The Living Daylights

Here we arrive at the fourth Bond, who brings with him only the second Moneypenny in the series. The movie is a bit of a mixed bag, because it was still originally written for Moore's joke-heavy style while Timothy Dalton plays the role pretty straight and gritty, which a lot of people didn't like at the time but got Daniel Craig accolades almost two decades later. The humor is still intact here and there with things like a chase down a snowy mountain in a cello case. The tone shifts really seemed to come fast and furious. After the opening, the story begins with Bond overseeing a Russian officer's defection to the west with the sniper rifle, and he's all business and super serious. Then he send him across the border in an oil pipeline. Wacky! Later, he helps sneak the female assassin out of town, who turns out to be the officer's lover. Serious. Then they escape some authorities in the most gadget-heavy chase sequence I've seen in the series. Wacky!

This back and forth continues throughout the film. It's not jarring or anything, it just felt a little unusual. The plot involves the fake reinstatement of a Russian initiative to kill spies, betrayals, drug trades, arms dealers, Afghan terrorists played as good guys, and fake assassinations. Despite all the bad crap going on around him, Dalton is surprisingly non-lethal in this film, racking up one of the smallest kill totals in the series. While others nearby are fighting his battles, he's doing his part to stop the villains without murdering all of them, although he does do a bit of that. The main Bond girl is a bit dim and doesn't wear the standard issue very-little, but for some reason I liked her. The chemistry between the two was good and believable for the first time in a while for the series, and her character just worked. John Rhys-Davies is likable as a Russian general Bond ends up working with, and this movie also marks the final appearance of General Gogol, who's been alternately an ally and an antagonist since the third Moore film. This was Dalton's only perceived success in the role, and a pretty solid Bond movie.

James Bond stats
Theme song: "The Living Daylights" by A-ha
Foreign locations: Gibraltar, Czechoslovakia, Vienna, Morocco, Afghanistan
Bond, James Bond: 7:25
Martini shaken, not stirred: 56:30, 1:18:25 (unspoken)
Ladies seduced: 2
Chases: 2
Kills: 2, plus explosion victims
Non-lethal takedowns: 10

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

This is the one that got all the awards and the highest praise and is my personal favorite, but I'm not sure if it's really deserving of all that. It certainly wasn't head and shoulders above the other two enough to win eleven Oscars when they averaged three. All those awards were probably appreciation for the feat of the trilogy as a whole, which I'm fine with, since the Academy so often seems to pick the better story over the truly deserving winner. I still really love the movie, and it's the biggest and grandest of the trilogy. It also happens to be the only film I saw for the first time after reading the book version first. There's fewer changes than the last time, though still some notable ones. Some bits are cut, like the Riders of Rohan being escorted around a blockade by strange men of the forest and most of the real dramatic thrust of Eowen and the development of her relationship with Faramir. There's one key detail that I feel they lost a lot from by having to cut, and it's removal was sort of necessary after cutting the Barrow-Downs from the first movie. Since the Hobbits just get their swords unceremoniously handed to them by Aragon instead of finding them in a tomb, they would be less justified in explaining why Eowyn was really able to kill the Witch King. It's not because "Hur hur no man can kill you but I can because I'm a woman", it's because Merry's sword had some magical essence and was able to break the spell that made the king invulnerable when he stabbed him with it.

I'm also not a huge fan of how Denethor and Gimli are handled. Throughout the movies Gimli is more of a comic relief than he ever was in the book, and it's brought to a head here when his presence in the Paths of the Dead turns them into a joke rather than a spooky setting. Look, he's trying to blow away the ghostly hands and wincing when he steps on any of the absolutely insane number of skulls that litter the place! Seriously, where are the rest of the skeletons? And Denethor is transformed from a depressed, grieving father who has seen doom coming for a long time into a crazy old man who is able to run about half a mile while completely immolated so he can jump off something and look all cool. Wow, I'm really complaining a lot here. I really do like a movie, and moments like Pippin's song as men of Gondor ride to their deaths and the riders charging into the Battle of Pelennor Fields are some of my favorites in any film. They really went all out with the effects for the battle to make up for the main characters not really being there, and it's still an exciting spectacle to watch. The only real change in Frodo and Sam's part of the story is Sam getting sent away for a while, which is another case of adding dramatic tension so there's more of it, but it doesn't have a major effect on the story. When the two stories finally converge at the end is suitably dramatic and epic, and you really feel the love the members of the fellowship have for each other. After the final conflict ends, the movie takes its time ending, and more or less culminated with the departure at the Grey Havens. I was surprised at how much that scene moved me this time, when it hadn't as much before. I can't think of why it would affect me differently now, all I know is that it did. Peter Jackson's adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's greatest work is far from perfect, and I can't say that most of its departures were that well considered. Still, it was an admirable effort, a labor of love, and definitely worth watching.

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

Just looking at Amazon, they're taking preorders for the Blu-ray version of the trilogy, which is cool I guess, but it also seems like they've discontinued manufacture of the DVD sets, which is... weird. Oh well. The Two Towers is a frequent pick for the worst of the three films, and mine as well, though I've seen some claim that the extended edition elevates it to the best, which I find a bit odd. It's certainly better, though that's true for all three films. In any case, it probably made the most severe alterations to the plot of any of the three, some aspects of which were justifiable, others less so. The whole structure is rejiggered to make the battle at Helm's Deep the focus, with a lot of time spent building to it when they just sort of went there and fought in the book, and the film ends shortly after, whereas the break was originally after a few other plot points that migrated to the third movie. Things like that are acceptable so the story has a normal dramatic arc to it. What's stranger is pretending to kill off Aragorn during an innocuous warm-up battle and having a legion of Elves show up in time to help instead of Éomer and the Riders of Rohan. It's not that having Elves and changing who Gandalf shows up with really hurts the story, you just wonder why they bothered when previously the only changes were trimming fat that affected the pacing. The battle itself was pretty well executed, and besides a couple dumb moments like Legolas skateboarding down a stairway on a shield, one of the best large scale clashes in recent cinema. I liked how they were able to add small things like the contest between Legolas and Gimli, even if the resolution of it was cut out of the theatrical version.

It was smart to edit that stuff together with Frodo and Sam's journey instead of keeping them separate, not only because it would have been strange that way, but it allowed them to make Helm's Deep the climax instead of the fight with Shelob, which in turn allowed them to shift that into the third movie as well, and keep the timeline straighter. Looking back, I'm not sure I support the decision to make Gollum a computer generated character. Serkis' performance is impressive and shows through the effects, and there are moments where the work they did is still extremely convincing, but for the most part whenever he's on screen I'm noticing that he's not really in the scene, and paying attention to the work that was done and not his presence as a character. It's still going to be a while before that stuff is totally convincing. I just got a feeling of déjà vu like I've written this before. Making Faramir more like his brother initially and unwilling to just let Frodo and Sam walk away with the ring is another choice that I mostly support, because after taking out Shelob there's really not a whole hell of a lot for them to do. I'm not sure they really captured his character as well as they could have, because there's more to him than just being the less favored son. Still, they did what they had to to make the story work, and sacrifices will sometimes have to be made to do that. Movies in the middle are usually a tough situation, and I thought they did well enough here when they were mostly putting things in place for part three.

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

I rewatched the movies in unison with rereading the book. I read The Hobbit years earlier, but seeing The Fellowship of the Ring in theaters was my first experience with The Lord of the Rings, and it totally grabbed me. One of the main complaints I heard about it was the overly long and slow beginning, with the extended version lasting over an hour before they even leave The Shire. I enjoyed that, though. Part of what makes the books interesting is how much detail Tolkien put into the world, to a nearly ridiculous degree. They might not have needed to spend so much time establishing the setting in the movie, but since it was filmed as a trilogy from the beginning they were able to take their time and show whatever they wanted. I think the extended introduction before the adventure really begins helps make the film work as an introduction to the series for new fans while at the same time appeasing long-time devotees who fear any changes at all. Besides chopping out a couple sections and ignoring details that would affect casting (Frodo sets out at about age fifty to destroy the ring, some seventeen years after receiving it initially), it's probably the most faithful of the three films.

I think the book had a slightly different feel than the latter two, and the same is true of the movies. The last two thirds of the story are more intertwined and fuzzy about the break point, plus share a more epic war-movie feel to the battles. The Fellowship of the Ring is more of a smaller-scale cross country trip, almost like a chase movie. Nine dudes travel together and fight small skirmishes against manageable hordes. I actually kind of like the smallness of the fights, you really remember every cool thing that happens, giving them more of a memorable personality than thousands clashing against thousands. The fellowship itself is only whole for about a sixth of the series' running time, but I still mostly identify the story with the image of them all together. Boromir is one of the story's best characters, but he's not around for long, and his death more or less marks the point where the tone changes and things get dark and serious. I still think the third movie is my favorite with this second, but it still gets extra credit for getting me into it. Plus it's a good thing it performed so well at the box office, because if it set the tone by not doing so well, that could have been a ton of money wasted on three huge films, and we certainly wouldn't be getting an extremely exciting pair of Hobbit movies from Jackson and Guillermo del Toro. Also, can you believe this came out seven and a half years ago? Time is a bitch.

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

Last Crusade returns to the formula from the first movie, with lots of high adventure and killing of Nazis. Instead of a Chinese child, his sidekick is his dad, played by Sean Connery. They have an entertaining chemistry, Indiana being pretty rough-and-tumble and his dad getting things done without ruffling his clothes. A lot of the things they do end up being pretty corny, but that's the way of the series. This film is probably the most family friendly of the three, though it still contains some scenes with an obscene amount of vermin and surprisingly grotesque deaths. John Rhys-Davies and Indy's older college friend both reprise their roles from the first movie and make likable companions. This time, the female lead is physically attractive and actually an interesting character, so she's an improvement over her equivalent in the first two movies.

Whereas the second movie was a departure, Last Crusade really follows in the first's footsteps. The opening scene is a flashback to Indiana's youth, an improbable day in which he managed to pick up four of his notable character details. It connects with the modern day (1938) by showing him after the same artifact, and then leads to the real story, which like the first movie, happens to feature the same treasure-hunting villain who has the support of Hitler's regime. There's lots of action and humor as Indiana searches for his kidnapped dad and then the ultimate goal. There are some more great parts, like the "no ticket" scene on a gigantic zeppelin. Too much of the action is slapstick in nature, but it's still an enjoyable movie. I'm not sure what it is, but something about the whole trilogy just felt like it was missing something, though I can't say what. Still, entertaining films.

Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark

I'd previously seen some of the more famous scenes from the Indiana Jones movies, but never actually sat down and watched one from the beginning. I figured I should really see the trilogy, even though I don't have a plan to see the new one or anything. The idea of Indiana Jones fits in quite well with George Lucas' penchant for making entertainment franchises in the style of old serials from the beginning of Hollywood. He started it with Star Wars, his take on science fiction which he admits borrowed from many earlier classic films, and the Indy movies are the same thing with adventure, going on action-packed journeys around the world without taking themselves too seriously. There's something a bit strange about them, because they're definitely aimed at families yet there's some stuff in them that I would be surprised to see in something with a similar audience today.

Raiders of the Lost Ark is a fun movie, filled with iconic and memorable scenes. The whole opening sequence with the golden idol and rolling rock, then the escape to the plane, the confrontation with the swordsman, the Well of Souls, the truck chase, opening the ark. Lots of entertaining moments. Harrison Ford is a great, charismatic protagonist. The character is an interesting one, having two sides; the knowledgeable historian and reckless adventurer. There's a decent supporting cast around him. The female lead can be a bit silly sometimes, but John Rhys-Davies is a good ally, and a couple of the villains are pretty solid. Steven Spielberg admitted it was basically a B movie when he made it, and it's fine being that - it's definitely aimed to keep kids happy, but still has plenty of action and intrigue for older viewers, if you can handle some goofiness. The whole ending is really good, with a slightly shocking climax and cool, if somewhat hard to believe final shot. Pretty good movie.