Opened 25 Years Ago: STRANGE DAYS (10/13/1995)

 

STRANGE DAYS
(US - 1995)
Directed by Kathryn Bigelow

STRANGE DAYS opening in Toledo, OH on 10/13/1995

On Blu-ray/DVD: OFFICIAL SECRETS (2019) and MARY (2019)

OFFICIAL SECRETS 
(Canada/UK/China/US/Switzerland - 2019)

The saga of British whistleblower Katherine Gun is, at least stateside, one of the least-remembered chapters of the misguided journey to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. In a way, it's oddly fitting that OFFICIAL SECRETS, which stars Keira Knightley as Gun, was barely released in theaters by IFC Films. That's a shame, because it's a well-done political thriller as well as a solid investigative journalism drama from director/co-writer Gavin Hood, who most recently helmed 2016's riveting drone strike nailbiter EYE IN THE SKY. As the film opens in January 2003, Katherine, who was raised in Taiwan by British parents, works as a Mandarin translator for GCHQ, the signals intelligence division of the British government. It's a largely uneventful job until her entire department is sent a mysterious e-mail from the NSA that goes into detail about an intelligence plot between the US and UK governments to essentially bully and blackmail the less powerful members of the UN Security Council into going to war with Iraq under the guise of Saddam Hussein having WMDs. As everyone has signed an agreement that every aspect of their work falls under the 1989 "Official Secrets" Act, none of Katherine's co-workers give the e-mail much thought and refrain from discussing it. But she's troubled enough by its implications that she passes it on to a trusted government employee friend (MyAnna Buring), who in turn passes it to a controversial activist (Hattie Morahan) who then forwards it to Observer staff writer Martin Bright (Matt Smith). The Observer is fully onboard with the coming war, much to the chagrin of their bad-tempered US politics columnist Ed Vulliamy (Rhys Ifans), who berates managing editor Roger Alton (Conleth Hill) with frequent tirades that they should be doing their jobs as reporters instead of regurgitating Prime Minister Tony Blair's press releases. Alton reluctantly lets Bright run with the story, which eventually blows up in Katherine's face, as she never thought anything would come of it, and now the intelligence higher-ups are calling in the interrogators and breaking out the lie detectors because they know the leak had to come from the GCHQ department.

The resulting shitstorm offers Katherine the usual Alan J. Pakula-esque paranoia of bugged phones, surveillance, and being followed everywhere she goes, and it very nearly gets Katherine's Muslim husband Yasar (Adam Bakri) deported to Iraq. She eventually retains the services of civil liberties attorney Ben Emmerson (Ralph Fiennes) when it becomes clear that the British government intends to prosecute her and send her to prison, with the added threat that even discussing any aspects of the case with a lawyer is itself cause for more charges of violating the Official Secrets Act. OFFICIAL SECRETS is a compelling drama that hits the ground running (it's not even 20 minutes in before we get a clandestine meeting in a dimly-lit parking garage), with a credible and restrained performance by Knightley that wisely avoids all the big awards-bait moments to keep her depiction of Katherine Gun as grounded as possible. The back end does suffer from a bit of some fawning Gun hagiography, and it may seem a little fashionably late as far as Iraq War-related movies go, but for the most part, OFFICIAL SECRETS is a fine film that deserved more attention than it got and probably could've been a decent word-of-mouth hit on the arthouse circuit (other familiar faces in the solid ensemble cast include Matthew Goode, Jeremy Northam, Indira Varma, and Kenneth Cranham). The closing scene, and particularly Fiennes' final line, would've been a real crowd-pleaser. (R, 112 mins)



MARY
(US/Canada - 2019)

Remember when Gary Oldman won an Oscar for 2017's DARKEST HOUR? By any chance, does Gary Oldman remember? Just a few months ago, he appeared in the unwatchable support-group-for-assassins "comedy" KILLERS ANONYMOUS and he currently stars in the straight-to-VOD actioner THE COURIER (don't worry, I'm sure I'll get to it soon enough), where he's second-billed to Olga Kurylenko, currently third on the action heroine depth chart behind Milla Jovovich and Noomi Rapace. These aren't the kind of projects you tackle when you've just been awarded an actor's highest honor. They're the kind of jobs Nicolas Cage accepts to pay his bills for another month. And in the case with the moronic "possessed yacht" horror movie MARY, it's even worse as Oldman reportedly stepped in to replace--wait for it--Nicolas Cage. Dude, you're less than two years out from an Academy Award and you're taking Nicolas Cage's 2019 turndowns? To damn with faint praise, MARY is slightly better than KILLERS ANONYMOUS, but then, so are most new Nic Cage movies. MARY is a weak hodgepodge of at least a half-dozen underdeveloped ideas that are mostly abandoned amidst the incoherent mayhem that develops. Oldman phones it in as Dave, a Florida fisherman who impulsively buys a ramshackle old yacht called Mary in an attempt to set up his own boat charter business. It's also his way of trying to bring his family back together after his wife Sarah (Emily Mortimer) had a brief fling that put a strain on both their marriage and her relationship with their oldest daughter Lindsey (Stefanie Scott), while younger daughter Mary (Chloe Perrin) remains blissfully unaware of all the tension. I don't know...if Dave thinks buying a shitty old boat is gonna save his marriage, then I can see why Sarah stepped out on him.

They set sail on the Mary for a journey to the waters of Bermuda (uh oh), along with Dave's friend and business partner Mike (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo) and Lindsey crush Tommy (Owen Teague), and it isn't long before strange shit starts happening: Mary has a new imaginary friend and is drawing creepy pictures and smashes a glass in Lindsey's face (the only genuinely shocking moment); Tommy carves a symbol into his chest and attacks Dave; a ghostly figure pulls some INSIDIOUS jump scare moves on Sarah; and Mike loses it and tries to throw the family overboard. The entire film is told in flashback by Sarah to Jacksonville detective Clarkson (Jennifer Esposito), who's been brought in by the Coast Guard after Sarah and her daughters appeared to be the only survivors of a shipwreck. Clarkson quickly recommends a padded cell and a psych eval after listening to Sarah's story of a possessed boat and that "Evil needs a body to exist...the body was that boat." Written by Anthony Jaswinski (THE SHALLOWS) and directed by Michael Goi (who's helmed several episodes of AMERICAN HORROR STORY), MARY revels in every hackneyed horror cliche in the book, like Sarah conveniently finding a scrapbook of old-timey news clippings--that look like they were quickly generated on a production assistant's laptop that morning--detailing all the crews that set sail on the Mary going back to 1883 and were never seen again, and that the ghost haunting the ship is that of the drowned daughter of the very first Mary captain. Who left the scrapbook there for her? The ghost? That was awfully helpful of her. And how powerful is this malevolent spirit when Sarah can incapacitate it with a flare gun? The closing credits roll at 77 minutes after a twist ending you'll absolutely see coming, and the only mystery is why Oldman (and Mortimer, for that matter) is wasting his time with junk like this. The guy pretty much swept the Best Actor category throughout the 2018 awards season. I'd like to think he could parlay that into something more substantive than "Gary Oldman's MOON IN SCORPIO." (R, 84 mins)

On DVD/Blu-ray: RAMPAGE: PRESIDENT DOWN (2016); A BIGGER SPLASH (2016); and THE DARKNESS (2016)

RAMPAGE: PRESIDENT DOWN
(Canada - 2016)

The finale to Uwe Boll and Brendan Fletcher's RAMPAGE trilogy is the clumsiest and preachiest yet. On the positive side, Boll seems to be walking back his gushing admiration for Fletcher's insane lone-wolf domestic terrorist Bill Williamson. Where the first sequel RAMPAGE: CAPITAL PUNISHMENT felt like a love letter to mass shooters, PRESIDENT DOWN at least admits that words and actions have consequences and by the end, Bill is most certainly the villain with a lot of blood on his hands. But the road there is paved with some welcome bits of old-school Boll idiocy that's not helped by the director struggling with his lowest budget yet. His German tax shelter heyday of being able to afford the likes of Ben Kingsley, Jason Statham, and Burt Reynolds a fading memory, Boll can't even corral cheap labor on the level of past RAMPAGE co-stars like Matt Frewer or Lochlyn Munro. Boll unsuccessfully tried to crowdfund the film--originally titled RAMPAGE 3: NO MERCY--on Indiegogo and Kickstarter but failed to meet his goal, leading to an inevitable YouTube meltdown excoriating fans for giving their money to Hollywood studios while not helping out important artists like Dr. Uwe Boll. So with a lot less money at his disposal, Boll relies heavily on flashbacks and stock footage from the first two films, and mainly has Fletcher's Bill posting YouTube rants from his hiding place in the middle of nowhere, which may be the perfect metaphor for 2016 Uwe Boll.

Long thought dead after the events of the previous film, Bill emerges from hiding to assassinate the President, Vice President, and Secretary of Defense during a speech to Congress. Of course, how he manages to accomplish this is a mystery, since it happens offscreen. The FBI, vowing to get to the bottom of the assassinations, assigns two--yes, two--agents, Molokai (Steve Baran) and Jones (Ryan McDonnell) and a Bureau computer expert (Scott Patey) to run the investigation out of what looks like an underfunded police precinct. Bill manages to hack into their computer system with the help of a mole inside the FBI, and once Molokai and Jones (worst cop show title ever?) spot him on some surveillance footage outside the White House, he starts taunting them from his undisclosed location and threatening their families. Unfortunately, the agents are unable to convince their bosses that Bill is the culprit because a publicity-hogging ISIS claims responsibility for the assassinations, prompting the reactionary new Commander-in-Chief to round up all the Muslims and Syrian refugees in the US, close all the mosques, and nuke the Middle East "with the full support of Russia and China." The notion of an irrational, knee-jerk US President content with blowing up a good chunk of the world is an uncomfortably prescient notion that Boll completely sidesteps and never mentions again. There's no satire, no poking people with sticks--instead, the focus is on Molokai and Jones finding out where Bill is hiding and leading a raid where of course, Bill gets the edge on everyone, but Jones makes it easy by not even bothering to wear a bulletproof vest.

The message is muddled: Bill says he wants a world without violence in a film that opens with him shooting a random pedestrian in cold blood and concludes with him killing about a hundred FBI agents. Nothing here makes sense: why does Bill suddenly have a girlfriend (Crystal Lowe) and a kid? And how can he be presumed dead when he's actively posting videos to his YouTube channel to his legion of supporters? And when news of the assassinations of the President, VP, and Defense Secretary hits the wire, watch the only two news anchors seen in the film exclaim "Oh my God! The President is dead!" as the camera pans down to her reading the info off of a second page, as if that news a) would come over a teletype in 2016, and b) would be relegated to the second page. And are we to believe that the only two guys investigating the murder of the President, VP and Defense Secretary would exit a building and be confronted by one reporter? And it's one of the two news anchors we just saw? Boll ineptly inserts talking points about gun control and police brutality, but then he and Fletcher (they co-wrote the script together) go off on tangents about Hollywood's richest celebrities. There's jabs at Tom Cruise and Jennifer Aniston, and the murders of Taylor Swift, Rihanna, and Mark Zuckerberg among others are announced over the course of the film. These bits sound less like legitimate grievances about tabloid culture and more like a case of sour grapes from Boll and Fletcher because they aren't in the club. Canadian actor Fletcher's been around since the late '90s and was in hits like AIR BUD and FREDDY VS. JASON, and some Canadian arthouse films. He's also made eight movies with Uwe Boll. Dude, maybe that's why you're not in the club. You were in THE REVENANT (notice that Leonardo DiCaprio doesn't make Bill's Hollywood shit list). Maybe take a break from Uwe and start hanging out with Leo or Alejandro Inarritu a little more. You'll have time: Boll was so angry about the lack of fan support for the funding of RAMPAGE: PRESIDENT DOWN that he announced it would be his final film. Indeed, a post-credits stinger finds a pensive Boll tipping his hat to the camera and walking into the sunset. If that's the case, let me just say that for all your many, many faults, you were certainly never boring, Dr. Boll. Thanks for everything. I guess. (Unrated, 100 mins)

A BIGGER SPLASH
(Italy/France - 2016)

The first English-language work by acclaimed Italian filmmaker Luca Guadagnino reunites the director with Tilda Swinton, the star of his 2009 art-house breakthough I AM LOVE. Where that film showcased the director's adoration of all things Stanley Kubrick and Alain Resnais before settling into a sort-of Luchino Visconti autopilot mode (faux-Visconti is something THE GREAT BEAUTY director Paolo Sorrentino does a lot better), A BIGGER SPLASH feels a lot like the 1990s Bernardo Bertolucci that made THE SHELTERING SKY and STEALING BEAUTY. A remake of Jacques Deray's 1969 film LA PISCINE (released in the US as THE SWIMMING POOL), A BIGGER SPLASH is essentially one of these European films where some wealthy bourgeois types get together and things escalate into a powderkeg of unresolved issues and psychosexual mind games. Aging glam rock legend Marianne Lane (Swinton) blows out her voice on tour and has to take a significant amount of time off to recover from vocal cord surgery. She can only speak at a whisper and is convalescing on Pantelleria, off the coast of Sicily with her younger lover, photographer/filmmaker Paul De Smedt (Matthias Schoenaerts). Their days are spent lounging naked by the pool, getting massages, reading, and having a lot of sex until they get an unannounced visit from Harry Hawkes (Ralph Fiennes), Marianne's producer and ex-boyfriend, who's brought along Penelope (Dakota Johnson), the 22-year-old daughter he only recently found out he had. The boisterous, gregarious Harry brings a manic and disruptive presence to their quiet, idyllic getaway, even inviting a couple of other people--Mireille (Aurore Clement) and Sylvie (Lila McMenamy)--along, and it's clear that there's a past between these people that's still gnawing at both Harry and Paul. There's also numerous instances of Harry acting in a not-fatherly way with Penelope, and an uncomfortably close rendition of "Unforgettable" between the two at a karaoke bar creeps out Marianne enough that she confronts him, leading to Harry shouting "I'm not fucking my daughter!" in front of a bunch of people in the street. As Harry keeps professing his love for Marianne, Paul and Penelope go off exploring on their own, and anyone who's ever seen a movie before can see that things aren't going to end well.

Despite the serious subject matter, A BIGGER SPLASH is fairly lighthearted a lot of the time, right down to its slapsticky title that seems more fitting for a romantic comedy. It certainly doesn't portend the shift the story takes in the last 35 or 40 minutes, when an unexpected event occurs that gets the local police involved. A lot of this is due to a rambunctious performance by Fiennes, whose Harry is really a grating, insufferable asshole but the actor finds ways to make you like him and even feel sorry for him. Whether he's yammering on about his sexual exploits (it's suggested that Mireille and Sylvie, who may be mother and daughter, are among his conquests), humble-bragging about his uncredited contributions to the Rolling Stones' 1994 album Voodoo Lounge, or busting out the moves like Jagger while blasting their 1980 hit "Emotional Rescue" (a scene that must be seen to believed), Fiennes is the unabashed show-stealer here and even dominates the film when he's not onscreen. Working with screenwriter David Kajganich (whose credits include, of all things, the underrated 2009 horror movie BLOOD CREEK), Guadagnino leaves enough ambiguity to keep an audience discussing the events after the film is over, and manages to keep things focused even with the many changes in tone and some showboating filmmaking techniques in the early going, things that are mainly used when Fiennes is onscreen to accentuate what a loud jackass Harry can be. Guadagnino, Kajganich, Swinton, and Johnson are tentatively reuniting for the latest announced incarnation of the perpetually in-development remake of Dario Argento's SUSPIRIA. (R, 125 mins)



THE DARKNESS
(US - 2016)

With 2005's WOLF CREEK, Australian filmmaker Greg McLean seemed to be a new voice in horror, but that voice has had nothing to say for several years running. His follow-up film, the outstanding killer crocodile flick ROGUE, was buried by the Weinsteins, and McLean has yet to bounce back, with another six years passing before he resurfaced with the belated and over-the-top WOLF CREEK 2. Working with horror factory Blumhouse, THE DARKNESS is McLean's first Hollywood production and it couldn't possibly be any more predictably generic and lazy. During a family trip to the Grand Canyon, autistic Mikey Taylor (David Mazouz) finds some rocks with strange symbols and takes them as souvenirs. It isn't long before paranormal activity manifests itself back home, with Mikey talking to an unseen entity called "Jenny," and sooty handprints turning up all over the house. Dad Peter (Kevin Bacon, visibly bored) and Mom Bronny (Radha Mitchell) are too preoccupied to notice the supernatural goings-on or that their angry older daughter Stephanie (Lucy Fry) is bulimic and saving containers of her purgings under her bed as a way of acting out her resentment toward Mikey. After more shenanigans, like a possessed Mikey starting a fire and trying to kill his grandmother's cat, and all manner of standard-issue Blumhouse jump scares, Bronny discovers that some Anasazi curse has latched itself to Mikey and starts to believe this is some kind of karmic retribution over her past alcoholism (she falls off the wagon) and Peter's past infidelity (and he's tempted again by young intern at work).

Taking a page from THE EXORCIST in the way the demon enters a world in disarray, making it easy to possess Regan, McLean and co-writers S.P. Krause and Shayne Armstrong (the latter two co-wrote the Australian "sharks-in-a-supermarket" opus BAIT) toy with the idea of the demonic invasion of the home being a response to the various unspoken dysfunctions in the family. But they don't really do anything with it and everything is resolved too easily to get to the rote horror histrionics. Keeping your vomit in bags and tupperware containers under your bed is pretty odd, but hey, one visit to a therapist and moody, abrasive Stephanie is healthy and chipper. Instead, the filmmakers follow a Blumhouse checklist right down to the last-15-minutes introduction of a pair of eccentric demonology experts who do a quick drive-by exposition drop before an impromptu exorcism of the house. The film's twists and turns come straight out of Plot Convenience Playhouse. Is Paul Reiser only in this for a few scenes as Peter's fist-bumping, asshole boss just because the boss has a wife (Ming-Na Wen) who happens to have recently started pursuing an interest in Hopi Indian mythology? Well, that immediately qualifies her as an expert to advise Bronny after she figures out they're being haunted by a pissed-off Anasazi spirit. What are the odds? It's that kind of movie. THE DARKNESS plays like a Blumhouse sampler platter with a dash of INSIDIOUS and a scoop of PARANORMAL ACTIVITY, but topped off with a generous sprinkling of some old-fashioned POLTERGEIST to make a total shit sandwich of a horror movie. It's a film that doesn't even try, and it's almost perversely impressive how it manages to go an entire 90 minutes without pursuing a single original idea. Where did THE DARKNESS go wrong? Who cares? Blumhouse and Greg McLean certainly don't. (PG-13, 92 mins)

In Theaters: SPECTRE (2015)

SPECTRE
(US/UK - 2015)

Directed by Sam Mendes. Written by John Logan, Neal Purvis, Robert Wade and Jez Butterworth. Cast: Daniel Craig, Christoph Waltz, Ralph Fiennes, Monica Bellucci, Lea Seydoux, Ben Whishaw, Naomie Harris, Dave Bautista, Andrew Scott, Rory Kinnear, Jesper Christensen, Alessandro Cremona, Stephanie Sigman. (PG-13, 148 mins)

2012's SKYFALL was the best 007 adventure in decades--maybe since 1969's ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE--so SPECTRE, the 24th film in the 53-year-old franchise, wisely doesn't try to top it. Instead, it's a pastiche of the 23 that preceded it, with a wink and nod to just about every one of them, mixed with a continuation of what's become a four-film James Bond origin story since Daniel Craig took over the role with 2006's CASINO ROYALE. With Craig's quartet of films, the Bond series has demonstrated a strong influence by both the BOURNE franchise and Christoper Nolan's DARK KNIGHT trilogy, with Craig's Bond a brooding, damaged man driven by rage, revenge, and grief. With CASINO ROYALE and SKYFALL (and to an extent, QUANTUM OF SOLACE, generally regarded as the weakest of Craig's Bonds), the continuing storyline (other than some recurring characters and a couple of later references to Bond being a widower after his brief marriage at the end of MAJESTY'S, the Bond films are typically stand-alone entries rather than direct sequels) has been an attempt to add depth and maturation to the character and to play him more like the hard-edged killer in Ian Fleming's books. It's mostly worked, brilliantly so in SKYFALL (which played more stand-alone at the time but that changes here), but it grows a little stale in SPECTRE, primarily because the payoff isn't worth the elaborate buildup. Four writers are credited with the script--there were almost certainly more who remain uncredited--and the story was said to change course during production. It shows--the first half of SPECTRE is a big, globetrotting adventure of the classic 007 variety, but the second half stumbles, first with a complex backstory for its primary villain that doesn't really serve a purpose, and then with a shift to a secondary villain whose plans just aren't that interesting. Christoph Waltz was born to play a Bond villain, but his Franz Oberhauser is little more than an extended cameo: he has two brief bits in the opening hour--once seen from behind and then again in shadow--then doesn't turn up again until the hour-and-45-minute mark. Why bring this unique, versatile, two-time Oscar-winner onboard and use him so frugally? With the possible exception of Joseph Wiseman in DR. NO,  I can't recall a lead Bond villain having this little screen time. I didn't stopwatch it, but there's no way Waltz is in this for more than 20 total minutes.

As the film opens with a lengthy and quite impressive tracking shot, Bond has gone rogue, tailing and killing a mystery man named Sciarra (Alessandro Cremona) to Mexico during the Day of the Dead festival. He's suspended by M (Ralph Fiennes) and injected with a tracking chip by Q (Ben Whishaw) so MI-6 has constant knowledge of his whereabouts. Undeterred, Bond informs Moneypenny (Naomie Harris) that the late, previous M send him a cryptic video message before her death (Judi Dench has an unbilled bit) to follow Sciarra, kill him, and attend his funeral. Bond seduces Sciarra's widow Lucia (Monica Bellucci), who informs him of her husband's involvement with a global criminal organization called Spectre. Bond infiltrates a Spectre meeting by wearing the outfit's distinctive ring (he took it from Sciarra before killing him) and is outed by its leader Oberhauser. Bond knows Oberhauser, who has been the secret puppet master behind the events of the three previous films, and after escaping from the Spectre headquarters, heads to Austria to protect Madeleine Swann (Lea Seydoux)--the daughter of Quantum operative Mr. White (Jesper Christensen), last seen in QUANTUM OF SOLACE--when he realizes Spectre agents, led by hulking henchman Hinx (Dave Bautista) are after her for what she knows about their global operation.

There's a secondary plot about a weaselly government operative known as C (Andrew Scott) and his attempt to banish M and the entire MI-6 division in order to rely on global surveillance and drones, deeming agents of 007's sort obsolete. Of course, British government officials have been deeming Bond obsolete since the Sean Connery era, and of course they're always proven wrong. SPECTRE wants to be a big, classic 007 adventure and for about an hour or so, it is. But what was initially an interesting exploration into the more serious side of Bond and his tortured psyche (it's interesting that Craig's grim and largely humorless portrayal of Bond has been praised for the same reasons Timothy Dalton was criticized during his underrated, two-film run back in the late '80s) just fizzles when it resurfaces in the film's second half. There's two twists involving Oberhauser and one serves no purpose whatsoever, at least in the sense of raising the stakes for Bond. It's a reveal for the sake of a big reveal, then it falls flat when the film does nothing with it. In other words, not a single thing about the outcome would've been different had that first big twist not been used. It doesn't help that Waltz's screen time is so paltry. Sure, Javier Bardem didn't appear until about 70 minutes into SKYFALL but he was at least given plenty of opportunities to strut his stuff and be an unforgettable villain. Waltz--and what the script does with Oberhauser--had the potential to be the ultimate Bond villain but instead, he's about as memorable as Michael Lonsdale's Hugo Drax in MOONRAKER and Toby Stephens' Gustav Graves in DIE ANOTHER DAY. Waltz isn't the only one ill-used in SPECTRE: the always gorgeous Bellucci, the oldest Bond girl at 51, has an even smaller role, and Bautista's silent (but for one word) hulk Hinx is gone well before the end and isn't around long enough to be more than a predictable retread of Robert Shaw's Red Grant in FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE, Harold Sakata's Oddjob in GOLDFINGER, and Richard Kiel's Jaws in THE SPY WHO LOVED ME.

The Craig era gives the recurring characters of M, Q, Moneypenny, and M's Chief of Staff Bill Tanner (a character who's appeared sporadically in the series going back to 1974's THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN and played in the Craig films by Rory Kinnear) a lot more to do than they did with the previous 007s (can you imagine Bernard Lee's M taking part in action sequences?), but it's at the expense of the some of the things that make the Bond movies what they are: the villains, the girls, and the gadgets. After the serious, DARK KNIGHT-ization of the character in the last three films, it's time to get over this JAMES BOND: ORIGINS mindset, and that's what SPECTRE thankfully does in its first half. It starts to have that welcome sense of fun, thrilling escapism that the Bond films had back in the day with the formulaic, workmanlike efficiency of a Guy Hamilton or a John Glen at the helm. SKYFALL director Sam Mendes returns here but can't resist the urge to go Serious with the second half, which really implodes in the home stretch (there's also no reason for this thing to be two-and-a-half hours). The action is great, the references are fun (the mountain-top health institute is a dead ringer for the Piz Gloria stronghold in ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE, and a really hardcore 007 nerd will smile at Q staying at a hotel called "the Pevsner," named after former series associate producer Tom Pevsner, who died in 2014), and Craig still makes a great Bond and even has a few more lighter moments than usual when he isn't still brooding about Vesper Lynd, but SPECTRE is a wildly inconsistent entry that eventually works at cross purposes. It's far from being in the basement with MOONRAKER and DIE ANOTHER DAY, but when the dust settles, it's got a home somewhere in the range of lesser 007s like YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE, OCTOPUSSY, THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH, and yes, QUANTUM OF SOLACE.  Oh, and Sam Smith's "Writing's on the Wall" is now the worst Bond theme ever, which is great news for Lulu's "The Man with the Golden Gun."

In Theaters: SKYFALL (2012)

SKYFALL
(US/UK - 2012)

Directed by Sam Mendes.  Written by Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, and John Logan. Cast: Daniel Craig, Javier Bardem, Ralph Fiennes, Judi Dench, Albert Finney, Naomie Harris, Berenice Lim Marlohe, Ben Whishaw, Rory Kinnear, Ola Rapace, Helen McCrory. (PG-13, 143 mins)

The James Bond franchise celebrates its 50th anniversary with an exceptional entry in the series.  Perhaps not quite the "Best Bond Ever!" but it's up there, with richly complex characterizations and themes that demonstrate an unusual depth for these films, which have always been great fun but usually on a spectacle level.  There's no shortage of that spectacle in SKYFALL, which kicks off with one of the best pre-credits sequences of the series, but it expands upon the psychological side of 007 that was explored to some degree in Daniel Craig's Bond debut CASINO ROYALE (2006), and it gets things back on course after the OK but disappointing QUANTUM OF SOLACE (2008).

A mission in Turkey to recover a hard drive with the names of British agents working undercover with terrorist organizations goes bad when Bond gets in the way of a bullet meant for an enemy agent (Ola Rapace) and is presumed dead.  He resurfaces after a terrorist attack on MI-6 headquarters in London, and is put back to work by M (Judi Dench), whose judgment and effectiveness are being questioned by bureucratic intel official Mallory (Ralph Fiennes) after several outed MI-6 agents are executed.  Bond fails the physical and psychological testing to be reinstated, but M buries the test results because she knows he'll get the job done.  The villain is Silva (Javier Bardem), a rogue ex-MI-6 agent with a personal score to settle with M:  he was a brilliant agent but too much of a loose cannon, and M sold him out to China shortly before the Hong Kong handover in 1997.

The Bond films have never been a director's showcase.  In the initial 1962-1989 era, the films were directed by a rotating group of reliably efficient pros starting with Terence Young, Guy Hamilton, and Lewis Gilbert, with occasional promotions from within like editor Peter Hunt or second-unit director John Glen, who ended up helming all of the Bond films in the 1980s.  When the series restarted in 1995 after a six-year break, the job fell to journeymen like Martin Campbell (THE MASK OF ZORRO), Roger Spottiswoode (TURNER & HOOCH), Michael Apted (the UP documentary series, COAL MINER'S DAUGHTER), and Lee Tamahori (THE EDGE), brought in for some new perspective, but who primarily replicated the look and feel of the earlier Bond films.  Campbell was brought back for CASINO ROYALE and Marc Forster (MONSTER'S BALL) apparently thought he was hired for a BOURNE sequel when he directed QUANTUM OF SOLACE.  That brings us to the surprising choice of Sam Mendes to helm SKYFALL.  The Oscar-winning director of AMERICAN BEAUTY, ROAD TO PERDITION, and REVOLUTIONARY ROAD seems like an unlikely pick, but it's an important element in establishing some credible seriousness to the film.  Partnering with Oscar-nominated cinematographer and Coen Bros. favorite Roger Deakins, Mendes fashions one of the best-looking of all Bond films, and not just with its breathtaking action sequences.  A neon-drenched showdown in a Shanghai skyscraper and a shot of M standing aside a row of Union Jack-draped caskets provide particularly arresting images.

It's also one of the best-written of the Bonds.  Series veterans Neil Purvis and Robert Wade, plus Oscar-nominated screenwriter John Logan (GLADIATOR, RANGO, CORIOLANUS, HUGO) offer, in addition to a study in duality in that Bond and Silva are essentially two sides of the same coin, both with an axe to grind with M, but handling it in vastly different ways--an unprecedented look into Bond's childhood and how it shaped the man he's become during an unexpected third-act detour when Bond goes off the grid and on the run with M after an attempt on her life by Silva's goons.  There's also a recurrent theme throughout of dealing with age and change:  M butting heads with Mallory, Bond spending a good part of the film sporting white stubble, the MI-6 operation being called into question for its relevancy and usefulness.  Mendes and the screenwriters succeed in creating a Bond film that manages to re-establish new rules while simultaneously utilizing the established template.  The character of Q is re-introduced here, in the form of a techno-geek in his late 20s (Ben Whishaw), which reverses the roles in the Bond-Q relationship:  now it's cranky old 007 busting the young kid's balls, but they immediately take a liking to each other much like Bond and the perpetually-annoyed but fatherly Q did in the older films.

From the opening scenes of CASINO ROYALE, it was obvious that Craig would be a terrific Bond, but he really hits his stride with SKYFALL.  He's matched by an inspired Bardem, who doesn't even appear until 70 minutes in but quickly makes an unforgettable impression as Silva, creating one of the great Bond villains.  Watch the entrance Mendes gives him, delivering a long monologue while walking from a distance toward the stationary camera, all in one take.  It's a bold and unusual shot that, with all due respect, a John Glen or a Lee Tamahori wouldn't have done.  Dench gets by far her biggest role as M yet, and she's essentially a central character along with Bond.  The Bond girls are represented by rookie MI-6 agent Eve (Naomie Harris) and doomed Severine (Berenice Lim Marlohe), who works for Silva, and we know how that always turns out.  There's also some fine work from Fiennes (who gets one of the best lines in the film, during M's court testimony) and a burly-looking Albert Finney, who turns up in a showy supporting role late in the film with quite a bit more to do here--even hoisting a sawed-off shotgun--than his prominently-billed 12-second YouTube cameo in THE BOURNE LEGACY. 

The James Bond series has never been beholden to any strict sense of continuity, understandable given the length of its duration.  Other than recurring characters like M, Q, Miss Moneypenny, Blofeld, and Bond's CIA buddy Felix Leiter, the films generally exist as stand-alone stories.  23 films in and there's only been one official "direct" sequel (QUANTUM OF SOLACE picks up right where CASINO ROYALE leaves off), though there have been similar instances of a continued character or story element through the decades, most notably three that stem from the stunningly downbeat finale of 1969's ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE, which found George Lazenby's Bond getting married to Tracy (Diana Rigg) only to see her immediately murdered as they drive off on their honeymoon:  Sean Connery returned as Bond in the next film, 1971's DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER, and is seeking revenge on Blofeld, though it's never specified that Tracy's murder is the reason; and the beginning of 1981's FOR YOUR EYES ONLY has Roger Moore's Bond visiting Tracy's grave, while 1989's LICENCE TO KILL has Timothy Dalton's Bond somberly mentioning that he was married once, but declines to elaborate. Richard Kiel made a huge impression as the henchman Jaws in 1977's THE SPY WHO LOVED ME and was brought back--as a lovestruck good guy, no less--for 1979's unfortunate MOONRAKER.  Joe Don Baker's CIA agent Jack Wade appeared in 1995's GOLDENEYE and 1997's TOMORROW NEVER DIES (and Baker played a completely different military character in 1987's THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS).  Early Bond girl Sylvia Trench (Eunice Gayson) turns up briefly in 1962's DR. NO and 1963's FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE.  And the less said about good old boy Louisiana sheriff J.W. Pepper (Clifton James) in 1973's LIVE AND LET DIE inexplicably test-driving an AMC Matador while vacationing in Bangkok in 1974's THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN, the better. 

It's hard to say where SKYFALL fits into the continuity in general, especially since Dench was also M to Pierce Brosnan's Bond in the '90s, well before she kept the role in the Craig-led reboot.  SKYFALL exists on its own terms (no references to Craig's two prior turns), but it ends on a bittersweet "circle of life" note that seems to set things back to the beginning--as in, 1962--in a way that will put a smile on the face of any 007 fan.  50 years in, with undeniable ups and downs, but SKYFALL displays a franchise that's changed and adapted effectively and is certainly as vital and as promising as it's ever been.  A terrific film, one of 2012's best.