Superman V Bond
I have a growing number of blog posts which I keep meaning to make and yet I've not gotten around to actually writing them, so I'm going to combine two posts into one here and review two of this year's biggest movies.Superman Returns: Nick hated it, Rach hated it, Christian loved it. This was all rather irrelevant, because as you all know the only opinion that counts is mine! This week I have finally watched it, I've digested it, I have considered it, I have discussed it, and no matter which way I look at it I have to say: it was balls. I love Superman. The concept, the comics, the original couple of movies; Superman is a cool character, even when fighting for the Soviet way. But this film somehow managed to make me not give a flying fuck about either him or anyone else in the movie, Lois included. Consider this, at one point Lois was about to drown, along with her son and new man, and I just did not care. Partly this was because you knew damn well that Supes would turn up and save the day; but mostly it was because they were such badly drawn characters that having them die might actually gone some way to saving the movie. They didn't die. Superman saved them. The movie sucked.
There were a few things that might have saved the film: A decent script editor, a decent acting coach, a decent film editor, and a director without his head in his arse. Somehow even the soundtrack composer managed to screw up. He had at his disposal one the all time classic film scores, written by one of the greatest ever soundtrack composers and after the opening credits had finished, he was somehow able to filter out of the music any life and excitement and passion, leaving us with bland and soulless drivel. This was because he was seemingly trying to stamp his mark on some of the themes; but what he was actually doing was corrupting music that is embedded in the brains of my generation. Dude, either use the themes or don't, picking the first four notes of a theme but then randomly changing the fifth is just dumb, sounds crap and should make you a-fucking-shamed of yourself. Idiot.
Casino Royale was more successful. You may recall that I was rather sceptical about this film. With the possible exception of Goldeneye, I have felt grossly let down by the Brosnan Bond films, and yearned for a decent good old fashioned spy thriller, and that is pretty much what we got. OK it would also have benefited from a good script editor: "Oh James, if all that was left of you was your smile and your little finger, you'd still be more of a man than I've ever met." was greeted with embarrassed laughter at both screenings I saw it at.
Anyway, you've all seen it, I think you all liked it, there's not much I can say that you don't already know is there? Though being a pessimist about Bond, I shall leave you with my one fear: the studio will look at the money the film made, they will roll around in dollar bills in their offices for weeks and then go: "Hey, let's try and extract from the movie some kind of formula for how to make a Bond film in the 21st century!" and they will then insist that the next film and all subsequent Bond movies follow this formula. Films should not follow formulas. I film starts with the characters. When you have good characters you consider the story; when you have a good story, you can write the script. You then edit the script until you have a lean engaging movie to which you can attach a director. You shouldn't pick a director and tell him "[Fight * 3] + explosion + car chase + [Bond girls * 2] + another chase + 007 gets hurt + aborted romance + double cross + vague cliff hanger = Bond", because the result will be extraordinarily tedious.
