28 Years Later - The Bone Temple

Savile Row

28 Years Later - 
The Bone Temple
Directed by Nia DaCosta
UK/USA 2025
Columbia
UK Cinema Release Print

Warning: 28 Spoilers Later...

Okay, so 28 Years Later - The Bone Temple, is the fourth in what I shall call the ‘28 Units Of Man Made Measures Of Duration’ franchise and the second of the trilogy which is a sequel to the first two films. It’s also a very direct sequel to 28 Years Later (reviewed here) and, as much as I loved Nia DaCosta’s The Marvels (reviewed here), I’d have to say I really didn’t love this fourth film at all. This one has two story elements which, inevitably, meet up in the final act. 

So we have the somewhat overly long continuation of Spike (played by Alfie Williams), who finds himself reluctantly joining the team of satanists who base their look on Jimmy Saville, lead by Sir Jimmy Crystal (played by Jack O'Connell) and we have the other story element... Ralph Fiennes playing the doctor who befriended Spike in the first movie, this time actually having somewhat of an epiphany and actually coming up with a cure for the RAGE infested zombie-like creatures, in the shape of “I’ll be your Bub for this movie” Samson (played by Chi Lewis-Parry)... which is the only part of the story I was truly invested in, truth be told.

Basically, the whole movie plays out like some kind of home invasion movie, one of my least favourite genres of cinema, as the Jimmys do really nasty, brutal things to innocent folk... somewhat hammering home the obvious message that, while the RAGE zombies are a credible threat, they’re not really evil like that observed when humanity is given free reign. No surprise that the Jimmys are the villains of the movie. 

Um... yeah, I don’t have much good to say about this installment, to be honest... apart from Fiennes amazing performance of an

Iron Maiden number towards the end of the film (which is not a group I know but he put on a good show), it just didn’t hit right with me and felt somewhat out of place under the franchise umbrella, I thought, 

A criticism is that they never mention Jimmy Saville by name, invoking the name Jimmy Crystal instead for whatever reason but, it has to be said, with the look and the mannerisms... and constant cries of “Owzat!”... any audience member born in the UK of a certain age will have absolutely no doubt in their minds who this ‘cult of Jimmy’ is based on. There are also more Teletubby references, for those who dig such things. 

The end of the movie sets up the third (fifth) part by having the return of a character (and a taxi... and a nice signature nedle drop) from the very first movie, 28 Days Later, which will please fans of that movie and which promises some kind of connection to the films outside of the RAGE monsters themselves. 

But, yeah, somewhat of a shorter review than that of the last movie and I apologise but, I just didn’t find this one very interesting. Not completely dull but somehow less creative than the other films in the franchise, I thought. Although that epilogue and the final fate of the Jimmys as seen in this one does seem to set up the idea that... well... there must be other interesting things to say about the whole scenario after this one. 28 Years Later - The Bone Temple isn’t a complete dud but, yeah, it’s definitely the worst of the films so far and I’m fine to wait however many years it is until the next part of the franchise, for sure. 

28 Years Later

Jimmy Fixes It 
For The Infected

28 Years Later
Directed by Danny Boyle
UK/USA 2025
Columbia
UK Cinema Release Print

Warning: Big spoilers. Avoid reading until you’ve seen it.

28 Years Later is, of course, the sequel to both 28 Days Later and its follow up, 28 Weeks Later. The first was a very popular retake on the zombie apocalypse genre but with the zombies replaced by RAGE virus infected killer humans and it had a strong opening which was quite similar to John Wyndham’s novel (and various adaptations of) The Day Of The Triffids. I would say the first two thirds of that movie were pretty good but it all, for me, kind of runs out of steam when you get to the military presence in the last third. I loved the second film though, even if it was more of a traditional style entry into that specific sub-genre... I just don’t remember a whole lot about it, truth be told. 

This third installment, made some 23 years after the first installment and, once more by the same director working with writer Alex Garland, is not just a sequel to those movies but also the first part of a new trilogy of 28 Years Later themed films, the second of which is rumoured to star the main lead of the first movie (the then unknown Cillian Murphy) and is currently to be released in January of next year.

And it’s a pretty good, actually. It has a strong opening where a bunch of kids try to ignore that the house they live in is being overrun by zombies as they watch the Teletubbies on television, somewhere around the time of the first outbreak... and the movie, which then jumps the 28 years later to the main setting, harkens back to this cold open at the very end of the tale. 

The main lead for the remainder being a 12 year old boy called Spike, played brilliantly throughout by Alfie Williams. The film is a game of two halves followed by a left of field prologue sequence. In sequence one it’s made clear, with some mostly credible retconning, that the UK is the only place where the infected remained. The UK is therefore a quarantine zone to the rest of the world, the shores patrolled by boats from other countries to make sure nobody tries to escape the British Isles. Spike lives in a small village compound separated from the mainland by a causeway which is only accessible when the tide is low... and yeah, that’s an obvious plot device for bad timing when running from hordes of RAGE infected zombies, for sure. 

Spike is taken to the mainland by his father, played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson, to get his first ‘zombie kills’ as a kind of rites of passage. And this is where the one thing which is wrong with this movie comes into play... people stupidly putting themselves in completely stupid situations and making stupid decisions for the sake of a taut and intense series of frightening scenes. And, yeah, the film is quite intense and bleak, more so in the first half hour than in any other part of the movie, I would say... as Spike and his father barely make it back to their village in one piece. 

The second main section involves more stupidity as Spike escapes from the village with his mum, played brilliantly by the great Jodie Comer, in order to seek out a Hearts Of Darkness Kurtz like character who was once a doctor and, of whom, evidence is found that he still lives (due to Spike and his dad observing a fire in the distance when they were hiding from the infected). Jodie Comer’s character Isla keeps having strange, delusionary episodes and, sometimes mistakes Spike for her father. However, when they do find the doctor, played by the great Ralph Fiennes, he diagnoses brain cancer and informs them she hasn’t got long to live. You can probably guess what happens next. 

And it’s a quite gruelling film for the first half an hour, for sure... and there are some beautiful shots in it. The cinematography looks like a gazillion dollars which is why I am suitably shocked and impressed to find the whole movie was shot on an iPhone... because it does look like an epic, it has to be said. Not to mention some great artistic choices such as the 1915 recording of Rudyard Kipling’s 1903 poem Boots used to chilling effect (as it also is in the trailer) and the use of the Lawrence Olivier version of Henry V to further push certain metaphors. 

The second journey out to find the doctor is still quite action packed but I would say it’s more about the visual poetry of the story rather than the fright factor... although there are certainly some unsettling scenes to be had from this second expedition outside the relative safety of the compound. 

And then we get to the end sequence which... I really feel I need to talk about. Spoilers... you don’t want to know. 

So Spike makes a decision, after delivering a newborn baby back to his home. A newborn but uninfected baby which is birthed by a zombie... from when Spike’s mum helps said zombie out, in terms of the delivery. And the decision he comes to is to stay outside and take his chances in the world of the infected. However, it’s not long before he finds himself cornered by a load of RAGE infected, fast zombies. And then, in the film's third or fourth example of unlikely deux ex machina, he’s saved by a group of blonde haired... well. 

Okay... 

So this ending reminded me of the kind of satirical edge that 2000AD comic used to get into trouble for in the late 1970s and early 1980s. In a bizarre twist, this group of people, who I thought at, first were supposed to be blonde, Swedish death-metal fans and who beat up and kill the zombies with what seems to be almost superhuman strength and agility... are something which I think some members of the British audience may find a little triggering. They’re all dressed in roughly the same way, with track suits, lots of jewellery and white/blonde hair which may or may not be wigs. But it was only when the leader (who I think is supposed to be the grown up version of the main Teletubbies watching kid in the film’s prologue) puts his ring laden hand out to Spike and says, “I’m Jimmy, let’s be pals.” that I realised I was observing a cult of people who based themselves on Jimmy Saville. 

Now, it has to be said, that since the first movie was set contemporary to its release, these later installments are taking place in an alternative timeline of the UK. So, what makes the Jimmy Saville thing an even more curious choice is the fact that, in this timeline, his various crimes had not yet seen the light of day in public. So it is a very unusual choice, especially since it seems to imply that the next part, directed by Nia DaCosta (who did a great job on The Marvels, reviewed here, as far as I’m concerned), will be picking up the story directly after this one. 

And that’s me done with 28 Years Later, I think. A pretty good movie and an unexpected sequel after all this time (I was still waiting for a 28 Months Later, myself). Worth catching at the cinema, if you want to be impressed with what an iPhone can somehow capture, I would say. 

The Menu

Saving It
For Dessert

The Menu
USA 2022
Directed by Mark Mylod
Fox Searchlight

Warning: Here be spoilers.

Just a quick shout out of a review of a movie I missed on its release towards the end of last year, The Menu. I kinda wanted to see this one but ran out of time on it. One of the reasons I wanted to see it is because I like Anya Taylor-Joy as an actress (Ralph Fiennes is none too shabby as a great performer either) and the other reason was because, from the trailer at least, you can tell something is really off. To me, it looked like a modern remake of The Hounds Of Zaroff (aka The Most Dangerous Game) and, yep, it’s doing something ever so slightly different but it’s certainly, in some ways, exploring the same kind of concept. Just without the manhunt (or at least, a highly abbreviated one).

This film, however, is set in the world of gourmet cooking. I’ve never really understood or appreciated the world of culinary delights. To me, food is something you shovel in quickly to stock up on energy so you can get the next thing done. I don’t fetishise it myself like a lot of people seem to do. This film involves 12 guests (just like the last supper, right?) who travel to Hawthorne Island to sample The Menu of the great Chef Slowik, played by Fiennes, at huge expense (some may say the ultimate expense). Guests such as a character played by Nicholas Hoult, his companion for the evening played by Taylor-Joy (yeah... you’ll get there real fast as to the nature of their relationship, well before the reveal) and a big league but washed up movie star played by John Leguizamo, who said he based the performance on Steven Seagal (apparently there’s no love lost between the two actors in real life).

The film is wrapped up in the language of food criticism and the slow, smooth, languorous shots which make up a lot of the running time are punctuated between scenes by the typographic announcement of menu items, which grow more humorous and ‘on point’ as the movie progresses. It also becomes clear, I think, that while the film is aimed at the kind of rich customers and their lack of true appreciation of food... those hated by Slowik... it’s also a send up of the entire food industry in some ways. Certainly, the restaurant which is the only structure on its own island (the rich clientele gathering on the docks to be picked up by a boat to take them to their gourmet experience) is based on one which the writer went to and realised he was technically captive their until the meal was over and the boat came to pick the customers back up.

And it kinda works. It’s maybe just a little overlong but it manages to land the humour and horror of the situation in which the guests find themselves and it also shows the keen intelligence of ‘the person least likely’, who has more in common with the chef and his army of helpers, in that she understands the foreshadowing of events (such as when the guests are served no bread as a bread plate, being just left the sauces that go with it... which she correctly perceives as an insult rather than a piece of conceptual food art) and is able to figure out a way to put herself on the same footing as the madman running the whole show.

And I said it was a short review... I only have to shout out Colin Stetson’s fine score (sadly not on CD... honestly, Milan Records were a great label once) and conclude that, those four courses of paragraphs that I just served comprise the entire meal of this review. I quite liked The Menu and, though it’s maybe a close cousin to the many movies which steal the plot of The Most Dangerous Game... it’s certainly something else too and that shouldn’t stop you from taking a bite out of this particular food themed film.

The Lego Batman Movie

Brick Grayson

The Lego Batman Movie
Denmark/USA 2017
Directed by Chris McKay
Warner Brothers
UK cinema release print.
Warning: Some spoilers, of sorts.

I was pretty surprised when, a couple of years back, Warner Brothers allowed their Batman character (plus a load of other licensed characters from various franchises) to be diluted, just a little, by having a version of him in The Lego Movie (reviewed here) while the franchise and their film rights were still very much active in the current cinematic landscape. It was a great idea and I welcomed it heartily but I think it was quite brave of them to lampoon their own characters like that and they’ve done it again now with this spin off film, The Lego Batman Movie.

What this means is that they’re allowing a movie with a major character in ‘comedy mode’ out in the very same year that at least one movie also featuring Batman (as played by Ben Affleck) is coming out at our cinemas in the Justice League movie. It remains to be seen whether his character will also make an appearance in a cameo at the end of the new Wonder Woman movie too, to remind the audience what they are building up to but... I wouldn’t be surprised.

However, I’m pretty glad that this movie here is in existence because frankly, and I’m sure most people would probably agree on this, it’s way more of an interesting and engaging film than the current crop of dark DC movies that are being inflicted on audiences and this one really captures certain, albeit exaggerated, truths about the characters in a direct and effective way which the other cinematic representations we’ve had lately just aren’t able to compete with on a similar level.

So, this weekend, I armed myself with a kid, being as I went to the cinema with my friend, his lovely wife and their cute child... and took in the new Lego movie myself and, although there was exactly the ‘first showing overload’ problem I expected to have with it on this one (yeah, I’ll get to it soon enough), I overall had a good time with this movie and it even got me to smile at some moments, a facial expression which is fairly out of character for me, it has to be said.

The first thing prospective audience members may want to know about this one is that you absolutely do not need to see The Lego Movie to watch this. In fact, I couldn’t find any reference to the events and characters of that film anywhere in this one. They might be in there but I certainly didn’t spot them on first viewing so, yeah, this can very much be seen as a stand alone film. Well, other than the fact that Batman is in it, of course... totally not referring to his previous brick-based adventures in any way shape or form. There are, however, quite a lot of references to the previous incarnations of The Batman, both on screen and off, as there are about the DC universe in general... and they do come thick and fast. It was nice, for example, seeing a clip from the 1960s Adam West Batman on the big screen again (there are at least six homages to the Batman TV show and also the film spin off that I could count) and it was also nice to see a brief reference to the 1940s theatrical serials at one point.

And it doesn’t stop there either... the DC universe isn’t the only thing that gets furious referencing here as this follows the same modus operandi as The Lego Movie in that characters from a whole host of other Lego licensed franchises are also seen on screen. I was disappointed that a lot of the DC Universe characters were sidelined in this movie but it was nice to see The Superfriends mixing it up with their Justice League buddies in a party scene. It’s in this sequence that Batman and his newly acquired sidekick Dick Grayson, aka Robin (or Reggae Man... nah, you watch the film to find out) steal The Phantom Zone projector from Superman’s Fortress of Solitude so they can banish The Joker there. Of course, that’s exactly what The Joker wants and it’s here that he teams up and unleashes various Lego versions of their licensed characters (and some unlicensed, as far as I know) and teams up with them to destroy Gotham City. So yeah, we have Voldemort from Harry Potter, the Eye of Sauron from Lord Of The Rings, the Gremlins from... um... Gremlins, King Kong, the DALEKS from Doctor Who and the Wicked Witch of the West with her flying monkeys from The Wizard Of Oz, all involved in an all out attack on the brick city where Batman lives and... it’s pretty much as fun as you would expect.

There are a couple of problems. The main one being that there is so much going on in the movie, both in terms of cramming in a heck of a lot of laughs and action and also in terms of the dialogue/visual referencing that it does get a little difficult to process it at points. Some of the action sequences... especially when Batman, Robin, Batgirl and Alfred (as voiced by Ralph Fiennes) team up with all the supervillains The Joker left behind in Arkham Asylum and go head to head against the aforementioned army of evil... are a little hard to follow at certain points, to be sure. Of course, it could be argued that the choppiness, albeit often inventive action sequences, coupled with the sheer randomness of the assorted roll call of non-DC universe character mash ups are an homage to the free imagination of a child and, well, who am I to argue with that.

Another thing that irritated me a little was Batman’s description of the un-named DALEKS as ‘British Robots’. Okay, British is fine (even though they were created on the planet Skaro) but robots they are not. If anything, they are living creatures driving personal tanks, to some extent. So wasn’t that impressed with the almost derogatory way in which they are referred, especially when they are in the movie a fair bit.

And I also found it strange and somewhat disappointing that in a movie which has Ralph Fiennes doing one of the voices, he wasn’t also asked to voice his recurring Harry Potter villain Lord Voldemort, since he plays a big part here, instead choosing to have Voldemort voiced by Eddie Izzard instead. Don’t know what they were thinking there, to be honest.

However, these are all pretty minor things and it’s a quite fun movie most of the time. Like a lot of these kinds of films these days it also pitches its humour on two parallel levels. You’ve got all the slapstick and stuff for the kids but there’s also an adult level hidden but quite easily decryptable in the movie too... so if you’re an intelligent member of the 'grown ups' race (and not just a man-child like me) then you have something which you can hook into too.

And that’s about it for The Lego Batman Movie. Oh, apart from a quick shout out to Lorne Balfe who provides an excellent, Batman-esque score for the proceedings (the CD is in the mail) and a quick note to say that Billy Dee Williams finally gets to reprise his role of Harvey Dent (aka Two Face) from the 1989 Batman movie, albeit briefly. Other than that though, The Batman Lego Movie is not full of interesting shot set ups or mind-blowing visuals but it does have a huge sense of fun and, like the previous movie, a whole brickload of heart. This is almost certainly going to be more interesting than any other Batman related movie released this year (I’m just guessing here but we’ll see if I’m right) and it’s definitely worth a look... especially if you know your comic book history and like spotting all the references. There’s a lot here to hold your interest.

Hail, Caesar!

Hot Hail

Hail, Caesar!
2016 UK/USA/Japan
Directed by The Coen Brothers
UK cinema release print.

Ha! You know, when I first saw a trailer for this movie on the internet sometime last year, I thought the idea of this one looked promising but I was in no way expecting this to be a good movie. It looked like a whole bunch of actors and film-makers having a whale of a time and, quite often when this happens, you often find the people making the movie are going to have a far better time than the audience who are going to be watching this. I might cite the 1967 version of Casino Royale or 2015’s Mortdecai (reviewed here) as examples where this tactic seems to seriously backfire on the studio.

Another problem I have, and which made me fairly wary is that, much as I love some of the Coen’s movies dearly, I do find them a bit hit and miss and, over the last five or six years, I have found their movies definitely in the miss category, for me. I love the Coens of The Big Liebowski, Oh Brother Where Art Thou and The Man Who Wasn’t There but some of their other stuff seems to be less emotionally involving to me.

Well, I needn’t have worried on either count, as it happens, because although it took me 20 minutes or so to warm up to their latest opus, Hail, Caesar!, I absolutely loved it, once it got going. The film stars Josh Brolin as famous Hollywood ‘fixer’ Eddie Mannix, a fictional version of the real person who works here in a made up studio where thinly disguised ‘Coenised’ movies from Hollywoodland’s rich legacy are in production. When famous film star Baird Whitlock, played by George Clooney as a kind of Charlton Heston via Victor Mature type, is kidnapped from the set before the completion of his latest movie Hail, Caesar!, it’s up to Eddie to get him back while still trouble shooting other problems with various stars who work for the studio.

In a nice touch to the William Wyler version of Ben Hur, the fictional Hail, Caesar! shares the exact same subtitle of that movie, A Tale Of The Christ. There’s even a hilarious scene where Clooney is trying to channel the same look of reverence that Heston does in Ben Hur, when Christ gives him water on his journey to be a galley slave, although the roles are slightly twisted around here, just like a lot of other stuff in this movie is nicely subverted... such as the gay subtext highlighted with a joke in the sailor’s song and dance number performed by Channing Tatum as Burt Gurney, this film’s equivalent of Gene Kelley.

Other people who populate this film are Tilda Swinton in a kind of dual role playing a kind of ‘twins’ version of gossip columnist Hedda Hopper, Ralph Fiennes as Laurence Laurentz and Scarlet Johannson doing a kind of earthy version of famous water dancer Esther Williams. The character which made it completely watchable for me though, is the role of Alden Ehrenreich as ‘singing cowboy’ sensation Hobie Doyle. I don’t know who this guy is but he’s phenomenal. Sure, he gets some good laughs in scenes with Ralph Fiennes character as the studio attempt to ‘change his image’ but it’s his other role in the film which really help bring this all to life.

Hobie is obviously a parody of the Roy Rogers/Gene Autrey cowboy stars of yesteryear and can perform some neat tricks as demonstrated here. He even has his very close parody of a Gabby Hayes style sidekick who, obviously, gets all the laughs from the fictional audience when he takes his date to see one of his films. And about that ‘date’. This movie is very much a film watcher’s movie... like a Quentin Tarantino piece, a lot of the pleasure in watching it is derived from how many famous movie references you can pick up on. A real movie spotter’s pursuit, is this. We only hear her name teased a few times in the movie, for a while, and as soon as I heard her name, Carlotta Valdez, my brain was on fire. I spent the next twenty minutes or so of the movie agonising where I’d heard it before until it finally kicked in and I realised that this was the name of the fictional, historical figure that Kim Novak is pretending to be channeling for the benefit of James Stewart in Alfred Hitchcock’s masterpiece Vertigo. Oh my gosh, I thought to myself, are they going to go the whole hog and make her look like the ‘Portrait of Carlotta’ right down to the iconic hairstyle in the Hitchcock movie?

As the film wore on and I realised the Coens weren’t taking the strength of their parody too seriously (I’ll get to that in a minute) I then started thinking that maybe they were going to have Hobie dating a parody of the Mexican Spitfire, Lupe Velez, herself. As it happens, it turns out Hobie is dating a version of the famous actress Carmen Miranda and, it has to be said, Veronica Osorio, the wonderful actress playing her here, makes it more than apparent who she’s supposed to be in her very first scene. She is an absolute delight in the role and her scenes with Alden Ehrenreich, as Hobie entertains her with both a real lasso and, later, a spaghetti lasso, are just so charming they will probably win your heart right over. However, Hobie’s solo scenes as he goes after the kidnappers are equally great and... I’ll briefly mention those in a little while.

George Clooney, of course, is also brilliant in his role and when it turns out he’s kidnapped by communist writers, his scenes with them are pretty funny too. And it was nice to see Patrick Fischler as one of those writers... I always wondered what had happened to that guy who played the video store clerk in Ghost World and... here he is. He has a very distinctive face which makes him a good person if you want someone to stand out and add texture to a crowd. Clooney is marvellous, though, and the more stuff he makes these days which border on almost parodying himself, to an extent (with a little bit of stretch), forces me to admire him more and more as both an actor and a star as the years go by. Some people might be afraid to take on this kind of role but, as usual, Clooney gives it his all.

Now there are some problems with the parody in this movie, to be sure, and I’ll highlight those soon enough, but one of the things which made me stop worrying about the authenticity of a lot of the stuff on show in the movie is that, it soon becomes obvious that the Coen’s just don’t worry too much about making it all authentic. These are broad strokes which create a brief impression rather than full blown homage and, as such, it kinda works at its own level. Where it’s less satisfying is when some aspects of a parody are finely tuned to the smallest details but maybe slightly tarnished by another element being less so...

For example, the sailor’s song and dance number, headed up by Channing Tatum, is an incredible movie moment. It’s clear that the choreography and dialogue of those big MGM mid-fifties numbers have been studied here to the nth degree. And Tatum has obviously been looking at Gene Kelly and the way he moves, the way his face expresses (or doesn’t always) and the way he delivers his lines... it all works really well. As does the consistency of the simplicity of the colour scheme of the set being used. However, what doesn’t work about this scene is the veracity of those colours themselves. The MGM films used to be... well, over the top and almost over saturated beyond belief in those movies... the colours here, while simply wrought, have none of the luminosity of the hues used in the films the Coens are trying to emulate in this scene... which kind of spoiled the overall effect of it, for me.

Another example would be Carter Burwell's score throughout the movie. Now this must have been a dream job for a composer to work on as he has to cover a range of musical styles due to the nature of the content... but I noticed that he was more successful in some styles than others... although that might not have been his fault. For instance, the music he delivers for the Hail, Caesar! movie within a movie scenes are typical in structure and tone of the kinds of scores these films were getting by the likes of Dr. Miklos Rozsa but... well, they just don’t seem to have the same punch or over the top-ness, over scored quality of the originals. However, like I said, it might not be the composer’s fault, it might just be mixed too far back into the background compared to the way the music would have been mixed into a genuine Roman/Religious epic of the mid 1950s so... well I’ll find out once the CD arrives.

The composer does do some really great stuff here too though and, getting back to Hobie going after the kidnappers, the scenes where the Coen’s get almost metatextual and use the vernacular of the 1940s and 1950s film noirs to tell that part of Hobie’s story is faithfully backed up by Burwell with something which really does the trick in those sequences. So, yeah... looking forward to this score arriving in the post sometime soon.

And that’s what I thought of Joel and Ethan Coen’s Hail, Caesar! Once it starts coasting along the movie is a real breath of fresh, or maybe that should be reconditioned, air midst a cinematic climate where no other film is being made quite like this one at the moment. So as far as subject matter and approach are concerned, there’s nothing else like it out there currently... so if you want to see something different then check this one out. I, for one, had a great time with this movie and if you’re a fan of old school Hollywood movies then you’ll probably have a good evening with this one. Definitely a big thumbs up for this one... if I had a massive, giant thumb to do that with.

S.P.E.C.T.R.E

In SPECTRE, gadget

S.P.E.C.T.R.E
2015 UK/USA
Directed by Sam Mendes
UK cinema release print.

Warning: Very slight identity spoilers.

Regular readers of my column and, in particular, my many Bond movie reviews, will know that I really don’t rate the Daniel Craig Bond films all that much. I’ve gone on record in saying that they’re at least better than some of the worst of the Roger Moore era films (my least favourite Bond) but they’re not that far apart from them and they inhabit the lower end of my Bond rankings alongside such terrible Bond movies as Octopussy, Licence To Kill and Die Another Day. That being said, I don’t want you to think I don’t rate Daniel Craig. I think he’s a pretty cool actor, actually... I just think the version of Bond he’s been asked to play - the unsophisticated, everyman’s 007 thug - is not necessarily the right way to go and anyone who's read the original Ian Fleming novels will see a big difference in the character as it's portrayed here. Perhaps, bearing in mind the dubious nature of the character in the first place, a more honest approach but... not necessarily a good role model to have. He is extremely popular however and, I’m sure, this movie will be much loved by fans of this era.

Now S.P.E.C.T.R.E didn’t appear in more than maybe two of Ian Fleming’s later Bond novels. The Bond villain organisation of choice in the majority of the Bond books were the real life organisation known as Smersh (an amalgam of two Russian words meaning “death to spies”). When Doctor No and the early Bond films were made, Smersh was changed to S.P.E.C.T.R.E, I seem to remember, although my memory may be failing me... because the producers didn’t want to offend the Russians. Consequently, when the movie From Russia With Love came out, although Smersh does get a mention (it even gets a mention in the first Flint movie), it’s all about S.P.E.C.T.R.E again and this carried on and was eventually taken up by Fleming in the novels himself, after he based his own novel Thunderball on the script he was developing for the movie with Kevin McClory (again, if memory serves).

So fans of the books always felt kinda cheated when the movies used S.P.E.C.T.R.E as the bad guys... we all knew who the real villains were and the films seemed to be somewhat compromised in their intent before they were even out of the starting block. I remember sitting in a cinema in Llandudno on my summer holiday in 1987 and breathing a sigh of relief when one of the villains in The Living Daylights sent down the “death to spies” message to one of Bond’s colleagues before killing him... Smersh were finally back.

But now, it seems, Smersh have had their day once more and we get the original film version of the organisation not only returning as the title of this latest Bond movie but, also, tying into the storyline from the previous three Daniel Craig films, which are all fully referenced in this movie (along with a few other little nods to Bond over the years). And, of course, with the return of the movie organisation we have the return of one of the main villains of the Bond novels and films... although I think the writers were kind of trying to keep that a surprise. Honestly though, I think pretty much everyone who was interested in this movie, however, figured that out from the word go so... yeah, we have the always excellent Christoph Waltz playing Blofeld.. an exceptional choice of an exceptional actor for an exceptionally Bond fan pleasing role.

We also have some excellent actors and actresses cast alongside him such as Monica Bellucci, Léa Seydoux, Ben Whishaw (continuing as Q), Andrew Scott (Moriarty in the modern TV incarnation of Sherlock), David Bautista, Naomie Harris (continuing as Moneypenny), Jesper Christensen (returning as Mr. White) and Ralph Fiennes (continuing as M). And everyone is excellent in it. They’re all good, every last one of them... but I couldn’t help but think that both the script and the action choreography let them down a bit on this one.

Bellucci, for instance, is totally wasted. She is, and always has been, a phenomenal screen presence but she really is in the movie for a very short time in, I believe, only two scenes (unless you count the time split in one scene as the opening of a third). Waltz is excellent but the dialogue really isn’t up to scratch, I felt. He always delivers it so well and does some really interesting things with his acting but... you need to really give him special lines to work with like Tarantino did on two occasions (to date). And why the writers insist on treating the revelation of Ernst Stavro Blofeld as some kind of reveal is beyond me. Like I said, we all knew this before they’d even started shooting the thing. Andrew Scott is cool but he’s also got an element to his character which is written like it's supposed to be some kind of twist... you will see everything coming, as far as his character goes, pretty much from his first scene in the movie... which is kind of a shame but the storyline even makes it almost impossible for his character’s personal revelation not to be the case as it basically resolves a dramatic problem the writers put in the way of the main protagonists right from the start of the picture. So it’s all a bit of a shame, truth be told.

Now there are some very good things about this particular installment in the Bond franchise. The opening sequence is pretty good... although the lack of ‘racoon eyes’ completely spoils a character reveal... not to mention continuity in all the shots leading up to this, in much the same way that we all thought it was a ridiculous choice to make when Michael Keaton has exactly the same thing happen to him when he pulls his mask off in Batman Returns. Seriously? Movie makers really should start realising that we’re not all completely stupid. You’ll know what I’m talking about it when you see it and if you’re anything like me it’ll pop you right out of the movie. But yeah, other than this and some improbable helicopter shots not matching, the pre-credits sequence is probably one of the strongest things about this movie. A big shout out to David Bautista too, playing one of the most tough and relentless Bond henchmen in the history of the series and, if you’re paying attention, doing it in such a way that the character, alongside another of the main villains, can easily be brought back for another movie if so desired.

Thomas Newman’s score is pretty good in places too... a lot better and more obviously Bondian, I thought, than some of the stuff in the previous movie Skyfall... although during some of the action sequences it does get totally lost in the sound mix, if truth be told. Either way, it’s a lot better than the horrible non-Bond song the producers saw fit to include during the title sequence. I thought the title song for Skyfall was bad enough but this one... well... I guess the writer couldn’t think of anything to rhyme with S.P.E.C.T.R.E and, you know, also forgot to put a strong melody line in it.

Okay... I so I didn’t have high expectations for this movie from the start but I was kind of buoyed up from the strength of the opening sequence. Alas, it didn’t take long before I was looking at my watch trying to work out when the movie would end again, I’m afraid. There were more bad things than good in this movie, I reckon. For instance... the title sequence was really not that great. It didn’t help that it had the aforementioned song playing over it but it did, at least, have a few classically surreal moments that looked like they belonged in a Bond movie credits piece, for sure... but not many, I’d hasten to add.

Another thing is that the action sequences seemed, for the most part, just astonishingly dull for a lot of the movie and, worse, seemed to be getting less interesting as the movie wore on. The editing on them was fine... this is no Quantum of Solace, I’m pleased to say, but I did find myself rather bored through most of these scenes and, the one scene which looked like it would have all the main good guy protagonists storming British intelligence and getting into a big battle, alas, didn’t quite get there. It all seemed just a bit anticlimactic in the end and I really couldn’t get into the spirit of the movie, by the final reel. Add to this a main protagonist who completely relies on his gadgets to get him out of trouble in this one, especially, rather than his own cunning, plus a highly predictable story line and... well... it just wasn’t happening for me, I’m afraid.

Ultimately, this is a big looking Bond film which I’m pretty sure the majority of modern audiences will really get into... however, I don’t think I’m that audience anymore and this really isn’t my Bond. At least they saw fit to resurrect the iconic gun barrel opening shot this time although, bizarrely, they seemed to have forgotten just how to use it to get you into the next scene like the majority of Bond films have easily have managed to do in the history of the franchise. Oh well, I’ll keep my hopes alive that the next movie in the series can breath some life back into the franchise. And as far as S.P.E.C.T.R.E goes... well at least it didn’t have an invisible car in this one.

EON James Bond Movie Reviews on NUTS4R2

Dr. No

From Russia With Love

Goldfinger

Thunderball

You Only Live Twice  

On Her Majesty’s Secret Service

Diamonds Are Forever

Live And Let Die

The Man With The Golden Gun  

The Spy Who Loved Me

Moonraker

For Your Eyes Only

Octopussy

A View To A Kill 

The LIving Daylights 

Licence To Kill  

GoldenEye

Tomorrow Never Dies

The World Is Not Enough  

Die Another Day 

Casino Royale

Quantum Of Solace

Skyfall

S.P.E.C.T.R.E

The Grand Budapest Hotel

Hotel Recall

The Grand Budapest Hotel
2014 UK/Germany
Directed by Wes Anderson
Playing at UK cinemas now.

There’s something about a Wes Anderson movie that creeps up behind you and just grabs you right from the start, pulling you into the realm of the story and providing a totally immersive experience for their “always too short” running times.

I was trying to pinpoint, after leaving a screening of his latest film, The Grand Budapest Hotel, just what makes the majority of his movies, as far as I’m concerned, just so perfect. In the end I’m forced to confess that there’s no “one” real signature element of his style which can take the full responsibility for the absolute joy one gets from watching his stories play out in front of you. It’s a terminally infectious combination of all round stylish movie-making infused with an absolute perfection of execution, even at the points where he deliberately dumbs down on the technical expectations to feed the whimsy of his pieces (think the various stop-motion sea life in The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou or the high speed ski chase in this movie, by way of example), that feeds your mind and allows you to switch off to all concerns other than the shadows and light playing out in front of you in a darkened cinema, that allows for such a fantastic marriage of small scale stories made epic.

I usually hate doing lists but the elements in and of themselves are easy to identify, of course:

1. The clean, sometimes sweeping and sometimes static, but always simplistic movements of the camera through an artifical environment which leaves you in no confusion as to where you are.

2. The matter of fact neatness of the sets which are always easy to understand, with the director often giving you an overview far more detailed than any mere establishing shot, which perhaps mirrors the agenda of Kurosawa to give the audience a very clear map of where the action is transpiring before fully spinning his narrative web.

3. The level of detail in those sets. They are always quite neat, which lends an air of art versus reality, and they are always filled to the brim with little insights into the characters that inhabit them.

4. Perfect casting, employing actors who are some of the best in their field and who are not just playing to type. They are being used in a movie which, you can tell, they want to be in rather than just pick up another pay cheque. This film includes cameos and extended cameos from a large number of Anderson’s back catalogue of actors and actresses and it’s a joy to watch each one pop up, one completely uncredited one (even on the IMDB) for literally about one or two seconds of footage. I’d do a list but it would go on forever.

5. A musical undercurrent which is usually quite diverse in its style and sourcing, although The Grand Budapest Hotel is slightly different in this respect and I’ll get to that a little later.

6. The quirky and fun writing which is always witty and more often than not takes what, to another writer/director, would be a fairly small scale story, and then imbuing it with a sense of grandeur which allows it to shine at its own pace... which is rarely slow or boring.

7. A constant and stable pacing, presumably arrived at through the editing, which allows the brisk intermissions of action... random fleeing, window jumping, cat throwing etc... to come alive as startling little highlights, enhanced by their throwaway treatment, rather than muffled by this artistic attitude.

I could go on, but those are the main ones.

And, of course, The Grand Budapest Hotel has all this in spades... apart from, to a certain extent, the musical element... but the treatment and use of that here shows a trust perhaps lacking in the director’s previous work and, like I said, I’ll get to that soon enough.

The Grand Budapest Hotel tells the story of the titular hotel’s concierge through the eyes of his lobby boy. We have a Russian nesting doll format for the story within a story within a story structure, but the main narrative is told through the eyes of the lobby boy from his old age as the rich owner of the hotel (I’m not giving anything away here... you’ll know this much within the first 10 minutes of the movie). Anderson uses shifting aspect ratios to differentiate between the “narrative stacks”, with most of the movie being screened in a 1.33:1 aspect ratio, and it works pretty well, with the shifts from one ratio to another being mostly noticeable on purely a subconscious level once he’s done it a couple of times.

The performances, as you would expect, are astonishing. Ralph Fiennes has finally got my attention and possibly respect as an actor and he is an absolutely joy to watch in this as a slightly camp womaniser who appreciates the finer things in life. His lobby boy, played by relative newcomer Tony Revolori, is an absolute wonder and, as I said, this is all the norm in a film directed by Mr. Wes Anderson. And, honestly, Tilda Swinton's old age make-up is absolutely amazing. I rarely find “ageing” make up in any way convincing but this time it’s really impressive. I didn’t at first realise I wasn’t watching an 80-something actress unknown to me.

And Willem Dafoe’s caricature of an evil henchman is at once thoroughly sinister and over-the-top funny. It’s not got the depth of the role which Dafoe played for Anderson in The Life Aquatic, but it’s not supposed to. Conversely, Edward Norton’s character is really just an extension, albeit in a different profession, of the character he plays in the wonderful Anderson movie Moonrise Kingdom (reviewed here). And it’s just as poe-faced and funny.

But don’t get me started on Harvey Kietel. You may find yourself bursting out with laughter just at his appearance in this one. He's always so good in this stuff.

And then there’s the music.

Wes Anderson tends to employ a lot of “found” needle-drop style music in his films, although this is often supported at times with an actual composed score to give certain moments the kind of unity which music can easily create to glue different parts of a movie together with a leitmotif or atmospheric approach. Mark Mothersbaugh’s music for The Life Aquatic, for example, utilises a melody in different orchestrations... from something that deliberately sounds like it’s being played on a cheap, 1980s Cassio synthesiser through to a full-blooded action cue representation of the theme... to bring together the elements as a unified “Team Zissou” force within the film. Similarly, a more subtle but similarly progressive set of orchestrations is employed by the always brilliant Alexandre Desplat with his “Heroic Weather” theme in Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom, to further enhance the sense of unity and harmony with the various characters.

In The Grand Budapest Hotel, Anderson pretty much throws the needle-drop element, cat-like (no don’t ask), out of the window and instead has hired Desplat to provide a full score and, while it does tonally go through a needledrop like quality in terms of the style in places, it finally feels like an Anderson film has a full and cohesive musical direction and, given that it’s composed by Desplat, of course, it’s an absolutely marvellous piece of scoring. The CD should hopefully be arriving through my door for a closer listen sometime this week, I hope.

And that’s about it. I could go on and on about how wonderful a movie this is but I think you’ve probably got the idea by now... at least if you’ve read this far. What I will add though, is this...

I’ve seen most of this director’s work now and I would rank this movie as fourth within his oeuvre. But it’s an absolutely brilliant and joyful experience and I plan on seeing this movie several times more in my life. I may rank it fourth in his movies but it’s fourth out of four absolute masterpieces he’s made. If that isn’t enough of a recommendation for you to rush out and see this truly splendid artefact of cinematic wonder then I don’t know what is. Run, don’t walk*, to your nearest cinema and see this fabulous creation for yourself.

*Please note, this writer takes no responsibility for any accidents, injury or death resulting in the investment of this advice.

Skyfall

Skyfell

Skyfall
UK/USA 2012
Directed by Sam Mendes
Playing at cinemas now

Skyfell.

But not at the first hurdle.

I think I should probably state here and now that the latest EON Bond movie is actually not a terrible movie. There are some good things in it and I think, well I know actually, that a lot of people will like it. I’m putting this statement up front because I didn’t think that the movie was anywhere near as great as people have been saying and I don’t want people, Bond fans in general, to get the impression that it’s not worth their while seeing. If you’re a fan of the Daniel Craig Bond films then this is probably the best of those to date. Also, I’m pretty sure a Bond movie is fairly review proof when it comes down to whether you’re going to see it so I’m pretty confident that I can give my honest opinion here without worrying anybody isn’t going to see it of the back of this review. I’m getting a fair number of readers on this blog site nowadays but, from the comments some of you leave, you seem to be fairly intelligent readers... so no worries about putting anybody off I reckon.

My personal relationship to James Bond starts very young. In 1973, when I was 5 years old, my parents took me to see Roger Moore’s debut Bond movie, Live And Let Die, at the cinema and I loved it. Even today, while I still think Roger Moore is the least Bond-like of the Bonds, I can still find time to enjoy this one from his era. Since I’d loved this one so much, in between the releases of Live And Let Die and Moore’s second golden shot at the role, The Man With The Golden Gun in 1974, my parents started taking me to various James Bond double bills which were re-released around UK cinemas at this time. So I caught up with the Connery stuff and much preferred it. Roger Moore was already on the decline for me (when I was only a six year old, even I could predict the ending of The Man With The Golden Gun from that stupidly obvious opening set up) and although The Spy Who Loved Me had a cool car and an even cooler Caroline Munro in it, as the Moore Bonds carried on I lost faith in the character and backed off from them. Octopussy had been diabolical and a benchmark for me of Bond awfulness (until I’d seen both Die Another Day and A Quantum Of Solace, which were equally as bad) and I didn’t even bother with A View To A Kill when it first came out (to date, the only Bond film I’ve not seen at the cinema, I believe).

I rediscovered Bond with Timothy Dalton’s excellent debut, The Living Daylights but after the abysmal License To Kill hit the screens I assumed the franchise was dead. I honestly didn’t know anything about the legal wranglings... I just assumed that, even though I loved Dalton in the role, if you make a movie as bad as License To Kill was, even if you’re Bond, your movies wouldn’t be invited back to cinemas anytime soon.

Yeah, okay. I’m naïve.

Somewhere around this time I read all the novels too. They were mostly hit rather than miss (with the odd exception towards the end of Ian Fleming’s career) and so I gained a new layer of respect for just how those first movies were.

When Pierce Brosnan stepped into the role I was really pleased because he was who I’d kept telling people should play James Bond before Dalton got the role. He reminded me of Connery and that was good because, even though my favourite James Bond movie is On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, starring the inimitable ‘Big Fry’ George Lazenby in the role... Connery was a pretty good role model for the part and something the Bond actors had to live up to, in my eyes.

Even Brosnan’s Bond was a little hit and miss. Goldeneye was fantastic, Tomorrow Never Dies was just too action oriented and humorous (and too Roger Moore-like in its execution for me, I think), The World Is Not Enough was almost as cool as Goldeneye and Die Another Day... well that last one was just dead on arrival as far as I’m concerned. An awful movie.

Now I was never okay with the choice of Daniel Craig in the role of Bond. Don’t get me wrong, Craig is a fantastic actor, but something about it wasnt quite Bond for me. Casino Royale was, I guess, kinda okay for a general action movie... just not really hitting the marks for a Bond movie and certainly not as straight to the novel as the original 50s TV adaptation of the book (although a little more faithful than the David Niven version, to be sure). A Quantum Of Solace was... quite bad. The action editing was just completely obscuring whatever the hell was going on and the story seemed to somehow fall short and was, perhaps, overly simplistic (which is saying a lot for a Bond film which generally pride themselves on having simplistic plots as an advantage). So I have to admit to have been not looking forward to seeing Skyfall very much, it has to be said. I waited a week or so after its release and got dragged to the cinema by two people who wanted to go see this one... namely my parents.

Now Skyfall has a lot going for it, it has to be said... but I think that, overall, it falls in the camp of being one of the weaker Bond films to date. The opening sequence (from which I still miss the absence of the gun barrel openings) is pretty good in itself but you will know, just from watching the trailer campaign, that it will leave Bond for dead at the end of it. That being said, the action in general in the whole movie is edited with a certain amount of respect to actually being able to follow it this time around (unlike the last film) and an especially nice touch was the contrast between the sunny location where the action is taking place and the cold offices in London with the rain hammering down.

Actually, the rain gets a special mention here for a nice capper to that last sequence because it does two things rather nicely. One is that it signals the death of Bond, although nobody is going ot believe that, of course, and this wouldn’t be the first time the character ‘died’ in the pre-credits sequence of a movie, they’ve done that a few times now. The other thing it does, though, is to show just how hard it is for operatives who aren’t in the field. As M looks out through rain drenched windows, the contrast between the agents who are ‘out there’ getting death or glory with the bureaucrats who are left behind comes, literally, pounding home. Great use is made of that rain in the early scenes of the film and I was really greatful for it. Is this the first time it’s rained in a Bond film? No, I’m thinking back and my memory is latching onto another rain filled moment from the 80s, but certainly I think it’s never been more effectively utilised here.

Unfortunately, we have a problem right after the pre-credits sequence... it’s called the credits sequence.

They’ve got a not great credits sequence which they’ve managed to prop up ineffectively with what I can only call a pseudo-Bond song. The tragedy of this particular Bond song is that it’s almost, almost there... it’s got a strong voiced singer (someone I’ve not heard of, naturally) but the song’s writers, unfortunately, forgot to write in a strong melody line (not the biggest fan of melody as an element of music but I think a Bond song does need a strong tune) and whats left is a weak foundation, being sung with conviction. Ironically, the last note, literally the very last note, ends exactly as a Bond song should end... but by then it’s too late.

But from that point the movie seems to recover itself for the long haul and becomes a pretty competent action movie. There are less twists than I’d have liked in it. I was waiting for one particular lady to reveal herself as the ‘real villain’ at some point near the finish but the producers have a very different fate in store for her at the end of the movie and I look forward to seeing this actress continue in this role in future movies. A whole host of ‘A Listers’ join Judy Dench and co for this film and all the performances are pretty great from such household names as Ralph Fiennes, Albert Finney and Javier Bardem, and the screenplay isn’t too bad either (not what I’d expect from these writers) in that the title of the movie does have an emotional significance to Bond’s life and, when the title is explained, you realise how clever the psychiatrist near the start of the movie is being. The new head of Q branch is pretty good too, although I would have liked to have seen less damning of the old gadgets from him. Luckily, a surprise gadget reappears in the latter quarter of the movie and is used to the best effect it’s been used in the series since it’s debut in 1964.

The music is kinda worrying. Because director Sam Mendes has a working relationship with composer Thomas Newman, David Arnold, the series’ most regular composer since John Barry’s last score for the series on The Living Daylights, has had to sit this one out, although I understand some of his score from Casino Royale was licensed to track into this one in places to help bolster the music up (not the first time these kinds of shenanigans have occurred in a Bond film) and I have to confess I was a little worried when Newman scores a sequence right at the start where a pocket of light shines on Bonds face with a musical stinger. The age of ‘mickey mousing’ the music to illustrate every on-screen action is alive and well folks... and I have to say it popped me out of the picture straight away. The rest of the score seems competent enough although it’s hard to judge because a lot of it is buried way back in the sound mix. I’ve always referred to Thomas Newman as “the pots and pans man” to my friends because his music seems to me to be very ‘percussion lead’ and there’s a lot of that trademark percussion coming out in the scoring in this one. I’d have to listen to it away from the movie to make a proper call on it but, from what I did hear, I wouldn’t call it a “great Bond score” like I would one of Barry’s scores, or even Arnold's first two scores for the series (he kinda lost it a bit from Die Another Day onwards, it seems to me).

All in all, though, I would have to say that, for me , this Bond film isn’t quite as globe hopping as I’d expect (although I do appreciate the fact that the majority of the film is set in the UK) and while the set piece climax to the movie is quite acceptable, I was kinda hoping for a little more bang for my buck at the end. I was expecting a whole action epilogue but didn’t actually get it, I have to confess.

It seems to me that Skyfall is trying really hard to retain the spirit of Bond while giving it a bit of a jump start so it can go on for a bit longer. It doesn’t really do it for me though... it’s very Bondian in places and in others, not so. Oh, and by the way, there’s still a shaken Martini in it... so everyone can relax on that one. They were drumming up publicity.

Still, it is a fairly decent action film and some Bond fans would possibly be quite correct in saying that this is all that matters. Perhaps they’re right. For myself, I wouldn’t recommend this as a great movie with the kind of vigour that a lot of people seem to be doing right now... but equally, I wouldn’t want to put anyone off if action movies are their thing. But like I said at the start, it doesn’t really matter what I think, these movies are pretty much ‘review proof’, so I’ll leave it at that and say don’t expect too much from it and you can’t be all that disappointed.