Over and Done With
November 16, 2015
Spectre (2015).
D: Sam Mendes. DP: Hoyte Van Hoytema. W: John Logan, Neal Purvis, Robert Wade & Jez Butterworth. Starring: Daniel Craig/Christoph Waltz/Léa Seydoux/Ralph Fiennes/Ben Wishaw/Naomie Harris/Andrew Scott/Monica Bellucci/Rory Kinnear/Jesper Christensen/Dave Bautista. (NOTE: Based on Ian Fleming’s characters from his James Bond series)
Oh how the mighty do fall. The newest entrance into the James Bond cannon, Spectre, is quite literally a mess. Its theme song, title sequence, premise, script, and execution are all vastly inferior to 2012’s Skyfall. If Daniel Craig felt done with his portion of this franchise you will feel done with it as well after two and a half hours of this film.
Let’s start with the opening. The first sequence is actually strong. Dropped into the middle of Mexican festivities for the Day of the Dead our Bond (Craig) is already hot on the pursuit, no introductions needed. Yet this opening gives way to a scatterbrained title sequence that lacks any coherent theme or look even. The best visuals are of women made out of wispy smoke, but this is reminiscent of the sand and smoke of the title sequence of Quantum of Solace so not entirely new. Sam Smith’s song ‘Writing on the Wall’ is sadly made worse by the visual confusion of the credit sequence. The octopus imagery, which anyone would already be aware of from the trailer, is just too simple and by the end of the film lacks any significance. For a franchise whose theme songs and title sequence are legendary this is a major misstep.
Next we are subjected to rogue Bond on the run who quickly and superfluously seduces Monica Bellucci to gain minimal intelligence. Bond quickly learns that there are bigger forces at work that perhaps have been puppeteering his life recently. This is the first of many times the writers blatantly remind you of Craig’s bond films as a set and the time line of his character. Christoph Waltz’s villain lacks any originality as he merely serves this purpose of stringing all the films together. In other words, ‘hehe, it was me the whole time!’ Sadly Waltz becomes a caricature in this world. Some great hand to hand combat happens, but none of the action really comes from the villain. The final action act is a video game conclusion, save the princess and get out of the building in time. What a bore.
Bond is still supported by an excellently serious Ralph Fiennes as M and Naomie Harris as Money Penny. Ben Whishaw’s Q finally gets his do and breaks to the surface of the spyage with his gadgets and gizmos galore. Andrew Scott’s C is quite literally a less complex Moriarty, his character from the BBC Sherlock series. Type-casting if it ever needed a definition. Even gorgeous and brainy Madeleine Swann (Seydoux) cannot save Spectre. A character that could have been a cryptic comment on the Bond brand of misogyny gives way to Bond romance that sprouts in a matter of days. It’s so unbelievable it appears stupid rather than old fashioned. But what is bond without women who lay down for him? Maybe this character cannot work anymore.
Spectre is uninspired and slogs on so long you feel you have watched a few different films. Mendes is not coherent on a look or a story. like he was in Skyfall . Craig phones it all in and considering his publicly vented boredom with this character you wonder if the film should have been made at all. Also there is the inevitable comparison with the recent Bond homage Kingsman which narratively addresses technology and surveillance as weapons. This is simply bad timing, but really what everyone is waiting for the announcement of who the next Bond will be as Idris Elba rumors continue to spiral. I for one would love Elba as Bond, if you don’t believe me watch the BBC’s Luther. We shall have to wait and see, but maybe we all need a break anyway?
Persecuted Brilliance gets a Biopic
November 23, 2014
The Imitation Game (2014).
D: Morten Tyldum. DP: Oscar Faura. W: Graham Moore. Starring: Benedict Cumberbatch/Keira Knightley/Matthew Goode/Charles Dance/Mark Strong/Allen Leech/Rory Kinnear/James Northcote/Matthew Beard. (Based on the 1992 book “Alan Turing: The Enigma” by Andrew Hodges).
As the Oscar predictions begin to roll in, there is nothing like a decent star-turning biopic to get people really talking. Among the Weinstein Company’s gets during it’s festival runs (Studio Canal is distributing here in the UK), The Imitation Game pulled a screenplay off the Blacklist and a twenty year old book off the shelf. Couple this with BBC’s Sherlock star, Benedict Cumberbatch, and yo
Based on the life of Cambridge mathematician, Alan Turing, The Imitation Game is structured like a typical biopic and uses three different timelines. The film follows Turing (Cumberbatch) as a young teen at boarding school, his hiring and involvement with the British war effort in cracking the Nazi enigma code, and his final time where he is persecuted for being homosexual. The structure is non-linear, moving through these three periods, which is one of its weakness. Cumberbatch’s Turing is so subtly complex and quietly devastating that this Hollywood glossy structure doesn’t ring true. That being said a linear narrative would have been equally as boring and lacked any suspense, but thankfully the film is not ruined.
The driving force of The Imitation Game is certainly Cumberbatch. Lithe like his Sherlock, he creates a Turing built on language and genius that has licked his bullied wounds and moved on. He has moments where he teeters on the brink of Sheldon Cooper land, but his instincts seem to bring him back. Cumberbatch is supported well by Keira Knightley’s Joan whose connection with Turing has lovely tenderness to it. Although surrounded by other deft English actors the camera hardly strays from Cumberbatch. There are consistent shots of the back of head throughout the film, giving Turing a faceless quality that reminded me of the secrecy of not only the breaking of the code, but of his life in general.
Similar to 2009’s The Blind Side, 2010’s The Fighter, 2011’s The Iron Lady, and even Cumberbatch’s in last year’s The Fifth Estate, the crux of this film is the performance. Much has already been written about how much any biopic can be accurate, and specifically if The Imitation Game address Turing’s personal life enough. I do not think the film marginalizes his persecution as a homosexual, but it certainly isn’t the focus of the narrative. His brilliance at cracking the code and his development of the computer have been overshadowed, even made invisible by his personal life. This is the tragedy and I believe the film’s goal is to reveal that. The sadness is compounded when his pardon was only given in 2013, nearly fifty years after his death. I do not think the film needed to give us more for us to feel that weight, that loss, that disgust at our own history.