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Moonraker (Blu-ray)
by hogsflesh This Blu-ray is currently £8 on amazon. Moonraker (1979) is probably the point at which the James Bond series jumped the shark. It's certainly the silliest of all the Bond films, taking Roger Moore's lightweight secret agent into space. Whether that represents a good thing or a bad thing depends entirely on your point of view. ... The series had become immensely bloated by this point, but Moonraker is still kind of a guilty pleasure. While Connery's Bond in the 60s had set trends, Moore's version simply followed them - having already done blaxploitation and kung fu adventures, Moonraker tries to jump on the Star Wars bandwagon. A space shuttle has been stolen. M sends James Bond to California to investigate the man who owns the company that made the shuttle, Hugo Drax. Drax has a batshit crazy masterplan involving destroying humanity using nerve gas and creating a new super race in space. And Bond hooks up with a smug CIA astronaut chick, Holly Goodhead. It is just irredeemably silly from beginning to end. While the Connery Bonds always had an air of detached humour about them, they never lapsed quite so blatantly into self-parody. This might be down to Moore's lack of effort as an actor. While Connery certainly didn't exert himself too hard as Bond, he was at least capable of giving a performance. Moore never looks even remotely like he's taking any of it seriously. With a lead actor who was basically playing the part for laughs, it's no wonder that the films got dafter and dafter. Some of the silliness works quite well. It's weirdly funny that the space shuttle is stolen by two shabby looking dudes in leather jackets. There's some entertaining character comedy involving Bond, M and Q (especially the famous 'attempting re-entry' gag that ends the film). And the idea that an invisible space station, with artificial gravity and oxygen and everything, full of fascists, is poised to drop lethal chemicals on us all is camp enough to just about get away with it. The opening fight scene, in which Bond - wearing a blazer with brass buttons, Alan Partridge style - is thrown out of a plane without a parachute, is highly entertaining. But on the other hand, it isn't really funny enough to be a proper comedy (in the style of Condorman or whatever). And the stupid moments make it impossible to take seriously. Really, all Drax has to do is show Bond a good time for a night and then send him on his way. Bond has no real reason to be suspicious at all. And yet Bond has hardly arrived before Drax is trying to get him bumped off in pointlessly elaborate ways (seriously, what's wrong with just walking into the guy's bedroom and shooting him in the head?) I expect my criminal geniuses to show at least some intelligence. There's also an idiotic comedy gondola chase around Venice which is guaranteed to annoy all but the most undiscerning Bond fanatic (see Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade for a comedy boat chase in Venice that actually works). Other leaden comedy moments involve musical references to 2001 and Close Encounters (and, oddly, The Magnificent Seven), and a painful scene in which Bond tries out all of Goodhead's ludicrous secret agent gadgets with a smirk and a raised eyebrow. Perhaps the real litmus test of how you will react to this film is Jaws, a bumbling comedy supervillain employed as Drax's henchman (he had previously appeared in The Spy Who Loved Me). He certainly looks impressive - he's absolutely enormous - but he never, ever feels like a threat to anyone, and every time he appears he ends up falling off a cliff or something equally dumb. Richard Kiel gives a great comic performance in the part, but you can't possibly ask to be taken seriously if your film contains a giant goon with metal teeth. All this comedy becomes problematic when the film throws in the occasional nasty moment. One woman is mauled to death by dogs (offscreen), one of the nastiest deaths in the entire Bond series. Given that it follows a typical foiled assassination on Bond, replete with snappy one-liner, it feels pretty distasteful. Ditto a rather unpleasant poison gas scene later on. Moore is starting to look too old to play Bond. By rights, this should have been his last film. The next one, For Your Eyes Only, tried to bring the series back to some kind of sanity, but Moore carried on for two more films after that, by which point he was pushing sixty. He doesn't do anything in Moonraker that is different to what he does in all his other Bond films. The other series regulars are all present - this was the great Bernard Lee's last appearance as M. French actor Michael Lonsdale is good as Drax. He plays him a bit more softly than the part perhaps calls for, and can't quite hide the faint embarrassment he must have felt. But he has a goatee and a collarless jacket, which are always good villainous signifiers. Lois Chiles as Holly, the Bond girl, is also good. She's almost as annoying as Moore himself in her early scenes, so they're well matched. Although the theme tune, sung by Shirley Bassey, is one of the series' least memorable, John Barry's incidental music is generally good. Moonraker has the usual Bond film succession of exotic locations and expensive hotels (and throws in modish shots of space shuttles and Concorde). It borrows a lot from earlier Bond movies, including a scene in which Bond is trapped in a piece of equipment that threatens to kill him (from Thunderball); a scene in which a wild carnival is going on in a tropical city (Thunderball again); and a villainous death that I shan't spoil, but which is like another famous villainous death turned up to eleven. But whatever its strengths as a Bond film, this one ultimately falls down because it ends with a clunking great laser battle straight out of the Roger Corman book of Star Wars rip-offs. Taking Bond into space was a mistake because after that, there was nowhere bigger and better for him to go, unless he'd become god or something. He was brought back to earth in his next few films, but it wasn't until they'd prised Moore away from the series that they were able to try anything seriously different, and it didn't really work when they did. The Bond films come across surprisingly well on Blu-ray. There's nothing revelatory about them - they look like they did before, only better. You can certainly see every wrinkle on Roger Moore's face with perfect clarity. There's a good level of detail visible that wasn't before, and there's no visible digital sheen or other weirdness. All in all, this looks pretty damn good. There are plenty of extras on this disk, which I think replicate those on the most recent DVD releases. There are various promotional films from the time it was released, and a substantial modern 'making of' film (45 minutes long). As on other Bond releases, this is good and comprehensive, covering everything from pre-production to reception, and features contributions from surviving cast and crew, and archive interviews with people no longer alive. There's also a rather dull directors' commentary; and a sort-of commentary from Moore, although as he admits, he doesn't remember too much about the film now, and talks about various other things throughout. He's often silent for long stretches, but is a likeable enough old boy when he gets going. The problem with the extras is that the navigation is irritating in the extreme. The titles of categories aren't obvious, and it took me far too long to find the documentary I wanted to see. They've tried to be clever, but ultimately all they've done is annoy me. Still, I bought it mainly to check out the film, which I'd not seen in ages. It's absolutely ridiculous, and occasionally really, really annoying; but for all that, I still have some fondness for it. Read the complete review |
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Lethal Weapon 1-4 (Blu-ray)
by Reviewmasterz The best cop action film I have ever seen is Lethal Weapon 1. The sequels 2,3 and 4 are the cream on the cake. Mel and Danny are the best cop buddies in movie history, the humour and laughter alone make them stand out. But the action comes, the films come into their own. Mel Gibson's crying seen was how I started to ... judge actors. Can they then cry as well as Mel, as so many actors are false. You watch and see what I mean. Ok the film is not perfect in terms of production, such as when Mel jumps from a building in handcuffs, but they come apart and he holds hands with his co-jumper. Or where a little biy witnesses a house explosion, and you can see him waiting for his lines when he moves his mouth to the words his fellow actor is saying. But the film has a brilliant simple story, beginning, middle and end. There is cleverly staged shoot 'em ups, and you crave to watch the next film. Enjoy, you won't find better. Turning to the quality of the discs, well blu-ray makes everything that bit clearer and sharper, you cannot watch it in better resolution. Read the complete review |
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James Bond Collection Vol.1 (Blu-ray)
by hogsflesh This Blu-ray boxset is currently about £22 on amazon. Despite it being released three years ago, there do not seem to be any immediate plans to release a second boxset. The Bond films are iconic, so rushing them out on Blu-ray was a logical step. They have enough nostalgia and lad-mag appeal to still be popular, and since ... they'd been given a brand spanking new DVD release in 2005 anyway, that meant that the extras from that could be reused. The six films in the set contain some surprising choices, though. At six or seven disks per boxset, they could easily have released three reasonably logical collections of pre-Daniel Craig Bond. Instead they've gone with what I guess they thought would sell best. No Dalton or Lazenby here. We get the first two films, which is unsurprising. But then, instead of perennial favourite Goldfinger, we get the overlong Thunderball. And Although Live and Let Die is a no-brainer, either Moonraker or The Spy Who Loved Me would have been more popular choices than For Your Eyes Only. Most perverse of all is the omission of Goldeneye in favour of Die Another Day. *Dr No* The first Bond film (1962) establishes some of the conventions of the series, but until its rather unlikely climax, is far more a straight-up spy thriller than the later entries. Mild self-parody was always a feature of the Bond movies, which is why the spoof Casino Royale and all those Matt Helm movies were so unsuccessful. In his first film, although there's an underground base, there are no gadgets, car chases, superhumanly strong henchmen or pre-credits fight scenes. It doesn't even have its own theme tune really, going from the Bond Theme into a calypso version of Three Blind Mice. But what it does have, which makes it successful right from the outset, is Sean Connery. Easily the best of all the Bonds, Connery is sardonic, graceful, and politely nasty (without being the out-and-out prick the character is in the books). He hasn't yet acquired the slightly arrogant swagger of later films, but this was his first big starring role, and he must have had as many doubts as anyone. Bernard Lee (M) and Lois Maxwell (Moneypenny) are also present and fill their parts perfectly. The Bond girl is probably the most famous, Ursula Andress, whose rise from the sea wearing only a bikini was considered powerfully erotic at the time. Andress's career never really went anywhere, and she eventually ended up doing terrible exploitation films. The villain, Dr No, is a bit of an obvious Fu Manchu copy, even resorting to poisonous arachnids as an assassination method. His main novelty is that he has metal hands, which raises some uncomfortable questions about going to the toilet. Although it fills the screen with exotic locations (Jamaica, in this case), this is a cheaper film than later entries, and rougher round the edges. The climactic action scene isn't really all that exciting, and there are some fumbled moments (we clearly see Connery's stunt double's face in one scene, and can see Andress's bathing suit on at least two occasions when we're supposed to believe she's nude). But it sets the series up nicely enough. *From Russia With Love* This is my favourite Bond film. It's a low-key affair, with only the ownership of a Russian decoding device at stake. Evil organisation SPECTRE plays the British and Russians off against one another, trying to snare Bond in a classic honeytrap in Istanbul by having him seduced by a keen young Russian girl (played by the delectable Italian Daniela Bianchi). It's the first film to feature criminal mastermind Ernst Stavro Blofeld, although we didn't get to see his face for a few films. The other villains are terrific. Robert Shaw as Red Grant is great as the 'anti-Bond', basically the same as 007 but working for the other side. His class-based dislike of the effortlessly upper-class Bond is delightful, and he is one of the few villains to comprehensively outwit our hero. Lotte Lenya (once Berthold Brecht's mistress) has a lot of fun as the evil, spike-shoed lesbian Rosa Kleb, and there's a great evil chess player, Kronsteen. Also very good is Pedro Armendáriz as Kerim Bey, one of the most appealing allies Bond ever had in the films (and certainly better than any of the movie versions of Felix Leiter, his best buddy in the books). Other firsts in this include Desmond Llewelyn as Boothroyd, the gadgets man (he is referred to as 'Q' in subsequent films). It is the first to feature a pre-credits action scene (one which is tied into the main plot in a way that later films didn't really follow). Best of all, this is the first film to feature John Barry's incidental music, which came to define the series, and still evokes the mixture of exoticism, overblown action and sophistication that characterises the early films. As with Dr No, this is a fairly modest spy thriller, without even the secret island base of the first film. Most of the best scenes take place on the Orient Express, and Bond's gadgets don't include anything too unrealistic. Connery is at his best here. It's also the one with the fighting gypsy girls, which, like Ursula rising from the waves, was doubtless sexy at the time, but now just seems screamingly camp. *Thunderball* This is one of my least favourite Bond films. The fourth film, it is also one of the longest. Two hours and ten minutes is too much for a Bond film, especially one with so little variety in it. Bond has to track down some stolen nuclear bombs, which have been acquired by SPECTRE's agent, Largo. Not an unreasonable plot, but it's set mostly in the Bahamas, and we're subjected to immensely long underwater sequences which bring the film to a grinding halt. The climactic battle underwater is particularly unengaging. Presumably this was all cutting edge stuff in 1964, but now it drags, and you yearn for a good old-fashioned gun battle. There are other hefty problems. This was the fourth Bond film - between From Russia... and this they released Goldfinger. More than any other film, Goldfinger defined how the series would develop. Possibly its most famous feature was the ridiculous gadget laden Aston Martin (wheeled out again in this film). Now Bond was always going to be provided with a collection of ludicrous, curiously specific gadgets which were obviously designed by someone who knew the story in advance. Here we have perhaps the stupidest moment in any Bond film (Moonraker excepted, naturally), where 007, fleeing from a couple of thugs, produces a clunky great jet pack from nowhere and flies off. This highlights the main problem with Bond. He's basically invincible now. In previous films we saw him get captured, beaten up, injured, tricked. Here he is practically psychic, managing to resist being shot in the back more times than you care to remember. Connery's performance by now is more smug than likeable. There are also issues with SPECTRE, the organisation of evil geniuses. Why is no one allowed to see Blofeld's face? (The characters saw it in the previous film, although the audience didn't)? How is it practical to have a hierarchical organisation in which no one knows what the man they take orders from looks like? Especially when he's based in the same building as the rest of them. How do the secretaries and secrurity guards know he's him? Also, why does this super-duper secret organisation have its members wear a huge, instantly recognisable ring with their logo on it? It's no wonder they always get beaten. There are a few good points. The cast is good, especially Claudine Auger as the Bond girl and Adolfo Celi as Largo. The music is particularly good, as well, although the exciting battle music can't make the battle scene exciting. Tom Jones' theme song is terrific. But there's not a lot to be said in Thunderball's favour otherwise. Octopussy and Diamonds Are Forever are the only times the series got this bad again. *Live and Let Die* Made in 1973, this is Roger Moore's first Bond film. Although he largely coasts on mannerisms he had honed in a decade's worth of undemanding TV adventure shows, he doesn't have the smug can't-really-be-bothered attitude Connery had in his later Bond films. But while the Connery movies are full of big moments and genuine exoticism, the Moore films seem somehow smaller, less significant. The Moore Bond movies are essentially big-budget exploitation flicks, with popular trash cinema trends being given the Bond treatment. His later films would see him meddle with kung fu and sci fi. This movie opts for blaxploitation. This is a bit of a problem, as it can't help but feel slightly racist. The villain, Katanga (Yaphet Kotto), is great, but it feels like every single black guy in New York works for him. The chief henchman, Tee Hee, has one of the daftest of gimmicks (a really clunky false arm). And the Bond girl is Jane Seymour, who is kind of cute, but you can't separate her from her later, vile career. It's cowardly to have a Bond film with a largely black supporting cast and have the Bond girl played by a white woman (although the supplementary Bond girl is black). Other problems with the film are a speedboat chase that seems to last for a month (the pacing of the action scenes is slow in all the Bond films pre-Brosnan). There's a staggeringly unendearing comedy sheriff. And although Paul McCartney's opening theme is superb - one of the best, and Macca's best tune post-Beatles - the incidental music by George Martin lacks the dynamism the series usually had. On the plus side, the voodoo stuff is genuinely atmospheric, and Baron Samedi one of the best supporting villains. The plot, concerning heroin smuggling, is a bit more convincing than usual (although the hi-tech base underneath a sacred voodoo site on a Caribbean island seems ridiculous). And the funeral stuff in New Orleans is also well done and kind of macabre. Not a dead loss. *For Your Eyes Only* Although not Roger Moore's most popular Bond film, For Your Eyes Only (1981) is one of his better ones. After the silliness of Moonraker, Bond is involved in an almost realistic story in which he has to prevent a missile targeting computer from falling into Soviet hands. The small scale plot is a throwback to From Russia With Love, and the emphasis on undersea scenes reminds you of Thunderball, without going to such tedious lengths. There's a lot that's good in this film. It begins with Bond leaving flowers on his wife's grave, an unusually sombre touch. The Bond girl is played by the beautiful Carole Bouquet (an actress with a serious arthouse pedigree), and she is for once a fairly well-realised character - a Greek woman looking to avenge the deaths of her parents. (I wonder if the Marvel comics character Elektra, who has a very similar origin story and is known to kill with a crossbow, might have been based on her.) The villains are also great - chilly Julian Glover (always terrific) and scummy Michael Gothard (likewise). The ever-entertaining Topol gets a juicy supporting part. And the comic car chase is one of the best in the entire Bond series, with the ski chase also being above average. But there are some serious problems. The main one is Moore. He isn't really suited to this more serious story, but the main issue is that he's simply too old. He was 54 when this was released, and scenes where he scales a sheer rock face or ski jumps are simply ludicrous. There's an irritating comedy schoolgirl ice skater who attempts to seduce Bond, which would just about be acceptable if he was played by a younger man, but opposite Moore is just creepy. There's also an annoying fight on an ice rink with a particularly stupid pay-off; and a misconceived 'comedy' ending involving a Mrs Thatcher impersonator. Probably the worst aspect is the music, which is horribly 80s and has none of the timeless, epic sweep of the John Barry scores. The theme tune, by Sheena Easton, is forgettable (something you could say about Sheena Easton herself), and there's a terrible computer sequence in the film that seems far more dated than any of the 60s décor in the Connery movies. Q is becoming irritating, and Moneypenny is much too old for girlish flirting. For all this film's strengths, this is a series in need of a change. Sadly, it was still several years away. Something else that bothers me about this era of Bond is the character of the Minister of Defence, who appears in every Bond film from 1977 to 1987. If he's Minister in 1977, he must be Labour. But from 1979 onwards, Mrs Thatcher was in power (she appears in this film to prove it). *Die Another Day* This is the last of the Brosnan Bond films, and is quite a leap in years from the previous movie in the set (it's from 2002). Goldeneye revived the series after the miscalculation of License to Kill, throwing in a whole bunch of in-jokes, while Brosnan - the best Bond since Connery - added vulnerability to the character. By this, his fourth film, the gloss had come off a bit, as the rather interchangeable follow-ups to Goldeneye just trod water. Die Another Day was the twentieth official Bond film, and is packed full of references to earlier films - these aren't too obtrusive, but there are probably too many of them. This begins promisingly, with Bond captured and tortured for a year by the North Koreans. Unfortunately, after that it degenerates into the usual runaround. There are some great action sequences, but the story is irritating, and it's impossible to care whether the villains succeed in their silly plot or not. Although it's slight and silly, it doesn't really do much wrong. The only serious annoyance is a pointless cameo by Madonna, which serves no purpose except to remind us what a dreadful actress she is. She also sings the theme tune, which is probably the weakest in the series' history - all the Brosnan theme songs are forgettable, sadly. The rest of the music is good, though. David Arnold is the first composer since John Barry to really capture the essence of great Bond music. The cast are good, as well. Apart from the splendid Brosnan, series regulars Judi Dench, John Cleese, Samantha Bond and Colin Salmon are all on good form. Thirty years after Live and Let Die, Bond is finally allowed to have an African American love interest, and Halle Berry is one of the best Bond girls of all, 007's equal in every way. Rosamund Pike is cute as the secondary Bind girl, and Toby Stephens is terrific as the villain, Gustav Graves, giving one of his typically OTT performances. The real problem with these late Bond films is that they feel too calculated, too tightly controlled. They're obviously product to feed a franchise, rather than films intended to have any identity of their own. While certainly enjoyable, Die Another Day isn't terribly memorable. I'm not sure the way the series went afterwards was really the right one, but a change certainly was needed. *Blu-ray and extras* The early Bond films are surprisingly good Blu-ray transfers. The colours are rich and convincing and the level of detail impressively high. They're not as revelatory as some older films, and I guess there were already pretty good quality versions on DVD, so it's not a huge leap up. But they're certainly better, and if you want to count the hairs on Connery's chest or the wrinkles on Moore's face, then now's your chance. Die Another Day looks much the same as when it was released, unsurprisingly. If you're a fan of Bond it's probably worth upgrading to Blu-ray, although they don't seem to be in any hurry to release the rest of the series (you can get Moonraker and Goldfinger separately, but no others in the UK). Each disk has a hefty selection of extras, too many to go into any real detail. I think they replicate the extras from the most recent DVD releases, and documentaries etc aren't in HD. The main feature on each disk is an extensive 'making of' for each film. These are of some interest, and are pretty comprehensive. But because they're the 'official' versions, there's not much controversy in them. They're beefed up with trailers and puff pieces made at the time of the films' releases. There are also commentaries on each film. The Connery films get the director and other crew members. These aren't interesting enough for me to have got all the way through. Roger Moore does commentaries on his Bond films, but although personable enough, he often doesn't have much to say, leaving long, awkward silences. He often just comments on what we're seeing rather than providing memories or anecdotes: 'a beautiful, beautiful girl.' Pierce Brosnan does a commentary for his film, and he's quite entertaining, but like Moore, obviously has difficulty finding enough to say to fill the whole film. Rosamund Pike joins in at various points. This is a decent boxset (now it's cheap). If you're a fan of the series you could do worse. I'd guess most people have seen these films often enough not to make it anything like an essential purchase, but I'd say the HD improves things just about enough to make these worth checking out. I just wish they'd included a slightly better collection of films. Read the complete review |
Action & Adventure Blu-Ray Movie |
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Genre: Action & Adventure / Blu-Ray Movie / Suitable for 12 years and over / Actors: Sylvester Stallone, Talia Shire, Burt Young, Carl Weathers ... / Blu-ray released 2009-10-26 at 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment |
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Genre: Action & Adventure / Blu-Ray Movie / Suitable for 18 years and over / Director: Gareth Evans / Actors: Iko Uwais, Joe Taslim, Doni Alamsyah, Yayan Ruhian, Pierre Gruno ... / Blu-ray released 2012-09-24 at Momentum Pictures Home Ent |
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Genre: Action & Adventure / Blu-Ray Movie / Suitable for 12 years and over / Actors: Sam Worthington, Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes ... / Blu-ray released 2012-10-15 at Warner Home Video |
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Genre: Action & Adventure / Blu-Ray Movie / Suitable for 12 years and over / Director: Christopher Nolan / Actors: Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Liam Neeson, Cillian Murphy, Gary Oldman ... / Blu-ray released 2012-06-25 at Warner Home Video |
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Genre: Action & Adventure / Blu-Ray Movie / Suitable for 12 years and over / Director: Christopher Nolan / Actors: Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Heath Ledger, Aaron Eckhart, Gary Oldman ... / Blu-ray released 2012-06-25 at Warner Home Video |
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Genre: Action & Adventure / Blu-Ray Movie / To Be Announced / Director: James Cameron / Actors: Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet, Billy Zane, Kathy Bates, Bernard Hill ... / Blu-ray released 2012-09-10 at 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment |
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Genre: Action & Adventure / Blu-Ray Movie / Suitable for 12 years and over / Director: Christopher Nolan / Actors: Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Heath Ledger, Liam Neeson, Gary Oldman ... / Blu-ray released 2012-06-18 at Warner Home Video |
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Genre: Action & Adventure / Blu-Ray Movie / Suitable for 15 years and over / Director: Boaz Yakin / Actors: Jason Statham, Catherine Chan, Chris Sarandon, James Hong, Reggie Lee ... / Blu-ray released 2012-09-10 at Momentum Pictures Home Ent |
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Genre: Action & Adventure / Blu-Ray Movie / Suitable for 15 years and over / Director: Adam McKay / Actors: Mark Wahlberg, Will Ferrell, Samuel L. Jackson, Dwayne Johnson, Michael Keaton ... / Blu-ray released 2011-01-24 at Sony Pictures Home Entertainment / Features of the Blu-ray: Subtitled |
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Genre: Action & Adventure / Blu-Ray Movie / Suitable for 12 years and over / Director: Steven Spielberg / Actors: Harrison Ford ... / Blu-ray released 2012-10-08 at Paramount Home Entertainment |
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