Casino Royale (2006)

After Die Another Day nearly killed the franchise with excess, Casino Royale is exactly the course correction audiences needed, expected, and desired from James Bond.  Perhaps the greatest thing about Casino Royale is how it desperately wants the audience’s faith in the franchise, coupled with how brilliantly the film achieves that goal.

Casino Royale reboots the franchise to the early days of James Bond (Daniel Craig), newly minted as Agent 007 in the 00 division of MI6.  In the wake of his pursuit of a small-time bombmaker, Bond follows the trail of clues to the Bahamas, then Montenegro, where he is enlisted in a high-stakes poker game against terrorist financier Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen).  Armed with $15 million courtesy of treasury agent Vesper Lynd (Eva Green), Bond must bankrupt Le Chiffre, an expert poker player who already knows Bond is coming for him.

From the black-and-white precredits sequence, which almost makes one wish the whole film had been shot monochromatically, what is immediately striking is just how visceral Casino Royale is.  Doubtless this is the casualty of living in the shadow of The Bourne Identity (released the same year as Die Another Day), which is widely credited with injecting a healthy dose of gritty realism into the spy film genre, but Casino Royale never seems like it’s aping someone else’s act; rather, the film succeeds by adapting the lessons in realism from Bourne into the preexisting template of what a Bond film should be.

That lesson is to step away from all the theatricality of the Bond films because they often made the character a pawn in a larger-than-life aesthetic catastrophe.  Take Moonraker, which tried to up the scales by sending Bond to outer space but succeeding only in escaping the gravitational pull of being watchable.  Consider the other space laser in the Bond canon, Die Another Day, a frigid mess unwilling to commit to tonal consistency.  No, it’s impossible not to hear the voice of director Martin Campbell, who had helmed Goldeneye to great success, shouting at the previous films, “Look what you’ve done to the place!”  You can’t tell me that it’s an accident that Campbell was summoned back to right the ship, because as before he excels at exactly this sort of thing.

Once more, Campbell is asked to introduce us to a new Bond, Daniel Craig.  Dubbed “James Blond” by viewers focusing on entirely the wrong aspect of his performance, Craig brings an icy exterior to Bond, his sense of humor coming less from a place of self-confidence and more from a Dalton-esque disdain for his enemies.  Where Connery and Moore delivered the one-liners with a wink and a slight smirk, Craig manages to be deadly serious about being clever, something that really comes out in subsequent viewings beyond the initial shock of thinking he’s not very funny.  We have to remember that this is an early Bond, a prequel reboot (a preboot?), and Craig does a first-rate job of giving us glimmers of the Bond we expect to see while layering in psychological nuance.

Something we’ll really see developed in the Craig era is the relationship between Bond and M.  Judi Dench is held over from the Brosnan films, and thank God for that because she’s bloody brilliant.  From her very first scene in Casino Royale, which finds her refusing to let her assistant get a word in edgewise, Dench is inspired casting, continuing her force-of-nature portrayal of the head of MI6.  Her relationship with Bond is especially compelling, not quite maternal but oddly affectionate nonetheless.  M is clearly confident in the abilities of her newly-promoted protégé, initially without cause, and this faith in Bond is much more engaging than the steely nature of the male Ms before her.  I’ll never complain any time Judi Dench shows up anywhere, and the apparent continuity contradiction of her presence shouldn’t bother anyone in the slightest because her M is a fantastic addition to the Bond canon.  (If it truly distresses you, just imagine that “James Bond” is a codename and not a real name.  It’ll also explain why a secret agent is so flippant about using his real name.)

I could take a few paragraphs to say effusive things about Mikkelsen and Green, but the thrust of it is that they fit perfectly with the more grounded ethos of Casino Royale and their performances are delightful updates on the “Bond baddie” and “Bond girl” (respectively).  What I’m more struck by, though, is how effective a director Campbell is, measurable by his dexterity with purely visual language.  There are many sequences that proceed without dialogue, yet the film communicates it all deftly.  We don’t need to be told, for example, that Bond is putting on a façade each time he plays it cool, because Campbell gets a hell of a performance out of Craig.  The brief moments of running commentary during the poker games feel slightly abrasive because the film works so strongly with the visual, even for someone who knows little about card games.  The action sequences – which, incidentally, are stellar – bear the mark of solid direction, both for remaining exciting and for slickly refusing to call attention to themselves.  Bond’s chase-parkour-siege sequence early in the film never flounders, and it’s to Campbell’s credit that he stages a stairwell fistfight with as much dexterous grace as Bond’s attempt to discern Le Chiffre’s ‘tell.’

If I have a complaint about Casino Royale, it’s that it ends twice when the first conclusion would have sufficed.  But the second ending does set up a vital piece of Bond’s character – his detached womanizing – and gives us the dynamite last shot in which 007 finally delivers the one line you’ve been waiting the whole time.  Once those five words get spoken and the film cuts to black with the musical sting you’ve also been anticipating (I won’t spoil either, but true believers know which ones I mean), I can’t imagine anyone not feeling a strong chill of accomplishment up the spine with an awed murmur of “And we’re back.”  “James Bond will return,” the credits promise in that noble tradition, but Casino Royale has demonstrated that Bond has already returned.  And we’re back.

Casino Royale is rated PG-13 for “intense sequences of violent action, a scene of torture, sexual content and nudity.”  While the violence isn’t pervasive, it is quite intense when it happens; the fight scenes are very well choreographed, and they feel very visceral, including a scene in which a nude Bond (nothing is shown) is assaulted with a carpet beater.  Bond has romantic encounters with two women who don’t show anything more than their neckline.

James Bond and The Cinema King will return in a review of Quantum of Solace (2008) on November 7, 2014!

Sin City: A Dame to Kill For (2014)

Eh.

Oh, you wanted a full review?  Okay, here goes:

When Oliver Twist asked, “Please, sir, I want some more,” he didn’t have to wait nine years for a second pot of food.  As I recall, he didn’t get any at all, so maybe we should be grateful that we even have Sin City: A Dame to Kill For, a pre/sequel to 2005’s Sin City.  “Gratitude” isn’t, however, the word I would use to describe Robert Rodriguez’s second adaptation of Frank Miller’s hardboiled comics; the proper word is somewhere between “bored” and “disappointed.”

As before, four interlocking narratives give us another look at Basin City, where the tough guys are tough and the women are all prostitutes of one kind or another.  Dwight McCarthy (Josh Brolin) is pulled back into a spiderweb woven by his femme fatale ex Ava Lord (Eva Green), while lucky gambler Johnny (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) finds himself across the poker table from the evil Senator Roark (Powers Boothe).  However, Nancy Callahan (Jessica Alba) also has her sights on Roark, while Marv (Mickey Rourke) lumbers around punching things.

Here’s the thing about this film:  you’ve already seen it.  Aside from the numerous films that have taken cues from the first Sin City, particularly vis-à-vis spot color and neo-hardboiled ethos, there is very little in the sequel that wasn’t already in the first film.  To name a few (veiled spoilers follow):  a cop’s suicide, shooting a woman mid-kiss, and Marv breaking into fortified compounds – which actually happens a couple of times in this movie alone.

The points deducted for originality really sting because Sin City was, on its initial arrival, heralded for its innovative approach to adapting comics to the screen.  Nine years later, though, Rodriguez has changed nothing, and the result feels quite stale, almost dated beyond the way that film noir usually harks back to a previous era.  This, for my money, is among the worst sins a film can commit.  For those that own Sin City on DVD, it’ll be cheaper to go back to the original.

If you’re playing the home game and can remember Machete Kills, you’ll recall that Rodriguez is now oh-for-two on sequels, and I’m wondering if the director has lost his edge (or if, a decade later, I’ve perceptibly matured as a moviegoer).  As in Machete Kills, Dame is overfull of very good actors, Gordon-Levitt and Boothe among them.  Post-Deadwood, I’m especially glad to see Powers Boothe get an expanded role here, since his particular brand of scenery-chewing is always a delight.  But where Rodriguez seems to be phoning it in lately, the cast too aren’t at their best.  Alba is trying, you can tell, and so is Brolin; even Green, seemingly inspired casting as the vamping Ava Lord, seems to be overplaying the part – I suspect, though, based on her performance in Dark Shadows that that’s deliberate (Ava Lord is essentially Angelique Bouchard sans clothing), but I might be giving her the benefit of the doubt.  One wonders if all that green-screen filming is getting to them, because the visuals appear to be doing most of the heavy lifting.

For all the disappointment that A Dame to Kill For engenders, it’s never patently bad, which is almost worse.  Making a genuinely bad film is in some respects more of an achievement because it elicits a reaction; an uninspired outing like this one can be reviewed with an unenthusiastic shrug.  I wanted to be swept away by this one like I was with the first, but instead it seems like a relic.  The gender politics are horridly outdated despite the film’s attempt to “empower” its female characters, and the Day-Glo blood sprays are no longer visceral enough.  Instead, the whole film plods out blandly, the cinematic equivalent of Josh Brolin gritting his teeth for two hours.  When he says “Don’t let the monster out,” we’re shouting back, “Please let the monster out and do something creative!”

Instead, the film pulls its punches and plays it safe.  If you enjoyed the first film but wanted more of the same without that feeling of freshness, you’ll have a great time here, but I suspect that this sequel will not be well remembered, if indeed it is remembered at all.

Sin City: A Dame to Kill For is rated R for “strong brutal stylized violence throughout, sexual content, nudity, and brief drug use.”  Stylized is the key word with the violence, because a lot of the time it looks like someone pouring out white paint; a few severed limbs and heads are seen, and usually the blood there is more red.  The middle segment of the film features all of the nudity, a man’s bottom and a frequently topless woman with her lower regions obscured in shadow; other scenes show strippers and prostitutes who keep their skimpy clothes on.  Surprisingly, the language is pretty tidy, with only one F-bomb in the batch.

Dark Shadows (2012)

Most of us were probably squealing with delight when we heard that Tim Burton and Johnny Depp were channeling the old Dark Shadows soap opera in an attempt to take the vampire crown back from the tweener Twilight crowd.

What we got probably won’t dethrone Edward Cullen as pop culture’s current top vampire, but it’s exactly what diehard Burton/Depp fans will enjoy.

After being cursed, vampirized, and resurrected, Barnabas Collins (Depp) awakens in 1972 to find his family’s name in danger of stasis.  Taken in by the family’s current matriarch Elizabeth (Michelle Pfeiffer) and assisted by the groundskeeper (Jackie Earle Haley), Barnabas works to rebuild his family’s fishing industry, which places him in direct competition with Angelique Bouchard (Eva Green) – the witch who cursed him 200 years ago.

Added to the mix are Elizabeth’s angsty teen daughter Carolyn (Chloe Moretz), scandal-prone uncle Roger (Jonny Lee Miller) and his ghost-plagued son David (Gulliver McGrath), Barnabas’s lover reincarnated as the family nanny (Bella Heathcote), and the alcoholic live-in psychiatrist Julia Hoffman (Burton mainstay Helena Bonham Carter).

I catalogued meticulously the ensemble cast behind Depp because this movie has no shortage of plotlines.  It seems that Burton and screenwriter Seth Grahame-Smith (late of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies fame) are trying to replicate the structure of a soap opera, in that characters and plots alternate center stage.  But it doesn’t quite work on film – as a result, great actors like Carter are underused, while clear talents like Moretz are forced to wait their turn, while others still, like Miller, never really see their moment arrive.

As a consequence of all this waiting, many of the actors seem irritated.  While all this scowling and frowning and grimacing does set a certain mood within the film, it’s a distancing mood for the audience.  When all the other characters seem impatient, I get restless too, waiting for the next scene with the actors who seem to be indulging in the spirit of what the movie ought to be.

The two talents who do shine, perhaps predictably, are Depp and Green.  Depp manages to distinguish this British character from Sweeney Todd and Captain Jack Sparrow, immersing himself in the role just as we’d expect of him; Depp is the master of the reaction shot, toeing the line between “creature of the night” and “fish out of water.”  As for Green, she makes her character’s evil infectious, giving us the sense that she’s having a tremendous amount of fun being nasty; in the hands of a less capable actress this would have been a one-note “pretty face” role, but Green creates with aplomb a memorable villain and a worthy adversary for Barnabas.

When I said that Sweeney Todd was “the movie Tim Burton’s been trying to make all his life,” I didn’t realize how sadly prophetic that statement would be.  While I contend that Sweeney Todd is Top Ten Tim, his subsequent work has been somewhat less than.  2009’s Alice in Wonderland was lackluster, and Dark Shadows isn’t quite the revelation I had hoped.  Again, it’s exactly what I expected.  What it doesn’t do is transcend those expectations.

Indeed, the film’s basic attitude can be summed up with the line, “I’m a werewolf.  Deal with it.”  Certainly we can deal with it, but I wanted a little more.  The film is exactly a werewolf, but it’s a bit declawed.  It has its strengths, and it’s another Tim Burton movie, but it didn’t blow me away.

See it, sure, but it’s no Avengers.

Dark Shadows is rated PG-13 for “comic horror violence, sexual content, some drug use, language and smoking.”  Vampires feast, but for comic effect; blood is omnipresent. Much of the film revolves around a seduction plot, again played for comic effect.  Since it’s the Seventies, there’s drinking, smoking, and pot throughout.