Source Code

Duncan Jones is now two for two with science fiction films that are well made and visually appealing, have intriguing concepts, and are entertaining to watch reach their conclusions. Although Jake Gyllenhaal's central performance isn't as gripping as Sam Rockwell's in Moon, which pretty much had to carry the entire film, he's good enough to lead a film that I otherwise thought was a little better in most other areas. When I first saw the trailer for Source Code, it seemed like a silly idea. They seemed to be depicting the main idea as a simulation of the last eight minutes of a train ride before it blew up, not actually altering events but observing them to figure out what happened. Gyllenhall's inability to grasp the concept of being unable to save the already-dead victims made him seem dull. It works a lot better in the actual film, when they lay out that he's actually being repeatedly projected into an alternate universe that the source code creates, rather than basically just watching a static event over and over again. Some bits that don't quite make sense are hand-waved away with simple catchphrases like "genetic mapping" or whatever, and they don't really go into how these parallel realities are actually created. But it's not hard science fiction, and as a way to set up a twisty, exciting thriller, it's more than enough.

I really liked Gyllenhaal's character, a military helicopter pilot who wrestles with trying to grasp the situation he's in, helping with the mission he's been given to help prevent a larger attack, and striving to find a way to save the train passengers, especially the girl played by Michelle Monaghan that he sits across from. She doesn't have a lot to work with, being stuck in the same eight minutes of plot as along with the other passengers, but she's cute and likable and pretty easy for Jake to fall for. His attraction contributes to his larger attempt to do more than just solve the attack, something which his handlers tell him he can't do but you become unsure of over time. Vera Farmiga plays his main contact in the real world, an operator who has to balance her duty with her obvious sympathy for his situation, and does a nice job with it. I was less pleased with Jeffrey Wright as the creator of the source code project, who is a bit too obviously evil and uses an odd gravelly voice, but he doesn't damage the film much. The plot has the expected twists and turns, and resolves in a way I quite liked examining angles of the concept in ways I wasn't expecting, and bringing the different story elements to a united conclusion. There's lots of really good imagery in the movie, stuff that seems simple but helps add up to the sort of movie that could have been a lot weaker, but manages to capitalize on its potential quite well. It's too bad that Jones says he only wants to make one more science fiction movie before stopping for a while, because he seems to have a real knack for pulling it off.

Casino Royale

Finally, the last one of these. And hey, it's the best one in the series. We go back to the beginning of Bond's career, to his very first kills which earn him his 00 status. From there it's the opening credits, which depict Bond fighting a lot of dudes instead of ladies made out of strange substances dancing, helping clue the audience in that this is a bit of a different Bond than we're used to. I've been told that Craig's take on the character is closer to the one found in the original novels by Ian Fleming; cold-hearted and ruthless instead of a playful scoundrel. In some ways he's actually a better person than the one we're used to, though. The old guy would do anything and everything to get with almost any girl he met, while this one stops romancing a married woman after getting the information he needs, and only has sex after he's fallen in love. He's pretty brutal when it comes to his job, but he still has some sort of moral compass, or so it seems. And you can't give him total credit for leaving the first encounter early, since it was necessary to stop an airport bombing. But you get my point, right?

Elsewhere, the movie still holds up for the most part. All the poker scenes in the second act could have been a big momentum killer, but they're exciting enough on their own, and when interspersed with all the stuff like angry Ugandan militants with machetes and self-applying a defibrillator, it's a pretty darn good segment. The reintroduction of Felix Leiter was welcome (Wright is the first guy to have the role in consecutive appearances), and the development of the relationship between Bond and Vesper is the best in... well, probably ever. After a torture scene that is brutal without being explicit yet still entertaining, the third act has some slightly clumsy dialogue before the final betrayal and large action scene in a collapsing building. The whole sequence is pretty effective, and completely sets up the mindset and character arc for Bond in the next movie. It's nice to see the character be used like a person instead of just a vehicle to some snappy jokes and outlandish action, and there really isn't much about the film that doesn't succeed. And with that, this stupid project finally comes to a close.

James Bond stats
Theme song: "You Know My Name" by Chris Cornell
Foreign locations: Prague, Madagascar, Bahamas, Miami, Montenegro, Italy
Bond, James Bond: 2:20:00
Martini shaken, not stirred: 1:14:15 (full recipe), 1:31:15 (unspecified), 1:33:40 (poisoned), 1:43:30 (named the Vesper)
Ladies seduced: 1
Chases: 3
Kills: 11, plus explosion victims
Non-lethal takedowns: 4

Quantum of Solace James Bond stats
Theme song: "Another Way to Die" by Jack White and Alicia Keys
Foreign locations: Italy, Haiti, Austria, Bolivia, Russia
Bond, James Bond: Not uttered
Martini shaken, not stirred: 51:15 (six)
Ladies seduced: 1
Chases: 4
Kills: 13, plus explosion victims
Non-lethal takedowns: 14

Quantum of Solace

On its own, Quantum of Solace is a solid action movie, but it works much better when viewed as the second part of the story started in Casino Royale. In a way, they're very different films, but their differences make the arc of Bond's character much stronger. Royale was fairly long, and not full of the goofy villains and over-the-top action scenes that characterized Bond movies for a long time. It had some pretty good action, but the focus was on the spy thriller stuff. By comparison, Solace is significantly shorter and pretty consistently violent, with a new chase or brawl seeming to occur every fifteen minutes or so. You see some of the shaky-camera treatment in these segments that has plagued Hollywood action for too long now, and it can hinder comprehension of some really complex and entertaining scenes, but Marc Forster didn't go overboard with it. Still, you get the feeling that if the old filmmakers from the medium's begining who were apprehensive to do any jump cutting at all saw one of these movies, their heads would probably explode.

Daniel Craig's Bond is the most interesting treatment of the character that I've seen, and he's a big part of why I've been enjoying this reboot so much. He still has moments of humor and suaveness, but he really hasn't reacted too well to the events of the last movie and the coldness he treats the world with fuels the shift towards more action than we saw before. There's a lot of running time spent showing Bond fight people, but everything that happens makes sense with the character and what he's trying to do, so it's better justified than a lot of the big budget summer movies that come and go every year. The movie starts to introduce a shady evil organization that has its fingers in everything, and you can see how it's all leading to something a bit closer to older Bond movies, but Forster and the producers still make a good effort to keep it more grounded in reality and a bit darker. There's nobody with iron teeth or a bullet lodged in their brain, and the bad guys are controlling the world more subtly than SPECTRE ever did. It's a new James Bond for a more modern age, and Craig is apparently closer to Ian Fleming's original character than guys like Roger Moore ever were. I look forward to where they take the series from here.