Film Review: Spectre

There's a pattern I've noticed with the James Bond series. For any given set of entries starring a particular actor, the fourth entry is the one where things go bad. For Pierce Brosnan, it was Die Another Day, which sucked. For Roger Moore, it was Moonraker, which sucked. For Sean Connery, it was Thunderball, which... didn't exactly suck, but still wasn't as good as the last movies. And now we come to the fourth Bond film to star Daniel Craig. Will it manage to break the "fourth-film curse" or not? Find out in an encore presentation of the 007 Golden Jubilee!

Spectre

• Publisher: MGM / Columbia 
• Studio: Danjaq / EON Productions 
• Genre: Action 
• Release: 26 October 2015 (UK), 6 November 2015 (US) 
• Director: Sam Mendes 
• Producers: Michael G. Wilson, Barbara Broccoli 
• Writers: John Logan, Neil Purvis, Robert Wade, Jez Butterworth

The Girls: The primary Bond Girl is Dr. Madeleine Swann (Léa Seydoux), a psychologist and the daughter of Mr. White from Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace. For most of her role, she keeps complaining about the way Bond protects her from the bad guys, so her chemistry with Bond starts out rockier, and she doesn't exactly leave the best first impression. I will say that unlike most of his flings these days, Bond does seem to earn his night of sex with her, coming after they fight off Mr. Hinx. Rides off into the sunset... er, cloudy London morning with Bond. 3 out of 5.

Earlier on, Bond has a fling with Lucia Sciarra (Monica Belucci), the widow of a Spectre assassin. Being 50 years old during filming, signora Belucci is the oldest actress to play a Bond Girl. This decision caused some controversy among netizens, to which Craig (himself 47 years old) said, he's just dating women his own age. Well said. Still, wrinkles aside, Lucia Sciarra is basically an older version of Severine from the last movie. She's basically there for Bond to protect, get information from, screw, and forget about. And feminism marches on! ...Without them. Left under CIA protection. 3 out of 5.

The Villain: Franz Oberhauser, a.k.a. Ernst Stavro Blofeld (Christoph Waltz), the leader of Spectre. He has a backstory with Bond: after Bond's parents died in a mountain-climbing accident, Franz and his father adopted him, only to allegedly die later on. I could probably best describe his portrayal as a cross between Donald Pleasance as Blofeld (from You Only Live Twice) and Javier Bardem as Silva (from Skyfall). In other words, he goes for the subdued menace of the former but cannot quite achieve it, ending up a bit quirky and too casual, which stands out especially considering the work he's done with Quentin Tarantino. Herr Waltz seems like he would be more at home portraying someone like Steve Jobs (although to be fair, you could say Apple is basically a real-world evil organisation anyway, lol) Arrested by M. 4 out of 5.

Other Henchmen: Mr. Hinx (Dave Bautista), a hitman working for Spectre. Just as Silva from Skyfall proved to be the first iconic villain of the post-reboot era, Mr. Hinx could very well be its first iconic henchman character. In many ways, Hinx is reminiscent of Oddjob from Goldfinger. They both have similar physiques, hardly ever speak, can hold their own against Bond, and even their actors are both Asian-ethnic Americans with backgrounds in pro wrestling. Although, his introductory scene, where he kills a fellow Spectre member by jamming his thumbs in the guy's eyes, is a little hard to watch. Thrown off a train by Bond. 5 out of 5.

Max Denbigh, a.k.a. C (Andrew Scott), the head of the private Joint Intelligence Service. As it turns out, he is in fact working for Spectre, who intends to use the countries' intelligence against them. C, as he is nicknamed by Bond, is just a touch snarky and not exactly apologetic about stealing M's job. I could imagine him working out as 007's new boss, if not for the fact that he already got a new one in the last movie. And besides, Ralph Fiennes's M is just badass. Accidentally falls to his death in a fight with M. 4 out of 5.

The Gadgets: Q (Ben Whishaw) introduces to 007 the Aston Martin DB10, which exists only a concept car in the real world, and here comes equipped with guns, a flamethrower, and an ejection seat... only to give it to agent 009 instead and leave Bond with a watch. To be fair, the watch has a time bomb inside. That doesn't stop Bond from stealing the car anyway and using it in a chase with Hinx's Jaguar C-X75, another prototype car you will never be able to buy.

The Locations: Mexico City, Rome, Austria, Morocco, and London. The Mexico City scene was filmed during the Day of the Dead festival, as the opening one-take shot brilliantly shows off.

The Theme Song: "Writing's On the Wall" by Sam Smith. Sam Smith has always struck me as being a technically talented vocalist, who wastes his range on the most boring songs, and "Writing's On the Wall" is the most egregious example of this paradigm. In fact, this very song won my wildcard slot for Most Boring Song at this year's SDP Music Awards, if you recall. The song itself is about standing up to impending doom, but coming from Sam Smith, I don't feel it. He sounds too weak-willed, especially when you compare it to stuff like Tom Jones in "Thunderball", and even Adele's theme from Skyfall. I don't want to be too hard on this song, because it is melodically beautiful and has a few good themes in the lyrics. But I don't know, it's just not something I'd want to listen to outside of this movie. 2 out of 5.

The alternative-rock band Radiohead also submitted their own title song, simply named "Spectre". Obviously it was passed over, for some reason, but the band released it themselves online, at https://soundcloud.com/radiohead/spectre. It has the same kind of orchestral ambience of the Sam Smith song, but with an actual drum track... which I'm honestly not a fan of. Its irregular pattern tends to throw me off. And honestly, it's not too much of an improvement on the not-boring front, even if it does build up to something musically. I for one won't lose sleep over its exclusion in the film, but I guess you have to be a fan of the band in order to appreciate it fully.

The Opening Credits: Features ink and octopus motifs. The octopus has long been a symbol of the Spectre group, with the animal's tentacles symbolising the insidious reach their activities have all over the world -- AND NOTHING ELSE. There also flashbacks to characters from earlier in the Daniel Craig series (like what they did for On Her Majesty's Secret Service), re-creations of locations seen later in the film, and some shirtless shots of Bond in between all the silhouette girls, presumably in the interest of equal-opportunity fanservice. 4 out of 5.

The Source Material: The SPECTRE organization has largely been avoided in the official James Bond film canon, due to its ownership dispute between Ian Fleming and Kevin McClory. But you already knew that. Well, it turns out that in 2013, MGM, Danjaq, and the McClory estate finally settled the issue, returning the film rights of the Spectre name to MGM. However, I've noticed that in this movie, no one refers to Spectre by its old acronym (Special Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge, and Extortion), so either that wasn't accounted for in their deal, or they just nixed it for the retcon.

The Plot: Our story starts in Mexico City, where James Bond foils a terrorist attack during the Day of the Dead festival, and steals a ring belonging to one of the perpetrators. Cue opening credits. Back in London, the new M is displeased over the collateral damage from that operation, and has 007 suspended. But what he doesn't know is that Bond was following instructions from his predecessor (the one played by Judi Dench), who sent him on the trail of a secretive criminal organisation. Bond uses the ring he found, along with the widow of one of the attackers, to infiltrate a meeting of this organisation, named Spectre. Meanwhile, M and the 00 section are being dogged by a man unofficially code-named C, who is the head of a new private intelligence company. In addition to shutting down M's department, C also campaigns for the formation of "Nine Eyes", an intelligence-sharing network of member nations, including Britain.

Meanwhile (again), based on intel taken from the Spectre meeting, Bond heads to the Austrian alps to meet Mr. White, who left his Quantum organisation (but not before being mortally poisoned). He tells Bond to find and protect his daughter, Madeline Swann, before committing suicide. From there, Bond travels to the clinic where Swann works, and rescues her from Hinx and his Spectre goons. Q also tags along, using the ring from before to discover that the villains from the last three films were, in fact, being controlled by Spectre. From there (again), the two head to a hotel in Tangier, Morocco, where Mr. White hid a secret room with information on a secret Spectre base in the desert. They get there by train, fighting off Hinx along the way.

At the desert base, Bond and Swann are greeted by the leader of Spectre, now named Ernst Stavro Blofeld. Blofeld announces to Bond that he was the mastermind behind the events in the previous movies. He captures and attempts to torture Bond, but Bond escapes and torches the place. Back in London, Bond returns to join forces with M and their other ex-MI6 friends, in order to stop the Nine Eyes program from going online. M and Q succeed in doing so, with C accidentally dying, to boot. Meanwhile, Bond and Swann are captured and taken to the old MI6 building (the one from Goldeneye on), which is about to be demolished. Bond rescues Swann, escapes the building in time, and shoots down Blofeld's helicopter. As Blofeld crawls out of the wreckage, he is arrested by M, leaving Bond to ride off with Swann.

The one word I would use to describe Spectre is "redundant". It tackles a bunch of themes already addressed by previous movies. Most notably, there's the question of whether or not the 00 agents are necessary in today's intelligence climate, which was already answered by the very last movie before this. Although, the NSA leaks from 2013 arguably make this discussion more relevant this time around. Apart from all that, there are many plot points from, and other references the rest of the series, almost to the degree of Die Another Day. And Spectre doesn't even have the excuse of being a milestone celebration! I mean, who commemorates a 53rd anniversary as a special occasion? And it's not just within the Bond franchise -- at a basic level, the plot is virtually identical to that of the recent Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation. It even has scenes in Austria, Morocco, and London, to boot! Intentional or not, it sure was savvy of Paramount to move their movie's release up to the summer, instead of trying to compete with Spectre in November.

Also, I can't help noticing how many funny moments there are in this movie. The highlight of humour has to be the early car chase between Bond and Hinx, where the former tries and fails to use his car's gadgets, and later on gets blocked by an old man in a Fiat. They stand out because of the more serious portrayal of James Bond during Daniel Craig's tenure, and this very movie is no exception. Arguably, this just makes the humour funnier, as the jokes' juxtaposition against the rest of the movie's hard-edged tone offers effective contrast. I don't know about you, but I'd take that over a hundred Roger Moore one-liners. Quality over quantity, people.

Speaking as a longtime James Bond fan, Spectre left me more confused than anything. The film attempts to retcon into existence a backstory which links all of the Daniel Craig entries together, when they worked well enough without it. (Although I will say, the involvement of the Spectre group would make Silva's escape and assassination plot from Skyfall quite a bit more plausible.) Writers, just because you can use the Spectre name to replace whatever you were building beforehand doesn't mean you should! But all the same, it doesn't exactly bring those other movies down; it just gives the impression that the writers were making up stuff as they went along. So, is Spectre still a worthwhile film? Yes, actually. The action setpieces are brilliant, the big reveal is built up well, and its musings on the role of intelligence in today's world are still relevant. So yeah, the fourth-film curse probably does apply here: it may be the worst Daniel Craig 007 film, but by no means is it truly bad.

The Call: 75% (B-)

Game Review: James Bond 007: The Duel

James Bond 007: The Duel

• Publisher: Domark / Tengen (NA) 
• Developer: Domark 
• Release: Sega Genesis/Game Gear, 1993 
• Genre: 2D Action 
• Players: 1 
• Save: None 

Previously on the SDP, I reviewed 007 Legends, which apparently performed so badly in retail that it killed off Activision's license to kill -- I mean, make James Bond video games. So my dreams of the second coming of GoldenEye were killed off -- until I brought up the Google Play store one day, and chanced upon the latest 007-licensed "game" called James Bond: World of Espionage (not worth linking), and my dreams of the second coming of GoldenEye were killed off once again. Glu Mobile, whomever they are, have turned this once-mighty brand into naught but a Clash of Clans clone. Let me guess, does it trade off actual gameplay in favour of micro-transactions? Well, pardon my French, but [verb] that [noun]! ...Oh sorry, I did that wrong.

But as bad as times may seem now, you know what time really sucked for James Bond fans? The early 1990s. The film series was in the midst of a record six-year hiatus, due to a legal battle which I touched upon in my Licence to Kill review. As for what we did get during that time period, well, it wasn't pretty. There was that awful cartoon show James Bond Jr., and the subject of today's article: the video game James Bond 007: The Duel for Sega Genesis. Released in 1993, The Duel is not tied into any one James Bond film or novel, despite the likeness of Timothy Dalton on the box art. Oh, but he does also show up in the title screen below, except...

Dear goodness, Timmy, what have they done to you!? ...Anyway, title screen abominations aside, Mr. Bond's in-game sprite lacks sufficient detail to specifically resemble Timothy Dalton or any of the other actors. For all you know... hold on, let me think of somebody random... got it! For all you know, you could be playing as Andrew Lloyd Webber in this game. But on the subject of graphics, I do appreciate the animations in this game. For example, you can make a little dance out of the animation of Bond passing his gun from one hand to the other (by tapping left or right on the D-pad). The music's kind of cool, too, in a Jan Hammer Miami Vice kind of way. The title screens and pre-game demo use a Genesis-friendly rendition of the James Bond theme, but thankfully it isn't recycled by the rest of the soundtrack, as is the case with GoldenEye, for example. The sound effects do not reach the same high notes, pardon the pun. The most annoying examples are the loud and hollow footfalls and Bond's grunting, which reminds me of the Frankenstein monster grunt Master P makes in his song "I Miss My Homies".

So graphics are one thing, but what is the gameplay like? Well, The Duel is a side-scrolling shooter/platformer. Mechanically, The Duel reminds me most of Rolling Thunder, an arcade side-scrolling shooter made by Namco in 1986. You walk, jump, shoot, and duck to avoid enemy shots. They even share a mechanic where you can hide in doorways, in the (vain) hope of letting an enemy forget about you and pass by. But while Rolling Thunder's control was far too stiff, The Duel goes a bit too far in the opposite direction. It's a little hard to describe, but there are lots of little things that feel off about the controls. Bond has only one jump height, and the horizontal distance is often either too short or too long for the precision platforming you need at the moment. As for walking speed, he's slow for about half a second when you press and hold a direction, but fairly zippy afterwards. And here I thought the Genesis's "blast processing" was just a meaningless marketing boast, but what do I know? Seriously, folks, if you're used to better physics engines like in Super Mario Bros. or Sonic the Hedgehog, you're going to have a bad time.

Gameplay revolves around rescuing hostages.

Your objective in The Duel is to explore each map searching for hostages to free, who all take the form of blonde ladies in little blue dresses. And feminism marches on... without them. Once you've found them all, you're not done yet. You have to find a time bomb, set it, and reach the exit before time runs out. Along the way, you are hounded by guards who will respawn if you take so much as a few steps away after killing them. With the high speed of the gameplay, it can get annoying to be walking along and keep taking damage from enemies you don't have the time to react to. In order to stay alive, you'll most likely take to firing blindly every few steps, which renders the flow of play as smooth as a rollercoaster on the fritz. While you do have limited ammunition, the game is very generous with it, at least. Enemies will always drop spare magazines until you're maxed out, and although there's no indicator of how many rounds you have left in your gun, each mag can last you quite a while.

As it turns out, there are only four levels to this game, not including the final boss arena: a ship, a jungle, a volcano, and a rocket launch site. In other words, the settings of a generic "spy" adventure. If I were feeling generous I would say they are rather sprawling levels for a 16-bit platformer, but either way it's still bloody short by any reasonable standards. And just as you're getting the hang of things on your journey across the island of Dr. No-One In Particular, the third level presents you with a wall of difficulty. For starters, getting around much of the place revolves around waiting for elevator platforms, side-to-side moving platforms, and side-to-side moving platforms that you hang from, which all take so long to get from one end to the other that you may very well assume you've reached a dead end at some point. Some of these platforms add irregularly-timed flame jets which are virtually impossible to avoid, and you have to go through at least one of these gauntlets in order to find all the hostages! And of course, this being a volcano-themed level, most of those scrolling platforms hover over magma pools, which of course results in instant death upon contact by 00 agents. But the third level aside, this game is still unforgiving. You get five lives and five hit points per life, but only one continue. And even those life points can leave you quickly due to the aforementioned steady stream of soldiers. Enemy shots can knock you quite far back, and there's falling damage to deal with, too; even a couple of stories down results in, you guessed it, an instant death. Also, mercy invincibility apparently was one luxury which slipped the programmer's mind. The lack thereof ruined Milon's Secret Castle before, and it ruins The Duel in turn.

Most bosses have a spot you can stand in where they won't hit you.

Every so often you'll come across a level boss plucked from one of James Bond's earlier adventures, like Jaws, Baron Samedi, Mayday, etc. because "Canon? What canon?". There are two problems with these bosses, however. One: they are optional, as it turns out. For example, you can easily skip Baron Samedi in the second level by going through the base instead of over it. And two: with one exception, each and every one of these bosses can be bested without breaking a sweat, by standing in a certain spot where they won't bother to reach you. For example, in the first level you fight Jaws, but if you stand on the left-side stairway in just the right spot, he'll just turn around as if you weren't there. Even the final boss (it's Jaws again) can be conquered in such a manner.

I should mention that there is a Game Gear port of The Duel out there as well, so I will. I don't feel it's worth devoting another full review to, however, so I'll describe it in brief. It's longer than the Genesis version, both in the sense that it has more levels (that's good), but also that the action runs incredibly slowly (that's bad). And for some reason, you can choose to have either music or sound effects play in-game but not both. What? I've played a bundle of Game Gear titles in my days and never once before has being able to play both music and sound effects been an issue! So yeah, don't bother with this version unless you consider yourself a man or woman of patience.

As for the Genesis version, you might need just as much patience to make it through this one. It's got that old-school difficulty schema where they instead of making more levels, they just made it harder to get through them. Still, it's the kind of difficulty where you can still conquer it once you've had practice, and you know where to find the hostages, and where to encounter enemies as they respawn ad nauseum. But still, four levels is still anemic for a 16-bit video game. And I did praise the animations and music a few paragraphs ago, but they do just about nothing to build up the context of being James Bond. As it stands, it's just another licenced hack-job of the side-scroller age, and one best left ignored.

Positives:
+ Fluid character animation.
+ Cool music.

Negatives:
- Generally unforgiving difficulty.
- Awkward motion physics.
- No story to speak of.
- Overly short length.

Control: 1 hostages out of 5

Design: 2 hostages out of 5

Graphics: 3 hostages out of 5

Audio: 4 hostages out of 5

Value: 1 hostage out of 5
The Call: 35% (F)

You might like instead: Rolling Thunder 2, Contra: Hard Corps, Vectorman

Game Review: GoldenEye (N64)

Goldeneye

• Publisher: Nintendo 
• Developer: Rare 
• Release: Nintendo 64, 25 August 1997 
• Genre: 3D Action 
• Players: 1-4 
• Save: Battery-backed, 4 files 

Previously on the SDP, I put the Call of Duty series through Game Rehab. Said article also happened to include a section for first-person shooter games in general, seeing as how so many games of the genre have absorbed features from CoD, and Halo before it. I don't know about you, but I've always held earlier titles as shining examples of what I want the genre to be like again. And chief among those sacred cows, for me, was 1997's GoldenEye 007 for the Nintendo 64. (Actually, I'm not sure if the extra "007" was supposed to be part of the title, or the extra capitalisation on the one letter "E", but I'll not dwell on that.) But, reality check -- Goldeneye, the game, is seventeen years old as of this article, and came out for what is now three-generation-old hardware. So do I only love Goldeneye now because it does things that new games don't do anymore? Or is it still worth its salt after all these years?

For the uninitiated, Goldeneye is an adaptation of the James Bond film of the same name, from two years beforehand. Don't you just love how we used to have to wait two years between a movie and its video game? It would have solved a lot of problems during the Atari age, let me tell ya. The game follows the movie's storyline, involving a set of spacebound EMP weapons stolen by a post-Soviet Russian crime gang. Pretty much all of the film's key scenes are re-created, from the pre-credits dam jump, to the St. Petersburg tank chase, to the climatic fight atop an antenna cradle. But the game builds upon the original story, either by extending existing scenes or adding new ones entirely. You know the level in the missile silo where the Goldeneye sattelites launched from? It doesn't appear in the movie at all. But it does help bring certain pieces of the story together, and more than anything, gives us some more game to play in.

There are some characters whom you're not allowed to kill.

For those of you who weren't into gaming during the mid-to-late 1990s, shooter-action games generally had one goal: get to the end of each level, and mow down anything that gets in your way, maybe stopping here or there to push a switch or pick up a key. But when such a character as James Bond is involved, you're gonna have to change the standard operating procedure a bit. Each and every level has certain objectives for you to complete. And even when you do have to break something, or someone, there's always a reason given. All this contributes to the game's world, and proved that serious narrative was possible even in genres of gaming commonly considered to be mindless.  Goldeneye also places an emphasis on stealth which, while not exactly a new development in this genre, is tastefully done. Getting spotted or using a non-silenced weapon may attract enemies in your vicinity, but this doesn't automatically trigger an alarm. Generally, they have to head over to an alarm button on the wall, or you have to get caught by a security camera, for that to happen.

Unfortunately, the objectives you must accomplish on these missions are not always intuitive. Take the very first level, for example. On the Secret Agent (medium) and 00 Agent (hard) difficulties, one of the objectives is to attach a covert modem somewhere. Even if you read the pre-mission briefings, it is totally unclear where you're supposed to attach the thing. And you only get one of them, so if you throw it someplace you're not supposed to, you can't get it back, and you'll have failed your mission. (To that end, I'm glad the levels in Goldeneye are a little short, averaging about 5 minutes apiece, which is the stick I will beat Goldeneye: Rogue Agent and 007 Legends with to no end.) I'll welcome a break from the standard linear string of objective markers any day, but taking things too far the other way is right out as well. Throw me a frickin' bone here, is what I'm saying. And another thing, how come we can only equip non-weapon items from the pause menu? And why can I still get hit, or killed even, during the extra second it takes to run the pause menu transition animation?

Some objectives are hard to find.

Goldeneye was not the first first-person shooter to run on a gaming console, and not even the first one on the Nintendo 64 itself. To my knowledge, all previous attempts at the genre done on this particular console (for example, Turok: Dinosaur Hunter) used the C-buttons to walk and strafe and the Control stick to aim, which was if nothing else an admirable attempt to duplicate the mouse-and-keyboard setup of PC-based shooters without an actual mouse or keyboard being available. And while Goldeneye makes this available as an optional controller setup, the default scheme flips this. The Control Stick walks and turns, and the C Buttons are used for strafing and looking up or down. "Won't this make aiming clumsy difficult", you might ask? To that I respond: No, for two reasons. The game employs a rather generous auto-aim system which can be counted upon for torso hits. And for situations requiring more precision, Goldeneye also pioneers an aiming mode, where you hold R and move the Control Stick to look about, and the C Buttons to duck or lean. In lieu of having a twin-stick-based controller, the powers that be made an equally versatile control setup. There are even options to use two controllers for simulating the aforementioned dual-stick controllers. It's not all good though; the use of "button chords" for certain actions (namely, holding A and pressing Z to cycle backwards through your weapons) may be cumbersome without practise, but for that one can blame the N64 controller more than the game itself.

Another sore spot one could also blame on the N64 hardware is the graphics. As I said before, I'm not one to depend on graphical proficiency in order to extract fun from a game. I do draw the line, however, when drops in the frame rate get in the way, which I'm sad to say happens quite a bit in Goldeneye. But let's be honest, were any video games out at the same time that much better-looking? And finally, I'd like to address the multiplayer mode. I'd like to, but I never had the friends to play it with on a regular basis, and there aren't any AI bots for us solo players to get our jollies with, so my authority's not the greatest on the matter. Judging from similar experiences in games like Perfect Dark and The World is Not Enough, however, I appreciate the degree of customisation available in setting up multiplayer matches, especially when you throw unlockable cheats into the mix.

So now comes the million-pound question: is Goldeneye still good? It's certainly playable, if that's what you mean, and potentially fun as well. Anybody who's been burnt out by the rigid linearity imposed upon us by all those Call of Duty clones should appreciate the relative freedom most missions give you in how you approach your objectives. (Although maybe too much freedom, as I explained a few paragraphs ago.) But that's just it: so many of the defences I could whip out for Goldeneye stem from the fact that it's not like today's crop of shooters. And yet not all shooters are like that; there are still shooters out there which emulate Goldeneye's business model as well like the aforementioned Perfect Dark and Timesplitters, and are technically better for having built on its formula with improved technology and experience. Not that we'd ever have been blessed with them in the first place without Goldeneye, however. So yeah, it's still good, but it's not like I wouldn't change anything about it, either. Let me put it to you this way: if I had all the knowledge and resources to make whatever video game I wanted, and no licensing or trademark restrictions to worry about, I would make an updated HD remake -- not a reboot, a remake -- of Goldeneye. Actually, that would be my second choice behind making Mega Man Legends 3, but you should have picked up on that by now.

P.S. I am aware of Goldeneye: Source, a free, fan-made Half-Life 2 mod which emulates and expands upon the original's multiplayer mode. I like it very much, in fact. But I choose not to count it unless or until they work the single-player campaign in there.

Positives:
+ The story follows the movie, but takes liberties in all the right places.
+ The level lengths are just short enough to encourage repeated play-throughs.
+ Responsible and then-innovative use of stealth gameplay.
+ Control options make the best use of the N64's controller.

Negatives:
- Some objectives are so poorly-described that you could miss them entirely.
- The frame rate is highly prone to slowdown during intense action.

Control: 4 RCP-90s out of 5
Design: 4 RCP-90s out of 5
Graphics: 2 RCP-90s out of 5
Sound: 3 RCP-90s out of 5
Value: 5 RCP-90s out of 5
The Call: 75% (B-)

Top 10: Dumbest James Bond Moments

James Bond is one of my biggest fandoms. I'm saying that here in case you couldn't infer it from the year-long mini-series I did on this very blog, reviewing all its movies. But part of being a good, sane fan is admitting any sins the subject of your adoration may have committed. And James Bond is certainly no saint in that regard. (Except for Roger Moore, who played on a TV show called The Saint.) Yet at the same time, I don't think these movies ever get so bad to the point they become unberarable to watch. On the contrary, their occasional bouts of stupidity only serve to make them more fun to watch. To a point, anyway. That's why I'm going to count down the top ten dumbest moments of the James Bond movies, and see if and when we cross that line. I've selected and listed these entries based on the following criteria: 1) How embarrassing is it to watch the scene? 2) Does the scene work in context? And 3) Is there anything good about the scene to balance it out? So break out your favourite Q-gadgets and order your shaken-not-stirred martinis, because Here. We. Go.

10) "Lie Back and Think of England"
from For Your Eyes Only (1981)

In this scene, James Bond has finished his mission and is now about to shack up with the leading lady. But who should phone in and interrupt them but the Prime Minister of his own country? And not just any Prime Minister, but Margaret Thatcher (played here by an impersonator)? I take it the election of Mrs. Thatcher, the first female PM in Britain's history, must have been a big deal, and good on the real Thatcher for making it that far. But did EON Productions really have to rub it in our faces? I wouldn't mind so much, except she gets answered by a parrot while Bond and friend make a break for it! As you could imagine, this is embarrassing for everybody involved. And that includes YOU.

9) "James of the Jungle"
from Octopussy (1983)

In this scene, James Bond has escaped from the villain's palace in India and is being chased through a nearby jungle. The resulting action sequence is... uneven, to say the least. Sure, there are clever moments to be found, such as when Bond hides underneath a henchman's elephant and unfastens his saddle. But as for me, I'll remember this scene instead for two parts -- one, he encounters a tiger, and before it can pounce upon him, he sternly calls to it, "Sit!", and it does. And two, he swings on a series of vines, with a stock Tarzan yell playing in the background. Because... funny?

8) "Surfin' USSR"
from A View to a Kill (1985)

The cold-open of A View to a Kill takes place in, appropriately enough, a cold place: Siberia. In this scene, James Bond shows up here to investigate the body of a fallen 00 agent, retrieving a microchip from his person. Then some Soviet patrols shows up, and he proceeds to high-tail it out of there. At one point, he knocks a guy off a snowmobile, pulls off its hood, and uses it as a makeshift snowboard. Oh, and I forgot to mention -- Roger Moore had turned 57 at some point during production of this movie, the oldest a James Bond actor's ever been to date, and he did not age well in my opinion, so the mere sight of him snowboarding at his age should be enough to warrant a rank on this list. But as if that alone were not enough, we also have the choice of music to deal with. As snowboarding culture had not yet fully formed by 1985, the music director went with a surfing song -- a cover of "California Girls" by the Beach Boys! Guys, when I think of the Beach Boys, I do not associate them with icy, snowbound Siberia! Or a 57-year-old snowboarder.

7) "Spoiler Alert: Bambi Lives"
from Diamonds Are Forever (1971)

In this scene, James Bond is searching the home of a one Willard Whyte. Suddenly, he comes across two lounging ladies named Bambi and Thumper. They tell him where Mr. Whyte may be found, but before letting 007 go, they rough him up a bit, in what is perhaps one of the series' worst-choreographed fight scenes. Bambi and Thumper tend to take turns throwing hits or getting in position, including some impressive gymnastic moves. I ain't complaining about that in concept, especially since one of them's in a bikini, but more often then not their moves serve no practical purpose in terms of fighting! It's like they just want to show off!

6) "Flipping the Bird... Literally"
from Moonraker (1979)

In this scene, James Bond has just disposed of some assassins who tried to get him along the canals of Venice. So, naturally, he did so from a gondola -- a motorboat gondola, of course. Now, that chase scene is perfectly fine; there's a knife thrower hidden in a casket, so of course Bond keeps him in there -- permanently. But the problem comes afterwards. With no more threats to take care of, he flips a switch to turn his gondola into a hovercraft, and drives onto the pier. This peculiar sight is met with all manner of astonished reaction shots from the locals, including -- get this -- a bird which does a double-take. As in, the editor repeated and reversed a bit of footage to make it seem as though the bird had the brain capacity to recognise a peculiar sight when it saw one, and react accordingly. Throw in a sprightly Strauss composition on the soundtrack, and you've got one surreal scene.

5) "Blow My Whistle, Baby"
from The Man With the Golden Gun (1974)


In this scene, James Bond (with, unfortunately, Sheriff J.W. Pepper) is in the middle of a car chase across Bangkok, when he notices his target on the opposite side of a river. With the nearest bridge miles behind him, he improvises: he finds a set of ramps and does a perfect corkscrew-jump between them. Sounds like an awesome moment, doesn't it? Well, it is, except for one thing: this stunt is accompanied by a slide-whistle sound effect. I've read numerous accounts claiming this moments as one of the series' worst, and it's hard for me to disagree with those opinions. But no matter how stupid that sound effect was, it's still just one piece of a scene with some other, better components, which is why this entry isn't higher on my list. Besides, how cool can you make a stunt like that when it's preceded by the one-liner, "Ever heard of Evel Kneivel?" Because... the Seventies?

4) "Surfin' CGI"
from Die Another Day (2002)

In this scene, James Bond is in a rocket-sled, being chased across the Icelandic ice fields by a satellite laser beam. The chase leads over a cliff, with Bond saving himself by deploying the craft's anchor. Rather than use the laser to fry him directly, of course, our villain instead cuts off a chunk of the icy cliff, with intent to drop him into the ocean. But with a bout of improbable MacGyvering, Bond fashions a makeshift surfboard and parachute, and rides away on the ensuing wave. And then... he para-surfs along the ensuing wave. This sounds outlandishly extreme enough, but this scene was accomplished by such stilted, flawed CG animation that whatever sense of danger we get from other such stunts in the Bond series just cannot be matched here. And another thing, if the wave caused by the ice chunk travelled away from the cliff, how could Bond have turned around to lift himself up over the cliff?

3) "Your Head Asplode"
from Live and Let Die (1973)

In this scene, James Bond and Solitaire are in the clutches of our villain, Dr. Kananga. He has the couple tied up over a shark tank, and cuts 007's arm with a knife to draw blood. Never mind that he could've killed them more directly with that knife of his. So Bond frees himself and Solitare using a buzz-saw in his wristwatch -- a function that was never so much as foreshadowed -- and proceeds to fight Kananga. The fight ends with Bond forcing a compressed-air bullet into Kananga's mouth. As the gas expands inside his body, he lifts out of the water and blows up like a balloon. Literally. As in, the special effect for this scene involved a Kananga-shaped balloon. Now, I normally wouldn't mind any opportunity to avert excessive blood and gore, but the way they chose to go about it is so unreal, it could never be taken seriously in a million years! Couldn't they have chosen some other way for him to die, something that could be feasibly re-created and still keep a PG rating? I mean, they've got a perfectly good shark tank to use, and corporal inflation was the best they could come up with?

2) "I Know Kung Fu... Not"
from The Man With the Golden Gun (1974)

In this scene, James Bond has been knocked out and captured, and wakes up in a Thai martial-arts school. He spars with a couple of opponents and then makes a break for it, wherein he catches up with his ally, Lieutenant Hip and his nieces. Who promptly go to town on the pursuing gang of bads, Street Fighter style. In fact, Hip and co. have things so well-in-hand that Bond is left with nothing to do throughout this brawl. His only contribution is pushing down some guy who was already disabled. And then Hip and co. drive off in his car... without Bond! What's the matter dude, I thought you were on his side! This missed ride leads to Bond leading a tepid motorboat chase, punctuated only by its own awful moments: a downright terrible one-liner ("What you might call a Mexican screw-off, gentlemen!" Seriously, dude, no one says that.), Bond taking advantage of a beggar child, and of course, Sherrif J.W. Pepper.

1) "Goodnight, Sweet Princess"
from The Man With the Golden Gun (1974)

Yeah, I've used this movie three times in this list. I regret nothing. In this scene, James Bond is dueling with Scaramanga on the latter's private island, while Bond-girl Mary Goodnight is being watched over by a maintenance man. Proving her capability, she knocks him out -- only for his body to fall into a liquid-nitrogen vat, setting off a slow-burning chain reaction which will eventually destroy the island. But that's not the worst of it. Right afterwards, she accompanies Bond as he tries to remove some solar-energy unit from a laser chamber, when she leans back on a console and her bum pushes the switch to turn on the solar collector -- with Bond inside it. And she has no idea how to turn it off -- ya think she could've felt the switch pushing against her skin and tried flipping the same one back!? Madam Goodnight was nothing if not a liability in 007's mission. Lucky we viewers also had Maud Adams's character to keep us company.

And now, ladies and gentlemen, the Wildcard slot. This entry takes the Wildcard slot for not actually having been featured in the final cut of its movie, existing as a deleted scene which has since resurfaced on DVD. But oh boy, what a scene to get through...

Wildcard) "I Can Show You the World"
from The Living Daylights (1987)

In this scene, Bond is being chased across the rooftops of Tangier by the local police. At one point, he picks up a platform covered in a rug, places it on top of a set of electrical wires, and slides down them. In other words, a makeshift magic carpet. As if that weren't goofy enough, a pack of middle-aged men smoking a water pipe see him and say, "I told you this stuff was good". Gah, why not just bring back the wine-drinking guy from the Roger Moore films? At least he didn't have any lines! I suppose my exasperation comes both from the silliness of this scene and from the seriousness of the rest of the film. Believe me, if I had included this entry in the countdown proper, it would have been number one with a bullet. I'm one of the few people willing to stand up for Timothy Dalton's Bond career, and now I suppose that has something to do with the editor's decision to leave this bit on the cutting-room floor.

Game Review: 007 Legends

Previously on the SDP, I reviewed Mega Man Legends and its sequel. And now for something completely different.

007 Legends

• Publisher: Activision 
• Developer: Eurocom 
• Release: 
• PlayStation 3 / XBox 360, 16 October 2012 
• Wii U, 11 December 2012 
• Genre: 3D Action (First-person shooter) 
• Players: 1-4 offline, 2-12 online

Funny thing about Mega Man Legends 3: even though I've been raising such a stink about how it was cancelled ever since I heard of its untimely demise, I actually don't have much of an emotional investment Mega Man as a whole, apart from re-discovering how much of a great sequel the second Legends game was. As a matter of fact, my favourite fandom is James Bond, and you should know that by now, seeing as how I devoted 24 reviews last year to all its films (that matter). As such, I waited eagerly for the 2010 Goldeneye remake on Wii, and my expectations were met, on the whole, but there's frankly no need for me to review it when its follow up is so similar. Replace the self-contained plot of Goldeneye (either the N64 or Wii one) with a buffet of neo-retro film reboots, and you get the follow-up Activision and Eurocom pulled off for 007's 50th anniversary, known as 007 Legends.

Given its role as an anniversary milestone, Legends's storyline is more or less a tribute to Bonds past. The settings are re-imagined excerpts from various films, one for each actor who played 007: Goldfinger (from the Sean Connery era), On Her Majesty's Secret Service (George Lazenby), Licence to Kill (Timothy Dalton), Die Another Day (Pierce Brosnan), and Moonraker (Roger Moore). On the whole it's a fine selection, I will admit, however the incorporation of Die Another Day in a retelling of other Bond stories is redundant, seeing as how the film itself is a re-hashing of the franchise's famous moments. With or without that choice of source material, in terms of storytelling, this may not have been the best way to go about things. Unlike, say, Goldeneye (either one), which had the time to build up a plot and the antagonist's reasoning behind setting it into motion, each of the five stories in Legends relies on awkward info-dumps to explain everything. If you've never seen the movies in question, you may get left in the proverbial dust. The environments capture the essence of their silver-screen counterparts with a modern flair to create a very slick aesthetic worthy of the 007 legacy. It's too bad the characters' stilted facial animations and the terribly dodgy shadows have to negate those graphical strong points. A handful of actors from those films have returned to provide likeness and voice talents; however Bond himself, here modeled after Daniel Craig, has received a sound-alike voice actor, and not a very good one at that. Dude, mister Goldfinger is about to cut you in half with a frickin' laser beam, you think you could at least sound scared?

Say what you want about Moonraker, but it makes for a fun level.

But despite all the fanservice, there was one thing that totally soured the experience for me: the levels they divided these scenes into are too dang few and too dang long. There are only eleven levels, and the majority can last a half-hour or longer. As discussed in my review of Goldeneye: Rogue Agent, having to invest more time on a level diminishes its replay attractiveness. But it gets worse: because of these larger levels, the loading times average around one minute a pop*. And if you need to re-start from a checkpoint, due to death or choice, that's another minute's worth of loading headed your way! Now, compare that to the Call of Duty games, which only waste a few seconds of your time on reloading levels, and there's no justification other than Eurocom sucks at optimisation. Dangit man, if you're going to imitate something that's already been imitated to the detriment of the industry as a whole, at least imitate it properly!

So enough about what 007 Legends is; what does it play like? There's a reason I brought up Call of Duty a few sentences ago, because apart from the horrendous loading times, it follows the same basic gameplay precepts of said franchise. Regenerating health, limited weapon slots, aiming down sights, unskippable cutscenes with quick-time events, and all those other things that have made first-person shooters less than fun. "But wait", you say, "aren't you forgetting its more innovative features?" And to that I say: be patient, you. The Classic health system from Goldeneye (either one) marks a return, only this time you can opt to use it on any difficulty level, not just the hard mode. Which is good, because I've never been too keen on the concept of regenerating HP, with or without the benefit of superpowers to explain it. Granted, I will take advantage of it if provided, but if the consequences of your actions (read: damage) are automatically nullified, it takes away from the challenge, and challenge is the reason we play video games on the whole, no? And because of how long the levels are, you can find not only body armour but health packs in the Classic modes. A welcome concession, although this should've been taken as a sign that the levels should've been broken up better.

If there's anything that separates the 007 games from the post-Modern Warfare Call of Duty model, even under Activision's tenure, it's the stealth segments, and Legends adds a few "refinements" to the formula. A meter will pop up around the centre of the screen pointing to guards and indicating their states of alertness (see also: Far Cry 3). I would call this helpful, but when you can stand ten metres in front of a guard and it takes him a couple of seconds to even walk over to check it out, well, this game can only support so much willing suspension of disbelief. Oh, and let's not forget about the gadgets! In many missions, Bond gets to use a laser watch and a pen that shoots tranquiliser, shock, and distraction darts. Sure, it's fun to use them all to carve out different paths through the stealth sections, but I for one couldn't help thinking about how the recent films tended to shy away from this sort of techno-gee-wizzery. Canon? What canon?

I don't see how lasering a guard helps, but it works wonders on cameras.

In the interest of cinematics, you'll also get into fight scenes where you flick the analog sticks up or down to throw punches. All the correct moves are identified with on-screen commands, but at the same time your foes leave their own visual cues as to their weak points. As a result, once I got used to this mechanic, my thought process turned to, "Okay, I get it, you can remove the training wheels now", never to cease. Furthermore, Legends attempts to bridge the gap between multiplayer and single-player experiences by incorporating features from the former into the latter, namely by a separate experience-point system, and weapon attachments you can purchase with said points. And in lieu of the time trials from Goldeneye (either one), many levels also feature bonus trials which can be performed on top of your other objectives. There are still time trials, yes, but also stealth trials, target trials, and elimination/specialist trials, which require you to focus on using one particular gun. These can be fun, but again, I'd be more inclined to take them on if I didn't have to spend so much time just finishing the level, to say nothing of the loading times I'd incur if I had to re-play any parts.

Speaking of multiplayer, if you're considering purchasing 007 Legends for its online multiplayer component, don't bother. Yes, it's the traditional level-up-and-unlock-weapons-and-perks gadgets routine that has become another consequence of Call of Duty's dominance of the first-person shooter genre, and I'd be a liar if I said I wasn't hooked onto this sort of thing to some degree. However, I've only been able to find public matches in the traditional Team Conflict mode, or if I'm lucky, the Legends mode, a free-for-all where you play as classic Bond characters. Having all those other fun modes like Golden Gun and Escalation but no one to play them with is a darn shame. Oh well, at least there's always split-screen...

Since 007 Legends does so may good and bad things at the same time, I wasn't quite sure what to make of it. But then I realised... The over-long levels? The slavish adherence to other games' customs? The blatant disregard for canon? ...This is Activision's answer to Goldeneye: Rogue Agent! And as I recall, that game didn't turn out so well for EA, who only put out one more underwhelming 007 title before surrendering the licence. What's more, the case of 007 Legends may be one of history repeating: after its underwhelming retail performance, it was de-listed from various download services, and developer Eurocom was shuttered after almost 25 years in the industry. Under other circumstances, I'd react with shame, but hopefully this will give the James Bond video game franchise the chance for a fresh start. (At the risk of starting a flame war, might I suggest Infinity Ward? At least they can do loading right.)

Positives:
+ Brilliant set designs reinvent the source material.
+ The freedom of stealth sections.
+ The single-player upgrade system.

Negatives:
- Poor story integration.
- Too many generic first-person shooter mechanics.
- Long loading times.*

Control: 4 martinis out of 5
Design: 2 martinis out of 5
Audiovisual: 3 martinis out of 5
Value: 2 martinis out of 5
The Call: 55% (D+)

So that's my review, but before I go, I'd like to indulge in a little editorialising regarding the game's downloadable content. Two missions based on the new movie Skyfall were made available for free upon the film's release. In the case of North America, this was three and a half weeks after Legends came out. The two levels are on the short side, and only cover the first act of the movie, not even mentioning its main villain. Now, one thing I noticed is that the download size of this "update" was a paltry 100KB*; in other words, it was more than likely a file to unlock content already on the disc. As someone who has witnessed the tragedy of "disc-locked content" in games like Capcom's Street Fighter X Tekken, this should've sent up a red flag in my head. But if ever there were a proper excuse for disc-locked content, this would be it. One, delaying access to the Skyfall content until the movie was released curtailed the possibility of unwittingly walking into spoilers (not that the levels spoil too much about the film anyway). But most importantly, it's free, so any fears about being coerced into forking over more than the game's purchase price are moot. But just as a warning to game developers everywhere, and Capcom, do NOT pull this [noun] on us again. (NB: Also rendering this point moot, the Skyfall levels are available out-of-the-box in the Wii U port, since it was released after the film.)

*Marked observations are based on the PlayStation 3 version.

Game Review: Goldeneye: Rogue Agent

Goldeneye: Rogue Agent

• Publisher: EA Games 
• Developer: EA Los Angeles 
• Release: PlayStation 2 / GameCube / XBox, 22 November 2004 
• Genre: Action (First-person shooter) 
• Players: 1-4 

I get the feeling that the world regards Goldeneye 007 (Nintendo 64, 1997) as some sort of sacred cow, and for good reason I might add. But saying that would be a disservice to certain other games to bear the James Bond licence. For example, the EA-published The World Is Not Enough (N64, 2000) and Nightfire (PS2/GCN/XBox, 2002) both build off of Goldeneye's traditions but with welcome tweaks providing a more comfortable single-player experience, plus the same degree of customisation in the multiplayer department, but with AI bots providing a more comfortable single-player experience. So obviously someone was gonna mooch off its success and reputation by simply using the word in a title. Said entity turned out to be then-licence holder EA, who as a slave to the religion of yearly releases put out Goldeneye: Rogue Agent in 2004, and does it capture such magic? Well... if I have to ask, then you know it's gonna be "no". Let's find out just how "no" it takes things.

The first thing you should know about Rogue Agent is that it both is and isn't a James Bond game. 007 himself only shows up as an NPC in the first mission, a training simulation based on the Fort Knox scene from Goldfinger, and he "dies" early on. The player-character, code-named "Goldeneye", is fired from MI-6 for the mishap, only to ally with Auric Goldfinger's enterprises. Together with the likes of Oddjob, Pussy Galore, and Scaramanga, they wage war against Dr. No, all of whom are alive because screw canon. The core concept to take from all this is that you are a bad guy squaring off against other bad guys, and thus have the freedom to kill the non-protagonistic bad guys in all manner of ways which would be too good for Her Majesty's Secret Service.

Consoles like these operate machine traps.

First and foremost, at all times you have the ability to hold two guns at once, and fire each separately with the left and right trigger buttons. Your arsenal includes the standard array of pistols, machine guns, shotguns, and powerful but two-handed rifles and rocket launchers. More exotic fare include a sticky-bomb launcher and a gun which shoots immobilizing toxins. But not all of your killing implements are portable -- numerous machine traps exist in which you flip a switch and enact some sort of crushy, burny, or droppy demise upon your prey. These things are more prevalent in the earlier levels, and require you to corral targets into a specific location. But the game seems to exercise some sort of soft coercion to get you to sample the array of deaths at your disposal; using machine traps, special weapons, or other unique killing methods earns you Rogue Bonus points which potentially unlock content for the multiplayer mode which, sadly, has done away with the AI bots. Man, that sucks for us "forever alone" types...

More prevalent are the abilities bestowed upon you by your player-character's golden gadget eye, hence the title. Starting from the second level on, a new Goldeneye power is unlocked for each mission. First is MRI Vision, which reveals enemies from behind walls. Best used in conjunction with the Mag-Rail gun, which is slow to fire but shoots through walls (oh, that's another type of Rogue Bonus!). In level 3, you get the EM Hack, which disables enemy guns and can turn on machines from afar. In level 4, you get the self-explanatory Polarity Shield, and for level 5, you get the Induction Field, which grabs and throws enemies through pseudo-telekinesis. All four abilities are limited by a power level which recharges automatically. So does your health. Body armour doesn't regenerate, obviously, but it's so frequently dropped by enemies that it might as well. And maybe it's just my playing style, but grenades seem to be more effective in Rogue Agent than in other first-person shooters I have experienced.

MRI Vision reveals enemies behind walls.

Good thing you have all that in your corner, because even by the standards of other James Bond licenced-games, Goldeneye: Rogue Agent is hard. (What I perceived as) the difficulty stems mainly from the fact that enemies, even common mooks, take an unrealistically huge quantity of bullets to bring down, and they don't stagger from hits, either. Must be all that armour, which would explain why they "bleed" blue sparks instead of blood. And while I admit I don't care too much, within reason, about enemy AI in these kinds of games, Rogue Agent is for the most part above-average in this department. They call out comments on your current weapon and position, and run in zig-zag patterns to throw off slower weapons like the aforementioned rail gun, but it's nice of them to not run around your own cover and hit you from behind. Huh, I guess I pay more attention to AI than I thought. Still, as if all that wasn't bad enough, your maximum ammo is limited, and somehow it's hard to consistently pick up new ammo dropped by enemies. Like, we're talking as few as two spare magazines in addition to what's in your gun(s) at the moment.

But the point which clinches it for me is how long the levels are. There are only eight levels in all, but barring the first two, they can take upwards of an hour to complete. Compare that with, say the 1997 Goldeneye, which had 20 levels which generally lasted no longer than ten minutes apiece. Call it my bias, but a format like that invites me to go back to the game again and again and replay the missions just for fun. With Rogue Agent, on the other hand, each level is a endurance test, something I dread going back to. And it's that one little point which relegates Goldeneye: Rogue Agent to the status of merely "good" as opposed to "great"; which keeps it from being worthy of standing next to its Nintendo 64 namesake. Or Nightfire.

Positives:
+ Fairly well-executed dual-wespon combat.
+ The weapon combinations and Goldeneye powers give you lots of ways to play.
+ The enemy AI and dialogue adapt to the current situation.
+ Awesome soundtrack by Paul Oakenfold.

Negatives:
- The levels are too few and too long.
- Difficult in a number of unfair ways.

Control: 4 deathtraps out of 5
Design: 3 deathtraps out of 5
Graphics: 3 deathtraps out of 5
Audio: 5 deathtraps out of 5

Value: 2 deathtraps out of 5
The Call: 65% (C)

Film Review: Skyfall

Skyfall

• Publisher: MGM / Columbia 
• Production Company: Danjaq / EON Productions 
• Genre: Action 
• Release: 26 October 2012 (UK), 9 November 2012 (US) 
• Director: Sam Mendes 
• Producers: Barbara Broccoli, Michael G. Wilson 
• Writers: Neil Purvis, Robert Wade, John Logan

The Girls: Eve Moneypenny (Naomie Harris), an MI6 field agent who, by the end of the movie, retires from field work and transfers herself to the position of M's secretary. While generally competent, she ends up accidentally shooting Bond in the opening scenes, and so their relationship, although never quite romantic, becomes playfully rocky. 5 out of 5.  Sévérine (Bérénice Lim Marlohe), a femme fatale in the employ of Silva. What would otherwise be yet another shallow love interest is tempered by her backstory: a former prostitute, she's only working for the villain to stay safe and wants Bond to help her out of her ordeal. But quite frankly, this is easy to forget. Shot by Silva. 3 out of 5.

Other Allies: The role of Q officially returns, played by the young Ben Whishaw. This iteration of the character comes across as someone who loves the opportunity to prove himself, exemplified in such lines as this boast to 007 in their first meeting: "I'll hazard I can do more damage with my laptop sitting in my pajamas before my first cup of Earl Gray than you can do in a year in the field". 5 out of 5.

Gareth Mallory (Ralph Fiennes), chairman of Britain's Intelligence and Security Committee. Succeeds the role of M from Judi Dench, whose character is shot and bleeds to death.

Kincade (Albert Finney), the gamekeeper at Bond's old home, Skyfall. Picture Harry Potter's Hagrid with a shotgun and you've got the idea. Fun Fact: Sean Connery was at one point considered for the role. 4 out of 5.

The Villain: Raoul Silva (Javier Bardem), real name Tiago Rodriguez, an independent cyber-terrorist and former MI6 operative. After attempting to disrupt the Hong Kong handover in 1997, he was arrested by the Chinese, for which he still holds a grudge against M. It is refreshing in this respect, that his evil plans entail not money nor world domination, but revenge against one specific person whom Bond (and we, the audience) have grown attached to. Javier Bardem's performance may come across as awkward in some points, no doubt exacerbated by his bright blond hairdo (and the actor having been typecast as that guy from No Country for Old Men), but then again some of the most memorable Bond villains have had their own moments of charming awkwardness. But Silva makes it work because of his personality - he's playful, something of a man-child. Bringing down business and even governments via illicit network activities is something of a hobby to him. He even does stunts like challenging Bond to a William-Tell style competition, involving Sévérine and a glass of scotch (which is how she dies). In doing all this, Silva gives us something the James Bond reboot has thus far lacked - a well defined, perhaps even iconic, antagonist. Stabbed in the back by Bond. 4 out of 5.

Other Henchmen: Patrice (Ola Rapace).  ...I got nothing.

The Gadgets: While Q maintains more of a tech-support role, he provides Bond with some new equipment: a Walther PPK pistol with a handprint lock (see Licence to Kill), and a small yet undisguised radio homer (see Goldfinger). During his first scene, Q leans on the fourth wall with such lines as "If you were expecting an exploding pen, we don't go for that sort of thing any more." Bond also drives the Aston Martin DB5 from Goldfinger, complete with machine guns and ejector seat (the latter of which he hilariously threatened M with). It gets shot and blown up by Silva's forces during the climactic conflict. Bet you weren't expecting one of these fate-spoilers for an inanimate object, eh? 4 out of 5.

The Locations: Turkey, England, China, Macau, and Scotland. Fun Fact: Is it any coincidence that the first James Bond film to have scenes filmed and set in the People's Republic of China was released during a Year of the Dragon? You make the call!

The Theme Song: Performed by Adele. Her brand of neo-soul is a perfect fit for a James Bond theme, carrying with it an air of sophistication, danger, and retro aesthetics which perfectly represent a modern-day interpretation of 007. Combined with the lyrics, about making a last stand against certain doom, and this sets an appropriate dark tone for the film. On the other hand, having the word "Skyfall" used so often (I count 15 times) may seem unnerving, almost to the point that it loses all meaning, but inspires a moment of Fridge Brilliance when you learn that the name refers to James Bond's childhood home, and the setting of the film's climax. In fact, given the extra context, I might even consider this as another image song, from the point of M just before the final conflict. 5 out of 5.

The Opening Credits: Motifs include water, blood, blood in water, and shadowy interpretations of some of the film's sets, including the MI6 bunker and the cemetary outside Skyfall. There is also a specific death motif, which works in its own way. In cultures such as that of the tarot cards, death represents not the end of existence, but the change from one soul to another, in that the latter entity carries on the former's wishes in his or her own way. This makes the death of M and her replacement by Mallory even more poignant, but even without that knowledge, this sequence is dark and foreboding enough to provide the same atmosphere. 5 out of 5.

The Novel: The title refers to the name of James Bond's childhood estate in Scotland, where the climax takes place. While the screenplay was not adapted from one of the novels, this being the 50th anniversary of the Bond films, there are numerous references to the other films - thankfully, more subtle and in a lesser quantity than in Die Another Day. In particular, its plot happens to share some major elements with The World Is Not Enough. A terrorist attack on the MI6 headquarters? Check. 007 sufferring a shoulder injury? Check. A villain with a vendetta against M? Check. But unlike Die Another Day, Skyfall becomes more than the sum of its parts. Read on.

The Plot: Our story starts in Istanbul, where 007 and fellow agent Eve are on the trail of a stolen hard drive, containing a list of undercover NATO agents. Their pursuit of the assassin who took it, Patrice, ends with Bond fighting him on a train and Eve providing sniper support. On M's orders, Eve takes the shot... and hits Bond by mistake. Cue opening credits. We return three months later to M, who is being pressured by intelligence chairman Gareth Mallory to retire. On her way back to MI6's headquarters, their computer network gets hacked and her office blown up. Bond, who had survived Eve's mistake and has been hiding out, hears news of the attack and returns to London to get his job back.

After passing his physical and psychological evaluation (not really, but M gave him passing marks anyway), Bond takes out the shrapnel from his shoulder and, with Q's help, identifies Patrice and tracks him to Shanghai. They fight, and Patrice falls off a building before Bond can interrogate him, but he picks up a clue leading him to a casino in Macau. Meanwhile, the hacker from before releases the identities of five agents on the Internet, with the threat of doing the same again every week. At the casino, Bond picks up the money that was supposed to go to Patrice, as well as the attention of Sévérine, a girl working with him. They ride to an abandoned island where they are taken prisoner and meet the man behind the attacks: Silva, an ex-MI6 operative who tried to disrupt the Hong Kong handover in '97 and got captured by the Chinese. He taunts Bond and kills Sévérine, but thanks to the homer given by Q, is taken in by MI6.

Back at their makeshift HQ, Q and Bond try to decrypt the hard drive Silva stole, but in doing so, accidentally unlock their prisoner. Bond chases Silva through the London Underground; the chase leads to a court inquiry where M is being questioned. Silva tries to assassinate her, but Bond rescues her and they drive off together. Intent on laying a trap for Silva on their terms, Q helps by leaving a trail of digital clues leading up north to Skyfall, James Bond's childhood home in Scotland.

Lightly armed, Bond, M, and the caretaker Kincade rig up the Skyfall estate with a series of traps, and eventually Silva's men arrive. They fight off the first wave, but M gets grazed in the leg, and things get complicated when the man himself arrives with a helicopter. Bond brings it down too, and Silva gives chase all the way to a nearby chapel. Silva corners M and tries to shoot them together, but even though Bond comes in and throws a knife in his back, M bleeds to death nonetheless. With all said and done, Mallory takes the place of M, and Eve Moneypenny serves as his secretary. You are now free to turn off your TV.

To date, Skyfall is the latest Bond film to be released, and is thus the last film I'll be covering on the 007 Golden Jubilee. But Skyfall serves as the perfect ending to this year-long event, as it represents the end of an era for the film franchise. The changes that were brought on by Goldeneye have come full-circle, not the least because of one shocking event: the death of M. There has not been a similar event of this emotional magnitude throughout the entire franchise. Yes, there have been the deaths of women with whom Bond has planned to settle down (Teresa Draco and Vesper Lynd), but they were introduced within the same films. And then there's Q's retirement planning from The World Is Not Enough, but this mainly works with the paratext that Desmond Llewellyn would die just after the film's release.
At the end of it all, we have the traditional setup of M, Q, and Moneypenny, all in (what looks to be) the same set as in the Connery through Dalton eras. This brings to point the film's motif of old versus new. This also becomes the focal point of M's inquiry, with Mallory insisting the business of human intelligence in which she specialises in is no longer applicable to the 21st-century balance of power, and Q also makes comments along these lines. Even the props signify this, such as the old Aston Martin ripped straight out of Goldfinger, and the traditional Walther PPK gun, now with that handprint lock. But M's rebuttal during the inquiry comes in the form of a Tennyson poem:

"Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."

The lesson the movie leaves us with is that sometimes the best solution is not to completely ignore or take on the old ways, but to have them adapt to the changes happening around them in the world. In short, what we get is a reconciliation of the old guard and the new. I eagerly await how the new MI6 will adapt to the world yet again, but for now, to have the death of a recurring character, and all the consequences that go with it, turn Skyfall into an epic, and unforgettable entry in the series. 5 out of 5.

I'd like to take a moment to discuss one of the issues I've commonly heard about this film: the pacing problems, or the illusion thereof. Throughout the first few acts, director Sam Mendes provides us with a cavalcade of memorable settings: the fight with Patrice in the Shanghai skyscraper, the island casino in Macau, and the nearby ghost town where Silva has staked his claim. (It's also refreshing that the shaky-cam abuse which plagued Quantum of Solace has been toned down significantly. Heck, some long scenes are even done in one take!) Yet the climax takes place in the dark, dusty Skyfall estate and the wilderness surrounding it. After having been spoiled by the preceding visuals, the final fight becomes something of an aesthetic letdown, and thus seems to drag on for longer. It's not that the buildup isn't tense, after all, they are preparing to end the matter of Silva, but you'll wish they could just get on with it. The same goes for the post-opening scenes, when James Bond re-joins MI6. Of course, these problems become less apparent upon repeated viewings, when you know what to expect, and there aren't necessarily any scenes which I would cut out; they all serve their purpose.

The Call: 95% (A)

For this, and for Silva's more awkward moments, it is with a heavy heart that I deny Skyfall a perfect score. However, I would like to introduce a new feature at this point: the Dragon Award. The Dragon Award symbolises a work in which, whether or not any flaws are present, they cannot diminish the significance of its good parts, and thus represent something which you simply must experience in your lifetime. You could look at it as even better than a perfect score. X-factor, man.

Now to go back through my reviews and retroactively award more of these babies... In the meantime, that's it for the 007 Golden Jubilee. Stay tuned to my YouTube channel, and I plan to re-record these reviews on video, as part of a new celebration: the 007 Diamond Jubilee. To whet your appetites, and learn my justification for celebrating this franchise into 2013, the trailer is available here. And finally, current rumours indicate that a 24th James Bond film is being planned for release in 2014.  (Edit: This was eventually released in 2015, as Spectre.  Read my review of it here.)  Only time will tell how it will handle to the changes brought to the series over the past few years, but when it arrives...

...James Bond will return.  And so will I.

Film Review: Quantum of Solace

Quantum of Solace

• Publisher: MGM / Columbia 
• Production Company: Danjaq / EON Productions 
• Genre: Action 
• Release: 31 October 2008 (UK), 14 November 2008 (USA) 
• Director: Marc Forster 
• Producers: Barbara Broccoli, Michael G. Wilson 
• Writers: Neil Purvis, Robert Wade, Paul Haggis

The Girls: Camille Montes (Olga Kurylenko), Bolivian intelligence agent. Quite notably, the only leading lady in a Bond film to date whom Bond does not share a romantic interest in. Her mission is revenge, and thus she is less a traditional "Bond Girl", but a fully-fleshed out character, complete with motivations, who just happens to be a girl. And it couldn't be more refreshing. 5 out of 5. Miss Strawberry Fields (Gemma Arterton), envoy from the British embassy in Bolivia. Killed offscreen and coated in oil. (You can stop reminding us of other, better Bond films now.) Yet another shallow love interest, not that she tries to fall for him, of course. But by my estimation, she probably has the least screen time before she is first implied to have had sex with Bond. 2 out of 5.

Other Allies: Jeffrey Wright returns as Felix Leiter, and is at odds with his boss Gregg Beam (David Harbour), the CIA's section head in South America, who has been bribed with potential (and non-existent) oil for ignoring the planned coup in Bolivia. Fired, presumably with Leiter taking up his post.

The Villains: Dominic Greene (Mathieu Almaric), an executive of the criminal organisation Quantum. Killed offscreen by Quantum agents. He also maintains the cover organisation Greene Planet, which allegedly performs environmental services, and gives him a cover story for the desert land he buys. Still, there's no excuse for his hammier moments. 3 out of 5. General Medrano (Joaquín Cosío), an exiled Bolivian army general seeking to take over his country's government with the help of Quantum. Shot by Camille, and good thing, too - he had killed Camille's father and raped/killed her mother and sister when she was young, and he doesn't stop there. This dude is an unforgivable monster, but not unwatchably so - I guess it's a good thing we never get to see his heinous acts on screen. I'll tell you one thing, he should've been the main villain. 4 out of 5. Jesper Christensen returns as Mr. White, the leader of Quantum. Until Spectre, still at large. Bet you didn't see that one coming.
Other Henchmen: Elvis (Anatole Taubman), Greene's bowl-cut bodyguard. A tad goofy-looking, but he doesn't have much of a role; he's just kinda there. 1 out of 5.

The Gadgets: 007 doesn't use any unique tools in the field. However, MI6 links Mitchell's counterfeit money to Edmund Slate with the help of their new computer system, including a table-sized touchscreen.

The Locations: Italy, England, Haiti (filmed in Panama), Austria, Bolivia (filmed in Panama and Chile), Russia.

The Theme Song: "Another Way To Die", performed by Jack White (The White Stripes, "Seven Nation Army", "Icky Thump") & Alicia Keys ("Fallin'", "No One"). This marks the first duet to be used as a James Bond theme, and I have to say... why couldn't this have gone to just one or the other? It's true the two are good performers who combine their strengths. For example, if I were the producer, I would've had Keys go solo on the vocals and relegate White to the crunchy guitar riffs (which unfortunately sound too similar to Chris Cornell's Casino Royale theme) he's famous for. As it stands, I guess some tastes weren't ment to go together... Fun Fact: At one point, the song would've gone to Mark Ronson and Amy Winehouse, but the latter's drug problems precluded that possibility.  3 out of 5.

The Opening Credits: This time around, the opening credits were designed by the company MK12, who had worked with director Marc Forster before on Stranger than Fiction. Features scenes of shadow-Bond walking the desert, with the usual images of guns and girls once again in play, and the use of dusky blues and oranges. Fun Fact: MK12 were also responsible for the snazzy OS used by MI6's computers, as well as the overly fancy location titles.  4 out of 5.

The Novel: The title comes from "Quantum of Solace", one of the short stories in For Your Eyes Only, but the two are unrelated. The story is nothing but an anecdote about a civil servant and a flight attendant and, like The Spy Who Loved Me, wasn't worth adapting directly. As for the title, "Quantum of Solace" refers to an amount of hope, no matter how tiny. And when that's gone, when the quantum of solace drops to zero, then the relationship is over, as explained in the book. In the film, Bond appears to get his quantum of solace from avenging the death of Vesper Lynd, which becomes a character flaw he must overcome.

The Plot: When we last left Bond, he had captured Mr. White, leader of the crime cartel Quantum, and delivers him to a safehouse in Siena, Italy. Cue opening credits. We return to Bond, M, and company interrogating him about Quantum, when one of the bodyguards shows his true colours: he shoots M and lets Mr. White escape. Bond chases the phony guard, eventually killing him. M is not pleased: not only because an assassin got so close to her, but because 007 killed the man when he could've interrogated him as well. But they manage to investigate his London apartment, and a series of counterfeit dollar bills leads Bond to Edmund Slate, a geologist working for Quantum in Haiti.

When Bond encounters Slate, he kills him, too, only to discover that he was assigned to assassinate Camille Montes, a Bolivian agent. He follows her to Dominic Greene and ex-General Medrano, where the two are making a deal: the latter is trading off a plot of desert land over to the former, in exchange for Quantum assisting in a coup-de-etat of the Bolivian government. Medrano then takes off with Camille, presumably to rape and kill her, but Bond rescues her. Too bad she was trying to kill Medrano herself...

MI6 helps Bond track Greene to an opera in Austria, where he eavesdrops in a conversation on the Bolivian land sale, AKA the "Tierra Project". He gets found out, and a chase ensues, ending when Bond drops a man off a roof. Unfortunately, this guy is a bodyguard for a mister Guy Haines, a member of UK's Special Branch and an advisor to the Prime Minister (and secretly, a member of Quantum). Once Greene has his body shot, MI6 finds out and cuts off Bond's passport and credit cards, trying to bring him in. However, Bond gets some fake cards made out by Mathis, and the two head for Bolivia.

Touching down in La Paz, Bond is accosted by Miss Fields from the British Embassy. Before she can take him back to London, the three of them are invited to a fundraiser party held by Greene. Bond reunites with Camille and they leave together; however, the police stop them and discover Mathis planted in the trunk. The shoot him and try to pin it on Bond, but he and Camille get away, renting a plane for a flight over the Atacama desert. A fighter jet summoned by Medrano shoots them down, but they survive the crash and Camille shares her story: When she was young, General Medrano killed and/or raped her family, which is why she tried to kill him in Haiti.

On their way out of the cave, Bond and Camille discover not only a lack of oil, but that Greene has been damming up the water supply. They return to his hotel room to discover Fields dead, and the CIA trying to capture him. Thanks to a tip from Felix Leiter, Bond and Camille raid an eco-hotel in the desert, where Greene and Medrano finalise their deal. Oh, and since the land Greene bought holds a majority of Bolivia's water supply, Quantum gets a monopoly as the country's utility provider. But Camille kills Medrano, and she and Bond abduct Green, interrogate him in Quantum, and leave him in the desert with naught but a can of motor oil to drink. We end our adventure in Kazan, Russia, where Bond encounters Yusuf Kabira, Vesper's ex-boyfriend and a Quantum agent, and surprise, surprise: he doesn't kill him, but takes him to M for questioning. You are now free to turn off your TV.

Full disclosure: When I saw Quantum of Solace in the theatre, I was confused by the plot, since from what I had read I was assuming Greene's plan was to poison the Bolivian water supply. The plot we got, involving a governmental coup-de-etat which never even got started during the film's running time, was not the typical fare audiences were used to. After all, it's not like there's a time bomb or something that spells out the climax for the audience. (Fun Fact: Production coincided with the Writers Guild of America strike of 2007-08, so some fans blame the lacklustre screenplay on that unpleasantness. But if the film's writers were British, how would that have affected them?) I'd prefer to look at this film from Bond's point of view. Having been shell-shocked from the death of Vesper last time around, he goes into the film not caring whom he kills, even if keeping them alive would be a preferable choice for MI6. And the villains seem to take advantage of this: even when Bond doesn't kill a person of interest, they find some way to blame it on him. But when he reaches the end of the pipeline, namely Kabira, one of the last men involved with Vesper, he does the right thing and lets him live. Much like Casino Royale, this film is a quest for Bond to conquer his ego, and no amount of implausible recoveries or shaky hand-held cameras will make me ignore that. For this, I would even go so far as to list Quantum of Solace among the franchise's underrated gems, among the likes of On Her Majesty's Secret Service and Licence to Kill.  4 out of 5.

The Call: 80% (B-)

IchigoRyu will return in
Skyfall