Nobody Reviews It Better: GoldenEye (1995)

We now move into the era of Pierce Brosnan, the Bond we grew up watching. As Chicken Man intimates in his review, we came to appreciate Brosnan-Bond in GoldenEye through an inverse method: it was the N64 shooter of the same name that turned us on to the film (and, eventually, all the others in the series). That's probably not an uncommon phenomenon for our generation. Nevertheless, whatever the course of our affective relationships with the multiple texts of GoldenEye, the film is unquestionably one of the finest in the series. Indeed, if the Code Redd Net Awards and its Best Bond Movie prize were the last word on the subject, we'd have to say GoldenEye is tops.

 

 

For myself (and I imagine for a few others) GoldenEye is the movie adaption of a very popular N64 game. Though not saying much, it is probably the best movie adaption of a game ever made. Kidding aside, I find GoldenEye  to be everything a Bond film should be. If we think of James Bond as the man men want to be and women want to be with, Pierce Brosnan plays this part succinctly. I find him to be the most "charming and sophisticated secret agent" of the Bonds, as Valentin Zukovsky suggests. Unlike Moore, he is not upper-crusty, but fits well on the cover of Cigar Aficionado.

"Mirror, mirror, on the wall, Jean-Claude Van Damme I'm fine!"

 

His enemy well chosen: an MI6 agent, Alec Trevelyan, 006 (Skyfall seems to be trying to replicate this villain device). Trevelyan is also a personal friend; one who grew tired of serving a government that betrayed his family. He wants revenge and thought of asking Bond to join him, but accuses him of having greater loyalty to the mission than to his friends. As I've mentioned before, it interests me when Bond's servitude to the state is put into question. It would have been better had Trevelyan's plan not intended to harm so many innocents, making Bond's decision not so clear cut. Regardless, it is so much more enjoyable when the Bond villain is a respectable adversary. It is somewhat refreshing that he doesn't have some ridiculous scheme involving the destruction of Earth, but an EMP space weapon that seems plausible and reasonable in furthering his objectives. Bond is really being unfair in calling him "nothing more than a common thief."

The surrounding cast is good as well. Female villains are always interesting, especially when they have not-so-subtle names. Xenia Onatopp is one of the most vivacious of Bond chicks, along with May Day, and is as easily remembered. Boris Grishenko is a likable, though arrogant computer programmer who, like Baron Samedi, is "invincible." Quite a team, they are.

A (mostly) required element to a good Bond movie are the gadgets, and Q keeps it pretty simple with a belt containing a rappel cord (I enjoy how Bond asks about a possible contingency, considering my criticism in the past of Q's perfect foresight), a grenade pen, and a watch that can detonate mines and shoot lasers.

The final requisite is the action scenes, and I find GoldenEye to be unsurpassed in this regard. It certainly is more violent (according to my count, Bond shot more people in his escape from the Russian military archives than Connery did in whole movies), enough to make a game out of it, but this isn't what makes it good. It is the frequency and the way in which it is done. During the tank chase scene, the Bond theme music is well incorporated (something noticeably missing in previous films), especially with its dramatic flair in the crescendo with the timpani drums. Fantastic work.

It's all here. Bond seems like Bond. The villains are cool and scary. The plot is high stakes yet believable. The gadgets are practical. The action is constant. GoldenEye is what a 007 movie should be.

Nobody Reviews It Better: Licence to Kill (1989)

Much like Chicken Man in his appraisal of The Living Daylights, here Thrasher finds Timothy Dalton's final turn as Bond in Licence to Kill to be a refreshing thing indeed. Unfortunately, legal disputes put the series on a significant hiatus after this solid action film, so we never got to see where else Dalton-Bond could go. Fortunately, though, he steered Bond away from the absurd comedy Roger Moore's adventures had devolved into, towards our preferred incarnation, that being Brosnan-Bond, and also towards a fantastic video game adaptation.

Last time I looked into the series, Roger Moore was still waddling around after young girls and tussling with Christopher Walken in a blimp. For me, A View to a Kill exemplified the excessive stupidity and bloated boredom of the Moore years. But things certainly changed for the better when Timothy Dalton came aboard, and his brooding Bond in The Living Daylights was so pleasantly different from Moore's cheeky, upper-crusty version. Dalton's seriousness is embellished still further in Licence to Kill, when a highly personal revenge motive drives Bond instead of the usual cold-blooded assignment carried out for Queen and Country. In our traditional pre-credits sequence, Bond accompanies his old CIA pal Felix (in the middle of his wedding in Miami, no less) on an emergency mission to catch Franz Sanchez, a notorious, and immensely wealthy, drug lord. They succeed in a thrilling aerial chase, a sequence not only exciting for its own sake (as is the implicit purpose of these pre-credits stunts), but also one of the rare instances when the pre-credits sequence is directly related to the rest of the film, a la The World is Not Enough. Following his capture, Sanchez is freed and he immediately returns to kill Felix. Though he is unsuccessful in killing Felix via sharks, Sanchez shoots his wife and retreats to a banana republic. Bond swears revenge and is subsequently suspended by MI6 after he refuses to drop his vendetta.

For the first hour or so, Licence to Kill doesn't really feel like a Bond film, except for the hyperbolic stunts. Bond's suspension from MI6 means very few of the familiar narrative tropes remind us that we are watching 007. Thankfully, however, and unlike the similar Quantum of Solace, about midway through Q turns up to issue Bond his trademark gadgetry, even though he seems to forget to bring along Bond's equally trademark wit. It's not a totally dreary affair, but Licence to Kill is indeed fairly austere. I'm reminded of early Bonds, like the earliest, Dr. No; Dalton does make a few quips here and there, but the tone is realistic, or grasping at it, and Dalton has the sensibilities to pull this off. It's welcome after a decade-plus of Moore's lecherous innuendos. He's matched by a strong villain in Sanchez, as well as his surprisingly adept (and very young!) henchman, Benicio Del Toro. Licence to Kill also has some of the finest stunt work in any Bond film, especially the wonderful tanker chase/fight to close things. Still, it's tempting to simply look at Dalton's tenure as a stop-gap en route to Pierce Brosnan, especially with only two films to his name, but closer inspection reveals a fine, multilayered interpretation of the character that fits in nicely with the canon.

Nobody Reviews It Better: The Living Daylights (1987)

At last, Moore-Bond has been relieved of his duties! Now, in an effort not to sound unduly harsh of Sir Sleeze, we should note that not all of his 007 films were as bland as the last few; some, like The Spy Who Loved Me and For Your Eyes Only, were actually quite good, and to some degree justified his overlong tenure. But when he was boring, nobody did it better. Or worse, rather. Nevertheless, it's about time we moved on to the short, but somewhat underappreciated legacy of Timothy Dalton. For being such a champ and withering most of the Moore-Bonds, Chicken-Man has first dibs on the refreshing The Living Daylights. Thrasher will check in later with Dalton's second, and regrettably final, film.

After the Moore-Bond marathon, I have never looked upon Timothy Dalton more favorably. First impressions, though, were a bit rougher than they ought to be; Dalton's first "Bond. James Bond," seemed more like how one would address a commanding officer than handle a self-introduction to a beautiful woman. But the gritty push-back against the goofy Moore-Bond style was thankfully not overdone as Daniel Craig's was/is. We see this firsthand in Bond's refusal to shoot a sniper because she is an amateur (and a woman).When told that this might have consequences for his job security, Bond is ready and willing to toss away a job that would require him to do things he felt were wrong. Unlike Craig, the grittiness of the Dalton-Bond doesn't mean being without emotion. In fact, he can be downright sentimental.

One of my favorite parts in this movie is seeing something we might not typically associate with Bond: the act of courtship. After helping the celloist sniper escape from the Soviet's reach, he takes her on a date in Vienna. First he buys her a new dress and they attend the opera. They go to a carnival-like atmosphere, where Bond uses his marksmanship skills to win her a very large stuffed animal. They get caught smooching at the end of their Ferris Wheel ride. "You want to go around again?" asks the conductor. It really is quite cute. I hope one can understand how refreshing this is to me, as Moore-Bond seemed to have less emotional attachment to his conquests than I imagine the typical John does with his ladies of the night. This actually seemed romantic.

As for the other elements of the movie, they seemed to be done quite well. The plot is a bit hard to follow, but doesn't suffer from the implausibility of the outlandish Moore films. The villain is an arms dealer/drug trafficker who fancies himself as an expert warfare strategist and is played by Joe Don Baker (who, interestingly enough, also plays CIA agent Jack Wade in Goldeneye and Tommorow Never Dies, which means he's in more Bond movies than Timothy Dalton!). He finds himself in a jam when the Russians cancel their arms deal since he has the money tied up in trying to profit from heroin trade. He is in league with a rogue KGB agent who falsely defected to the British, only to be "recaptured" by another rogue KGB agent in a plot made to look like the Russians tried to reclaim him. I'm still trying to figure it out.

The most confusing part is how Bond allies himself with General Pushkin, a Russian betrayed by the fake defector, while also allying himself with the Afghan muhajadeen against the occupying Russian army. He seems to be the inverse of Switzerland: instead of being neutral, he's on everyone's side.

The action scenes (including an ice chase and a guerrilla attack on the Russians) are good, and 007 Legends 2 could easily use a scene from The Living Daylights for a bonafide mission. Overall, I'm impressed with Timothy Dalton's debut.

"Q, perchance this outfit makes me look like a doofus."



Nobody Reviews It Better: Spice World (1997) Interlude

Parodies (loving or otherwise) of the 007 films are legion, and ultimately they attest to the enduring cultural impact of the series. These parodies range from the generic and fairly banal (In Like Flint, Our Man Flint) to the more ostentatious (Austin Powers x3). Aside from full on parody, there's plenty of quick cameos and references to the series, including this one, a personal favorite, from Spice World:

I have to say, Roger's way more fun in these few scenes than he is throughout the entirety of Octopussy and A View to a Kill. It's good to see him bring out his inner Blofeld.

Stick with CRN for more (that is, with less Moore) 007 coverage as part of "Nobody Reviews It Better," our comprehensive countdown to the release of Skyfall on November 9.

007 Legends Gets Goldfinger

I was wrong; the fifth classic mission to be featured in 007 Legends is not Dr. No. You probably already know this, seeing as how it was reported three days ago and all. I've never really been the most punctual bloggers in the world, but if you haven't been privy to the news, take a look:

If it couldn't be Dr. No, then I suppose Goldfinger is the only other option. For the time being, I'm assuming there's not going to be a golfing mission against Auric. Nonetheless, this looks perfectly acceptable, with most of the key moments from the film remaining intact, for the most part. Why, Bond even jettisons some poor guy from the seat of his car, even though the car this time is something glossy and new, and not the vintage Aston Martin DB5 I prefer.

(Curiously enough, the comments section for that video is filled with youtubers clamoring for a game more like Nightfire or Everything or Nothing. I'd like to endorse that viewpoint.)

So there you have it. On October 16, get ready to take digital Daniel Craig through Moonraker, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, Licence to Kill, Die Another Day, Goldfinger, and eventually a downloadable Skyfall mission.

Solid Gold Chan

It's not a real thing, but Time Life should get on it right away, don't you think? We did all the work for them.

Jackie Chan's action films have marvelled audiences for decades with spectacular stunts and virtuoso martial arts choreography, and justly so. But what often goes unnoticed is his commitment to providing catchy credits music to accompany us out of the theater. It's high time these diddies got some shine. Enjoy our small compilation of four punch-perfect pop hits, and do so without paying five easy installments of $29.95!

 

First up is Ash's infectious "Kung Fu," from Rumble in the Bronx:

 

Next we have "That One Song, Remember?" from Police Story:

 

We also have something of a rarity on this set. It's the appropriately bouncy "Let's Bounce" by Chic and Erick Sermon, whoever he is, from Rush Hour 2. Though the video below has a picture of the RH2 soundtrack CD, this gem is not on it. It's too bad, really.





Finally, our personal favorite, the always radio-ready theme from Who Am I?, which for years we referred to succinctly as "WHATCHANNANIIIYOOOOOOOO". Turns out it's actually titled "Who Am I (Cantonese Theme)". Makes sense, even though we still prefer our more colloquial expression.



Nobody Reviews It Better: A View to a Kill (1985)

Thrasher returns to Mooreville one last time for Roger's seventh (!) sordid mission as 007. Happy trails, old boy. MGM would wisely bring in Timothy Dalton as the relief pitcher in The Living Daylights, something which Chicken Man will detail in the next installment of Nobody Reviews It Better.

We've come to the end of Roger Moore's tenure as 007, and A View to a Kill is certainly more of a whimper than a bang. After seven tepid, uninspired and uninterrupted entries, Moore's ridiculously agile, and somehow, still virile, seemingly septuagenarian Bond goes out with one of the most pedestrian films in the series. Christopher Walken is a fantastic choice for the classically maniacal Bond villain Max Zorin; unfortunately, he doesn't get to be the kind of Napoleon he should be until the last act, and by then it's too late. Though he gets to rattle off some wonderful Walken-isms ("More! More power! More! Do it!"), he spends most of his time on screen as a quietly menacing richboy who bets on horses. His fantastic schemes only take form at the end; he plans to trigger a catechism that would inundate Silicon Valley, thus giving him a virtual monopoly in microchip technology. When the film finally yields to his over-the-top-ness, he really shines, cackling as he shoots his own men with a submachine gun and flying his blimp into the Golden Gate Bridge. His enthusiasm in these scenes stands in stark contrast with Moore's wearying temper. Moore looks like the tired old man he probably was, and this is particularly noticeable when he seduces his much younger co-stars, or when he "snowboards" down a mountain momentarily to the tune of "California Girls." The problem isn't the action sports segue, or the song, both of which could be amusing in a different context. Moore is the problem. It's simply not believable, even in the fictional world of 007, that a man who looks so old could do so much. There's a fun sequence or two, especially the rigged horse race through Zorin's estate, or the vertiginous finale in San Francisco, but it's all been done before by other Bonds, and it's all been done better. And for those few spirited moments of action, there's that many more scenes of banal dialogue. Unlike, say, Diamonds Are Forever, which is at least interesting because it marks a time of tension and transition for the series, A View to a Kill in no way indicates future directions. This is about as mediocre as Bond would ever be.

Nobody Reviews It Better: Octopussy (1983)

Join the Chickenman as he chops up and serves Octopussy, made to order. Thrasher finishes off the Moore era next.

After watching a series of consecutive Roger Moore Bond films, some things seem to stand out as routine (one even might go so far as to say mundane). At one point, just before bedding Octopussy's right hand woman who talks of scrap booking and collecting memories, he actually says, "Let's get on with making a few," in a way such that he might have well said, "Let's get this over with." And so goes the "relationships" Moore-Bond has with women. He doesn't seem to particularly enjoy them or their company; they are simply there. Thrasher's description of Moore as "upper crusty" from the outtakes of Podcast 4 seems to apply here: Bond uses one of Q's camera gadgets to zoom in on the cleavage of a woman in Q's lab. One can hardly imagine Connery-Bond doing such a juvenile act. Moore-Bond acts as though he has an upper-class upbringing but seems to lack any class. Very unlike Bond, in my abstract conception of him.

As well, other things that plague the Moore-Bond are clear and present. A criticism I've made in the past is that Moore-Bond should be dead several times over; that he isn't is less due to his survival skills than it is to incredible luck and incompetent enemies. He certainly gets captured often, sometimes more than once in the same movie. He does so in the very first scene in Octopussy, yet escapes with nonchalant ease. The reason they don't kill him on the spot could be because they want to uphold the rule of law and try him before executing him, but it seems like an unwarranted favor. When pinned to a door with throwing knives wielded by one of the pair that killed 009, he is able to avoid being stabbed because for some reason his enemy has to stab him by hand instead of by throwing the knife. Perhaps this could be explained by his wanting to get a more intimate revenge, but clearly blind luck is on Moore-Bond's side. Other events just make things silly. At one point, Moore-Bond needs to diffuse a nuclear bomb at a circus. The circus is on a U.S. military base and, being in a hurry, he blasts past security and goes to hide. In his hiding spot, which happens to be a trailer for the clowns, he commandeers a disguise. Besides the fact that seeing Bond in a clown costume is a bit off-putting, the fact that he took the time to put on makeup when there is a bomb about to go off seems like a very unwise decision. It doesn't seem like he was forced into this decision and the dramatic effect suffers.

There are, however, some positives to this installment in the series. The biggest one is that Q assumes a rather large role, actually participating in field operations (as well as being more of a ladies man than Moore-Bond). Also good was Kamal Khan's henchman, Gobinda, who resembles Odd Job in his strong, silent demeanor; seeming much more of a worthy adversary than Hugo Drax's Chang (though this image of him was somewhat ruined by the fact that he was defeated by an antenna). I also quite liked Bond's Indian sidekick, Vijay, but as Quarrel was in Dr. No,, he was apparently expendale and suffered a brutal death.

Overall, besides its silly title, Octopussy is one of the less memorable moments in the Bond franchise.

PS2 Review: Spider-Man 2 (2004)

"Ya get out of the club!"

PS1 Spider-Man was wonderful. Spider-Man 2, though, is everything that game couldn't be on lesser technology. Spider-Man, even more so than Batman in the recent Arkham City, was made for free roam, and SM2 is a rare instance when the unashamed appropriation of a popular and contemporary style (in this case of Grand Theft Auto and its loose approach to video game narrative) works so very well. You have free reign over a virtual, amazingly detailed, faithful NYC. Getting around the boroughs, by slinging webs from rooftop to rooftop, has never been any better. Instead of the nonsensical aerial travel of past games, in which your webs were seemingly attached to invisible buildings, here your webswinging needs to be carefully planned. Whereas before you simply pressed the appropriate button and off you went, SM2 requires you to scale a tall building, for instance, so your webbing has an anchor. From there you can swing from the next building, provided there's one around, building momentum all the while as you gleefully skim the skyscrapers. There's an art in such webswinging, surely, but it's never frustrating, only addicting. Combat is similarly revolutionized. Combos are streamlined, varied, and contextual, and you can earn increasingly complex and spectacular moves as you progress (including our favorite, the spinning grapple piledriver, which can be delivered from the top of the Empire State Building if you're willing to work for it). Obviously, the main storyline of the game follows that of the movie, but it deviates to allow for more villains and more challenges, and when you're not directly engaged in these events (and the game rarely forces you to be), you can pursue a variety of jobs on the side, like delivering pizzas, taking photos for the Daily Bugle, and stopping petty crimes on the street. They're fun diversions for a while, but once you run through the main story, it quickly becomes busywork. Because of the scale of the game, I presume, the graphics suffer for it, and criticism should also be extended to the voice-overs, which range from decent at best, to downright horrible at worst. Toby Maguire sounds particularly unenthusiastic to be there. Still, though, SM2 is the premiere Spider-Man experience on any console, and little touches, like your ability to hang defeated thugs from street lights, indicate the kind of complete world you're dealing with here.

Nobody Reviews It Better: For Your Eyes Only (1981)

Chicken Man, our resident Roger Moore scholar, is taking short break from covering Sir Sleeze in order to give Thrasher a crack at it. Now broadcasting from our new Montreal office!

James Bond may get serious once again with For Your Eyes Only, especially after the absurd weightlessness of Moonraker, but it's a schizophrenic seriousness at best. Witness the traditional pre-credits sequence: in an uncharacteristically sober moment, Bond convalesces at the grave of his short-lived wife, Teresa, and then, with nothing more than a wry smile, off he goes to chuck Blofeld (and his poor cat) into a factory's chimney. It's a breathlessly stupid, farcical sequence, and I would be willing to praise it if the rest of the film fell more or less in line. It doesn't. There's a bit of a throwback narrative here to the Cold War concerns of Sean Connery's 007, as a British spy boat is sunk in the Ionian Sea and Bond is asked to recover its missile targeting computer before the Reds can do the same. Bond also has to contend with Melina Havelock, seeking revenge for the murder of her parents. Naturally, they up working toward the same goal, and they get along famously, that is after Roger Moore pushes her around for a while. It's a workable concept for a spy film, but it gets confused by too many characters, too many betrayals, and some sensationally slow going expository scenes. Often it feels like little more than a travelogue, as Bond and Melina stop to gab about the philosophical weight of vengeance in front of alternating, but always beatific, Spanish and Italian vistas. Thankfully, Moore's upper-crusty peevishness had yet to really reach full bloom, and even his own special brand of sleaze is noticeably absent. This is probably the most sincere Moore would ever be, and for a Moore film, For Your Eyes Only has some exceptionally well-designed action sequences, including an extended car chase in the Spanish countryside, where Bond's usually well-equipped car is swapped for a nimble yellow bug, and an even more prolonged chase in which Bond runs the winter sports gambit through the Olympic village in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy. These scenes amusing, no doubt, as well as properly filmed and fantastically edited, but they are poorly integrated into the overall film, and they happen so early on that bland story has to carry things until the fairly enjoyable finale. For Your Eyes Only is fine for an afternoon's entertainment, but it's only a middling, mild-mannered Bond.

Nobody Reviews It Better: Moonraker (1979)

Hello and welcome again. From under the sea to outer space, CRN analyzes Bond from our purpose-built laboratory couches. Stay tuned. Thrasher will return in For Your Eyes Only.

To fully enjoy Moonraker, and frankly anything with Roger Moore in it, one must not take it seriously. Major plot points left me asking, what? The very first scene, which shows the hijacking of a Moonraker shuttle while it's being transported on a 747, sets things in motion, with Bond being sent to investigate. We find out later that Drax took it after having loaned it to the British. Bond later asks him why he would steal his own spacecraft and he responds that there was a malfunction with another aircraft so he needed this one back. It seems very mystifying to me that after hatching his plot for years in advance, Drax wouldn't have the patience to simply wait to get his spaceship back and avoid unwanted attention. He might not have had to deal with Bond if not for this indiscretion. Generally his dealings with Bond seem very reckless. First, he tries to kill Bond with an aeronautic centrifuge, and this could plausibly look like an accident. But then Drax tries to end him by a sniper while they are out hunting. My problem with this is that if Drax had instead tried to kill Bond by shotgun, there was at least the possibility of making it look like a hunting accident. If he just wanted Bond dead (with or without fabricating a cause of death without foul play), it seemed like he had ample opportunity to do so. As Thrasher points out in CRN Podcast 3, there is the Aristotelian notion that actions in drama should not only seem plausible and probable, but somewhat inevitable. The lack of adherence to this notion is perhaps the biggest problem with Moonraker.

Nevertheless, it does have its appeals. The gadgets range from the very practical to the somewhat outlandish. Twice Bond is rescued by his dart-shooting bracelet; the utility of such a device is apparent. However, Bond also has a canoe that can not only turn into a motorized speedboat, but also convert into a hovercraft for amphibious use. Later, he is driving a different speedboat that could transform into a hang-glider (just in case you're boating next to a waterfall). So, the appeal has diminishing marginal utility the more crazy they get, not in terms of the technology, but in terms of how Q or Bond would have the foresight to see their applicability and the logistics of having the ideal boat wherever in the world Bond may be. (Other Bond movies deal with this problem by Bond making use of what's available to him: in The Man with the Golden Gun, Bond "commandeers" an AMC in a showroom to give chase; in GoldenEye, a tank). Also, the space scenes are done quite well and to my untrained eye, the Moonraker space station looks convincing. The large space combat scene adequately pays homage to the massive underwater battle filmed in Thunderball. The climax in the final frontier is easily the highlight of the movie, and is what makes Moonraker as memorable as it is. (Also Jaws). To top it all off, there is a very good game adaption. It is called Night Fire.

Finest Fights: Romeo Must Die (2000)

Still bringing you the best fight scenes available on YouTube, only now, we bring 'em intermittently.

In honor of this week's NFL kickoff, here's Jet Li trying his best to be a running back in Romeo Must Die:

Movie Review: Crank 2: High Voltage (2009)

"To be or not to be, roight, that's the question, innit?"

Crank was a one-note live-action video game. Crank 2: High Voltage doesn't have any notes. Jason Statham, as Chev Chelios, sprints full-tilt from one marginal or ethnic group to another, sharing foul language and beatdowns, both usually targeted at the bathing suit area. Somehow, it's even more juvenile than the original. This time around Chelios is fueled by electricity rather than sugary snacks. He does things, and he does them fast, and he does them ultra-violently, all in order to keep his prosthetic heart pumping. It's a wonderfully appropriate premise for an action film, but High Voltage treats it as little more than an excuse to be as unapologetically offensive and exploitative as possible. It's bacchanalist cinema. Whereas Crank may (and I do stress, may) have a modicum of social critique behind its mayhem, High Voltage is offensive to the point of inarticulateness. It's too busy getting off to tell you anything insightful about the world. It revels in the sort of visual aggressiveness it burlesques, not to mention the hideous stereotypes. Stylistically, there's so much going on here, from the video game aesthetics of the pixelated opening sequence (reminding me of NARC, Smash TV, and other late 80s/early 90s arcade shooters) to the retro Godzilla wrestling match and the trashy daytime talk show, to the skateboard video shooting style, that I would hesitate to call it postmodern; hyper-postmodern is more apt. There's some laughs to be had, surely (Statham's always enjoyable as a hero caught in increasingly absurd situations), but it's strangely tiresome to watch for such a short, testosterone-edited film. Statham fans should find enough strange goings-on here to amuse them once, but everyone else will probably find it altogether too crass to care.

The World is Not Enough 100%, and more

PS1 TWINE, that is. Sure, it's nowhere near as good as its classic, award-winning N64 cousin, but it still works quite well on its own. As I noted in my review, if nothing else, I love the Russian Roulette stage. Besides, the PS1 version has to be one of the only decent first-person shooters on that system, which wasn't known for producing them beyond the Medal of Honor series. Alas, there's no multiplayer mode, so all that you get for achieving high scores on any particular level are cheats, such as All Weapons, Invisible Bond, and my favorite, Power Goons. Still, though, I have what Chicken Man once called the Curse of Completionism, and so I just had to see this one through. It was far easier than I anticipated. Missions scores are calculated in four ways: Efficiency, Accuracy, Health, and Time. Most levels are short if you know what you're doing, armor is plentiful (even on the hardest difficulty setting, 007), auto-aim makes marksmanship a breeze, and I'm still not totally sure what efficiency is supposed to imply, and I routinely had low scores in that category. If you don't dally around, always use your Wolfram P2K, and keep yourself clothed in armor, piece of cake, you'll have this one 100% in a day or so.

We certainly hope you're enjoying the current deluge of Bond coverage on Code Redd Net. In addition to the ongoing Nobody Reviews It Better series, we have an upcoming podcast on the subject, as well as our continuing interest in the forthcoming Skyfall film and the accompanying 007 Legends game. Stay tuned for more.

Highlights from E3: Watchdogs

Chicken Man decides to mop up and include an E3 highlight that is way past due. He reserves the right to include more as he sees fit.

Watch Dogs seems to involve an individual who has a device that can commandeer a variety of electronic devices connected to a network. It takes place in the Thrasher's old stomping grounds of Chi-town. Here is the gameplay trailer:



I like how the game blends the themes of over-dependence on technology and the surveillance state, complete with the disturbing collection of electronic information about oneself. And doesn't the trench coat feel so noir? Watch Dogs looks to be worth checking out.



This other trailer doesn't include any gameplay, but the contextual backdrop in which the game takes place. It feels a bit unsettling, and one questions why, after seeing how one disgruntled State employee can cause a blackout, would governments want to centralize infrastructure operation and data collection even further when decentralization seems the obvious answer? Go figure.

Nobody Reviews It Better: The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)

In the dramatic fashion that only CRN can bring, today The Spy Who Loved Me is reviewed for your reading pleasure. Please stick with us as we review all the MGM 007 films.

To be clear here, the film The Spy Who Loved Me has nothing to do with Ian Fleming's novel of the same name. This may be a good thing, since it wouldn't have translated well to the screen and doesn't have a whole lot of action. But I feel it is necessary to note this fact so that Fleming cannot be held responsible for what follows. Instead of a woman being harassed by thugs, this movie is about a sea-loving individual who wants to build an underwater civilization. He also hijacks British and Russian nuclear submarines. Both governments send their best agents to investigate. The Russian one happens to be female and whose boyfriend was killed by Bond in Austria. 007 is thus put in the interesting position of having to compete with a woman while not getting killed by her or the iconic juggernaut named Jaws. Overall, I think this is one of Moore's better movies and feels very much like a Bond movie should. I concede the latter because of a few certain elements: the car chase involving a Spy Hunter-like Lotus that can turn into a submarine, the villain's outlandish lair (not quite outrageous as an active volcano, though), Bond's ability to charm a hostile woman, the widely recognizable theme song, etc. The movie flows in a logical and entertaining matter, without too many evil plot scenes that slow the movie down. The biggest problem, however, that keeps this movie from being better is the nonsensical and implausible plot of the sea-lover, Karl Stromberg. Capturing submarines is serious business, since these things are designed to be stealthy. Stromberg deals with this problem by obtaining a sub tracker in Egypt. While finding the sub is explained, what is not explained is how his giant tanker can sneak up on the subs undetected with the subs either surfaced or not too deep to be swallowed by the tanker. The concept that he can do this just seems silly. The Russian and British navies are made to be not only incompetent sailors but cowards for not scuttling these very dangerous boats. Whatever happened to the battle cry of, "Don't give up the ship!"? Bond is on one of these captured subs and rallies the captured crews to fight against their captors. It is a mystery as to why Stromberg chose to keep any of them alive, as doing so led to his downfall, making him look stupid. And perhaps he is because his plot makes no sense. What he wants to do is create an underwater civilization, which he could very well do without killing or stealing. This would easily make him a hero instead of a villain. Why he needs to create a global nuclear war is not mentioned. He just does. Overlooking these missteps is necessary to fully enjoy The Spy Who Loved Me, as well as pausing to enjoy the two Nightfire multiplayer maps that are based on environments in this movie: Stromberg's Atlantis base and submarine pen. As always, Bots make everything better.