Xander Markham

Ranking The Bond Films (Part 3/3): The Top Five

2022-10-16T18:00:00.202+01:00

In commemoration of the series' beginnings, I have ranked all twenty-five films in the main series. If you haven't read Part One yet, featuring the movies ranked 25-16, you can do so here. Part Two, counting down the films ranked 15-6, can be read here. Spanning six decades and the tenures of six actors, the films are as fascinating in their own right as they are snapshots of the times in which they were made. One of the many great things about the series is that it offers so many entry points, with any one film having a wildly different tone to another, that there can never be a conclusive list of the best Bonds. This ranking is simply my own, and if you too are a fan, you will appreciate that disagreement is not just expected, but essential. Finally, here are my top five Bond films. Enjoy.

5. SKYFALL (2012)

Rarely has there been a clearer example of 'right place, right time' than Skyfall, the 50th anniversary Bond film whose release coincided with a rare wave of British patriotism thanks to the success of the 2012 London Olympics and Queen Elizabeth II's Diamond Jubilee. It says a lot about how integral Bond is to Britain's identity that Skyfall's triumph feels less like an outcome of those two factors than an equal third part of the year's celebrations. The film's central themes about whether there is a place in the modern world for Bond, and by extension, Britain, are woven throughout with an uncharacteristically deft touch for the series - not subtle by any stretch, but laying out a clear arc for Bond from beginning to end - resonated strongly in a year which became an unintended celebration of the nation's culture and history.

Although it has undergone some critical revision in the years since for a plot which doesn't make much sense - a criticism which could be levied at many of the series' most beloved entries - and more than a few lifts from Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight - again, not as though the series has ever been above chasing trends, and Bond fan Nolan has borrowed his fair share back - Skyfall remains one of the most confident, visually rich and thematically satisfying films in the franchise. The scale of the talent both in front of and behind the camera harkens back to the Connery days when every department was headlined by a figure who would go on to define the very language in which action cinema would henceforth be written (Peter Hunt editing, John Barry scoring, Ken Adam production design, etc.). Skyfall feels more like a premium production than any entry in the series for a long time.

All that talent would be in vain were the movie not up to snuff in all the areas where Bond films are expected to excel, and Skyfall goes above and beyond there as well. In Raoul Silva, Javier Bardem delivers by far the most compelling and unsettling villain since the classic era, easily dominating Daniel Craig's rather limp line-up of antagonists. Although there are plenty of visually arresting locations, like all good Bond films it has one which defines it, in this case, London. The action, from the big set-pieces to the small one-on-one fights, is choreographed for maximum intensity, enhanced by terrific editing from Stuart Baird and Roger Deakin's evocatively coloured cinematography. The bum notes are few and far between - a quip from Q about not going in for exploding pens shows a lingering, unwelcome disdain for the franchise's historic eccentricity, while Craig is operating in second gear - and the highs myriad, including reintroducing characters and elements set aside in Craig's preceding two films. Attempts to recreate those successes in subsequent entries proved disastrous, but in its own right, Skyfall is not just a great film, not just a great Bond film, but a great reminder of how no other film series can deliver quite like the Bonds at the top of their game.

4. LICENCE TO KILL (1989)

Despite long being the black sheep of the Bond family, considered too brutal and serious for a series which has prided itself on its eccentricity and humour compared to more po-faced action imitators, Licence To Kill has a strong claim to being one of the most influential films in the series. To a great extent, the film does what the Daniel Craig era would be celebrated for around twenty years later: a strong focus on Bond's character and a tone and plot reflecting real world threats and treating them with appropriate gravitas. The difference is that where the Craig era - Skyfall aside - would struggle with how to integrate the series' legacy into its new approach, Licence To Kill is built on the classic Bond foundations every bit as much as previous films but with the confidence to arrange them into a new, bolder shape.

If the idea of Bond going rogue is nowadays considered a tiresome cliché, Licence To Kill was the first film to explore the idea and much of its power comes from shattering the audience's expectations of a character who had until that point been every bit the company man (if rather frivolous in his methods). It meant little when Craig went rogue for the umpteenth time because that's all he ever did. When Dalton's Bond, angered by the mutilation of his best friend, Felix Leiter, and murder of Felix's wife, refuses M's orders to return home and instead pursues a personal vendetta against drug kingpin Franz Sanchez, it sells the film's stakes because it is in stark opposition to the values Bond has represented and defended until that point. Timothy Dalton's Shakespearian training gives his performance the operatic weight such stakes require, whether brooding angrily as his losses pile up or quietly taking a moment to steel himself before opening a body bag in Leiter's home.

The film may have been the first to use an original title rather than borrow one from the Fleming literary canon, but it has more Fleming running through it than arguably the majority of films in the series up to that point. It is a hodgepodge, admittedly, taking characters and plot points from different sources, but welds them together with original inventions reminiscent of the author's outlandish sense of humour (Wayne Newton's drug-peddling televangelist most memorably) into a remarkably cohesive whole. On top of that is layered series-best action throughout, from Bond 'going fishing' for an escaping aeroplane, to a brilliantly set up and executed sequence where Bond escapes Sanchez's boat, and the climactic chase aboard (and above) Kenilworth tankers. Throw in Michael Kamen's hard-edged score and books could be written about Licence To Kill's accomplishments as an action film on a purely technical level. The film's shortcomings - strangely flat lighting, a slightly baggy middle act, shapeless costuming and Dalton's dreadful hair - matter little if you can get on board with a Bond movie willing to challenge expectations and its audience. Like Skyfall, future entries' attempts to replicate its innovations would not go so well, but as a movie on its own terms, Licence To Kill is a thorough success and a subtly superb Bond movie to boot.

3. ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE (1969)

Both of Timothy Dalton's films operate from a certain perspective as spiritual successors to earlier films in the series. Licence To Kill both echoes and directly stakes its plot in the subversive, personal story of On Her Majesty's Secret Service, the first film to explore Bond as a character rather than an archetype. For all the criticism that the performance of one-time star George Lazenby has attracted, it is worth remembering that his portrayal of a more vulnerable, emotional Bond was completely new territory for the series. Connery is the Platonic ideal of Bond because he embodied a certain type of hero with his panther-like danger, sex appeal and unshakeable cool from the moment he appeared on-screen. Emotionally, though, he was monolithic, offering nothing of Bond's inner thoughts beyond the occasional wry smile or off-handed laugh: a shallowness arguably central to Bond's appeal as a fantasy figure. In expanding that figure into something approaching a human being, Lazenby does a remarkably good job. He overplays the smugness at times and his moments echoing Connery land with a bit of a thud, but for a first-time actor expanding the boundaries of the most popular cinematic character of his time, he achieves a credibly rounded, balanced and confidently distinct interpretation. His moderation in playing the trauma of his final scene with delicacy and nuance, aided by Peter Hunt's astute direction, is perfectly pitched for the character (unlike a certain recent entry's brash attempts to piggyback off OHMSS's emotional heft).

It says much about how underrated his performance is that he holds his own in scenes alongside Diana Rigg, the experienced, bigger-name actress cast alongside him. Rigg was a performer of great charisma, humour and quiet depth, qualities she brings in spades to her portrayal of the wayward Teresa, the woman who would be, for a short time, the one and only Mrs. James Bond. Both she and Lazenby find the wounds in their characters' facades and use them as connection points for the pair. If the love story is undermined by her disappearance for much of the middle act - doubly so considering Bond spends that time sleeping with an entire ski resort full of beautiful women - it is to Rigg and Lazenby's credit that their romance feels every bit as inevitable and heartfelt when they reconnect. Teresa is the most fully drawn woman of the series and rightly placed at the top of many fans' list of favourite Bond girls. Supporting them is a cast of equally charismatic performers, from Gabriele Ferzetti's scrumptiously roguish Marc-Ange Draco to the series' best depiction of Blofeld, by Telly Savalas, who layers the character's charm with a threatening cruel streak.

On a technical level, director Peter Hunt brings the same rebellious, modernising spirit to his film's look and pacing as he did in his genre-defining editing work earlier in the series. If Hunt's editing style was to cut every non-essential frame from the film to maximise the story's momentum, he gives On Her Majesty's an almost impressionistic willingness to forego shot-to-shot coherence in favour of speed and style. The opening fight on the beach swaps between day and night, with Bond battling his assailants on sand one moment and surf the next, spliced together at a pace which wouldn't be seen on-screen again for a good forty years. It is nevertheless done with such artistry and precision that not only is the geography of the fight never lost but it pushes the audience's imagination to piece together any missing connective material. It should come as no surprise that On Her Majesty's is the favourite of such stylistically adventurous filmmakers as Christopher Nolan and Steven Soderbergh. Considered a tonal outlier in the series for a long time, history has simply proven it far ahead of its time.

2. FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE (1963)

From one of the series' most forward-thinking entries to one of its most old-fashioned, From Russia With Love is a Cold War thriller in the most classical sense, but what it lacks in revolutionary zeal is more than made up for in being one of the most accomplished, entertaining and atmospheric examples of its chosen genre. Despite being a direct sequel to Dr. No - the eponymous villain is name-checked as the reason SPECTRE specifically targets Bond for humiliation - it is a curious follow-up in that it is a completely different type of film from Dr. No's pulpy B-movie. Where Dr. No felt specifically localised in its Jamaican location, with its global stakes only depicted on a television screen, From Russia spends a similar amount of time in its defining location (Istanbul, not Russia) but feels much bigger courtesy of a plot rooted in the divided political contest between East and West and with multiple international players, including SPECTRE behind the scenes, competing for the prize. If much of the action takes place in one city, there is a tangible sense of movement throughout, from cars to ferries and (most memorably) trains, largely absent from Dr. No's slower build-up to its grand finale.

If Dr. No had many Bondian elements present but not yet fully cohered into the shapes which would define the series going forward, From Russia is a Bond film through and through. That its humour is more dry compared to subsequent bawdier entries only marks it out as being more of a precursor to a typically later period Bond film: The Living Daylights, the series' only other Cold War thriller, successfully took many of its cues from the film while leaning away from the broad comedy of the Moore era. Its restraint feels less subdued and more an early example of a lesson the series would arguably take too long to recall: as much as this is a series which has flourished with grandeur, the key Bondian elements are often most engaging when served with precision and direction rather than maximalism. From Russia feels focused rather than small, exacerbating rather than diminishing its pleasures. In only his second outing, Connery is already completely at ease with the character and perfectly balances Bond's integrity as a dangerous man at the centre of a dangerous political game with an underlying sarcasm and softly-played self-awareness. From Bond's spying mission in the Istanbul catacombs, via a fight at a gypsy camp (and subsequent threesome with two competing women), assassination of an enemy agent, through to his first tryst with Tanya in his hotel room, the character is given perhaps the single most hilariously masculine half-hours of any character in fictional history, and Connery plays every second with relish.

The action also benefits from going for impact rather than size. Each of the major set-pieces has a specific goal, whether that be tension, excitement or spectacle, which it achieves with aplomb. The pre-titles scene where Robert Shaw's Red Grant seemingly hunts Bond through an ornate garden is rife with suspense, intended first and foremost to establish Grant's considerable threat as a villain, as is a mission to retrieve a dead drop at the Hagia Sofia mosque. The gypsy battle is all spectacle, with Bond sauntering through the fire and chaos, picking off enemies as he goes, as is Bond's later sniper duel with a helicopter. The standout is of course the fight with Grant in the tight confines of a train compartment, a exceptional feat of staging, editing and choreography even by modern standards and certainly one of the series' most brutal until the stairwell fight in Casino Royale (2006). Up until the extremely ropey back projection that ruins the film's very last scene, From Russia barely missteps from start to finish, more old-fashioned in tone than later entries but delivering all the trademark pleasures with sumptuous confidence.

1. GOLDFINGER (1964)

There is such a thing in the James Bond fandom as 'Goldfinger fatigue'. The movie has for so long been considered the defining Bond film, which put all the tropes in place and set the standard going forward, that many feel it has reached the point of oversaturation and over time, pushed it out of their rewatch rotation. The retreat of the film's once hallowed status has led to greater scrutiny and criticism, focusing on Bond's relatively passive role in the story, his 'seduction' of Pussy Galore in the barn and a sense the movie loses steam once it gets to Goldfinger's stud farm in Kentucky. Most of these, it must be said, have at least some basis in truth. Why then does Goldfinger still top my list? The simple answer is that Goldfinger fatigue lasts precisely as long as you aren't actually watching the film. Its non-stop procession of iconic (genuinely iconic, not social media iconic) lines, moments, characters, sets, musical cues and more are only dulled by repetition in memory. In practice, they are as vibrant and magical to watch as a perfectly executed ballroom dance. You may know all the steps but there's nothing quite like experiencing them come together in motion.

Both Dr. No and From Russia With Love have the core Bond ingredients in place to varying degrees, and From Russia in particular has the cadence of the Bond film humming underneath its relatively conventional thriller exterior. Goldfinger is in many ways a lesser film than From Russia, yet there is a difference between a great film and a great Bond film. If Goldfinger doesn't quite top the series' high mark on the former, it absolutely obliterates the competition at the latter. Whatever criticisms one might level at the minutia, this is Bond perfected. It takes Fleming's rather rough novel, sorts out its major plot hole (for all his expertise, Fleming forgot that gold is rather heavy) and gives it a cinematic flair. Bond may only take decisive action in the film when he absolutely has to, but Connery is so ridiculously magnetic in the role that it is somehow entirely plausible that this man and his often gleefully appalling behaviour should attract favourable circumstances towards him simply by the gravitational pull of his confidence. Perfectly counterbalancing him is Gert Frobe's genially malicious Goldfinger and his silent henchman, Oddjob, a figure so immediately striking it is even reflected in the sharp tings of his musical cue. Honor Blackman's spiky Pussy Galore gives Bond a female foil worthy of him in screen presence, competence and (for once) age-appropriateness.

Extolling the film's many individual virtues verges on the redundant. Everyone already knows John Barry's score and Shirley Bassey's title song, Ken Adams' Fort Knox set, the white dinner jacket, the famous one-liners, the golden girl, Bond desperately talking Goldfinger out of slicing him in half (vertically, from below) with an industrial laser, assassination by hat, the Aston Martin DB5 winding through the Swiss Alps in pursuit of a beautiful femme fatale, and Bond expressing his contempt for The Beatles (perfectly in character, and I agree with him). Having seen the film in cinemas several times, I can attest that even 'man talk' never fails to get laughs, even if (hopefully) for more ironic reasons than in 1964. Recounting every famous moment is to de facto recount the entire film. Forget Jaws or Star Wars: the birth of the blockbuster, and the action genre, was Goldfinger. It is Bond in the purest form, shining just as brilliantly almost sixty years later.

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THE COMPLETE RANKING

1. Goldfinger

2. From Russia With Love

3. On Her Majesty's Secret Service

4. Licence To Kill

5. Skyfall

6. The Living Daylights

7. GoldenEye

8. Octopussy

9. The Spy Who Loved Me

10. Casino Royale

11. You Only Live Twice

12. Dr. No

13. Tomorrow Never Dies

14. Moonraker

15. For Your Eyes Only

16. Live And Let Die

17. Thunderball

18. Quantum Of Solace

19. The World Is Not Enough

20. The Man With The Golden Gun

21. Diamonds Are Forever

22. A View To A Kill

23. Die Another Day

24. SPECTRE

25. No Time To Die

Ranking The Bond Films (Part 2/3): 15 - 6

2022-10-12T18:00:00.016+01:00

Poster Credit: Sean Longmore

In commemoration of the series' beginnings, I'll be ranking all twenty-five films in the main series. If you haven't read Part One yet, featuring the movies ranked 25-16, you can do so here. Spanning six decades and the tenures of six actors, the films are as fascinating in their own right as they are snapshots of the times in which they were made. One of the many great things about the series is that it offers so many entry points, with any one film having a wildly different tone to another, that there can never be a conclusive list of the best Bonds. This ranking is simply my own, and if you too are a Bond fan, you will appreciate that disagreement is not just expected, but essential. Enjoy.

#15: For Your Eyes Only (1981)

An attempt to rein in the jokey tone which had pervaded the series since Diamonds Are Forever produced mixed results in For Your Eyes Only, on one hand delivering some standout action sequences, genuine tension and a female lead whose story is tightly linked into the plot, but can feel too serious for its own good and with a lengthy stretch in Cortina which never gets out of second gear. Despite his reputation as the most flippant of the Bonds, the comparatively serious tone allows Moore to show some depth to his portrayal, hitting the right emotional beats at key moments without losing the ease and charm which defined him. His lack of chemistry with Carole Bouquet prevents Bond and Melina's relationship from feeling as intimate as it needs to, while the suite of villains, despite likeable turns from Julian Glover as Kristatos and Topol as his rival, Colombo, is a little underwhelming. Nevertheless, the car chase is the strongest of the series, forcing Bond to rely on skill and invention rather than gadgets to survive, while the mountain ascent to Kristatos' lair is as tense as the series has ever been. If the film lacks the lightness of touch of many of Moore's entries and struggles to fully integrate its more serious tone, there's still plenty of classic Bondian pleasures to go around.

#14: Moonraker (1979)

Moonraker is a completely ludicrous film on every level. Its failings are myriad, yet unlike Die Another Day or The Man With The Golden Gun, it leans so completely and with such unearned confidence into its tone that it somehow emerges as an enjoyable time, assuming you're able to disconnect any hint of critical capability and let yourself be carried along for the ride. It helps that its biggest strengths are some of the series' biggest strengths generally, giving it an inherent Bond-iness (an important scientific metric for determining how a film can be an objectively bad film yet a good Bond film at the same time) lesser entries struggle with. The action sequences are terrific, particularly the skydive in the pre-titles. It relishes putting every dollar of the budget on-screen and feels big and without a single corner cut. John Barry's score is exquisite, including Shirley Bassey's underrated song. Even the gags - the terrible, hammy gags - swerve so hard into dad joke territory that they become loveable. Michael Lonsdale's Drax has a deadpan wit for the ages and Q's quip at the end ('I think he's attempting re-entry, sir!') achieves immortality for its sheer filthy magnificence. Moonraker is simultaneously rubbish and brilliant, and all the more glorious for it.

#13: Tomorrow Never Dies (1997)

Although the rankings of most of the Bond films shuffle around over time, few have shifted as significantly as Tomorrow Never Dies. Upon release and for many years after, I considered it a by-the-numbers actioner with an underdeveloped plot, unglamorous locations and little discernable Bond seasoning. Some of that remains true, particularly a final act which sees Brosnan's Bond shooting aimlessly into the middle-distance of a dark, enclosed set with a gun in each hand like the Terminator. The Bond secret sauce is a little lacking but over the time, the movie's nuances have carried it from near the bottom of my rankings to around the middle. Jonathan Pryce's villainous Elliot Carver serves as a canny modernisation of the traditional Bond meglomaniac, foreshadowing the amoral sensationalising of the 24-hour news cycle. Michelle Yeoh is one of the series' few leading ladies to completely convince in her action scenes and her martial arts give her big fight scene a welcome physicality, even if her chemistry with Pierce Brosnan, and the character's lack of definition beyond an East-West rivalry, doesn't quite land. The action does tip into generic nineties mindless-shooting-and-explosions territory but is impressive in its staging, and the chase around the Berlin car park is great fun. Even M's rivalry with an obnoxious Admiral is full of little treats. Tomorrow Never Dies isn't a classic but does what it needs to do with deceptive grace.

#12: Dr. No (1962)

Dr. No is in many ways the least typical of a series which can wildly span tones from one film to the next: indeed, it's only really with the Roger Moore era's descent into spoof that the series can be said to have acquired any real consistency, having previously been less like a single musician's album playlist than a DJ remixing familiar beats into brand new sounds. Dr. No is unsurprisingly one of the most old-fashioned films of the series, landing firmly in the same pulp thriller niche as Fleming's book. Exotic locations, Yellow Peril villain, torn-shirt masculinity, a female lead as naive as she is buxom, all present and correct, while the scale, polish and high culture trappings of later entries are more underplayed. Nevertheless, what's remarkable is how many of the key ingredients are already in strong fighting form, if a little shapeless at this early juncture. Despite its slower pace and smaller scale, the essence of the Bond films is to some extent even more irresistible in their unrefined state. The scene at Miss Taro's house is Bond at his most deliciously devious, having sex with Taro before having her arrested and coldly assassinating the man she arranged to come and kill him. Its roughness has a glee which would quickly get sanded down in later entries, but is sinfully fun to watch. Connery is an immediately perfect fit for the character from his famous introduction onwards and carries the film's drier periods on hard charm alone. Dr. No is a perfect bellweather for the series: an atypical but extremely robust middle-tier entry where any film bettering it is guaranteed to be a Bond experience of high calibre.

#11: You Only Live Twice (1967)

You Only Live Twice arguably marks the first time the Bond series discarded any trace of realism and went full throttle into fantasy. The plot makes very little sense, more concerned with finding excuses for visually thrilling spectacle than with such disposable inconveniences as storytelling. It might be more apt to call the film a series of loosely connected action vignettes, but those vignettes are staged with such flair and the connective tissue - the Japanese setting - is so rich in flavour that they transcend conventional criticism for how confidently the film delivers each step of the way, right down to Nancy Sinatra's series-best theme song (John Barry's score is typically excellent). Ultimately it makes little difference that Connery is largely checked out by this point, feeling underpaid and frustrated with the level of press attention the role was attracting, because Bond functions mostly as a vessel for transporting the audience from one set-piece to the next. That's not to say he doesn't get his moments, notably in his interactions with 'Tiger' Tanaka and unusually intimate relationship with Aki, whose death hits more powerfully than the film deserves (the main Bond girl, Kissy Suzuki, is so disposable as to not even be named in the film). It may be among the most factory-made entries to date but the machine is so slick and efficient at this point, it barely matters. It also marks the biggest deviation to date from the source material, being tonally opposite to Fleming's slow, meditative book. You Only Live Twice is Bond at its most blockbuster: undeniably shallow but served at just the right temperature.

#10: Casino Royale (2006)

Daniel Craig's Bond debut is often placed at the very top of fan rankings, particularly those who joined the series at the same time as the actor. That it marked the series' first complete reboot gives it a freedom and confidence to go back to Fleming's original text, pick and choose the ingredients to take forward and mix them into something feeling fresher and more exciting than the series had produced in well over a decade. As someone who finds reboots creatively lazy, I can't help but harbour a little resentment towards the film for discarding the character I grew up with, as loose as the Bond movies' approach to continuity has always been. Nevertheless, there's also no denying that Casino Royale has a spark and boldness which the Brosnan era often lacked. The film marks its intentions out of the gate with Bond's first kill depicted in stark black-and-white, followed by a parkour chase and later a particularly brutal stairwell fight, both among the series' strongest action sequences. Craig delivers the best single performance of any actor as Bond, while Eva Green is magnetic as his female foil, Vesper. It struggles most when it deviates from Fleming, notably a long section in the Bahamas and Miami which slips quickly from the memory, and a narrative structure which gives the first half in particular some rather choppy pacing. The dialogue, too, is a mixed bag: Craig and Green sell most of it, but the 'witty repartee' is clunky and the 'If all that was left of you was your smile and little finger...' line borderline inexcusable. Regardless, as far as the Bond series' many rebirths go, Casino Royale is one of its most successful.

#9: The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)

Speaking of rebirths, The Spy Who Loved Me wasn't half-bad either, albeit coming a few films into an actor's tenure rather than at the beginning. Despite Live And Let Die being well-received, The Man With The Golden Gun had the Bond series on the ropes thanks to behind-the-scenes turmoil and the somewhat distasteful nature of much of the film itself (Christopher Lee's Scaramanga tactfully excluded, of course). With co-producer Harry Saltzman having departed, Albert R. Broccoli realised the need to go for broke to convince audiences that Bond was still relevant. From the moment the famous Union Jack parachute opens to the triumphant sound of the Bond theme, heading into a title sequence scored to a song aptly titled 'Nobody Does It Better', there can be no doubt that Broccoli's gamble paid off in spades. The Spy Who Loved Me is the beginning of the Roger Moore era in all the ways that count, throwing out any ill-fitting elements lingering from the past (notably Bond's violence towards Andrea Anders in Golden Gun) and refitting everything around the wink-wink charisma of its leading man. Despite a tepid main villain and some tonal inconsistency, Spy Who Loved Me is, as its song would suggest, Bond doing what Bond does best, a perfectly distilled blockbuster formula with endless flair, humour and eccentricity: think Richard Kiel's immediately iconic Jaws, or Barbara Bach's wonderfully dense 'Russian' accent disguising a somewhat ropey performance. It keeps the British end up, and then some.

#8: Octopussy (1983)

If You Only Live Twice is Bond as a hyper-efficient entertainment delivery system, Octopussy takes the same approach but delivers its fun with a little more warmth, a lot more humour and seasoned by one of John Barry's most evocative scores. I've long argued that you can take any ten minutes out of Octopussy and have the time of your life. The action is relentless and endlessly inventive, shifting from suspense to high action to smaller character moments while barely taking a breath. For all the cheesy jokes, it treats the appropriate parts of a somewhat labyrinthine plot seriously. Its non-stop momentum can get a little tiring, particularly once the sumptuous Indian locations (never has a poverty-ridden country looked so stunning) give way for the more muted palette of Cold War-era Germany, but the film finds so many different ways to deliver its thrills that it keeps pulling you back in. It helps to have a cast on such top form: Moore is at his peak, getting laughs out of one-liners the Carry On films might baulk at, while Maud Adams gives Octopussy a seductive mysteriousness and intelligence that makes her feel a more age-appropriate ally and lover for Moore's pensionable Bond (in reality, their age difference was still almost twenty years). Louis Jourdan is all pantomime smarm as villain Kamal Khan, counterbalanced by his mute but visually impactful heavy, Gobinda. In all the best ways, Octopussy is the perfect post-Sunday lunch movie: easy to phase in and out of, never less than supremely enjoyable.

#7: GoldenEye (1995)

A popular topic of discussion in Bond fandom is asking which actor would have been a perfect Bond but never got to play the part. My answer has long been Jason Isaacs, a fine actor with the ability to project charm over a hardened, cold interior. He even looks exactly like Ian Fleming's sketch of the character. Isaacs would have been the perfect age to take over the role around the time of GoldenEye's release, but the way I imagine him portraying Bond - in line with Dalton's complex Byronic hero - would not have been right at all for the series at the time. Coming off a six-year hiatus due to legal wrangling, the series needed someone to reintroduce audiences to the character at his most fun and digestible. Pierce Brosnan, all easy charm and deft with the one-liners, was the perfect man for the job. As a way of bringing audiences back into the Bond fold, GoldenEye gets almost everything right, a distillation of everything that makes the series fun and daring and sexy, yet modernised in all the right ways and never shy a wink and a smile. The villains are tremendous value, especially Famke Janssen's gloriously raunchy henchwoman, Xenia Onatopp. The stunts are astonishing, the action staged with flair and originality - the tank chase through St. Petersburg is as funny as it is exciting - and Isabella Scorupco gives a loveably grouchy performance as Natalya, a leading lady both integral to the plot and well-developed as a character. I'm even a fan of (most of) Eric Serra's maligned score, which gives the film a tangible post-Cold War, industrial identity. GoldenEye is not only one of the most enjoyable entries in the series, but one of the best for introducing newcomers.

#6: The Living Daylights (1987)

For all that Bond is the quintessential old-fashioned hero, the reason the movies have endured is a willingness to change with the times. The arthritic spoofery of A View To A Kill made it clear a change of direction was required and the producers turned to Timothy Dalton, a Shakespearian actor who had rejected the role as a young man, to take the character back to his roots. Although traces of the Moore-era remain - Bond drives a barn across a frozen lake at one point - visual gags which would have been the foundation of many of the preceding seven films are here amusing asides injecting welcome hints of silliness into a largely straight-faced Cold War thriller. The Living Daylights takes a short story from Fleming's eponymous collection and expands it into something wider and more dramatic, feeling in some respects like a spiritual successor to From Russia With Love. The first hour is arguably the best balanced in terms of tone, action, suspense and fun of the entire Bond series. Even once the overly-complicated, low-stakes plot and the lack of a distinct main villain begin to reveal the film's weaknesses - the portrayal of female lead Kara as a bit of a dimwit also underserves a key character - the spectacle, striking cinematography and a commanding central performance from Dalton are more than enough to carry the goodwill through to the end. Despite not quite fulfilling the promise of its first half, The Living Daylights at its best is the film which most cohesively ties together the series' sometimes contradictory tones, tropes and joys.

Click here for Part Three, revealing my top five James Bond films!

Ranking The Bond Films (Part 1/3): 25 - 16

2022-10-08T18:00:00.024+01:00

This month marks the 60th anniversary of the release of Dr. No, the first film in the James Bond series. Directed by Terence Young, the movie established not only one of cinema's most enduring heroes but a whole new genre. If Alfred Hitchcock's North By Northwest laid the foundation for the modern action movie, it was Goldfinger which built the house with its focus on big-budget spectacle, a larger-than-life villain with an audaciously implausible plot, and a stylish, implacably cool hero helped by high-tech gadgetry and beautiful women. As much as the Bond films have always moved with the times, often chasing trends, it took decades - the action boom of the eighties - before the rest of the industry began to replicate the high-octane formula which made the classic Bonds so timelessly exciting.

In commemoration of the series' beginnings, I'll be ranking all twenty-five films in the main series. This excludes the unofficial and mostly terrible Never Say Never Again, released by a Thunderball producer who had clung onto certain rights to the story, and the fascinating trainwreck which is the 1967 'comedy' adaptation of Casino Royale. Both would be near the bottom of the list if included. The main series alone offers plenty to be getting on with: spanning six decades and the tenures of six actors, the films are as fascinating in their own right as they are snapshots of the times in which they were made. As a result, one of the many great things about the series is that it offers so many entry points, with any one film having a wildly different tone to another, that there can never be a conclusive list of the best Bonds. This ranking is simply my own, and if you too are a Bond fan, you will appreciate that disagreement is not just expected, but essential. Enjoy.

#25: No Time To Die (2021)

The 60th anniversary of the Bond series regrettably finds it in the midst of an identity crisis, not only with the departure of actor Daniel Craig, who had more creative control over the direction of his tenure than any previous actor, but with producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson's misguided attempts at 'modernisation' losing all track of what made the series and its main character so enduring. No Time To Die not only lumbers the once effortlessly cool and composed Bond with the angst and emotional maturity of a lovelorn teenager, but sends him to an extremely contrived death at the end, entirely missing his symbolic appeal as the eternal hero. Worse still, after a fairly lively opening hour, the film commits the cardinal sin of becoming interminably dull, offering up not high adventure, big locations, sex and sin, but a series of dull conversations in small rooms. Add to that a complete mess of a villain and hopeless attempts to wrap up the Craig era's already shambolic continuity, and No Time To Die becomes the only film in the endlessly rewatchable series to make the prospect of repeat viewings thoroughly off-putting.

#24: SPECTRE (2015)

Coming off what was widely seen as one of the best films in the series and with the producers having finally acquired the rights to Bond's arch-nemesis, Ernst Stavro Blofeld, and his criminal organisation, the eponymously named SPECTRE, what could have been an opportunity to take the series to new heights instead saw a series of terrible decisions sink it to its lowest depths. The continuity of the Craig era, wisely put aside in the previous movie, was hastily resuscitated and rewritten to clumsily force Blofeld and SPECTRE in as 'author[s] of all [Bond's] pain', to borrow one of the movie's most famously clunky lines. Where the glance into Bond's past had worked in the previous movie as part of its examination of his role in the modern world, the decision to force Bond's past into the reckoning yet again resulted in the frankly embarrassing development of his arch-nemesis being turned into his brother, a cliché so egregious that the Austin Powers movies parodied it years ago. That catastrophic decision alone sinks the film's credibility, but even on its own terms, a strong-ish start gradually descends into an incoherent, half-baked final act. That descent may be more gradual than No Time To Die's nosedive, and the fact its better bits are more spread out make it more rewatchable than its successor, but such minor relief does little to console that SPECTRE is both a bad movie and an even worse Bond movie.

#23: Die Another Day (2002)

Die Another Day is a lot more fun to describe than it is to watch. Like No Time To Die, it left the series in a state of crisis over a milestone anniversary. In a way, that could be seen as encouraging: a poor movie on the 40th anniversary led to one of the series most successful reinventions, whereas the triumphant 50th anniversary movie led to its deepest nadir. Perhaps whatever follows No Time To Die, the last film before the 60th anniversary, might also herald a creative rebirth for the series? Even if true, that doesn't make Die Another Day any easier to sit through as a film in its own right. Its first act hints at a tougher, more serious direction in the post-9/11 world, yet it somehow becomes more directionlessly ludicrous than even the worst excesses of the Roger Moore era. Its high camp makes it more entertaining and Bondian by far than the two films preceding it on this list, but the painful dialogue (including a 'yo momma' joke), choppy editing, abundance of woeful CGI and smarmy self-referencing make it just plain stupid more often than stupid fun.

#22: A View To A Kill (1985)

Roger Moore is one of the most beloved actors to play Bond and his tenure produced several of the series' most straightforwardly entertaining movies, yet his swansong was a clear case of an actor and a specific style of Bond movie pushing on well past their sell-by date. Although its cheesiness has a certain appeal, leading to a reappraisal in recent years, for the most part it feels tired and leaden-footed, with the aged Moore particularly exposed by the vitality of the two young, exciting villains in Christopher Walken's Max Zorin and Grace Jones' glorious Mayday. There's fun to be had, particularly with the impressive stuntwork - the old joke goes that Roger Moore's stunt double deserves the credit for playing Bond more than Moore himself does - but the series has rarely seemed more exhausted and behind the times. On the plus side, the theme song is an absolute banger.

#21: Diamonds Are Forever (1971)

If Moore's decision to return one last time for A View To A Kill was misguided, Sean Connery being lured back to the series for Diamonds Are Forever proved similarly unwise. Connery's desire for Bond to age alongside him is interesting in theory, but in practice, despite the actor giving a more engaged performance than in his preceding outing, he simply looks overweight and out-of-shape. Connery's huge wage also took a hefty chunk out of the budget, resulting in a film which feels uncharacteristically cheap: the special effects on the atomic explosions late in the film are hilariously low-rent. The Las Vegas setting gives the film a sleazy quality, not especially Bond-like but in a strange way preferable to the flavourlessness of many modern entries. On the plus side, the screenplay is packed with cracking one-liners and its wholesale embrace of camp ensures it is fun more often than it isn't. On the downside, it feels like a film where corners were cut at every turn and wastes some potentially incredible material, not least Jill St John's initially streetwise Tiffany (later reduced to a hopeless bimbo) and a great set-up from the end of the previous movie which goes mostly ignored and entirely wasted.

#20: The Man With The Golden Gun (1974)

Roger Moore's second outing as Bond fell at the breaking point of the relationship between the series' two original producers, Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman. Golden Gun would mark Saltzman's last credit on the series and it's regrettable that he went out on such a duffer. Like Diamonds Are Forever, Golden Gun feels sleazy and cheap, while the film's depiction of Bond is a uniquely cynical and cruel version of the character, particularly his early, violent treatment of Andrea Anders, the abused beau of the movie's villain, Christopher Lee's Scaramanga. That Lee delivers such a magnetic and charming performance, as well as an amusingly eccentric turn from Hervé Villechaize as diminutive henchman, Nick Nack, only emphasizes how all the supposedly sympathetic characters are unlikeable, grumpy and incompetent. Britt Eckland is wasted as one of the series' most one-dimensional and useless Bond girls, making it all the more unfortunate that Maud Adams' more complex and mysterious Andrea is relegated to second place and treated so poorly. There are some inventive action sequences and vivid, strange locations - and the return of Clifton James' bawdy Sheriff J.W. Pepper is shamefully enjoyable - but feels too gracelessly cobbled together to make the most of its more memorable elements.

#19: The World Is Not Enough (1999)

The World Is Not Enough is a case of inspired intentions, weak execution. The central conceit - what if Bond thought he'd found another Teresa [his deceased wife] only to realise he'd actually found another Blofeld? - is a set-up rich with possibility. Like many of the Brosnan movies, TWINE is quietly progressive under the surface but too bland for its strengths to make the impact they deserve. Sophie Marceau's Elektra King marks only the series' second female main villain, perhaps contentiously counting From Russia With Love's Rosa Klebb as the first. She and her henchman, Robert Carlyle's Renard, are the most complicated characters in the film and their relationship is the core of its plot. Unfortunately, outside an excellent, if long, pre-titles sequence, the action feels rote and forced into the film rather than organically emerging from the story. Asked to do a little more than rely on his usual charm, Pierce Brosnan slips into soap-opera hamminess whenever required to show a shred of emotion. I don't dislike Denise Richards' Christmas Jones as strongly as many, and the film's raunchy final line never fails to make me laugh (very much in the Moonraker spirit), but for a film with so many quietly subversive ideas - not forgetting an unintentionally amusing torture scene involving extensive Brosnan Pain Face and a self-severed earlobe - it's unfortunately just a bit dull to watch.

#18: Quantum Of Solace (2008)

Quantum Of Solace had the misfortune of not only having to follow up one of the series' most acclaimed entries, but do so while its production was heavily impacted by a writers' strike. That by no means excuses all the movie's biggest shortcomings, particularly the Bourne-inspired editing which mangle most of the action scenes into illegibility, but perhaps explains why it feels so half-finished. In some respects, it follows up the narrative threads left hanging by its predecessor with credible restraint: the plot of the villainous organisation, Quantum, is not (yet) world domination but a more realistic and interesting attempt to use a monopoly over an impoverished region's water supply to gain political power. The main villain is also not the head of the organisation but a middle-man, maintaining a level of mystery to the depths of Quantum's threat. Unlike SPECTRE, the film is wise enough not to rush head-first into the big stakes and willing to take the time to build from the ground up. That it feels comparatively low-key compared to other entries in the series puts the emphasis where it needs to be, on Bond's arc to find (yes) a quantum of solace after losing the woman he loved in the previous film, an arc paralleled in that of Olga Kurylenko's memorably feral female lead, Camille. That only makes it even more of a shame that so much promise is ultimately wasted on a film which drags horribly for long stretches despite being the shortest in the series, and makes as many questionable character and plotting decisions as good ones.

#17: Thunderball (1965)

Thunderball was one of my favourite Bonds for a long time as a child, although on reflection that might have been more than a little influenced by the film featuring two of the series' most beautiful women, with the lead, Claudine Auger's Domino, often decked out in admirably sexy swimwear. There's a great deal to like about the film, with Sean Connery completely settled into his louche portrayal of Bond and a more relaxed, beach holiday vibe which makes it a more easy entry than most to relax in front of. Luciana Paluzzi's henchwoman, Fiona Volpe, devours the screen with every appearance, and if Adolfo Celi's Largo is not a standout in terms of personality, his eye-patch and soupy accent give him the feel of a quintessential Bond villain. The one-liners are crisp, the Bahamanian scenery is gorgeous and the early scene in SPECTRE's secret headquarters is perhaps the high point of the organisation's on-screen depiction. Unfortunately, many of the big action sequences take place underwater, which was revolutionary for the time but drags the pacing to a halt during the final act in particular, leaving the film mostly bereft - the pre-titles fight and later foot chase through the junkanoo apart - of suspense and excitement. Whatever its many other pleasures, that's an almost unforgivable sin for a Bond film.

#16: Live And Let Die (1973)

Whoever had the idea of putting Roger Moore, surely one of the world's all-time whitest men, in a blaxploitation riff deserves a medal. Live And Let Die is all flavour, all the time, which helps no end to cover up a dragged-out running time and action which is often inventive but not especially thrilling. In his first film, Moore slips into the Bond part with ease, giving a stronger performance than in his second outing, The Man With The Golden Gun, courtesy of a script allowing him as many opportunities to be charming as caddish. Yaphet Kotto is the embodiment of charisma as the main villain, Kananga, even if his death is too absurd by several times even for a Bond film. His henchmen, Tee-Hee, Whisper and Baron Samedi, are underserved but distinct enough to be memorable presences regardless, while Sheriff J.W. Pepper is so brazenly appalling that he circles around to being fun again (even if the character was outright stolen from a car advert). Among Bond's allies, Jane Seymour's Solitaire is stunningly beautiful but a non-entity of a character, while David Hedison was the most likeable Felix Leiter until Jeffrey Wright. Bond's dalliance with Gloria Hendry's Rosie Carver was highly progressive for the time, even if her dopey character was less so. Live And Let Die's individual parts are stronger than the movie as a whole, where loose plotting and some of the stranger narrative decisions can make it a bit tiresome, but it has so much personality that it's hard not to be taken along for the ride ('Uptown, I believe.').

Read Part Two (Ranks 15-6) here.

Movies: No Time To Die (no spoilers) review

2021-09-30T22:00:00.013+01:00

FILM REVIEW

Review Scoring Chart - 10: Masterpiece; 9: Outstanding; 8: Very Good; 7: Good; 6: Above Average; 5: Average; 4: Below Average; 3: Bad; 2: Awful; 1: Reprehensible; 0: Non-Functional.

NO TIME TO DIE
Dir: Cary Joji Fukunaga

Stars: Daniel Craig, Léa Seydoux, Lashana Lynch, Rami Malek, Ben Whishaw

Running Time: 163mins

No Time To Die arrives a year shy of the venerable Bond series' 60th anniversary and concludes the tenure of Daniel Craig in the lead role. Though all but Goldfinger of the original six films contained some degree of serialisation, Craig's time in the lead role has been characterised by plots more tightly interwoven with each other than ever before, all concerned with answering the question of who James Bond is, what role he has to play in the modern world, and what, if anything, that means.

If any conclusions can be reached from what No Time To Die has to offer, few feel satisfying and most outright misguided. Nine years ago, Skyfall - then a standalone film, since uncomfortably retconned into the increasingly incoherent Craigiverse continuity - delivered a self-assured and conclusive answer: Bond as the modern Arthur, an eternal defender forged in the best values of old but existing in a cycle of rebirth and evolution to deal with the threats of changing times. No Time To Die's version of Bond also exists somewhat in legend - one character refers to himself as a 'big fan' of the temporarily-retired spy - but looking at how he's characterised this time around, one can only wonder why.

For any readers of the right-wing press, none of this has anything to do with accusations of the movie being 'woke', which it isn't. Any such accusation which might be levelled at this film could be laid just as easily at the feet of numerous other entries in the series. The movie doesn't misunderstand or misrepresent Bond because it's left-wing or identity-obsessed, it misunderstands him because it confuses melodrama for character, and how the values that Bond represents as a pop cultural icon are what give him shape, with the events of individual films adding texture to that rather than the other way around.

I'm getting ahead of myself, however. The representation of Bond as a character might be an interesting debate for dedicated fans, but the first and last question to really matter is whether No Time To Die is a worthwhile film in its own right. The answer to that is that it is, until it very suddenly isn't. The movie's first act features some of the strongest material of any of Craig's films to date. The opening scene is a fine example of the series evolving in an intelligent and beneficial way, adopting a fresh tone (and genre) and using it to set the film off in a manner both exciting and promising mysteries to be solved. From there, events clip along at a healthy pace, with gorgeous scenery, likeable character interactions and several engaging and well-constructed action sequences. If it leans a little too heavily into serialised elements from past movies, the action more than covers its tracks, as it always has in a series where plots more often than not rely on momentum to carry audiences past logical and logistical shortcomings.

The Cuba scenes are a particular highlight, in no small part thanks to a joyful cameo from Ana de Armas, who manages to be adorable and sexy while making her Paloma a memorable character in her own right. Her peppiness bounces off the slightly stuffy Bond to winning effect and brings out the best in both of them. Though de Armas steals the film in her short time, Bond's interactions with Lashana Lynch's Nomi and Jeffrey Wright's returning Felix Leiter in Jamaica are no less enjoyable. Bond has distinct relationships with each, and an all-too rare sense is given of a genuine friendship between Bond and Leiter, only previously glimpsed so vividly in Live And Let Die and Licence To Kill.

That the movie's opening third gets everything so right makes it all the more jarring when it comes to an abrupt halt as soon as events move to London. The immediately preceding twist feels like a mistake made for nothing more than the sake of having a twist - a mistake the writers repeat twice over - but enough goodwill has been built up at that point to gloss over what seems a small bump in the road. Unfortunately, that bump immediately turns into a brick wall. The pace, liveliness and character of the movie's first act come to a crashing halt in a long stretch of excessive talkiness and never recover thereafter. The serialised soap opera elements which sank preceding film SPECTRE take over and never let go, to the extent that the villain and his scheme are relegated to C-story afterthought at best, existing in service of the dreary telenovela which shoves itself to the forefront. One late development, seemingly the real reason for the existence of the villain's macguffin weapon, challenges a scene from The CW's Arrow, wherein a character regains the use of her legs just in time to (literally) walk out on her love interest, for sheer eye-rolling hamminess.

Although the film does not make any individual mistake as aggressively awful as having Bond's arch-nemesis be his de facto brother, it carries over many of its predecessors biggest shortcomings. Where Bond should be a relatively uninteresting man whose job intrudes him into fascinating situations, here as in SPECTRE Bond exists at the very centre of the known universe. Everything revolves around him and his small circle of friends, and the relationship between him, love interest Madeleine and villains Safin and Blofeld is as banal, underdeveloped and confusing as the previous movie's family nonsense. Like SPECTRE, it is also this element which is the movie's real plot. Rami Malek's Safin is not only a non-entity of a character - stranding Malek in a directionless performance much as Christoph Waltz was both last and this time as Blofeld - but if he has a motivation or specific goal for the use of the weapon he co-opts, it's far from clear what it is. His short monologue in the movie's climax is where his intentions should be made clear, but feel like rambling to disguise the absence of any real answers. The most generous reading is that he's a repurposed Thanos from Avengers Endgame, albeit with far less screentime, presence, and with tech borrowed from Hideo Kojima in lieu of an Infinity Gauntlet.

Other characters fare little better, even if they are helped by less mannered performances. Craig puts in more effort than his last three films combined, but his Bond's post-Cuba mopiness and emotional petulance completely miss the character's mark (it's hard to imagine any man wanting to be him, let alone any woman wanting to be with him unless she has a kink for neediness) and soon make him a drag to spend time with. His chemistry with Léa Seydoux is more palpable, but mostly because they spend more time and have more romantic scenes together, even if she's as thinly drawn as she ever was. Lashana Lynch gives her MI-6 agent, Nomi, some understated charm, but as a character she spends most of her time as Bond's driver. For all the sensationalist fuss the character has created - evoked both by unhelpful interviews from Lynch and ludicrous reactions from certain corners of the press - she could easily be removed from the plot altogether, depriving the film of little more than a handful of methods of transport for Bond. Naomie Harris and Ben Whishaw are charming as Moneypenny and Q despite having little to do - although pity poor Q for having his dinner date interrupted - but Ralph Fiennes' M is undermined by characterisation contradicting his 'boots on the ground' ethos in the previous film. A confrontational scene between him and Bond would be more effective had Bond not already behaved disrespectfully towards him in SPECTRE. What should have been a shocking break in Bond's relationship with the authority figure he respects most instead feels like an ongoing failure to understand how the characters relate.

It is here that we circle back around to that original problem, that nobody involved seems to understand the material that they are working with. For all the promises of the movie evolving the series' supposedly outdated values and presentation, it is instead replete with half-measures and changes for changes' sake that not only regress some beloved elements into lesser states for no discernable reason - the gunbarrel sequence is more of a mess than it ever has been - but shortchanges how expertly the series has always evolved with the times (albeit with some undeniable hiccups along the way). Bond has shown an emotional inner life before - in the books and films - without the stroppy volatility of an angsty teenager. The women of the Bond series are iconic because of how often they are memorable and self-sufficient characters in their own right - a pantheon to which Ana de Armas' Paloma is a worthy addition, and Lashana Lynch deserved better - and do not deserve to be denigrated with the arrival of every new film out of a misconceived attempt at bigging up the latest characters.

For all the unconvincing promises about moving into modernity, the movie exists in fief - as M would say - to the series' past in a way which is if anything even more detrimental. In both storyline and Hans Zimmer's score, which repurposes John Barry for its only evocative tracks, No Time To Die presents itself as an inversion of one of the most beloved early Bond films. In fundamentally misunderstanding Bond, it also misunderstands why that film was the way it was and why it wasn't inverted in the first place. Similarly, the movie evokes two of the most fascinating unused concepts from Fleming's novels, one a location and the other a plot development, yet strips the former of all its strangeness and flavour and tension, and uses the latter in such a way that contradicts the point that Fleming was making about his character, an error which resonates through to the movie's ending.

Looking at No Time To Die purely as an action movie in its own terms, it delivers about forty-five minutes of outstanding material followed by two hours packed with exhausting exposition, inane melodrama and uninspired action. A one-take sequence where Bond battles his way up a staircase has been compared to Atomic Blonde, yet where the latter film had its protagonist wounded, mostly unarmed and using every prop and geographical advantage she could muster to fight for her life, No Time To Die's version has Bond gunning his way through mooks until killing the sequence's mini-boss and delivering a dead-on-arrival one-liner. As a Bond film, it is barely that in anything but name. Much like modern Star Trek, it understands the facts of the series' history but has no sense of what makes any of it work or why it is beloved or has endured as it has. It tells where it should show. It meanders where it should run. It tries to make more real everything that was far more fun as fantasy. Craig's tenure as Bond has not been my favourite, but nevertheless delivered two classics of the series in Casino Royale and Skyfall, movies which respected Bond as an icon and his need to change with the times. What a shame, then, that his final two films in particular have made those successes feel like exceptions rather than the rule. [ 4 ]

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Games: No More Heroes III (Nintendo Switch) review

2021-09-09T16:00:00.647+01:00

GAME REVIEW

Publisher: Marvelous

Platform: Nintendo Switch

Goichi Suda, alias: Suda51, remains a rarity in the world of game design: a true auteur. That's not to suggest there's a shortage of well-known or talented designers out there, but few have back catalogues which feel as much a result of a singular artistic vision. As is the case with his stated or assumed influences from the film world, artists like David Lynch or Alejandro Jodorowsky, Suda's games presents worlds which are outwardly insane, but inwardly purposeful. The original No More Heroes was, on the surface, about a lightsabre - sorry, 'beam katana' - wielding geek slaughtering his way thorugh an array of eccentric bosses to reach the top of an assassins' ranking list, all in hope of getting into the pants of a sexy femme fatale. Underneath, it was a story about letting go of past traumas, about how a life of killing destroys the soul, and the emptiness of pursuing external glory rather than personal fulfilment.

No More Heroes III marks a return for Suda to the director's chair of a major game, having withdrawn from the spotlight for over a decade following an extremely difficult experience with EA Games developing Shadows Of The Damned. A small-scale warm-up to this game, 2019's Travis Strikes Again, was the first time Suda had been credited as a game director since the original No More Heroes in 2007. Despite NMHIII's flaws, it is a bold and exciting a reminder of how much the gaming world has missed him.

A word to the wise: if you haven't played Travis Strikes Again or any previous NMH game (all available on Switch), large chunks of this game's story will pass you by. The strength of the core gameplay and aesthetic fireworks should be enough to carry you through, but Suda is proudly catering to his fanbase here. That's a rare thing in modern sequels, which usually strive to be as welcoming as possible, but for those who have been following Suda's career for a long time, there's an extra level of thrill to his return seeing him so strongly playing to the galleys. Once that thrill has settled down, such an approach isn't always to the game's benefit - certain aspects of the game's design, especially the deliberately mundane side-jobs, were thematically relevant to the original but feel stranded here - but allowing an artist's vision to go uncompromised by fears around accessibility allows the game to cut the expositional fat and go hell for leather on the bonkers storytelling.

Following Travis' return to his hometown of Santa Destroy, the planet is invaded by aliens who pose humanity a challenge: find someone who can kill off their ten most dangerous soldiers, including the leader of the invasion, Jess Baptiste VI, aka FU - whose backstory, relayed in a glorious Game Awards fake-out trailer, is a hilarious dark spin on E.T. - or be conquered forever. FU's contact on Earth is an executive of an urban development company, Damon Ricotello - like FU, his name is an in-joke, being very similar to that of a difficult executive at EA during the Shadows Of The Damned development ordeal - who briefly encountered Travis in Travis Strikes Again.

The game functions on a slightly different cycle to the two Wii games: whereas those games had you doing side-jobs and assassin missions to raise money before facing a full level culminating in a boss fight, the pre-boss levels have now been excised, but for one short exception. You now access each boss fight by winning three qualifying battles, while raising any further money needed through the usual means: side-jobs - collecting rubbish, mowing lawns or blasting giant alligators attacking from the coast, the usual everyday stuff - or mini-battles where you face off against waves of enemies.

The loss of the levels leading up to boss fights removes the sense of anticipation which escalated towards each encounter, as well as betraying how the game has lost a little of the focus which was a strength of the original game. In that game, such level established a location and theme for each boss and their personality, also helping to build out the world of the game. As magnificently designed as the bosses are, having them be aliens creates a disconnect from the real-life relatability which grounded the original game's eccentricities. Thus, while they each put unique spins on the combat system and are as surprising and entertaining as could be hoped for, by their nature they cannot help but weaken the cohesion of the big picture of the game world.

Technical difficulties also betray the game in this regard. While the game runs near-flawlessly during combat, it has bumps against the technical limitations of the Switch console far more noticeably during the open world sections. While the framerate is not too choppy unless you're particularly sensitive to such things, the large amount of pop-in on distant objects and buildings makes the game's cityscapes feel full of empty space. That these areas are if anything less populated than the original game's sparse overworld does not help. With five unlockable areas, the game tries to get around this with later areas either being subject to a heavy visual filter, or simply not having much in them to begin with: the Thunderdome consists of a wide, empty salt flat, while 'Neo Brazil' is basically a car park, resulting in them feeling undercooked and disposable.

There's no doubt that the game is better for having an open-world in it - NMH2 removed it for a soulless menu - and while it's understandable why Suda's ambitions might have demanded multiple separated worlds, he ultimately might have done better simply making Santa Destroy bigger and creating additional landmarks in which to stage fights. Cruising around the city and its surrounding areas is still has a pleasure of its own, and there's (eventually) far more to do than in the first game's overworld, but the shift in visual tone from NMH's lazy border town - speaking of which, where did Mexico go this time around? A blocked tunnel into open sea is an uncharacteristically lazy substitute from Suda - to Akira-inflected sci-fi feels more scattershot and diminishes the sense of place. That at least half of the map is blocked off for the entire game adds to the impression of a world built around limitations and underachieved ambitions, rather than the first game's smaller but more complete and immersive world.

The redirection of the bulk of the game towards combat is clear recognition of where its greatest strength lies. The battles in NMHIII are as visceral and gripping as ever, more simplified than the likes of Bayonetta but with each move having a specific tactical role in taking down enemies - of which there are an impressive number, all requiring distinct strategies both individually and in combinations. Carrying over the Death Glove from Travis Strikes Again is inspired, adding a further level of depth and its slightly overpowered nature being offset by a general increase in difficulty. There are quibbles: dodging is finnicky and stunning an enemy through repeated sword hits is less satisfying than as the distinct mechanic it used to be. Having only four pre-set attacks on the Death Glove also removes one of the best parts of Travis Strikes Again's combat, which was finding optimal combinations of the myriad possible attacks and buffs. However, if the combat's individual elements do not quite reach the height of their implementation in prior games, the system as a whole is a triumph which never becomes any less enjoyable over the game's ten-to-fifteen hour completion time.

For fans, the series' storytelling is as much a source of pleasure as its gameplay, a trend which NMHIII continues with aplomb. From character motifs and designs to the various interludes between gameplay segments - including one where Travis and his friends discuss the movies of Takashi Miike - the game never stops tossing out surprises. While this does lead to a greater sense of randomness-for-randomness'-sake than the more focused originals, there are enough throughlines related to Suda's usual concerns, specifically his 'kill the past' mantra, to make the game a credible entry in the series even if the concept is being stretched a little thin given the original was supposed to be a standalone. While returning characters are distinctly underserved, the likes of FU and Damon are up there with the most engaging of the series' impressive roster of villains. FU's design is a particular standout, and on a narrative level, the contrast between the two characters' motivations and methods shows how far well-developed antagonists can elevate an already memorable story.

Like its predecessors, NMHIII is an acquired taste and does little to give newcomers an easy entry point. Its overworld is beset with technical difficulties and it struggles to recapture the focused vision and immersiveness of the original game. The side-quests offer slightly more to do outside combat, but little of the laid-back satisfaction of biking around the original Santa Destroy, dumpster diving and seeking out Lovikov balls (if you don't know, play NMH and find out for yourself). However, what matter is that the game's core remains ferociously strong: the combat is as punchy and bloody as ever, with the Death Glove adding an extra layer of tactical depth. The cast remains among the most charismatic of any game series then or now, and the storytelling never stops spinning them in directions by turn surprising, funny and somehow, inexplicably inevitable. The visuals can be rough around the edges, but the loopy art style and funky score more than compensates. If it can't live up to the first game's brilliance as an overall package, its moment-to-moment joys are often sensational. It's a worthy return for gaming's punk auteur. [ 7 ]

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2021-09-03T14:00:00.045+01:00

Review Scoring Chart - 10: Masterpiece; 9: Outstanding; 8: Very Good; 7: Good; 6: Above Average; 5: Average; 4: Below Average; 3: Bad; 2: Awful; 1: Reprehensible; 0: Non-Functional.

Although cinemas have only just started to reopen as mass vaccination takes the edge off the COVID pandemic, there has been no shortage of movies of all shapes and sizes to watch over the past months. From comic book blockbusters like The Suicide Squad or Black Widow, to more niche genre pieces like Censor or Pig, there has been a satisfying variety of offerings compared to more traditional cinematic summers, which tend to be dominated by major studio releases alone.

Rather than review each individually, these round-ups comprise short reviews of several films released to UK viewers over the past few months. The reviews in Part Two are The Suicide Squad, The Green Knight, Zola, Free Guy, Gunpowder Milkshake, Pig and Shang-Chi & The Legend Of The Ten Rings. Part One, published last Monday, comprised Black Widow, Another Round, Reminiscence, Censor, Jungle Cruise and Old.

THE SUICIDE SQUAD: David Ayers' Suicide Squad is among the most lamented of DC's ill-fated attempts to construct a cinematic universe to rival that of Marvel. Ayers' movie was heavily re-edited by the studio and turned into a feature-length trailer of sorts, with obnoxiously on-the-nose needle drops and incoherent editing, mangling what was never likely to have been a strong story into an unintelligible trainwreck. James Gunn's take on the material is, thankfully, stronger than that first attempt, but still feels like a pasted-together collection of scenes in lieu of an actual story. Characters seem chosen more for their jokey premises than any sort of purpose, and attempts to bring some of Gunn's Guardians Of The Galaxy verve to material nowhere near substantial enough to provide the foundations needed for the irreverent and edgy-within-studio-guidelines tone to be satisfying. The quality of each individual scene is over the place, roughly levelling out between stuff that works and stuff that doesn't. Margot Robbie's Harley remains less entertaining than any of her movies think she is, while the waste of Peter Capaldi is a crime. It's better than its predecessor, but shares more of its failings than it would like to admit. Polka Dot Man is pretty great, though. [ 5 ]

THE GREEN KNIGHT: Adaptations of Arthurian legend have rarely been either creatively or financially successful, reaching a nadir with Guy Ritchie's abrasively obnoxious King Arthur: Legend Of The Sword in 2017. There are many reasons why these adaptations continue to fail, some distinct to the individual projects, others more universal. The story of King Arthur, for one, is tiresomely overfamiliar, while attempts at 'modernisation' by using contemporary language and attitudes misses the point entirely. Nobody connects with these tales on the basis of aesthetics, but the universal human stories within them. Conveying their meaning to modern audiences in a relatable way is what can make an adaptation sing; forcing in modern lingo and politics stink of insincerity and desperation. David Lowery's The Green Knight gets almost everything right. Firstly, it's a story from Arthurian Legend which isn't centred around Arthur: considering the depth of fascinating stories in the canon, it's amazing filmmakers have fallen back for so long on just the one comparatively bland one. Secondly, while Gawain And The Green Knight has resisted attempts to impose a concrete meaning on it, Lowery funnels the motifs of the story and the themes of Arthurian canon as a whole to evoke ideas as meaningful today as they ever have been. What does it mean to live an honourable life, to be a good man? Like the original story, he embraces the characters' flaws while taking the ending in a very different direction. This is a movie so rich in ideas and imagery, steeped in history and mythology, that it defies the 'short review' format. The performances are uniformly excellent (even if Alicia Vikander's accent is a bit wobbly), the score hauntingly ethereal, and while the occasional use of brash colour filters remains a tiresome trend, it is at least true to the original material where colour carries great meaning. It is as outstanding a film in its own right as it is a fascinating and distinctive adaptation of a tantalisingly untapped well of mythological storytelling. [ 8 ]

ZOLA: Going from a movie which does justice to the scope and humanity of a mythology which has endured for centuries to one based on a Twitter thread sounds like it should be the opening of a paragraph condemning the vapidity of social media culture, but in a sense both The Green Knight and Zola are coming from a similar place: the ability of compelling storytelling to allow readers to relate to unfamiliar people, voices and cultures through shared feelings and experiences. The Twitter thread in question concerned a pole dancer to travel for a night at a supposedly lucrative club in Florida, only to find herself trapped in a very dangerous situation. Zola's scope is considerably more limited than The Green Knight and while Janicza Bravo directs with flair, she never quite captures the voice which made Aziah King's original thread so gripping. Nor does the film contend with the complexity that King herself was almost certainly exaggerating or lying: a late-game point-of-view switch is more for comedic purposes than exploring the potential of an unreliable narrator. The story itself makes for an effective little thriller, but the lack of an impactful ending is felt more keenly on film and for all the visual flash and glances towards ideas about race and social and cultural underclasses, it winds up feeling a bit thin. Using the tweet thread as a starting point rather than keeping slavishly faithful might have been a wiser decision, but Zola is a well-made and engaging film within the boundaries it sets itself. [ 6 ]

FREE GUY: If The Rock has somehow kept the same persona fresh for his entire acting career, Ryan Reynolds is finding it a lot harder to keep his Deadpool bit interesting despite that movie only coming out in 2016. Although spun in a more innocent, naive direction this time around, with Reynolds playing a non-player character in a violent multiplayer game who discovers the nature of his existence, the cadence of his delivery and exaggerated goofiness are unmistakeably inflected through his Deadpool performances. That was getting tiresome by Deadpool 2 and is only moreso here, feeling forced where The Rock's persona feels natural. Jodie Comer is the likeable standout, and not just because she's stuck between a coasting Reynolds and an utterly insufferable Taika Waititi, playing the head of a major development studio as a whiny manchild. There are moments when the movie hits a certain stride, excavating a few mild chuckles and competent sight gags, while the fanservice can be amusing despite Reynolds' incessant nodding to the audience and the sickly aftertaste of corporate synergy. Its core gaming audience will likely be distracted by how little the movie understands the basics of how games and game development work, while everyone else will just see familiar spins on old material, from the lead actor and everywhere else. If nothing else, it is at least an improvement on Ready Player One. [ 5 ]

GUNPOWDER MILKSHAKE: Few movies exemplify the banality of movies as 'content' rather than 'art' like Gunpowder Milkshake, which feels manufactured for no reason other than to add a title to a release schedule. The story, derivative and without purpose or ambition, stitches together Luc Besson tropes of the female assassin betrayed by her superiors and the child in tow to a dangerous adult. Where Besson, for his flaws, gives his movies a European flavour all his own, Gunpowder Milkshake leans into the already exhausted stylistic trend of a neon-lit 80s aesthetic. This look has no relation to the story and like the movie, exists only as imitation. The stacked cast put in as much effort as the material demands, which is little, with the exception of Karen Gillen, who gives it her all but is derailed by a distractingly shaky American accent. While the movie comes up with a few moments of originality, such as the protagonist's arms being disabled at a key moment, it otherwise never rises above being a sub-par rehash of (slightly) better movies, nor does it want to. That it tries to cover its tracks with an 'ironic', winking tone, implying its lousiness is intentional B-movie homage rather than laziness and contempt for its viewers, does not help. [ 4 ]

PIG: Pig's trailers promised another entry into the tiresomely self-aware canon of Nicolas Cage schlock, riffing on John Wick as a farmer goes looking for the people who attacked him and stole his beloved truffle pig, yet the movie itself is a meditative treatise on loss, thwarted dreams and grief. Where Cage has consciously turned himself into a parody in recent years, Pig marks an overdue reminder of what an outstanding and nuanced actor he can be when choosing material which genuinely challenges him. Physically, he does very little, yet conveys much with small looks and minor vocal inflections. The film is at its weakest when trying to reconcile its premise with the more thoughtful experience it wants to be, at once showing the audience it knows how silly its story sounds while also trying to deliver something unexpected. It never goes overboard by any stretch (though an underground fighting ring pushing the limits) and its emphasis on Cage using understanding and kindness to get what he wants from people rather than violence keeps the character work enthralling, even if David Knell painfully overplays one big moment of grief around the midpoint. The movie really comes together for its final act, though, with a climax which is quiet, meaningful and lands a softly optimistic note beneath the melancholy. [ 7 ]

SHANG-CHI & THE LEGEND OF THE TEN RINGS: Marvel films have tended to improve the further they get from everyday American reality, be that space in Guardians Of The Galaxy or Wakanda in Black Panther. Shang-Chi is rife with the studio's usual shortcomings - characters who speak in platitudes, intrusive quips and contrived comic interludes, a plot built around set-pieces rather than telling a story, a final battle substituting dramatic stakes and physical action for CGI visual noise - but its indebtedness to Asian cinema of all strokes (wuxia, Hong Kong gangster movies, kung-fu, etc) at least gives it a specific flavour, even if it has few original ideas to call its own. The martial arts give the fight scenes more heft and zip than usual, albeit diminished by greenscreen and excessive editing. Simu Liu is fine in that Chris Evans-y way of having enough charisma to be likeable without suggesting any sort of personality, albeit with Shang lacking even the ethos which gave Steve Rogers a whisper of definition, but it's Tony Leung who carries the best stretches of the film with a performance of real gravitas in a familiar role (powerful man corrupted by grief). Awkwafina's merits can only be judged by one's tolerance for Awkwafina, specifically how often you can endure the forceful use of the word 'bro'. The score folds into the background, as it does on most Marvel movies, and the excessive number of cameos from other movies (not to mention the prolonged apologising for Iron Man 3, even if the framing is interesting) feel like insecurity on the studio's part about fans accepting the film's place in the MCU. For all that it is utterly unsurprising and a mélange of Asian cinematic clichés, it is a marginal improvement on Marvel's usual fare: at least those clichés are coming from somewhere other than in-house. [ 6 ]

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Summer Movie Mini-Review Roundup, Part One

2021-08-30T16:00:00.091+01:00

Review Scoring Chart - 10: Masterpiece; 9: Outstanding; 8: Very Good; 7: Good; 6: Above Average; 5: Average; 4: Below Average; 3: Bad; 2: Awful; 1: Reprehensible; 0: Non-Functional.

Rather than review each individually, these round-ups comprise short reviews of several films released to UK viewers over the past few months. The six are Black Widow, Another Round, Reminiscence, Censor, Jungle Cruise and Old. Part Two looks at The Suicide Squad, The Green Knight, Zola, Free Guy, Gunpowder Milkshake, Pig and Shang-Chi & The Legend Of The Ten Rings.

BLACK WIDOW: 2020 was a year off for Marvel, with their last release prior to Black Widow being Spider-Man: Far From Home in mid-2019. Given that Black Widow's eponymous character died in Avengers: Endgame, the two-year gap between that film's release and this one doesn't do it any favours in terms of feeling past its sell-by date. That much was out of Disney's hands, but what wasn't was the movie being one of the more extreme examples of an overreliance on a Marvel house style which had been going stale well before 2019. From characters constantly undercutting themselves and their situation with sarcastic quips, to a non-entity of a villain, the pandering to social media activist topics ("The one resource the world has too much of [is] little girls," Ray Winstone's evildoer inanely postulates), bland cinematography and weightless CGI climax, it's all much of a muchness: competent and rarely outright bad, but utterly soulless. Worse, it turns Scarlett Johansson into a supporting character in her own movie, spending her screentime on (slightly) more interesting characters in a superfluous family subplot. David Harbour, Rachel Weisz, Florence Pugh and Johansson herself do what they can with the thin gruel served, but far from being a welcome return for Marvel's brand of comic book spectacle, Black Widow offers the perspective that one of the few benefits of COVID was giving everyone a year's break from it all. [ 5 ]

ANOTHER ROUND: Winner of the Best International Picture award at the Oscars in April, Thomas Vinterberg's drama about a group of men testing a theory about the benefits of maintaining a low level of drunkenness throughout the day is charming and anchored by a strong cast, particularly the always engaging Mads Mikkelsen, but a little too slight for its own good and never quite explores its premise on a deep enough level to be satisfying. Its dry tone and humour may not appeal to everyone, but is an agreeably delicate antidote to non-stop blockbuster spectacle. If only it had a little more to say, or its characters (outside Mikkelsen's Martin, who puts the actor's dance training to fun use) were a little less interchangeable. It falls somewhere between embracing the joie-de-vivre of heavy boozing and the dangers of becoming dependent on it, without ever going much deeper. It's a good film which feels like it could have been a lot more had it taken its characters' advice and loosened up a little. [ 6 ]

REMINISCENCE: This science-fiction drama from Westworld co-creator, Lisa Joy, presents a world drowning not just in water but exhausting clichés and half-baked characters and concepts. Viewers of Westworld may be familiar with that shortcoming, being a series which consistently confuses opacity and platitudes for intelligence. Hugh Jackman plays an operator of a machine which allows people to relive their fondest memories, who himself becomes addicted to trying to find out why a mysterious woman (Rebecca Ferguson) vanished from his life a few years earlier following a brief love affair. Although supposedly marketed at an adult audience, the condescending voice-over intrusively lays out its story beats, presumably as a means of relieving the legwork of underdeveloped characters who cannot support it. Attempts to force some kind of flavour through knockoff noir dialogue and tropes only add to the frustration of a movie at once endlessly pretentious and deeply stupid. [ 4 ]

CENSOR: A bold and ambitious directorial debut from Welsh filmmaker Prano Bailey-Bond sets itself in the midst of the 'Video Nasty' panic of '80s Britain, where a number of trashy horror films were banned and scapegoated for a rise in violent crime. Niamh Algar plays a censor who believes she has discovered in one such movie a clue towards finding out what happened to her sister, who disappeared (possibly abducted) when they were children. The movie's ambiguous storytelling rewards rewatches, with clues quietly woven throughout and easy to miss first time around. Bailey-Bond neatly executes a number of technical tricks with aspect ratio and image quality, if perhaps getting a little too showy at times and over-relying on the garish neon lighting which has become a cliché of its own in recent years. Niamh Algar is tremendous, presenting a performance at once tightly controlled and yet turbulent under the surface. The only serious misstep is the pacing, which sees the movie abruptly change tone for the final act on the back of a twist both narratively and visually unconvincing. It's not quite up to the Kill List standard for modern British horror, but is idiosyncratic and thematically deep enough to be more than worth its 84-minute runtime. [ 7 ]

JUNGLE CRUISE: A filler blockbuster in every sense, Jungle Cruise shows how far engaging leads can take a movie despite having little to recommend elsewhere. Its theme park roots are shown in how liberally it replicates the Pirates Of The Caribbean formula of implausible physical stunts, an overdependence on CGI spectacle and a sense of humour neither as funny or as rebellious as its megacorporation overlord owners, Disney, thinks it is. Still, despite relying on exactly the same schtick he has been doing since ascending to movie superstardom, The Rock (yes, Dwayne Johnson, but let's be honest, he's still The Rock) carries his underwritten role with the effortless, likeable charisma honed in the wrestling ring. Accompanying him as the token love interest is Emily Blunt, a pairing which strikes a potent streak of comic chemistry even if the romantic side isn't there. Jack Whitehall gives a surprisingly competent turn as Blunt's comic relief brother, and Breaking Bad's Jesse Plemons plays his German villain to the comic book hilt, albeit tipping over into becoming annoying more than once. As a blockbuster, it's the same sort of stuff seen a thousand times before; as a story, it's overlong and with little of interest to say. Were it not for Blunt and The Rock, it would be a write-off: that it proves adequate is as high a compliment to their talent as can be given. [ 5 ]

OLD: M. Night Shyamalan has in recent years proven one of cinema's most reliable purveyors of the unintentionally funny and Old shows he still has plenty of accidental hilarity in his engine, even if he probably wishes he didn't. Though not quite up to The Happening levels of misguided entertainment - what is? - tone-deaf dialogue combined with baffling storytelling decisions, plus one extremely grumpy-looking child, add up to a fun and memorable experience, if rarely for the desired reasons. The movie sees a collection of stock characters trapped on a beach which ages them at a highly accelerated rate, and tracks their attempts to escape and the various terrible decisions made along the way. Not a single one behaves or talks like any human being in recorded history and the presence of a rapper named, no joke, Mid-Sized Sedan, emphasizes how Shyamalan seems to be operating at a slight but enjoyably daft skew from real life. As easy as it is to be sarcastic about the film and director's shortcomings, films and voices this strange undeniably add a distinct flavour to the cinematic landscape. While I can't recommend it in the normal sense, it's a hoot if you're on the right wavelength. [ 6 ]

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BS With Friends Podcast: On Her Majesty's Secret Service

2021-04-23T15:00:00.005+01:00

I was privileged to take part in a very enjoyable podcast about one of my favourite James Bond films, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, with resident hosts, Maxwell Roahrig and Xzyliac Ariel. We cover some recent entertainment news stories, Peter Hunt's borderline experimental editing, how Bond beat the Fast & Furious franchise to punch with a flying car (in addition to a double-taking pigeon), and On Her Majesty's gay influence, helped in part by writer Simon Raven, an old-school libertine who was expelled from school - and I quote said school's obituary - 'less for homosexuality than for the bravura with which he practiced it'.

Below the jump are links to articles I've written on this blog about Bond, including a set of film reviews and why OHMSS is the great unrecognised Christmas movie. Have fun!

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In Life And In Death, Prince Philip Embodied The Value Of The British Monarchy

2021-04-10T15:00:00.127+01:00

The past few years have been turbulent for the British Royal Family. A slew of controversies, from the links between Prince Andrew and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, to the departure of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle and their subsequent accusations of experiencing racism within the 'Firm', have led to increased questioning among the young in particular about what the monarchy is for and why it exists in an age of democracy and representation. The death of Prince Philip yesterday, the man who dutifully stood two paces behind the Queen for over seventy years and did more than anyone to make the monarchs visible and accessible to the public, will plausibly only galvanise such questions once the mourning period has faded.

Though many monarchists may recoil at the question being asked at all, it serves an important purpose not only in testing the resilience of the nation's institutions, but the clarity of people's understanding of their usefulness. The Royal Family is not elected or directly accountable to its people, nor should it be, but it cannot persist unless the people feel proud to be represented by them and that the values they embody are the right ones. In this, the allegations surrounding Prince Andrew's close friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, and the Palace seemingly closing ranks to protect him, have been particularly corrosive. If the public is unsure why the monarchy remains important in spite of any controversies surrounding it, either the people in charge of maintaining our institutions, or the institutions themselves, are not doing their job. In this respect, while the death of Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, may be the first step in a period of transition for the monarchy, the remembrance of his remarkable life may also serve to remind the British people of its immense value to the nation and the world.

To answer the question of why the monarchy remains so important, we should consider what would be lost without it. The most immediately impactful effect would be that the nation would lose its most internationally esteemed source of soft power and diplomacy. Meeting the monarch is a high honour for any international representative and a way of establishing cordial relations outside the traditional boundaries of politics. Representatives and elected rulers come and go, but the monarchy is constant, a symbolic representation of the principles of steadfastness and decorum which have long underpinned the British national character.

For visiting dignitaries, it is a sign of them being welcomed not just by the representatives of the nation, but the nation itself. Such symbolic ceremony carries immense importance in all forms of human relations. Consider the tradition of world leaders bringing each other gifts. Do any of them need the trinkets that are handed over? No. But per the Ancient Greek gifting tradition or the Native American potlach, it symbolises a mutual extending of hands and sharing of what one holds dear. That we have an institution outside politics which is held in such high global esteem is a service of incalculable worth to Britain's global standing and its capacity for diplomatic engagement on personal rather than political terms.

The Queen and her late husband are best thought of in this regard as the world's most dedicated and accomplished diplomats. The Commonwealth of Nations, a voluntary and equal association which has grown to encompass over fifty nations, is the shining example of this and a perfect demonstration of Britain turning the vestiges of its imperialist past - though not all the Commonwealth nations are former colonies - into something shared and positive. Though it is sometimes said that the Queen and Prince Philip reigned over a period of unprecedented national decline due to the loss of Empire, their contributions in formalising and maintaining the Commonwealth have ensured the story is not of decline, but change for the better. The monarchy may be a symbol of endurance, but in reflecting the state of the nation, the lifelong service of the Queen and Philip has quietly and with great care enabled it to transform and modernise.

On a less obvious level, losing the monarchy would turn Britain into a republic, which would place the Prime Minister not just in charge of governing the country, but ruling it. Having a constitutional monarchy distributes that power so no one person is able to annoint himself as a single, Emperor-like figurehead. The reigning monarch is the nation's true Head of State, but his power is entirely ceremonial. The Prime Minister is at the top of the structure exerting actual power, but is always a level below the monarch in title, a constant reminder of his ultimate subservience to the nation.

Does this make a meaningful difference in practice? Perhaps not. Boris Johnson has proven himself happy to tear up the good chap principles for his own political gain. However, even if it is increasingly inefficient in a time of ever more unscrupulous politicians, it is reassuring to have that small check on the egos of the nation's leaders. It also demonstrates how the UK's relationship with power and the law differs from the American one: the American relationship is individualistic and antagonistic, whereas the British one is about doing what is right for its own sake, rather than just under the threat of law. When cynical opportunists like Johnson, and his former aide, Dominic Cummings, show themselves willing to tear up those unwritten rules, it reveals the failings at the heart of their character and inspires introspection about where our political system is going wrong if such people are able to rise to high office.

The monarchy, too, will not always be embodied by such responsible and moral representatives as the Queen and Philip. The allegations against Prince Andrew, and the Palace seemingly covering for him, speak to that. In recent times, there have also been accusations that Prince Charles has overstepped his mark in interfering in London planning processes, and that the Palace has occasionally pushed for laws to be altered behind the scenes in order to protect its wealth. The seriousness of all these allegations cannot be ignored and should be properly investigated. Where there is cause to do so, changes must made to ensure they can never happen again. It is absolutely correct that the British public question the role of the monarchy in public life when such incidents come to light.

Even the most ardent Royalist cannot point to the monarchy as a perfect institution, or one without serious shortcomings - shortcomings which undermine its long-term survival if unchecked. Like all systems and institutions, the Royal Family consists of flawed, sometimes stupid human beings who do not always live up to the ideal hoist upon them. Fallibility is part of the human condition and power and influence have a way of exacerbating the strengths and weaknesses of an individual's character. For the Queen, Prince Philip and William and Kate, it shaped them into exemplars of dignity, self-sacrifice and tireless public service. In Prince Andrew, it brought out severe failings in his judgment, his self-restraint and perhaps worse.

Many may feel that the disgrace of the Prince Andrew affair is greater than the value of the monarchy as a whole, and it is their right as British citizens to make that assessment. As with any system of power, the expectation should not be of perfection, but whether its flaws are sufficiently grave to cancel out the good justifying its existence. The monarchy, I would argue, is and has been on balance an overwhelming force for good in representating the nation, not only in sharing our values and offering the hand of friendship on the global stage, but at the local level as well. Prince Philip's Duke of Edinburgh Award has helped millions of children discover new skills, develop confidence in themselves and embody the values of the nation which the Duke himself adopted during his early schooling in Scotland: self-reliance, stoicism, perseverance, humour and humility. His Design Award has been similarly influential in supporting the nation's aspiring engineers, technologists and designers: previous winners include James Dyson and Terence Conran. Without the weight of public accountability on his back, Philip was able to dedicate much of his life to being a pioneering and apolitical voice for once-unfashionable causes such as conservation, environmentalism and mediation between the sciences and religion.

Philip's life story has been told ad nauseam over the past twenty-four hours. If there is such a thing as the 'British Dream', he surely embodies it. He was a man who overcame a lonely and stateless childhood, born on a kitchen table in Greece and separated from both parents - his mother through mental illness, his father through abandonment - before going on to fight for his adopted country in war and then serve it as unwaveringly loyal consort to its Queen. Initially viewed as an outsider by the Palace, he overame institutional parochialism to find acceptable channels to satify his yearning for productivity and accomplishment without taking the spotlight away from the woman to whom he was so devoted. He was a man who understood his place and made it emphatically his own.

In this Philip represented two seemingly contradictory parts of the nation's character: the rugged, sharply humoured modernist striving to be at the forefront of progress in the world, but also the traditionalist pillar of self-sacrifice and order, forging his own path while resolutely remaining within the lines of the rules and traditions on which the nation's strength depends. How the monarchy endures and what shape it will take when Prince Charles becomes sovereign remains to be seen. That is a question for a later time. For now, the extraordinary life and accomplishments of Prince Philip, a man who, quietly and without desire for celebration, dedicated his years to strengthening his nation and its people, only illuminates how tremendous an asset the monarchy can be. The depth of sadness at his death reflects the height of his triumphs in life.

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Uncertainty As The Path To Resurrection In Dante's Commedia

2021-04-02T21:00:00.125+01:00

The Christian holidays have become largely divorced from their original meanings. In some ways this is helpful, allowing them to be days of universal celebration rather than exclusively serving a single section of our theologically diverse societies. Christmas is these days about giving, gratitude, and reuniting with loved ones, rather than specifically a celebration of Christ's birth. Christ's story encompasses those qualities, but what is celebrated are the shared values rather than the event itself. Though most are aware of Christmas' religious origins - it's right there in the name - the connection is not necessarily made between those origins and the values it now represents. This inevitably leads to the hackneyed complaint that Christmas is just about 'capitalism', which says more about the complainer's inability to understand the value of giving than they might have wished.

Easter is further divorced from the reasons for its Christian celebration than Christmas. In part, this is because the name does not tie in so obviously. According to the Venerable Bede, a seventh-century monk known as the 'Father of English history' for his ecumenical writings, the month of Christ's resurrection was called Eostremonath in Old English, named for the goddess Eostre. The association between the two stuck even after the name of the month changed. Aside from the loose symbolism of eggs to birth, the idea of resurrection has been lost in how we celebrate Easter today. In search of that original meaning and how it relates to our contemporary lives, we should look to one of the great works of the global literary canon, whose narrative not coincidentally begins on Maundy Thursday, just before Easter Weekend: Dante Alighieri's epic poem, the Commedia.

The Commedia - widely called 'The Divine Comedy', though 'Divine' was added later, subsequent to Dante's death a year after the work's publication - is commonly thought of as a work describing the journey of the human soul in denying sin and ascending to heaven. This is literally correct, though strips the poem of its meaning and relevance. The Commedia is far from some distant, didactic treatise about the stated values of organised religion. It is rather a very personal and nuanced consideration about education and open-mindedness as keys to human growth, and about the nature of faith and the embracing of the unknown and the unknowable as intrinsic to the contradiction of life as both small and filled with infinite possibility.

Often overlooked is that the Commedia is an autobiography of a sort. The protagonist of the poem is the author himself, Dante, specifically the Dante from eight years before he began work on the poem. At the time of the poem's writing, Dante had been exiled from his home city of Florence. Dante previously held a position of high standing in his city among the Guelphs, a political faction whose allegiance was to the Pope over the Holy Roman Emperor, the opposite stance to their rival faction, the Ghibellines. The Guelphs were victorious in their struggle, but (inevitably) became divided amongst themselves, separating into White and Black factions. When Pope Boniface VIII, a supporter of the Black Guelphs, sent a military force to occupy Florence in 1301, Dante, a White Guelph, was in absentia accused of corruption and exiled from the city.

To be exiled was a mark of great shame and Dante and his fellow White Guelphs strove for years to contrive ways of returning to the city, often leading to associations with people Dante considered immoral and distasteful. Over time, it became clear that his efforts were futile and he fell into a profound sense of despair. Dante began writing the Commedia in 1308 and set it in 1300, two years prior to his exile. The Dante of the poem is an amalgamation of Dantes past and then-present. The protagonist Dante is explicitly described as having not yet suffered the humiliation of exile, yet begins the poem in the state of mental despair of the real-life poet Dante post-exile.

If that sounds confusing, one must place it in the context of the philosophical view of education at the time. Education, or the acquisition of knowledge, was thought of not as linear progression, but circular. This is where the term 'a well-rounded education' comes from, as well as the etymological definition of the word 'encyclopedia' (hence the 'cyclo'). As a process of the mind rather than the body, learning represented a journey where one departed the physical world, expanded one's knowledge through education, before returning to one's point of departure (reality) now able to see it in a wider perspective. From this the term 'liberal arts' is also derived: the forms of education which liberate the mind, as opposed to the mechanical arts, which concern the body and physical function.

Through his writing of the Commedia, Dante completed the circular journey of education through the poem's combination of his past and present selves: not for nothing are circles a defining motif. The protagonist Dante had not yet experienced the events which would lead to his exile, shame and the writing of the Commedia. The poet Dante, however, had experienced those things and was thus able to appraise and contextualise the past version of himself in a wiser, more self-aware way than when he was living as that person. The protagonist Dante represents the poet Dante at the first step of the learning journey, his point of educational departure, though he did not know it at the time. The poem's autobiographical element depicts the events of the author's internal, rather than external life.

Sandro Botticelli's Map Of Dante's Hell (1485)

Whereas traditional interpretations of the Commedia suggest the protagonist Dante goes from rejecting the absolutes of sin to embracing the absolutes of virtue and divine grace, it is in fact in acquiring an appreciation for uncertainty and the unknowable that Dante is able to complete his journey. Across his journey through hell in Inferno, Dante encounters those whom he held responsible for his exile. When he is inclined to lambast them and gloat, he is scolded by his guide, the poet Virgil. The Dante immediately post-exile hated these people for their role in his perceived suffering. Virgil, who serves as the voice of the enlightened poet Dante, understands them as key to Dante's liberation. But for them, he would have remained mentally trapped in his dogmatic political views.

It is in Canto 15, when the protagonist Dante encounters in hell his former teacher, Brunetto Latini, that he begins to question the certainties he once took for granted. Finding Latini among the sinners - pederasts and sodomites, specifically - forces Dante to revise his view of the man he so idolised. Dante remains grateful for Brunetto's teaching, and thanks him before moving on, but is now able to see the shortcomings of both the man and the structures he represents. Brunetto was in a sense Dante's first guide, the man who taught him the skills he would need to elevate himself in Florentine society. In teaching him those skills, however, he trapped Dante into a fixed way of thinking. The poet Dante sees this in a way the protagonist Dante is only beginning to.

If Dante's journey through hell in Inferno represents him abandoning the certainties of his past, Purgatorio has him confront the difficulty of making positive choices in the present. The seven tiers of the mountain of purgatory are named after the seven mortal sins. Like those Dante encountered in hell, the denizens of purgatory are guilty of allowing themselves to sin, only those in purgatory did so unintentionally. These are people who, like Dante, sincerely believed they were making good decisions, but fell short because those decisions were rooted in the same sinful certainties as those whose intentionally bad actions resigned them to hell.

Purgatory is a holding place for those with the capacity and aspiration for good, but damned by their limited perspectives. All its inhabitants will eventually rise to heaven, which the poet Dante makes clear in his opening description of purgatory as a place where men's souls are cleansed. If those in purgatory are to ascend they must understand why they made the wrong choices and amend themselves accordingly, much like the protagonist Dante at this same point. Dante's time in hell taught him that the beliefs he unquestioningly followed as righteous were in fact limited and misguided. In purgatory, he learns the virtues, particularly humility and learning through the arts, which will form the framework of his ability to make good decisions in the future.

It is on the upper tiers of Mount Purgatory that Beatrice replaces Virgil as Dante's guide. The figure of Beatrice is thought to have been inspired by a girl, Beatrice Portinari, who was Dante's neighbour when he was a boy. In keeping with the courtly manners of the time, he never told her of his feelings and they both went on to marry other people, though Dante remained enamoured with her throughout his life. In the poem, Beatrice replaces Virgil because Virgil is a pagan and thus cannot enter heaven. Compared to the occupants of purgatory, many of whom erred in confusing sin for love, Beatrice represents love channelled correctly.

A modern reader might condemn the young Dante for worshipping an idolised Beatrice from afar rather than engaging with her as a person, though the poet Dante uses her as a symbol, as he does all the real-world figures incorporated into his work. The Beatrice of the poem is not a person but a representation of the value of surrendering oneself to something one cannot fully comprehend, in this case the intense love the real-life Beatrice inspired in Dante. Had he acted on those feelings and got to know Beatrice Portinari as a person, that feeling would have been reduced to the knowable human level. In this respect, the relevance of Beatrice's selection as Dante's guide into Paradise is made clear: where Virgil represented Dante's use of art to abandon his old certainties and expand his wisdom through education and self-expression, Beatrice represents an embrace of uncertainty, a welcoming of the limitations of human knowledge and a surrender to the infinite complexities of existence.

It is telling that even the figures Dante encounters in paradise are imperfect: those imperfections are fundamental to the purity of their faith. Though the Commedia is firmly rooted in Christian theology, the faith it espouses is personal rather than doctrinary. In order to come to terms with the shame of his exile, Dante's resurrection came through learning to adopt a bigger view of himself, first by abandoning the prideful self-image of his past as a man who believed he had mastered life by resolutely following the politics and teachings of Florentine society, then in celebrating the joy of learning for its own sake. Finite beings may never be able to understand an iota of the complexity of an infinitely large universe, but it is as much in the things we do not know as the things we do that we find ourselves and forge our personal connections to the divine. Happy Easter, everyone.

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