dark and stormy night", jumped into my head more than once.     I was also less than convinced by Oldman's relationship with a young woman (Karen Young) who is a victim's roommate.   At first, she is angry with Oldman for setting Bacon free, but soon because the script requires it, she and Oldman are having sex.   Not just sex, but the kind that could me mistaken for assault at least and rape at worst.  

The ending is strangely handled too, involving one character holding another at gunpoint inside an empty courtroom and explaining his motives, which are perfectly clear by that time.     Considering that the character loudly assaulted the other just moments before, causing a mass panic, it's odd that the two are able to have such quality time together in the courtroom.   Just saying.

The Five-Year Engagement (2012) * *

Directed by:  Nicholas Stoller

Starring: Jason Segel, Emily Blunt


Like Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008), a recent Jason Segel-Nicholas Stoller collaboration, this romantic comedy runs at least 30 minutes too long.    It's a rather unevenly paced comedy with moments of strong laughs mixed in with moments that don't seem to fit.    The leads are appealing and the supporting cast has fun, but The Five-Year Engagement drags on like its title suggests, killing any momentum that was delivered in the early going.

The story is simple enough.    Tom and Violet are a happy San Francisco couple who get engaged on New Year's Eve, one year after they meet at a costume party.    Plans go awry when Violet accepts a position at the University of Michigan.   Tom agrees to put their wedding on hold as they move to Michigan.   Tom was a sous-chef at a chic San Fran restaurant, but can only get a job at a deli in Michigan.   As Violet's career blossoms, Tom becomes depressed because he works at the deli and lives in snowy, cold Ann Arbor.    How depressed?  He grows a beard, takes up hunting, and adds venison to every dish you can think of.   "I have three dead deer in the garage, I can make some more," he says.

Because romantic comedies are what they are, the couple will soon break up, go their separate ways, and then reconcile.   This takes up the last 45 minutes of the film, but a question gnawed at me:  Why couldn't these two get married in Michigan?   I guess because that would be the end of the film and we wouldn't be treated to a scene of Tom chasing his rival through the snowy streets of Ann Arbor or the trials and tribulations of Violet's wonderful career.

I don't know.   Despite a few funny scenes, I couldn't work up much enthusiasm for The Five Year Engagement.   Much like Forgetting Sarah Marshall, it was paced in such a way that I found myself being dragged along to the inevitable conclusion.      

The Vow (2012) * *

Directed by:  Michael Sucsy
 
Starring:  Channing Tatum, Rachel McAdams, Sam Neill, Jessica Lange, Scott Speedman


The Vow is about a perfectly happy couple in love and married for four years.    One snowy night, they stop at a stop sign for a kiss and are rearended by a snow plow.   Paige (McAdams) goes flying through the windshield and wakes up in the hospital with no memory of her husband Leo (Tatum).   In fact, her memory stopped up to the point in which she was engaged to a WASP named Jeremy and she was a suburban WASP herself.   This naturally hurts Leo and puts the couple on a awkward road in which she goes home with a guy she can't remember.  

This sounds like a setup for a moving drama in which Paige learns to fall in love with Leo all over again, but The Vow doesn't seem to ever get started.   I couldn't muster enough energy to care.   Maybe because somehow Paige seemed curiously more of an unsympathetic character after the accident.    The subplot involving Paige's estranged parents turned the movie into a soap opera and things are not resolved via any emotional breakthrough or truth, but on a plot turn.  

I think The Vow didn't work because maybe there is only so much of an emotional arc the story can take.   If Paige suddenly bumps her head again and remembers things, then it would be ludicrous.    The Vow as constructed just kinds of mozies along and things all kind of fall into place neatly with little fuss.   The movie is "inspired by true events", meaning based on a true story.   How much of The Vow is based on the truth is not known.    But even though the movie has fine performances, it needs a lot of work on the "inspired" part.