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Showing posts with the label spy

GET SMART - REVIEW

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Review available on the new website .

SPECTRE - REVIEW

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Everyone's favourite super-spy is back with another instalment and, this time, he's taking on the head of the infamous, shady organisation SPECTRE. Directed by Skyfall maestro Sam Mendes, SPECTRE opens big and in terms of pre-titles credit scenes it doesn't disappoint. The beautifully shot sequence includes an Ă¼ber-long tracking shot which opens at the heart of the smoky Mexican Day Of The Dead street celebrations and ends on a rooftop with Daniel Craig's suited 007 quietly staking out a bad guy through a sniper lens. Everything you want from a Bond film is in that sequence: a beautiful woman, face-punching, buildings crumbling, a tongue-in-cheek lol moment and a smooth lead up to an elaborate credits sequence. Speaking of which, the latter looks slick but is perhaps a little too busy and distracted for its own good. Plus Sam Smith really should have let someone with more oomph sing "Writing's On The Wall" because as it stands it makes that forgetta

DR. NO - REVIEW

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The fact that Ian Fleming's Martini-drinking super-spy still has an audience over 50 years later is a testament to the formula set up by the writer's novels and, of course, the movies which kicked off with the 1962 classic Dr. No . Sean Connery shines as James Bond from the very first moment you meet him, casually smoking and winning some dough in a game of cards before walking away like a boss to the sound of his own theme, setting up a date with a beautiful stranger. He brings intelligence and an effortless charm to the character but he can also be tough and menacing when he needs to be, tossing minor enemies aside, killing off assassins in cold blood without giving it a second thought. Based on this performance, it's no wonder the world fell in love with this Bond, James Bond fella. The film itself boasts all the tropes you'd expect in a Bond film: girls, guns, physically impaired villains with absurd aspirations, an underwater lair, a casino scene, a Martini

OCTOPUSSY - REVIEW

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Remember back when it was totally ok to call your Bond film Octopussy for absolutely no reason? This was the early 80's, when Roger Moore was still James Bond despite being a little too old for the role and 007 movies each doing pretty much exactly the same thing without any real surprises. Oh sure Bond went to space and got an extra nipple at some point, but essentially the formula stagnated and/or went downhill after that. Octopussy preceded A View To A Kill , Moore's last Bond flick, and it tends to be remembered more for its racy title than for its content. In a nutshell: the film's plot is irrelevant. Something about the Soviet Union trying to setup a war through a women-led circus somehow, and jewellery... This'll hurt less if you don't think about it. A lot happens in this movie but so much of it is either random or completely irrelevant, you could be forgiven for thinking this is more of a clip show from other Roger Moore Bond movies rather than its

THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E. - REVIEW

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If The Lone Ranger taught us one thing it's that movie adaptations of really old TV shows starring Armie Hammer just aren't worth it. Now here comes The Man From U.N.C.L.E. in an attempt to correct this assumption. The classic Robert Vaughn-starring series, out of which a few TV movies were born back in the day, gets a full makeover courtesy of director Guy Ritchie who recently enough gave us a couple of action-packed, surprisingly fun Sherlock Holmes movies. The appropriately retro opening titles sequence along with a thrilling car chase quickly sell us on the idea that this Man From U.N.C.L.E. is in safe hands. Indeed, the film continues to look slick and stay smooth throughout with its fancy split-screens and its classily kitsch 60's costumes. Plus the two leads are competent, Henry Cavill and Armie Hammer both giving reliably solid performances, and the same can be said for Alicia Vikander, who plays a central component of the U.S. and the Soviet Union's

BOND 24: SPECTRE - TEASER POSTER

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Pay attention, 007. Your new mission finally has a name: Also, a teaser poster: Your new villain, by the way, will be played by the ever-wonderful Christoph Waltz. Agent 2015 better get here soon...

R.O.D: READ OR DIE - REVIEW

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Based on a series of light novels and a manga, R.O.D: Read Or Die sounded awesome, on "paper" at least. The plot was something akin to a bookworm school teacher/special agent known The Paper (hence the above pun) fighting off weird super-powered bad guys over books under the US President's orders as some Beethoven manuscripts could end up being the key to building a 9th Symphony weapon that makes people kill themselves The Happening -style. In a word: nonsense. But it sounded like the kind of steampunky nonsense I could get behind. Remember The Amazing Screw-On Head ? The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen ? Sky Captain And The World Of Tomorrow ? I like all that stuff and I was looking forward to R.O.D introducing us to a crazy, messed-up world where Thomas Edison flies blimps, shooting carrots at robot penguins or something to that effect. The result was, indeed, appropriately absurd but not quite as joyfully so as it promised to be. The animated feature isn'

LARA CROFT: TOMB RAIDER - REVIEW

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Remember when that movie came out? How excited we were? I know I was! A perfectly cast Angelina Jolie playing the one game character EVERY geek fantasized about in a full-blown action adventure flick? Finally? I couldn't wait. Then I watched it... I hadn't been this disappointed in a video game movie since Street Fighter and at least that one was enjoyable in a so-bad-it's-good kind of way, it was entertaining at the very least! Not that this Tomb Raider outing is completely joyless: there is a sense that they were trying to make a fun movie complete with loads of action, playful one-liners and comic relief characters (both of which are awful here, by the way) but somehow it managed to completely miss the point. It's really quite simple: what Tomb Raider should be is nothing more than a modern Indiana Jones with a quietly badass female lead and cool, cartoonish villains. Yet this movie finds it necessary to spend no less than 40 minutes building exposition f

MOONRAKER - REVIEW

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Love 'em or hate 'em, the Roger Moore years were certainly worth a watch. I mean, look at the above poster. Why would you NOT go and see that? Ah Moonraker . I had forgotten this entire film but I had a feeling that re-watching it might just prove it to be so bad it would actually tower above Never Say Never Again and On Her Majesty's Secret Service as the ultimate best worst Bond movie. The very idea of 007 IN SPACE sounded ludicrous but kind of awesome so I was really looking forward to revisiting this one properly. Hm, how do I put this... Moonraker... Isn't THAT bad. I mean, don't get me wrong, it's silly, but not in the hilarious "bad movie" way I was expecting. The main problem with Moonraker isn't it's OTT plot but rather that the build-up to the whole space thing is crazy-boring. You know where the movie is going right off the bat, you've seen the poster! And yet it's like the film spends 90 minutes fumbling i

A VIEW TO A KILL - REVIEW

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Talk about a good set-up! You've got a cool title, a kickass Duran Duran theme song, Christopher Walken, Grace Jones, all in a Bond film! How is this not widely known as THE best 007 flick out there? I'll tell ya: HORSES . Yeah, you know what's not cool to have in a Bond film? An extensive amount of time spent talking about or riding horses. I mean, I like the countryside and the pooey smell of stables as much as anyone but... Remember that scene in Goldfinger where Bond is playing golf with the titular villain? Now imagine if that scene was about an hour long. Ouch. Alright, I know it sounds like I'm panning A View To A Kill pretty harshly, but don't get me wrong: I like the movie! Christopher Walken's Max Zorin is a cool villain, Grace Jones is as striking as ever as henchwoman May Day, I like the opening ski scene, as silly as it is, and the third act is actually pretty darn decent. You've got a chase up and down the Eiffel Tower, Bond a

OSS 117 LAUGHATHON PART DEUX

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THE SPY WHO LOVED ME - REVIEW

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Having never been a fan of Roger Moore's take on Bond, I have to say that, with the exception of Live And Let Die , I barely remembered the likes of The Spy Who Loved Me or For Your Eyes Only . So revisiting those was a bit of a must. The Spy Who Loved Me is Moore's fourth movie and as such lacks the oomph and general quality of the first couple of outings but it does fit into the pre- Moonraker category not only literally (it IS just before Moonraker :P) but also in terms of it being before Moore's films started getting really, groaningly ridiculous. This one sees Bond face a nutty villain with an underwater/overwater lair who enjoys sending people through an elevator down to a shark-infested pool of death Team America 's Kim Jong Il-style. 007 is joined by Russian Agent XXX who is played not by Vin Diesel but Barbara Bach, queen of B movies and... whatever Caveman was meant to be. Sadly, she really is the weakest link in this movie performance-wise making her

OSS 117 LAUGHATHON

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THE SAINT - REVIEW

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It's tough to beat a Bond movie at the box office, especially if your film is a B movie about cold fusion and goofy disguises. Tomorrow Never Dies was released the same year as The Saint and it's easy to see why the Val Kilmer-starring vehicle faded away into nothing. For crying out loud, Never Dies had a remote controlled BMW! The Saint had Elisabeth Shue with a heart condition. That the latter was turned down by a plethora of actors from Mel Gibson to Arnold Schwarzenegger is no surprise. All the ingredients for a fun light-hearted thriller are there and yet The Saint suffers from having one of the least inspired scripts I've seen in a long time. Who thought this was interesting? Some stock Russian gangsters want to steal the formula for cold fusion in order to fix some unlikely election. Meanwhile, some guy called Simon Templar helps them but then doesn't. THE END.  For aaaaages.  116 minutes on THAT boring-ass story? Surely you jest. The opening titles of T

TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY - REVIEW

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Spy movies have been done and redone in millions of different ways. Johnny English Reborn is out soon but for those looking for something a little more substantial and a little less...2003 there's always this little number. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy may not boast Mr Bean hijinx but with a first class British cast it should peak the interest of most regardless. So far the critics have been unanimously dreamy but does Thomas Alfredson's film really adds more to John Le Carré's tale than the BBC mini series? Hard to say. Yes the running time is obviously condensed but that turns out to be both a bit of a blessing and a bit of a curse. At a bit more than two hours, the film feels about three hours long. And the ending, although it doesn't really feel rushed, lacks the punch it could have had if we'd been given a bit more time to care for these great characters. Great characters which are played to perfection by the way. This is a great cast and no one puts a

NORTH BY NORTHWEST - REVIEW

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  Alfred Hitchcock's lighthearted thriller may not always be number one in people's top Hitch-lists and it may have been overshadowed by more sinister and daring efforts like Psycho or Vertigo but North by Northwest was never meant to be anything more than good, suspenseful fun. Which it is. Cary Grant is wittier than ever in a role which sees him being constantly bewildered, drink driving, pursued by a plane, hanging off Mount Rushmore and causing a ruckus at a sales auction. But throughout, he never seems to take things too seriously and takes it all in its stride as we sit back and enjoy the Bond-style adventure he's been forced into. The film contains all the classic tongue-in-cheek Hitchcock traits: an unsympathetic mother, a tortured blonde love interest, a case of mistaken identity and, of course, suspense by the buckets. The final jump cut and joke right at the end cheekily reminding you one last time that North By Northwest is indeed mostly a fun, silly action

THE AMERICAN - REVIEW

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Or, as it should be called: "Look Ma I'm in a European Movie!", The American is an odd creation in that it feels like a French or German thriller produced by Steven Soderbergh with Clooney in the middle of it all. Which is not to say it has no value: it's actually surprisingly tense and gripping even if not much at all actually happens. Clooney once again gives a fair but hardly earth-shattering dramatic performance and makes me wish, once again, that I was watching him in another gloriously wacky Coen Brothers movie. That said, he does well here and clearly enjoys the quirks of being in a European movie (Violante Placido is pretty much naked the entire time). Story-wise: he makes a weapon for some ominous hit-woman, falls in love with a prostitute, speaks to a priest for some reason...and a whole bunch of inevitable yet perplexing stuff happens right at the end. The American won't change your life but occasionally it does surprise you with a nea

OCTOPUS - REVIEW

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As my endless search for the funniest and best bad movie around continues, I find myself sitting for an hour waiting for some rubbish-looking octopus to show up in a spy movie set in a submarine.  And although the wait is obviously not worth it, there is at least enough silliness involved here to keep me entertained. You've essentially got two movies in one here: a watchable spy TV movie starring a Daniel Craig lookalike as a Russian terrorist and an awfully boring horror B-movie about a giant octopus messing around with a submarine filled with forgettable characters. Putting these two films together, shockingly, doesn't work and you'll soon find yourself not caring about the monster and just wishing you were watching the spy movie instead. Dire special effects, terrible but fun over (and under) acting, evil Daniel Craig dressed-up like an old lady, Carolyn Lowery's slutty "scientist", the line: "She's holding, baby!": there