The World Is Not Enough

You getting tired of these yet? I sorta am. But we're in the home stretch. TWINE is another solid if unspectacular film in Brosnan's repertoire, entertaining without changing the world or really asking you to think much. It's notable for being Desmond Llewelyn's final film as Q, with John Cleese already there ready to replace him. He was apparently planning to return once more, but was killed in a car accident. Can you believe that? The guy was old for 35 years and that's what it takes to get him. The movie brings back Robbie Coltrane's Russian character, and makes him into a bit of a buffoon. Sophie Marceau plays one of the very few major female villains in the series, and does an okay job of it. Denise Richards meanwhile plays the least convincing nuclear physicist ever. I'll give her credit for looking awesome in a tight t-shirt and daisy dukes, but it's seriously one of the poorer major performances in the series.

You can sort of see a transitional arc over Brosnan's four Bond films in terms of the style of the action. Goldeneye was a bit over the top but still sort of gritty and somewhat believable. Tomorrow Never Dies was still not what I'd call silly, but more unbelievable and movie-like. This film is even more outlandish, with crap like being chased by flying snowmobiles on parachutes down a mountain and helicopters with hanging buzz saws destroying a dock around him, but still not too moronic. As for the next movie, well... we'll talk about that later. The plot starts out decently although degrades by the end with one of the harder to justify villainous goals, and serves to present some action sequences that are rarely better than decent. Honestly, I can't think of much the movie truly does well, but it's hard to dislike also. It's dangling on the edge of the cliff leading to irritating stupidity, but its fingertips are strong enough to never fall in. And with a follow-up like it has, it's hard not to come out looking all right.

James Bond stats
Theme song: "The World Is Not Enough" by Garbage
Foreign locations: Spain, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Istanbul
Bond, James Bond: 31:25, 1:07:50
Martini shaken, not stirred: 43:25
Ladies seduced: 3
Chases: 2
Kills: 20
Non-lethal takedowns: 7

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian

The Chronicles of Narnia is sort of the more child friendly, overbearingly Christian cousin of The Lord of the Rings, and after the success of the latter as a film franchise, there's little surprise that someone would follow suit with the former. The first movie, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was pretty decent to my memory. It's less of a war movie in places and more of a kid's fairy tale, but it had some interesting ideas.

I liked Prince Caspian more though, as it seems more focused on telling a complete story and is just more confident with everything. There's no Mr. Tumnus prancing around or Turkish Delight being eaten, just the story of a war for the future of the land. The action scenes are actually pretty darn good for a PG movie, from a clandestine assault on a castle by moonlight to a deadly show of single combat on the field of battle. They make a point of showing how hundreds of years have passed since the last time the kids appeared in Narnia, with most of the mystical creatures sequestered into the forest and the rest reverted into wild animals. A human empire has taken over the land, and the battle between them and the natives is a nice contrast with the first movie which had their loyalties divided between a magical lady and a magical Jesus cat.

Um... yeah. Movies. A lot of the humor is kind of obvious and cheesy, but there are a couple chuckles to be had. Eddie Izzard plays a talking mouse, and his lines all kind of suck but it's still cool because he's Eddie Izzard. The kids are uniformly less annoying than the first movie, which is good. If there's one thing sequels have over initial installments it's not having to waste time establishing familiarity with setting and characters and all that. The uh... the special effects are pretty good. The battles are nice but the ending was fairly Deus Ex Machina. I'm willing to watch more of these movies, especially since the next one has such a bad ass title. Go look it up. Seriously, bad ass.