Whooooooo, James Bond! Yeah. Oh wait. What were these movies about? Holy crap that’s a LOT of sexism. Wait. Why did James just leave cover to check on that girl? He’s still being shot at! Oh wait, they stopped once they killed the girl. Yeah, that makes sense, she was totally the threatening one. How are we going to get James out of this one? One word: Jetpack. But let’s make him put on a helmet first.
Once I make it all the way through the James Bond movies I’ll write an article about it, but they’re difficult to watch. It seems like the climax of almost all of these films relies on James suffering from a moment of supreme incompetence. Regardless, here we go.
Okay, here are the gadgets. Also the first introduction of Q-branch (in the films at least, I’ve never read any of the books), but it’s getting fairly ridiculous. Seriously, just look at these posters. What the hell are they selling here anyway?
This may actually be the Bond movie that I’ve watched the most. That’s sad because it makes almost zero goddamned sense. I mean, why did Goldfinger pay so much money to customize that billiard room only for one pitch…after which he killed everyone anyway? Okay, maybe this was the sleepy nerve gas he was talking about, but all of those criminals just agreed to go along with his plan. So if they wanted to participate, why would he put them to sleep? He didn’t. He murdered that whole room. However he also drove Solo away from the horse track only to shoot him and have him crushed into a cube…Why does Oddjob kill with a hat anyway? It’s not like he’s smuggling that hat into airports or something. This is the beginning of the crazy.
It’s in the goddamned poster! That jetpack was ridiculous. I mean, how did they smuggle it there in the first place? Also, in the poster Bond is clearly too cool for school and helmets, but in the movie he makes this big show of putting on a helmet. Weird. The scuba fight was interesting, and it’s one of those scenes that stood out to me as a child. I remember fighting with my brother in a pool and thinking that if I pulled off his goggles he wouldn’t be able to continue. Nope. Still got trounced.
I…I don’t even know how to explain this one. It’s neat that it’s the birth of the volcano lair, but holy crap is it weird. They make him Japanese. Also he gets ninja training. A whole 3 days worth of it to prep him for anything he might be confronted with. Wholly ridiculous.
So George Lazenby. I actually don’t mind his outing as Bond. All the problems that I might have with this movie would still be there if it were Connery at the helm. He’s not a bad Bond, but holy crap is this movie funky. It has a bobsled chase in it. Though Telly Savalas was pretty fantastic as Blofeld.
Whoa. Let me reiterate. Whoa. Finally we have a well-done, compelling, sic-fi story in theaters. The acting is good enough, though there really isn’t a whole lot going on. Mostly watching Amy Adams suffer from exhaustion, which she does well, but there are no awe-inspiring moments of dialogue or anything. I don’t want to say more for fear of spoiling things. Suffice it to say that this movie is a knock-out and you should definitely catch it in theaters. I will leave you with one spoiler-free question that I hope someone can explain to me: why is the struggle so important?
I’m actually sad that this movie is on Netflix and not in movie theaters. It’s a fun popcorn movie. Sure it may be a throwaway as far as the academy is concerned, but it’s a whole lot of fun. It’s about as family friendly as an action movie can get. There’s no sex, I don’t recall any cussing, and the blood isn’t over the top (*spoiler- people do die on-screen but it’s more Iron Man and less RoboCop). Also this movie really doesn’t have a love story. There’s a female supporting character, but there’s no sexual chemistry between her and Kevin James. That’s refreshing in an action movie. I am happy to support Netflix as a production house, but I’m curious what that means to larger budget films like this one would be. More specifically, how do the artists get paid?