The Death of Superman Lives - What Happened? (Jon Schnepp, 2015)

In the mid-nineties, Tim Burton and Nicholas Cage signed on to make a new version of Superman, Superman Lives.

This is the story of that film's un-making.

One of the fun things about getting interested in filmmaking, is learning about unmade projects. Disney's collaboration with Salvador Dali. Vincent Ward's Alien 3. Paul Verhoeven's Crusade. Sean Connery's stab at a rogue Bond production, Warhead. When I was younger, Superman Lives was one of the unmade projects that I gravitated towards - I saw the concept art of Superman in a Borg-style suit and it captured my imagination.

I was one of many people fascinated by this idea. One of those people, Jon Schnepp, went ahead and made a documentary about it. I remember contributing some money when the project was being crowdfunded.

The Death of Superman Lives is an opportunity to tell the full story, from most of the people who contributed towards it, from the various screenwriters (Kevin Smith, Wesley Strick and Dan Gilroy) through the various members of the production and, most significantly, Tim Burton. Burton is one of the ingredients which makes the promise of Superman Lives so fascinating, and the documentary needed to include him to justify its existence. 

While I was familiar with the broad strokes of the story - particularly the Kevin Smith era - it is hard not to get caught up in the story, and a lot of its impact is the material that has never been seen before, at least to the degree that it is here.

Alongside the Burton interview, the holy grail of the documentary is the footage of Nicholas Cage and Burton talking through the character while going through costume fittings. There is something magical about movies, and this footage captures a little of the alchemy of this collaboration that never was.

The cumulative effect of this test footage, the storyboards, design work and talking heads is intoxicating. I have not really cared that much about Superman Lives in years, but I left the documentary with a fresh sense of disappointment that some version of the story was never finished. 

In his pitch for Kickstarter, Schnepp talked about Superman Lives as a missed opportunity - at the least it could have been a curiosity, a failed experiment that bucked the established conventions and expectations of the genre. Since the documentary came out, the superhero genre has calcified. It is everywhere. That context gives The Death of Superman Lives a poignancy that it did not have before. 

An oddity that never was, Jon Schnepp’s documentary goes a long way to preserving Superman Lives in all its weird, unfinished glory.

If you are new to this blog, I also co-host a podcast on James Bond, The James Bond Cocktail Hour.

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BITE-SIZED REVIEW: The Relic (Peter Hyams, 1997)

Something is prowling the floors of the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. 

It eats brains. It falls to a sceptical scientist (Penelope Ann Miller) and a superstitious cop (Tom Sizemore) to hunt it down before it turns visitors and staff into cervelle de veau (brains).

I am not the biggest fan of Peter Hyams’ work. Mostly because I can barely see what is going on in any of his movies.

I like that he wants to create an atmosphere by using a lot of darkness and shadows in his compositions, but he is too dark. There are scenes in his movies where I just cannot see anything and the mood dissipates. 

That being said, I think his aesthetic mostly works for this particular outing. There is an overlit quality to a lot of late nineties genre movies, and The Relic feels like a response to this trend.

That being said, I wish he was a little more judicious in how he deployed it. Once the third act got going, I noticed more over-cutting and a lot of key scenes were composed mostly of close-ups, which made it even harder to figure out where people were in relation to the beast.

The creature itself is a nasty customer - a combination of animatronics and computer-generated imagery, it is legitimately terrifying. Hyams’ obsession with shrouding the frame in darkness is an asset for the CGI.

In its favour, the movie manages to build tension for roughly the first two thirds - while the script is nothing special, in terms of setting the stage for the beast's final rampage, it is pretty effective. The cross-cutting between the opening of the exhibit and the police searching through the building to find the creature is one of the best sequences in the film.

While it works as a monster mash, the movie does have a certain coldness that I have been trying to figure out. It is an issue I have with Hyams' movies. While the movie has characters, I never care about any of them, or their deaths. It always feels like figurines being moved around a board. That hollowness makes the film's uglier elements stand out more: the big one is the minor antagonist Greg Lee (Chi Muoi Lo) - he is the only Asian member of the cast, and he is just a greedy, cowardly stereotype. 

The movie has gained a cult following, and it is easy to see why. With its familiar plot mechanics and very archetypal characters, it reads like a monster movie template from an earlier era - for better and worse.

Viewed through the prism of 2021, it is refreshing to see a genre movie set in a lived-in location - the museum and underground tunnels are great, if under-lit - and the judicious use of CGI means the movie's horrors remain tangible.

The Relic is not great but that is okay. It has modest aspirations, and mostly succeeds at achieving them - you just need to up the brightness and draw the curtains if you want to see them.

If you are new to this blog, I also co-host a podcast on James Bond, The James Bond Cocktail Hour. 

You can subscribe on iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts. 

Angel Heart (Alan Parker, 1987)

1955. Down-on-his-luck private eye Harry Angel (Mickey Rourke) is hired by the mysterious Louis Cyphre (Robert De Niro) to track down a missing man, Johnny Favourite.

The trail of clues is soon strewn with corpses as Favourite's former acquaintances start dying. Will Harry soon join them?

A stylish excuse to indulge in the tropes of classic noir, Angel Heart is a movie that keeps bubbling back into my brain. I have only watched it once before, and on this viewing it became clear that I had forgotten most of the plot and the characters.

A major reason is because this movie is not really about its story - I mean, it is to the extent that it needs a coat hanger to hold up its stylised evocation of 1955 America.

A lot of this movie’s effect is based on its twist - if you figure it out or, like me, knew it ahead of time, I am not sure there is much going on to keep you interested.

But there is something about it.

There is a chill to this movie that I cannot shake - part of it comes from the feeling that this movie is just an excuse for the filmmakers to indulge in the time period (both real and reel). But there is something unsettling about it. 

I had the benefit of a fresh pair of eyes on this recent viewing, and I got the feeling from our post-op discussion that the movie does not work as a typical genre piece.

The movie it reminded me of the most was Blade Runner. It combines noir with the visual trademarks of noir. They both deal with similar themes: the androids’ desire to prolong their lives pair nicely with Angel Heart’s fugitive trying to outrun a bargain with the devil.

Both films also feature dense mise-en-scene - with Angel Heart, it is the fifties. While it certainly adds some visual interest, there was a point midway through the film where I started to get impatient with all the contemporary references - it feels like the filmmakers are trying to pass a social studies exam. 

Not to come off repetitive, but this movie does not have much going on beyond its big twist. Rourke is great in the lead - he is totally believable as a slightly scummy private eye, and his final breakdown is well-handled. But aside from follow the clues and interview suspects, I felt like this movie was missing something else.

This movie is in love with its setting, but it does not have anything to say about it. Like most neo noir, it is just interested with the style of the genre, rather than adding anything new about the genre, the time period or anything. Classic noir was plugged into the world it was made in - Angel Heart is a good-looking facsimile.

For new viewers who are not interested in the period or the genre-blending, Angel Heart is probably not that engrossing. But I would be lying if I did not add myself to the company of people who find it interesting.

If you are new to this blog, I also co-host a podcast on James Bond, The James Bond Cocktail Hour. 

You can subscribe on iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts. 

BITE-SIZED REVIEW: Deep Rising (Stephen Sommers, 1998)

On the maiden voyage of the massive cruise ship the Argonautica, guests are partying like there is no tomorrow. 

What most of them do not know is that someone is sabotaging the control system, a boatload of mercenaries are headed their way and something massive is rising from the depths toward the hull. 

Where in the world is Stephen Sommers?

Deep Rising is so much fun. It is not trying to be anything more than an entertaining monster movie.

Right from the beginning, there is a sense of excitement and adventure.

 

Part of the movie’s charm is what a grab bag of ingredients the movie is. We get a futuristic cruise ship, pirates with hand-held mini-guns and gruesome monsters. And while the tone is light, the movie is not overburdened with lame quips or easy observational lines. 

The visual effects for the creature have aged, but Sommers takes his time revealing them - it is a pity that he fell down the rabbit hole of CGI because when he has to rely on traditional filmmaking techniques, there is a real sense of craft to his work.

The film is always moving, and it never feels repetitive - the filmmakers have a lot of fun utilising different parts of the ship for the various set pieces.

The only real issue with the movie is miscasting - Treat Williams is a nice guy. You know him from Everwood and other things you caught at noon on a rainy Sunday. I know he has done darker material, but Williams is so even-keeled he does not read as an action hero.

While he is not detrimental to the movie - the lack of star does make the movie feel like more of an ensemble piece - I could not stop thinking about how this movie would play with Kurt Russell. 

Harrison Ford was apparently who they wanted, but this character felt like a water-version of Jack Burton (Big Trouble in Little China). With this movie’s goofy tone, he would feel right at home.

The rest of the cast is ridiculously overly-qualified: among the faces you will recognise are Wes Studi, Famke Janssen, Djimon Hounsou, Cliff Curtis and Jason Flemying. No one seems to be phoning it in, which helps. Most of these people were early in their careers/lower profile so if you have not seen it before, there are some surprises to the sequence of deaths.

Recurring Sommers collaborator Kevin O’Connor is grating as the comic relief - he works better in The Mummy, where he has the benefit of playing a minor antagonist.

I remember watching this movie on TV as a kid and being absolutely terrified. On this viewing, the movie is still really entertaining. The script is an excuse to string deaths together, but it does so with speed, imagination and pilfering from the Jaws book of suspense.

This movie is the best kind of junk food. If you can find it streaming or in a discount bin at a second-hand store, it is worth a watch.

If you are new to this blog, I also co-host a podcast on James Bond, The James Bond Cocktail Hour. 

You can subscribe on iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts. 

BITE-SIZED REVIEW: Just Cause (Arne Glimcher, 1995)

Paul Armstrong (Sean Connery) is a university lecturer who has made his name for his opposition to capital punishment. 

This background leads him to becoming involved in the case of a young black man, Bobby Earl Ferguson (Blair Underwood), who is facing the death penalty for the death of a young white girl. 

As he begins his investigation, Armstrong finds himself locking horns with the officer who arrested Bobby Earl, Tanny Brown (Laurence Fishburne).

Released in 1995, Just Cause is basically flotsam in the wake of Silence of the Lambs. With an all-star cast, on the tin it looks like a classy thriller with a smidge of social conscience about the prison industrial complex. 

I caught this movie on Netflix, and based on the above qualities, I thought I was in for a solid but maybe predictable thriller. 

But then the movie keeps going.

This movie is a grab bag of plot twists which render it completely pointless - there is a particular character reveal halfway through the movie which should completely change the central character’s  involvement in the case - but it only serves as the set up to the hammiest of third act turns.   

The southern locations are merely set dressing. In fact everything in this movie is set dressing. 

The cast are fine - aside from Ed Harris, who goes WAY too big as an imprisoned serial killer who might hold a clue to the truth. The only person who seems genuinely engaged is Laurence Fishburne, but even he is brought down by this sinkhole of a script.

This movie falls into a subgenera of movies that equate outrageous plot twists with drama. But what works about a major plot twist is that it completely changes the character and viewer’s understanding of what is going on. Here, the story never feels like it is moving in any particular direction. And when things do happen, you do not really care because none of it really matters.

Just Cause feels like it is teasing better movies: police brutality, white saviours who cannot follow through with their politics, even the thorny dynamic of having the (potential) real antagonist be a black officer. This movie does not care to delve into anything - the only idea it has is to redo the final twist of Jagged Edge. 

By the third act, the movie starts to feel like thriller mad libs. Or a really shitty improv show where the joke is that they have to use all the thriller cliches. 

The movie does not even look that interesting - there is an aggressive banality to the way this movie is shot and edited that dissipates whatever atmosphere the story is building. In that respect, it is not that different to most of the original product Netflix releases. 

According to IMDb, this movie was the result of a power movie by agent Mike Ovitz - his client Arne Gilmchear, an art dealer-turned-filmmaker, wanted to make a movie and Ovitz packaged Just Cause for him, complete with a star, his client Sean Connery. Apparently this was sold to the studio without Connery’s knowledge.

I’m not sure how that worked out, but this movie does feel like a contractual obligation.

If you are new to this blog, I also co-host a podcast on James Bond, The James Bond Cocktail Hour. 

You can subscribe on iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts.

The Assault(s) on Precinct 13

I wanted to write a review of the original Assault on Precinct 13, but I never had a good reason to. And then I saw that both versions were available to watch on Netflix.

Assault on Precinct 13 (Jean-Francois Richet, 2005)

A well known gangster (Laurence Fisburne) has dirt on corrupt cops (led by Gabriel Byrne). Said cops lay siege to the station where he is being held.

I was not against this movie - this premise is too good (Carpenter re-used it himself a couple times).

A lot of the creative decisions in this make sense - first of all, the cast is terrific.

Laurence Fishburne is great as the anti-villain Marion Bishop - a cold fish who decides to throw his lot in with the other people inside because it will ensure his survival. Ethan Hawke is a fun re-fresh of the lead - in this version he is a former undercover cop who lead his team into an ambush, and has been traumatised by it ever since. Brian Dennehy adds some flavour as the veteran officer who distrusts the freed prisoners.

The film also takes place during a snow storm, which adds another layer of peril to our heroes' predicament.

The one damp squib is the villains - the film cuts to their side of scenes so often that the suspense dissipates. The film is fine, but it is impossible to ignore the economic brutality of Carpenter's original version.

Speaking of which...

Assault on Precinct 13 (John Carpenter, 1976)

When a stranger stumbles into Precinct 9, it is up to the few occupants (the station is closing down) to defend it when a mysterious street gang surrounds the building, determined to take their vengeance on those who would cross them.

This was the first John Carpenter movie I ever saw. 

The acting is wooden, the sets are bad and some of the exposition is clunky, but this movie is a great example of none of that matters.

It helps that the script is stripped down - Carpenter gets all the key players into the titular location quickly, but takes time to establish the environment through strong use of widescreen cinematography and the first of his iconic scores.

His theme for Assault on Precinct 13 is simple but propulsive. Halloween may be more famous, but Precinct 13 is just as unsettling.

While the film resembles an action movie, Carpenter draws on the language of the western and horror movies to realise the film's antagonists.

While the remake puts a face and motive to its antagonists, Carpenter presents Street Thunder as an unknowable, unstoppable mass of bodies. It is a testament to the young filmmaker's execution that he makes a group of guys in flared trousers terrifying. Often, he frames them dead on as near silhouettes, marching toward the camera or standing dead in the centre of the frame like automatons. 

Carpenter rarely gives his antagonists context - there are a few references to the multi-ethnic mix of the gang, but no real sense of what brings them together. They are defined by the violence they enact and their silence. You can definitely see their DNA in the spectral Michael Myers in Halloween.

If the remake has one thing over the original, it is in the character of Napoleon Wilson. The film wants to present the convicted murderer as an anti-hero but Darwin Joston is slightly miscast. I like him, but you really get a feel for what Carpenter was trying for in the remake. Laurence Fishburne manages to make Bishop likeable without ever losing his edge. His character is still a bad guy - Joston lacks that bit of something to make Napoleon feel more unpredictable.

While Joston is not selling what the film intends, it is a testament to Assault on Precinct 13's strengths that this bit of miscasting does not amount to anything. The film is a testament to low-budget genre filmmaking - the individual components might jostle, and they might look cheap, but together they amount to greatness.

If you are new to this blog, I also co-host a podcast on James Bond, The James Bond Cocktail Hour. 

You can subscribe on iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Checked out the latest episodes of the James Bond Cocktail Hour?

 The third season of the James Bond Cocktail Hour continues!

The episodes are as follows:

No Time To Die Trailer 2 review

Nobody Lives For Ever (by John Gardner)

How to introduce James Bond

Casino Royale '06 Part One & Two

McClory v Fleming

Thunderball (novel)

Remembering Sean Connery

Thunderball (Terence Young, 1965)

A look at Kevin McClory's Warhead (1976)

Never Say Never Again (Irvin Kershner, 1983)

Remixing Thunderball

The Hunt for Red October

The Man with the Golden Gun

Bond Tropes Discussion

Ranking the James Bond ski chases

Die Another Day (2 hour cut)

Patriot Games

Clear and Present Danger

The Man Who Almost Killed James Bond

A View To A Kill

Sum of All Fears

Jack Ryan - Shadow Recruit

Executive Decision

VARGR

State of the Franchise

Skyfall (Part One)

This month's episodes are:

Happy & Glorious - Bond at the Olympics

Skyfall (Part Two)

You can listen to these and future episodes wherever you listen to podcasts!

Follow the podcast on IG @jbchpod and on Twitter @jbchpod007.

BONDIFICATING: GOLDENEYE and the potential of de-centring franchise protagonists

I started a draft of this post awhile ago, but with the extended wait time until Bond 25's release, and with what we know from the first teaser trailer, now felt like a good time to start pontificating into the digital abyss.

I still have not seen Avengers: Endgame. Having followed reactions online, I was interested in how a sizable chunk of viewers were unhappy with how the characters acted, in contrast with their previous appearances, particularly Black Widow. Watching these reactions reminded me of an idea I’ve been rolling over for a couple years - a way to change the format in which franchise characters are presented.

The key flaw in this thinking is that the nature of franchises now is to keep them going, and - with rare exceptions - it means the character generally starts every story back at 0, with whatever character development they have accrued in the last instalment forgotten. Now these movies have been able to get around this by releasing films at 2-3 a year, with storylines carried over via cameos and end-credit stings. For now, this has worked, but with Disney's focus shifting to their streaming service (accelerated by the pandemic), it is inevitable that Marvel's mega-narrative is going to lose its appeal.

One of the byproducts of Marvel's success is that other studios have tried to emulate its template, and none have been a success: Universal's Dark Universe, Warner Bros' post-Nolan roadmap and King Arthur, to name a few.

The James Bond franchise is rather famous for jumping on trends, and Spectre saw the franchise attempt some late-stage world-building. There is nothing wrong with linking Bond movies: we have had returning supporting characters and callbacks to previous stories (Tracy Bond being the big example).

But what Spectre did was retroactively turn Craig's franchise into an extremely personal arc, where every mission is now reduced to a long-game feud from within his own family. 

If the franchise permanently shifts to the idea that every Bond film has to have an arc.  

Three films released in 2012 illustrate this point:

• Dredd: while the title character is important, the character arc is instead handled by the rookie he is training, Anderson (Olivia Thirlby)

• Jack Reacher: Reacher is a superhero, whose own implacability rubs off on the good people he runs into, like Rosamund Pike’s defense attorney Helen Rodin

• Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation: the story is based around Ethan Hunt’s relationship with Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson), whose story is ultimately the most important part of the film. 

A less well-known example (and the reason for writing this spiel) is Natalya Romanova from the James Bond film GoldenEye.

Let me lay some foundation.

The one overriding question I have around with James Bond is what makes him relevant? 

Under that question, is a more subject I've one: Why am I invested in this series?

I like action movies where I care about the characters - without meaningful characterisation and relationships, the action is meaningless.

It has taken me a long time to realise this. I used to think I was a snob for not sharing other people’s love of Seagal, Van Damme et al. It is just not in my taste - I was spoiled by having my intro to the genre be The Terminator and Die Hard. 

And the most resonant experiences I have with James Bond have been when the filmmakers gave a crap about the lead woman, primarily OHMSS and Casino Royale.

However, this post is not about either of those films. Instead I want to focus on GoldenEye, and a key element which I believe could be key to the series’ rejuvenation and continuation.

While they rank high for me, OHMSS and Casino Royale are strongly aligned with Bond’s POV. This is not a criticism, but I highlight this because GoldenEye takes a deliberate shift in the opposite direction.

For a good deal of the first act, the viewer follows the story from Natalya’s POV, which re-contextualises some of the familiar Bondian plot moves. 

When the villains steal the super weapon, the filmmakers cross between the villains and Natalya. When the villains kill her colleagues, it carries more emotional weight because we spent time with them. 

There is more suspense in this sequence because not only are we invested in Natalya, Bond is nowhere near her. Bond can be a get-out-jail free card for stakes, and it allows the filmmakers to increase the suspense, and to show Natalya’s intelligence in how she gets out of danger.

While later movies have focussed on developing more complex leading women, none have gone back to this narrative perspective. If the franchise wants to keep progressing the series forward, GoldenEye feels like a solid template to build off of. 

If you are new to this blog, I also co-host a podcast on James Bond, The James Bond Cocktail Hour. 

You can subscribe on iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts.

REWIND: Casino Royale (Martin Campbell, 2006)

In his first mission, James Bond (Daniel Craig) goes head-to-head with Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen), a “banker for the world’s terrorists”. After Le Chiffre loses his clients’ money betting against the stock market, he has organised a high stakes poker game to win back the missing funds. 

Bond is tasked with beating Le Chiffre and bringing him in before his clients find out what he's done and kill him. 

Paired with Treasury agent Vesper Lynd (Eva Green), Bond is confronted by someone who sees through his armoured front and bravado.

As the game progresses and the stakes rise, Bond and Lynd are drawn together. 

The green agent is faced with two potential futures - becoming a cold-blooded killer like Le Chiffre or leaving with Lynd and saving what little humanity he has left. If he can survive the card game, that is…

In the run up to the release (fingers crossed) of No Time To Die, my local is playing all of the Daniel Craig Bond movies. This will be the first time I have been able to see them this way since their releases. One of the big lessons I took from the Fast & Furious marathon was how much the big screen added to the experience. 

Casino Royale is a film made for the movie theatre. 

The photography is vibrant, has great depth of field and chunky sound design that turns every punch, bullet and inhale of breath into an explosion.

This movie has the reputation of being down-to-earth but on the big screen it resembles the heightened aesthetic of an Eighties action movie. 

The action set pieces pack that rare mix of exuberance and visceral impact. Craig may be a human battering ram but the filmmakers make sure that the viewer gets a taste of his pain and exhaustion.

It is easy to forget how much of a shock this movie was back in 2006 - Bond is generally Teflon, with only minor injuries that last the duration of a scene. Casino Royale is obsessed with Craig’s body, its strength, speed and how much punishment it can handle. 

Director Martin Campbell’s style is functional but operatic - as a poisoned Craig lurches toward safety, the camera apes his unbalanced perspective with exaggerated movement; characters look into, explode towards or fall away from the screen like it’s in 3D. 

It manages to be both visually extravagant and restrained - the camera is always in the right place, it moves just enough so we know what is important, and it is cut so that we can always keep track of geography.

This aspect of the film also highlights one of my favourite elements of Campbell’s direction, at least in the films I have seen: every time Bond or one of the villains realises they are in danger, they IMMEDIATELY snap into action. There is no flourish or delay e.g. Obanno’s (Isaac de Bankolé) bodyguard (Michael Offei) clocks Bond’s earwig, pivots and fires. 

This body language is a key element of how the danger in Casino Royale is presented - Bond exists in a world of professional killers, and they all have the same bassline of professionalism.  

This movie has a really good handle on tone. This movie is pretty dark, but it knows when to let the audience depressurise. Bond snatching the gun and throwing it back at Molaka; Bond crashing the snooty tourist’s car; Bond charming Solange with the Aston Martin; Bond’s quip about his lamb/ego being skewered...

Casino Royale is way funnier than the general consensus will have you believe. 

Part of what makes the torture scene work is how Bond uses humour to take away Le Chiffre’s power. Bond is dead-to-rights, yet he is able to frustrate the villains’ attempts to break him. It is also to give the audience a safety valve - but most importantly, it never defuses the stakes of the situation. 

Despite its strengths, the movie does have its flaws. Stuck in a movie theatre for its 144 minute runtime, without the option to get a snack or fall down a Twitter rabbithole, Casino Royale also feels long - like three movies glued together. 

There are also some moments of visual story-telling which hit you over the head, and while Mathis is great, those exposition dumps during the card game grate every time I watch it.

I feel weird writing this but I do not know if this movie still works for me. Maybe this viewing caught me in a specific mood, but I found myself detached from the experience, and paying attention to the reactions of the other people in the audience, particularly for the comedic beats. 

I was really conscious of it when Vesper Lynd entered the picture. This relationship has always been the CPU of this movie. The action is great, but my favourite scene has always been Bond comforting Lynd in the shower.   

This time it did not work for me. It left me cold. 

Something was off and I think it has something to do with the passage of time.

I recently lost my grandmother, and we held her service at my old highschool (where she used to work). The double-barrel of going through that event at that particular location has made me think about the past in a way I have not before. 

To tie it into this movie, the last time I saw it on the big screen, I had just left that high school. I had not had any big life experiences like lost family members or professional successes/failures. The world was wide open and full of possibilities. And it felt like the James Bond franchise was in a similar space. I always tie that transition moment to this movie, and I think in retrospect, that made it more special to me. And maybe my feelings have changed because I have changed. 

I also spent the movie thinking about how much has changed in the world since 2006 - we have had a recession, multiple conflicts, the rise of global fascism, a pandemic and, of course, climate change. Everything feels so much more urgent and hopeless now (feelings which will probably be validated by this movie’s sequel). 

Cinematically we are also a world away from where we were in 2006. All the trends and influences which birthed Craig’s bond have either died away or ripened to the point of parody. Jason Bourne is irrelevant, the Batman franchise is plunking even darker depths post-Nolan and the Marvel juggernaut has completely redefined the idea of a cinematic franchise.

And then there is the Craig era which followed. At the time, I never thought he would last this long. I thought his run would end up truncated like Dalton - and it could have after Quantum. Thanks to various production delays and the pandemic, Craig’s tenure has made him the longest-serving Bond. And like Roger Moore, that time has completely remoulded the general conception of the Bond idea. 

I might have to revise this idea but I was struck by how different this movie feels from the movies that came after it. Those movies feel more attached to the past and stuck to a different idea of Bond. He doesn’t feel as malleable as he does here. 

The other idea that I cannot shake is how much this movie felt like the culmination of the Brosnan movies. You look back at those movies and all of them are trying to ground and expand upon Bond's character - he is confronted with stronger women, the missions become more personal, and Brosnan’s portrayal - for all the criticism about ‘pain face’ and other affectations - is more serious than the movies perhaps intend. It feels like the franchise was wrestling with trying to push itself forward, but they were too afraid to leave the formula behind. It took the opportunity of a new actor for the series’ brains to finally achieve what they wanted to do.

We get a more complex and developed woman who puts Bond in his place and affects his character, we get a Bond who feels human and the formula is not there as a safety net to avoid hard narrative turns. People talk about GoldenEye as the third Dalton movie, but I think an equally strong case could be made for Casino Royale as the final affirmation of the Brosnan era’s experimentation, rather than a straight rejection of its more formulaic elements.

Phew. I was not expecting to write so much. I hope I can enjoy this movie in the future, but on this viewing I was more focused on it as a time-capsule. 

Maybe my quantum of solace for Casino Royale will be restored after I watch its successor…

If you are new to this blog, I also co-host a podcast on James Bond, The James Bond Cocktail Hour. 

You can subscribe on iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts.