November Films

Quantum of Solace. When the James Bond series started they followed on from each other rather than standing alone (for example Blofeld kills Bond's wife at the end of OHMSS and Diamonds are Forever with Bond hunting down Blofeld to take revenge for killing his wife) and this film does the same starting minutes after Casino Royale finished. The story of the film is that through Mr. White who is interrogated at the begining of the film an unknown criminal organisation is uncoverred and the clues leading to a man, Dominic Green, who is part of this crminal organisation who is hatching a sinister plot to seize resources in Bolivia. One of the problems with the film is that this is the entire plot. The film has slick exciting action sequences and Bond's character is well developed but simply not enough happens. Also the filmakers are still nervous to include the trappings of the old Bond such as the walk across the screen at the beginning, now at the end, and the theme tune is conspicuous by its absense. The film is very well acted, however, and a strongert plot could have seen it be on a level with the likes of Goldfinger, Goldeneye and now Casino Royale in the franchise, however in its current state it just doesn't quite get there, 7/10.
The Mutant Chronicles. I have a soft spot for they're so bad they're good films, however this isn't quite one of those. Rule number one of cinema (probably no. 27 due to the amount of rules no. 1 of cinema)if you call your film the mutant chronicles you cannot then take it seriously. This film does take itself seriously, however, which is a pity because visually the film is stunning. The film is set hundreds of years in the future, the Earth is ruled by 4 corporations that fight wars with each other for the world's remaining resources. The film opens with a WW1 style trench warfare battle in which an alien machine that has been on the planet for thousands of years in uncovered that starts turning mankind's dead and dying into mutants. The only people who know how to stop mankind fromm being wiped out is a group of monks who have been preparing for this for hundreds of years, cue gratuitous violence. Consequently the film is very depressing, it doesn't matter how much style you have in type of film if there isn't some tongue in cheek humour to grease the wheels and there isn't any, 4/10.
The Baader Meinhof Complex. This film telling the story of the notorious West German terrorist group in the late 1960s and early 1970s is an interesting story of how easy it is once you have started down a road of violence for it to overwhelm your principles. I cover this in another post but for all that the film is very well made and very well acted. At 2 1/2 hours it is overly long and half an hour could have been easily shaved off the start and is very far from an enjoyable film but a good film, 7/10.
Max Payne. Like with the Mutant Chronicles I have a soft spot for films of games if they are prepared to not take themselves too seriously, Doom was enjoyable for that one reason. Max Payne, however, seems so interested in following as rigidly to the game plot (I assume it's the game plot as there is no other reason for having it) as possible that it forgets to make the viewer want to watch it. The only parts of the film that are particularly entertaining are when he haluncinates Valkyrie which are Norse mythical creatures that are basically monsters with wings and I couldn't help wishing that he were fighting these instead of old white men, 3/10.
Body of Lies. Over the past 30 years Sir Ridley Scott has been consistently one of the best directors in Hollywood and is one of he most accomplished directors in history never to have won an Oscar. Body of Lies is his attempt at a film about Iraq. The film i about a CIA agent on the ground in the Middle East (Leonardo Di Caprio) trying to locate the leader of an offshoot of Al Qaeda and his boss (Russell Crowe) who is directing operations from the USA. There have been a number of films about Iraq and the Middle East of the past few years, the best of which was Lions for Lanmbs which appealed much more to the academic than the actions seeking. Body of lies attempts to do both, there is quite a lot of action but the film is about the story and the interaction between Di Caprio, Crowe and the head of Jordanian intelligence. The issue for this film was alkways going to be that because of the films about this sort of thing before, can this film do anything new and can it make its point and be a good film? In the most part the film is across between 2 of last year's films: Rendition (dir. Gavin Hood, 2007) and The Kingdom (dir. Peter Berg) both of which were mediocre films that sacrificed plot for controversy and made very modest box office takings as a result and have already been virtually forgotten. However, Sir Ridley Scott is one of the fathers of the modern blockbuster, he knows how to make a film watchable. The film has received a number of lukewarm reviews, for the most part because there is a lot of talking and also there are a number of characters in the film who exist solely for cinematic purposes like the nurse Di Caprio falls for. But these characters are what make the film enjoyable and the film makes its point well with a good plot twist at the very end which gave the film the ending it needed. The cast is strong, the visuals are good and the script works, 8/10.