Casino Royale (2006)

 "That last hand nearly killed me..."

I'm doing lots of different film marathons where I blog each film in order, in some cases veeeeery slowly, something I'm actually quite proud of. Because my blogging of the Bond films is gleefully slow, at a snail's pace, having started in 2015. Yet it proceeds inexorably on. 

Casino Royale, though... yes, it'a little too long and bloated, as blockbuster films from the present century inevitably are, but objectively it's very good indeed. I enjoiyed it. I'll be honest, though: while there's much to admire I found it dragged at times on this viewing, but perhaps for reasons which are not entirely the film's fault.

Daniel Craig is superlatively good as a more nuanced Bond, one with much more interiority, but still absolutely the Bond we know. And, of course, he gets a real character arc here, more so than since On Her Majesty's Secret Service.

Importantly, though- and the word is much overused, but it's literally so here, although the continuing presence of Judi Dench as M does make one wonder. Bond begins the film earning his promotion to 00 status, in delightfully artily shot scenes. The Bond theme is not heard until the end. Bond has yet to think of a name for his dry martini, shaken, not stirred.... (crikey, spirits are complicated. I stick to real ale and wine) and,of course, there's the last line of the film.

Yet much of the film is a very well done tromance between Bond and Vesper, starting out sparring and eventually falling in love with her, resigning and proposing to spend her life with her. Of course, we know what happened to Trace well back then:Vresper's death is no shock. But the manner and circumstances of her death are truly heartbreaking. No wonder Bond, I assume, will harden his heart and be wary of attachments from now on.

There's lots of action, loads of set pieces, and all with a more realistic tone, devoid of the slight excess of gadgets we've seen in the recent past... although, that scene...? Ouch.

So yes, the film is a little overlong, but very, very good. And yet, so much screen time is devoted to playing poker and... well, this is just me, but I find gambling so very boring. Not that I'm in any way puritanical... it's just dull.

I accept, though, that this is just a matter of taste. Overall, this is a highly effective and affecting relaunch.

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)

"I've got a bad feeling about..."

"Quiet!"

"What...?"

I really am a long way behind on the Star Wars films considering I claim to be a fan. This is actually the most recent I’ve seen and I only saw it last night; I really need to get a move on, especially as this is really quite superb.

Part of what makes this film so good is a combination of a fast, action-filled plot that never feels slow; this is a fast-paced action film in the Star Wars universe. But there’s something else, too; all the “main” Star Wars films up to this point, good and bad, and including the prequels that I will blog one day, may have been full of droids and starships but we’re essentially stories told within the fairytale mode. This is not.

Hence we have characters, with arcs, but they are secondary to the plot, and there’s a constant mood of grittiness and a focus on just enough downbeat realism. This is the Star Wars universe, and the theft of the Death Star plans is pretty damn pivotal, but these people lead hard lives based in the reality of resistance to tyranny, not myth. So Jyn- a very different part for Felicity Jones after playing Jane Hawking in The Theory of Everything- has had a harsh life, and her character arc is to reconcile with her father, who had once seemed a traitor, and lose her apolitical cynicism to risk everything in getting the Death Star plans to the Rebel Alliance. Wonderfully, the blatant weakness in the Death Star which allows one hit to destroy it is a deliberate piece of sabotage by her father Galen. But there’s never much hope; idealistic, good people can be heroes without being fairy tale heroes.

Take Cassian; a hero of the rebellion, certainly, but one characterised by the kinds of difficult moral choices that always define resistance against tyranny in a world that is real, not fairytale. When we first meet him he shouts a man in cold blood for the greater good. His mission to kill Galen is secret and cynical, although in the end he doesn’t shoot. And his big speech, where he agrees to join Jyn in her mission, is about how he and his mates have done terrible things, but all in the name of the empire.

We also have K-2SO, the Marvin the Paranoid Android of Star Wars, voices admirably by Alan Tudyk; the blind warrior monk Chirrut, a standout performance by Arizona Ahmed as Bodhi, and a few other heroes who undertake a deeply entertaining, exciting and doomed mission. This isn’t a fairytale and no one is getting out alive. A brilliant film.

Except... well, the CGI resurrection of the late Peter Cushing as Grand Moff Tarkin just looks weird, and is a troubling can of worms to open. And the CGI restoration of Carrie Fisher just looks wrong. But these troubling aspects can’t take away from the fact that Nuneaton’s own Gareth Edwards has given us something very special. The codder done good.

Doctor Strange (2016)

"What's this? My mantra?"

"It's the wi-fi password. We're not savages."

This may not be the best Marvel film ever, perhaps. It's not even the second best I've seen this year. But you know what? It doesn't need to be. Yes, it may be a fairly standard fantasy/sci-fi plot to the point that you know the Ancient One's going to die because Obi-Wan Kenobi, but it's standard stuff done very well, shot superbly with some splendidly trippy and Ditko-esque magic special effects and the perfect Stephen Strange in Benedict Cumberbatch, who not only plays the character superbly but looks exactly like him. There's no witty dialogue, which is odd for a Marvel film, but the brilliantly stylised and trippy direction and effects really elevate the film visually.

The Escher-esque weirdness with the cityscapes of London and New York is what I'll probably remember most from a film with a deliberately predictable plot, but the film just looks and feels exactly as Doctor Strange should. It feels trippy, Ditko and as psychedelic as the snippet of Pink Floyd's "Interstellar Overdrive" that we hear at the start. It doesn't feel like a Marvel film, but then Doctor Strange never felt much like the Marvel Universe anyway.

So, yes, an average Marvel film, if very far from a typical one. But Marvel set the bar high, and an average film of theirs is well worth seeing.