If I had watched this in my home, the volume would have been more moderate. I would have watched it on a large screen tv or projected on a 15 foot screen and sat at such a distance that the screen would only have taken up two thirds of my vision rather than 150% of it. I also would have been able to eat and drink and whatever in comfortable folding chairs or lounging on a couch.
Instead I lost two years of my hearing and feel traumatized.
I do feel a great loss at the closure of so many theaters and the hard times the industry is experiencing. But bringing in "live recordings" of operas and self-help symposiums is not the way to revitalize the theater industry. But what do I know. I thought those Japanese game shows were the lowest echelon of programming possible, but then I watched a trailer for "Mama's Boys". Clearly reality competition dating shows are lower. And those game shows are joyous and a great use of the temporary nature of tv.
As for the film, it was ok. While it attempted a meditation on revenge which felt weak and a second thought, the action scenes that make up the core of the film were exciting once the initial chase scene ended. The next chase was on foot and I could catch snipits of the architecture and space they were rushing through. But man, it was hard work. How can I be frightened that James Bond is going to crash into the bad guy if I can't comprehend that the rope he's hanging from is attached to a seesawing beam that rotates around the room? With no establishing shot, nor one that lasts more than two seconds, I imagined the plausible hypothesis for what I was seeing and conjecture for what the director might want me to think. Garrgh! Frustrating.
I haven't seen Casino Royale, so maybe the revenge plot might have been more compelling to others.
I did like the main plot about an evil multinational organization buying up all the water in the planet and blackmailing developing countries into paying their extreme prices, all under the cover of an environmental organization preserving untouched lands. And Mathieu Almalric is a wonderful bad guy. Why are his eyes so black? They are pools of ink and when he scrunches his face, he transforms into the countenance of demonic possession.
I liked the characterization of the female foil, Camille (Olga Kurylenko). She was tough but with a real justified fear of fire. And another woman gets crude oiled in parallel to the golding in Goldfinger. Really great visual.
I also liked that there were less fashionable but still beautiful locations like Bolivia, Port au Prince etc... and not just Europe and Japan. Or is it that those locations in the global south are now fashionable?
But the fight sequences involved lots of jumping, which reminded even my 69 year old father of the Bourne films. And this from the man who thought, after overhearing a gossipy conversation between my mother and I, that Julia Roberts was a friend of hers from college.
Although I respect the darker, less self-referential direction that the franchise is pursuing, I have never gotten the charm of Daniel Craig. When I first saw him in Tomb Raider, I was confused as to why anyone would cast such a gnarled face opposite Angelina Jolie. Yes, he has clear blue eyes and a certain British charm, and no, one needn't be pristine in order to be attractive, least of all men. But, I don't quite get his "magnetism".
And directed by Marc Forster of Finding Neverland fame? I'm surprised.
Paul Haggis? ack. The screenwriting kiss of weak emotional assumptions of underlying shmaltzy goo. crap.
Why do all the Bond villians have sidekicks with hideous haircuts?
Judi Densch gives my favorite performance of her time in the series, in a role actually written to take advantage of her skill. And I love that the relationship between Bond and M is more closely detailed.
Wiat I just realized that I did see Casino Royale. Ouch. That's a bad sign for the plots of the current phase of the series. Sorry to the writers, but it's true. I had no recollection of the previous film.
There are loads of ridiculous assertions in the film, particularly the action sequences. Bond jumps on a Haitian fishman's shack/boat and can out run inflatable, modern, boats with top of the line engines? Security in these inflatables are using guns and never shoot and deflate their crafts? Bond is so tired by the end of the film that a businessman (Almalric) can almost kick his ass into a firey pit through hand to hand and then axe to hand combat?
I'm just going to steal this next point from Pajiba.com - Ted Boynton: "The Daniel Craig iteration of Bond may not realistically portray espionage, but this depiction has the stones to grapple with the philosophical dilemma of using ultra-competent covert operatives to accomplish what legitimate diplomacy and lawful police work cannot." And this film makes the point, repeatedly, that there are not good and bad guys in international relations, but rather governmental/military entities who serve the economic interests of their tax paying corporations (the corporatocracy).
