Marigold

Lara Croft as a new film phenomenon? Hardly. The main heroine is flat, and I mean that in addition to her breasts, a horror to look at (Angelina Jolie tries in vain to give her a semblance of style), the action sequence are dull, the story boring and bland... Simon West attempted to create a modern action spectacle, but instead he created a shapeless mess that exuded some decent choreography and the rather witty character of the red-eared Chris Barrie. Unfortunately, it's not even enough for Lady Croft to have an honest time with MacGyver and the lost treasure of Atlantis. What good is an adventure film that lacks adventure, a good hero and at least a bit of a remarkable story?

Bond's 40th birthday party was a success, though I don't hide fact that to have the fullest enjoyment from it, you need to know the old Bond movies, noting the pleasant details that go back to the days of Dr. No, From Russia with Love or Thunderball. Brosnan's interpretation of Bond is his own - manly, charismatic, action-packed... Brosnan as 007 does not focus on being funny, but rather on movement and action (I consider the absence of really good catchphrases a big minus for the film), which sometimes exceeds the measure of good taste, but is nevertheless fun and well filmed. But I could do without the overdone finish that's as artificial as Pamela Anderson's silicones. The story of Bond number 20 isn’t amazing (satellite, diamonds, a villain with a changeable face, it's all been done before), but it's steered into an engaging stream of action that is also spiced up by Bond's humanization through suffering and the ensuing "rising from the ashes". The serious and dark tone of the film's introduction is great... The following things bother me – Halle Berry is too good an actress to play a simple Bond girl, Toby Stevens as the central villain does not have the right flair, and Lee Tamahori completely unnecessarily smuggles into the decent direction modern camera stop time and other clips that are self-serving and spoil the impression of the film... Die Another Day is a good old Bond film dressed in a modern robe, but with a heart that is pretty old-fashioned, slightly naïve but sincere. And I also have to like it... with some noticeable “buts". Edit 2012: As the years go by. First of all, the dead end in the film literally screams and is confirmed by the accompanying material from the Blu Ray. Brosnan's Bond can't be improved upon, only his surroundings can be redone into an absurd fantasy. With hindsight, this film really seems like a cry of absolute nostalgia mixed with a delayed desire to make Bond into a competitive commodity at a time of growing CGI spectacles. The film completely misses the mark, especially in the second half, whose terrible digital effects get worse as the years go by. Otherwise, as a collection of fetishes and references, I enjoy it, but Tamahori couldn't incorporate them other than as random "nostalgic objects", and that says something. But the pre-Iceland part is still more than tolerable.

My dear Moore, you wanted to be an action hero after all at your age? Well, why not? There is a script for it, the plot returns to the ground (literally) after the crazy Moonraker, even deeply into Fleming's history and is played again using simple cards. No super apocalyptic inventions, no super gadgets and super villains, but good old KGB, an erratic underworld and one lost British machine. And he's trying to do it like 007, so a few strange mafia subjects... It's obvious that it's the 1980s. Especially the introduction of the film is as if it fell out of some fallen American detective story so typical of that decade, a terrible casio pop is playing, and the already very breathless Bond Moore is trying to prove that he still has what it takes. Does he? Without the sarcastic catchphrases that the script closed off for him? No way. He even needs a double for running up the stairs, the charm is gone, and his characteristic machismo is replaced by and old man's sex appeal. Fortunately, there is a second half where both the sound and the main character are put back in order, and a surprisingly serious and thrilling plot unfolds for a Moore film with perhaps the best ending a Bond has ever had the pleasure of acting in (the phone call with the Prime Minister). For Your Eyes Only is a wooden spy film that, unlike From Russia with Love, lacks the unifying charisma of the main actor and prepares a few hot moments of nausea for those of us sick of 80s pop culture, but in the end it's good fun with fairly decent action directing by John Glen. Certainly better than Moonraker's galactic trip, but Moore was still the best when he wasn't taken seriously.

Unlike some reviews, I don't think Joel Schumacher wanted to make a film about snuff, but rather a film about the fascination and obsession with death and its brutality. The snuff 8-millimeter with the murder of an unknown girl, whose identity private investigator Tom Welles is about to investigate, is merely a means of descending into the darkest corners of the human soul, a hell of brutality and inhumanity that eventually devours for a moment even the man who comes into it as a law enforcement officer. Nicholas Cage is amazing. The transformation from a curious investigator to an obsessive and eventually a crazy avenger is masterfully executed. Finally, the positive hero finds himself facing the inevitable questions of "why are they doing this?", "what do they like about it", which, while aimed at murderers, are designed to shed particular light on the growing darkness in his own soul. Something we all have within us. Schumacher is an excellent director, he is able to do things without unnecessary explicitness and visible brutality, yet the atmosphere of 8MM is only slightly less dense and raw than in Fincher's Seven, and it escalates as the end approaches. As a spectator, I found myself in the shoes of Tom Welles, who is disgusted and horrified, but also unable to stop. The question of "why" is too corrosive... This film is simply not a documentary about one of the scariest film genres, but the embodiment of “why" with all the consequences that come with it. An excellent embodiment... It does not give an answer, but it is the basis for (self)analysis.

Unlike Hero, this film seems to me to be too tributary to the concept of a large film and really quirky, and it is pensive only during the ending, which is riveting both in terms of combat and drama. Until then, however, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon seemed to me to be an unnecessarily blurred love epic with a slightly unfortunate distribution of retrospectives that unnecessarily breaks the main storyline. It's interesting, but it still resonates most strongly in Lee's conception in the bang of the sword and in a riveting and beautiful catharsis. During the film, there are light indications of force, but they shatter somewhat in the cacophony of voices, in directing played for certainty and in the visual stylization that is no way exceptional. Perhaps it's the "American money" and the "audience focus" that are to blame. At the same time, the theme so typically Asian, the theme of struggle, life and journey, offers a lot of stimuli for film meditation... But Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is just a good action movie, has great examples of Shaolin fights with swords, spears, and who knows what else... However, it speaks to the higher level of the spirit only a few times, but all the more impressively.

Why pretend I'm doing something new when everyone around me is pretending the same thing? Why not admit that everything important has already been done and film a fun and naïve retro with futuristic tricks, endearingly terrible acting performances, the atmosphere of old comic books and the plot of the most hilarious trash? Conran managed to do it really well... His Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow is a well-balanced mix of retro (everything listed above) and modern technical procedures with a special atmosphere of colorized movies, old photos and comics. If there was even more humor and perspective, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow would be almost flawless, closely related to the similarly conceived Indiana Jones trilogy. The way that it is, it is sometimes spoiled by an excessive insight into its own visual perfection and a lack of distance from the triviality of the story. But it still functions as a spectacle, it’s almost a schematic parody, it’s infectiously entertaining, adventurously wild and cheerfully picturesque. Conran and his team’s attempt to achieve retro works on almost all fronts (the editing, acting, directing, soundtrack, artistic stylization) and if you accept it, you will see one of the most entertaining films of this season. Even with all the naivety, it’s much more intelligent than 99% of the adventurous production made in Hollywood. By the way, isn't it symbolic that entering the new visual age of the film is happening through a designer return to the immortal years of the 1920s and 1930s?

The third is the best. The most original Bond film of all, and indeed Guy Hamilton's glorious (and unbeatable) entry into the 007 series. What's so great about this Bond movie? Purity of style, a polished screenplay, the combining of all the existing attributes of Fleming's super agent into a tasty and balanced mixture of humor, action, tension and visual attractiveness. Sean Connery performs a finished concert with perfectly tuned instruments – charm, cynicism and traditional sharpness. Opponent Auric Goldfinger (Gert Fröbe) is a douche at first glance, but his "flourishing" into one of the greatest criminal minds of all time is all the better... Oddjob? An insurmountable villain with an insurmountable storm on his head. The story is not enlightening, but as has already been said, it is well done, designed and filmed. Hamilton, in particular, added much more dynamism to the action sequences than the excellent (and slightly orthodox) stylist Young, and thus established a new form of James Bond, a form which the creators still use today. An ageless classic! ___ A few tidbits: Gert Fröbe was chosen based on a role in which he played a pederast. He could not speak a word of English, although it was promised that he could to the production team, so he babbled in an indeterminate language during the filming and was later overdubbed. The interior of Fort Knox is pure architectural fiction based on Hamilton's idea of a "temple of gold". The exteriors of the world's largest treasury were filmed at London's Pinewood Studios. ___ Bond song: "Goldfinger" (Shirley Bassey)

Call me a conservative and a traditionalist, but Her Majesty's agent with a license to kill does not belong in orbit. Moonraker is the embodiment of a desperate screenwriter. As long as he's on Earth, it’s a decent Bond film with some excellent action (the gondola chase, the duel with the Kendo warrior at the Glass Museum) and typical Moore self-parody, which drags on like a cat with a broken back over time, but it can be endured. As soon as 007 goes to the stars, it becomes pure awkwardness with no perspective and very forced humor (Bond's bon mots lose their bite and the parody inserts their aptness). I endured the final Star Wars-style battle with the persistent feeling that this might hold up as a B-Bond parody, but as an official Bond movie, it's more of a disgrace than anything else. Moore is able to do Bond two classes better, and the same goes for director Gilbert in pale blue...

An absolute necessity for all Bondophiles... A documentary about a very difficult filming full of accidents, time slips and filmmaking magic that turned a disaster into a classic spy movie at the last moment. It's a shame Sean Connery doesn't get to have as much screen time, and it's a really too bad there are no interviews with director Terence Young, who often has hard-to-see but key credits when it comes to Bond films.

In a way, the fourth Bond film was a revolution in the history of film. For the first time in an acted film, the action takes place partly under the sea, which was made possible using a special underwater camera designed for Thunderball by specialist Lamar Boren. Young's third opus again finds Sean Connery in great form, surpassing his dazzling debut, and his Bond is the real Bond in terms of Fleming's "may go wild beyond probable, but not beyond possible". And so we meet up with 007 as a smiling vacationer, as a wounded and frightened fugitive and, of course, above all as an intrepid, manly super agent who can deal with villains as well as beautiful women. The plot is indeed classic, the main villain (still only number two in the SPECTRE hierarchy) is a little bland, the women beautiful and underwater sequence riveting (especially the final harpoon pile). Bond is arming himself with more and more handy gadgets, and bond movie reputations as "high-tech" movies gain real footing in Thunderball. Moreover, when it comes to Connery's dry catchphrases, Thunderball is an abundant spring. If it weren't for the grotesquely accelerated final scene with the brawl on the Disco Volanté bridge, the fourth Bond would have been the perfect film... ___ Bond song: "Thunderball" (Tom Jones)