Shooting yourself in the back. Rookie mistake.

Director Martin Cambell

Stars Pierce Brosnan, Sean bean, Famke Janssen, Alan Cumming, Judi Dench

Things You Might Like

• Fresh, 1990’s Bond
• Strong supporting cast
• Crashing a tank around St Petersburg
• Brosnan’s mix of two Bonds
• Judi Dench redefining M

Things You Might Not Like

• Loses the edge of Dalton
• Weak Moneypenny
• Q branch grinds rather than amuses

Conclusion

GoldenEye captures a fresh James Bond, one ready for the 1990’s. Pierce Brosnan combines the best of two 007’s to make a perfect start.

5 out of 5 Hidden Lairs

Luke McGrath

***

Between 1989 and 1995 the James Bond franchise took its longest between films. The six years was enough to lose lead actor Timothy Dalton, whose interpretation had been receiving a mixed reception. In his place came Pierce Brosnan and a Bond for the 1990’s. While his legacy faltered in later installments, GoldenEye proved that 007 could flourish in any decade.

James Bond was practically reinvented when Brosnan took over, his character ditching everything that Dalton had brought to the role. Bond was no longer angry at the world, he was calmer, cooler and quicker to smile. Brosnan’s Bond in GoldenEye is a cross-over somewhere in the middle of Connery and Moore. Perhaps something like Lazenby had he been given a different story.

Bond’s world had changed too, the cold war had ended and MI6 had a woman in the top role. Screenwriters were happy to capitalise on these events for GoldenEye, crafting a story that bridged the end of Anglo-Soviet hostilities. Judi Dench began her tenure as M, bringing a character closer to Bernard Lee’s early appearances. She’s in charge, dislikes Bond in many ways but regards him as her best agent. M deals with her staff like her children (we do learn she has them), taking no backchat but expecting plenty.

With most of the original Fleming stories used up, GoldenEye was the first Bond to use a completely original plot. 007 faces a threat from rogue agent 006, a wonderfully smarming Sean Bean, who plans to attack London. The story delivers action from the outset with a breathtaking bungee from the top of a damn opening one of the series’ best pre-credits sequences. From then on Bond hardly takes a breath as he moved from Monte Carlo to Russia and to a final showdown in Cuba. While each location boasts good set-pieces, it is the tank chase around St. Petersberg that matches the franchise’s best.

Other moments are not so exciting or fresh. Bond’s interaction with the new, liberated, Moneypenny (Samantha Bond) is annoyingly cliched. You can sense she is waiting for the Spice Girls to drop in a couple of years time. Q is beginning to get old in more ways than Desmond Llewelyn’s age. Bond messing about with a variety of ‘wacky’ gadgets feels like a throwback to the Moore years.

The supporting cast serves the film better than the (soon to be) regulars. Sean Bean makes for a believably disaffected villain, thankfully obsessed with getting rich a touch more than a shaky backstory about avenging his parents. Robbie Coltrane makes a cameo into enough of a role for a return in The World is Not Enough and Alan Cummings steals a few scenes as eccentric programmer Boris. As for the girls, Famke Janssen is perfect as perverted killer Xenia Onatopp and Izabella Scorupco shines from time to time as 007’s ally. Alongside M, the the two ladies bring a feminist angle into Bond’s universe that fits the 1990s vibe well. A real shame that none of them really get a scene together, and that Moneypenny tries to ruin it all by being a walking advert for bra-burning.

Despite a few flaws, GoldenEye rattles along at such a good pace that they’re soon forgotten. It’s great to see a few nods to 007’s cinematic history included, such as the Aston Martin, a You Only Live Twice style lair and a bit of From Russia With Love inside a Soviet church. There is the sense that this is a new Bond, rather than an evolution. Even the early scenes set up 007 to reveal his name whilst in a Tuxedo, in a casino. Some things never change, some can’t help themselves.

Buy GoldenEye from Amazon.

You Might Also Like:

1. Licence to Kill (1989)
2. Moonraker (1979)
3. Dr. No (1962)
4. The Ghost (aka The Ghost Writer) (2010)

The worst time you will ever have at the movies

Director Larry Bishop

Stars Larry Bishop, Michael Masden, Dennis Hopper

Things You Might Like

• Hey, look! Dennis Hopper
• Your DVD/Blu-Ray player will probably not burst into flames
• Finally finding a film that is utterly contemptible

Things You Might Not Like

• Finding a film that is utterly contemptible
• Why, Dennis Hopper, why?
• Every character in the film
• A dude kills himself in the middle of a party and no one notices
• But, like, it’s making a statement, man

Conclusion

Hell Ride may just be proof that, if there is a God, he doesn’t give a shit about film.

1 out of 5 Terrible Motorcycles

***

Do not watch the movie Hell Ride. You’ll be drawn in by the presence of The Dude Who Cut Off The Other Dude’s Ear In Reservoir Dogs, alongside One Of The Hippies In Easy Rider, but that is not enough to make a good movie.

Hell Ride is a movie that is, apparently, written and directed and starring a twelve year old with freakish hair and muscle growth—enough to make him appear to be a fully-grown man. It follows a biker gang known as the Victors and led (I think) by a biker who goes by Pistolero (because that name is so totally bitchin you guys).

The movie opens with Pistolero having been apparently shot in the gut by an arrow—which happens to be the method du choice by which a rival biker gang leader—whose name I did not catch—(played by Bullet Tooth Tony) kills people. So you’re set in thinking this is going to be an epic biker war movie.

Nope! Turns out—and you’re told this about forty minutes into the movie—that Pistolero and Woman Who Is Turned On By Fire (WWITOBF) are tripping shrooms for no reason in the desert and then WWITOBF stabs him for no reason.

Actually, that’s a tad bit disingenuous. I believe she feels compelled to take shrooms and then stab Pistolero because, minutes (or hours – I’m not quite sure how time on shrooms works) earlier, Pistolero hands her a handwritten copy of what is either his memoir or a screenplay. Either way, I’m sure it was stupid enough to warrant a stabbing.

But, that’s forty minutes into the movie. What happens earlier that makes it so bad? Well, I’ll tell you:

In the entire forty minutes before I had to convince Jon to shut off the movie for fear that I would stab him, I have no idea what was going on.

Things happened. You saw these Things happen, but they warranted little to no comment by the characters in the movie, so you, the viewer, are not entirely sure that these Things were Important Things, or just Shit That The Screenwriter Thought Would Be Cool.

These Things are:

• Tons of boobs
• Tons of ass
• Lots of just riding around on kinda shitty-looking bikes
• Dennis Hopper’s boots getting pissed on
• A guy killing himself (possibly because Pistolero didn’t want to talk to him?)
• More boobs
• More ass
• Women of all ages and races (but all hot cause no goddamn fat chicks) throwing themselves at Pistolero
• Surprisingly little drug abuse
• Three guys walking away from an explosion

You may be thinking to yourself, ‘This sounds like a Michael Bay movie.’ Well, you’d be mostly right. It’s like Michael Bay just finished having a Tarantino marathon and thought, ‘I could totally do things that aren’t in orange/teal contrast and maybe play around with time—but only in a trite and nonsensical way.’

This, then, brings me to the fact that Tarantino produced this movie.

I am not a Tarantino fan boy. I loved Inglourious Basterds, but, then again, I love any movie in which Nazis die. I can watch Kill Bill and Reservoir Dogs. Other than that, I don’t dig on Tarantino. So whereas some poor fools might be dragged into watching this movie by the presence of Tarantino’s name on the cover, it was just another thing for me to look at.

So, why do I think Quentin was involved in this movie at all? Simple: I think that the twelve year old with freakish facial hair and muscle growth went into Tarantino’s office and said, ‘Y’know how Easy Rider was a great movie?’

Tarantino snorted a line of coke and nodded.

‘What if Easy Rider had more tits and ass and, dare I say it, Tarantino-esque cuts?’

Tarantino, then, as he heard his name dropped in the same sort of tone that one would hear ‘Hitchcock,’ took another monster hit of coke, shoved a million dollars at the twelve year-old, and asked him to leave. Once the screenwriter did, it stands to reason that Tarantino, in a fit of coke- and narcissism-fueled lust, furiously masturbated while screaming his own name.

That’s why I think Tarantino was involved in this movie.

Essentially, the movie is way too into itself, and, in being into itself in such a fashion, puts all of its weight into trying to convince the viewer that it’s got a whole lot of cerebral shit going on instead of being watchable. It is, in other words, an exercise in how to be a pretentious piece of shit without knowing anything about the subject about which you are attempting to be pretentious.

It’s like a friend of mine’s idea: He wants to create a movie in the style of a French post-modern indie film. It will be called J’accuse le bébé, and will feature—in random cuts accented by harsh, screeching violin—a baby on trial in a high court, a clown flipping pancakes, and images of a slaughterhouse.

So, for your own good: Do not buy Hell Ride from Amazon.

You Might Also Like:

1. Inglourious Basterds (2009)
2. The Good, the Bad, the Weird (2008)
3. Eden Lake (2008)
4. The Guard Post (2008)

You might want to let this one go to voicemail…

Developer TeraBit software

Platform PC/Mac (PC Reviewed)

Things You Might Like

• Ninjas
• Awesome voice acting

Things You Might Not Like

• Dated graphics
• Gameplay is too fast to strategize
• Very demanding level completion requirements
• Fragile ninjas?
• Little replay value or room for improvisation

Conclusion

Call of the Ninja aims high by trying to reinvent the classic 90’s puzzler Lemmings.  However, the dated graphics and buggy game mechanics keep it from being great.  Given time and refinement, however, this has the potential to become a very entertaining game.

2 out of 5 Ninjas Gaidened

Jeff Chiu

***

 Call Of The Ninja was created in the same vein of the classic, animal preservation simulator, Lemmings (1991) where you direct creatures through a treacherous landscape from a starting point to safe haven at the end point.  The puzzle solving element comes from the fact that these creatures have no self-preservation instinct and require your aid to avoid traps, pitfalls and enemies. Lemmings made for a challenging experience that required, in some cases, elaborate planning. Well, Call of the Ninja set out to emulate this experience, with one difference.This time you can use Ninjas!

Who doesn’t love ninjas? Oh…pirates, right, pirates HATE ninjas. This game…this game also hates ninjas.  More on that later.

Anyway, as potential ninja clan leader, it is your job to protect and guide ninjas as they run at break neck speed out of a yin/yang symbol and  towards the Sacred Dojo. This won’t be easy, though. There are perils along the way that would keep your clan from enjoying whatever utopia lies inside the dojo. Some of these obstacles include water traps, high falls, giant piranha and shuriken towers, all of which instantly kill your ninjas.  To help keep your ninjas in tact throughout each level, you drag and drop green ability buttons onto the map from a menu bar at the bottom of your screen. Whenever your ninjas touch one of these buttons, they’ll perform the ability that will help them navigate an obstacle.  Depending on the map, you are allotted a predetermined amount of each of the following skills:  super speed, jump, water running, invisibility and climbing.

On a personal note, I’d like to discuss the game’s central idea. Things can kill your ninjas?  Really?  When you think of ninjas, do you think of sissy-pants losers who die from long falls, drowning, or being eaten by the monster from Little Shop of Horrors?  Absolutely not!  As a fan of the awesomeness that is ninja, this is one area where I think Call of the Ninja went wrong; they should replace the ninjas with something more believably fragile…like possums or bunny rabbits or any other woodland creature that doesn’t moonlight as an elite killer. Though, I suppose they would need to change the name. Okay, rant over.

Glass-jawed ninjas aside, Call of the Ninja could stand to retool some of the game mechanics. Like the classic Lemmings, you were required to rescue a fraction of the total lemmings in each level. In Lemmings, this fraction was reasonable, like 35 out of 50. This gave you a chance to learn the level a little bit and you had the freedom to lose a few lemmings without failing the mission. Call of the Ninja’s completion requirements are far too strict. In early levels, you are already required to rescue 45 of the 50 total ninjas to proceed, which is just frustrating.

In addition to the strict completion requirements, your ninjas run out of the starting yin/yang like bats out of hell as soon as you even click on one of the green ability orbs. Odds are you’ll lose a few ninjas (maybe even enough to fail the level) before even placing your abilities. This leaves you with almost no time to react or plan. It also doesn’t help that the shadow assassins you command simply LOVE sprinting for the nearest deadly obstacle. Once you have the solutions in place, you can then watch as your clan sprints and leaps towards safety. This can be rewarding. However, you will likely have to replay most levels at least once to experience this satisfaction

Lastly, the graphics could use a facelift.  The title screens and in-game option menus have the same look and feel of an original XBOX era game;  while the overall look of the game is very flat and dated. As they tend to aim for a cutting edge look, 3D graphics can be very hit or miss when it comes to how they stand up to the test of time. I think that by embracing an alternate art direction, perhaps an 8-bit style, the creators could go a long way to improve the look and feel of their game.

At the end of the day, Call of the Ninja is a game that had real potential, and in fact still does. Though it has its fair share of gameplay issues, most of these could likely be easily repaired and a genuinely entertaining game could emerge from the reprogramming cocoon. For now, however, you might want to let this one sneak by.

You Might Also Like:

1. Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands (2010)
2. Dustforce (2012)
3. Diablo III (2012)
4. Magic: the Gathering – Duels of the Planeswalkers 2012 (2011)