Eben07

Oct09

21. A View to a Kill

by EBurgoon on October 9, 2012 at 7:07 am

View to a Kill (1985)

A VIEW TO A KILL

Number 21 of 22 James Bond Films

Christopher Walken steps into the shoes of a classic Bond mastermind bad-guy. Monologue-y and megalomaniacal! It’s a deadly combo.

PLOT

James Bond – in an operation that should really be reserved for espionage janitors – tracks down the last known location of 003 and uncovers an EMP-resistant microchip made by Zorin Industries.

Max Zorin, played by Christopher Walken, is a billionaire industrialist who was contracted by the government to make these chips, cheats like Lance Armstrong when it comes to horseracing, and turns out to have been installed by the KGB but has now gone rogue with plans to destroy the Silicon Valley and become the only makers of microchips in world.

The whole plan unravels as Grace Jones turncoats on Zorin and blows herself up, then Zorin escapes in a blimp, setting up some lovely shots of San Francisco, but it ends with an an axe fight and the dangers of playing with dynamite on the Golden Gate Bridge.
That last part sounds a lot cooler than it is…

Why is it #21 instead of #22?

I think the main reason I let this one edge out Die Another Day was Christopher Walken. He did a pretty good job of being an over the top, but classic James Bond villain. I found him to be a good matchup against Moore. I’ve never enjoyed Moore’s Bond because he can be so cheesy. In the same way it’s near impossible to enjoy old Batman because of the camp factor. This movie sort of has a good balance of that Moore cheese with the Walken… well… Walken.
May Day was also another reason, here was a pretty classic right hand henchman, spun in the direction of this amazonian warrior lady that had equal skillset to Bond. Die Another Day tries to do a similar thing on the side of good, but while Grace Jones delivers, Halle Berry just sort of fell flat in her role opposite Bond.
Die Another Day is completely missing an antagonist that feels threatening or really all that crazy. With Walken as Zorin, I at least feel the man is crazy enough to do what he says.
Plus, I’m pretty sure this movie is just The Social Network part two and Max Zorin is really just an older and crazy Mark Zuckerburg getting revenge on the haters of Facebook going public.

└ Tags: Best

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Oct07

22. Die Another Day

by EBurgoon on October 7, 2012 at 11:02 am

Posted In: Blog Entries

Die Another Day (2002)

Die Another Day came out in 2002 and was billed to be a 40th anniversary Bond movie that seemed desperate to walk the audience through the last 40 years of James Bond films by dropping in props from the previous movies and razzle dazzle with the whopping 140 million dollar budget.

PLOT

Face-changing North Korean’s get access to giant space magnifying glass intended to give crops sunshine all year long will instead be weaponized by turning it up to 11 and burn South Korea to a crisp. All the crazy stuff has been paid for by conflict diamonds.

Halle Berry and Rosamund Pike were the Bond girls in this film.

MY TWO CENTS

The main reason I find this Bond film at the bottom of my list is that it had a very loose story that seemed to be more in service of the action sequences and less about trying to get us to believe Rosamund Pike’s character was a traitor, that the billionaire sword fighting British gentleman wasn’t really the evil Korean man Bond “killed” earlier in the film. I remember seeing it and feeling like this would be the last James Bond movie under Brosnan… and possibly ever. Which really disappointed me as I was a big fan of Brosnan’s portrayal of Bond. There was also a lot of rumor at the time that the whole thing was just a vehicle to get Halle Berry her own spinoff series about her NSA agent, Jinx.

The opening credits dealing with Bond being tortured by the North Koreans was pretty much dropped about halfway through, and the whole point of it seemed just to be so he could “go rogue” and look over all the obsolete Bond gear from the last 40 years. It was fun fan service, but it felt like it was just that and that alone. Appreciated, sure, but I think overall didn’t feel natural to me.

In the end, it was a big let down of a Bond movie that didn’t take advantage of it’s cast’s ability and instead felt focused solidly on big action and CG effects.