What You Want in The World is Not Enough N64

We love TWINE for the N64, as you know, and more than that we love games with replay value. TWINE has some fairly challenging time cheats you can beat to unlock additonal characters, weapons, maps and modes for multiplayer (w/ bots or without, though we prefer with). I have managed to get through most of them, though there are still a few that have eluded my grasp. If you take a look at GameFAQs portal for TWINE, you'll find a bevvy of tasks that seem nearly impossible to complete. If you want to prioritze them, I suggest tackling the following challenges, all of which will add fantastic maps and a nice weapon set to spice up your multiplayer options:

Unlike Renard here, who obviously feels no pain, beating
 these time cheats requires a high threshold for pain (at least
for emotional pain).

• The Air Raid multiplayer map. This is by far my favorite map in TWINE. A bit small, but totally worth beating the "Masquerade" level on Agent in under 3:05. If you need help in doing this, here's a video to help out:

• There's also the "Wildfire" weapon set, which you earn by beating "City of Walkways II" on Agent in under 3:00. Now, at least this one is on Agent: had it been on double-o, that helicopter at the end would have prevented even the most seasoned agents from earning this unlockable. Take a look at this if you need a spot of help:

• Finally, you can play the excellent Forest multiplayer map by beating "Night Watch on 00 Agent in under 2:20. I know this sounds insane, and for the longest time I believed it to be impossible, but watch this video and it will, at least, seem somewhat possible. I got it eventually, but you have to keep trying because Gabor appears in random places, and usually at the most inappropriate moments. This level is one of the best for Capture the Flag matches, so it's a must-have:

Thoughts On Scene It? 007 Edition

In lieu of a more traditional review of this DVD board game, I've decided to share with you a few quick notes on Scene It? 007 Edition. I was quite pleased to finally find this thing, and for the most part, it didn't disappoint. Here's a few thoughts on the game, based on my familiarity with the subject matter and the mechanics of Scene It?:

• First of all, 007 fans should only pick this up under the assumption that you anticipate finding willing and capable opponents to play against. Admittedly, it's fun for a while to run roughshod over the other players because you've seen every film in the series, but this soon becomes boring and there's no way to turn up the difficulty on your friends.

• As for the difficulty of the trivia, there's a good balance between questions drawn from inside and outside the films: that is, questions about the films' characters and plots are offset by questions about actors, directors, and theme songs. Furthermore, these questions range from the textually obvious (i.e. who played who in what film) to minute details which require considerable familiarity with the film. As such, it becomes obvious throughout the course of several games which films your friends/family members are more familiar with; for instance, I was swift in answering detailed queries on the plot of The World is Not Enough (or anything starring Pierce Brosnan), but struggled to recall the principle players of The Living Daylights, besides star Timothy Dalton. Still, the game is careful not to overwhelm casual viewers of the series with minutia, while at the same time keeping obsessed fans interested. It's a sufficient balance to insure broad appeal at your next party.

• Obviously, 007 Edition features clips from all official films in the series, from Dr. No to Die Another Day. They vary somewhat in length, but in general they are carefully selected and fun to watch or re-watch, as the case may be. My biggest problem with the clips is the volatile nature of the questions which follow them: too often these questions have little or nothing to do with the preceding clip. After watching a clip from TWINE, in which Bond and Christmas Jones escape from the exploding blast pit, I was asked, "Who played Electra King in this film?" Points for sticking with the same film, I guess, but minus several million for totally ignoring the content of the clip. On the other hand, these clips are sometimes followed by questions which only necessitate a player's attentiveness to seemingly arbitrary detail, such as the color of Bond's shirt in For Your Eyes Only. Rarely do the clips justify themselves within the game; instead, they only seem to be there for the purpose of visual distraction, and this is a complaint I often lodge regarding the various Scene It?s.

Nonetheless, if you have a cadre of pals willing and able to challenge your exquisite knowledge of 007, this edition of Scene It? is worthwhile. Daniel Craig was nowhere to be found in my somewhat dated version, but there's a Casino Royale Collector's Edition that brings things a little bit up-to-date.

Nobody Reviews It Better: Skyfall (2012)

Finally, Skyfall has arrived; it doesn't disappoint. Thrasher gives you all the details in the conclusion (for now) of our Nobody Reviews It Better series. Truly, we can think of no better way to celebrate Code Redd Net's 11th anniversary than by reviewing this fantastic film.

Throughout Skyfall, villains and allies alike allude to Bond's aptitude for the job; that he has "lost his edge" is certainly the consensus opinion. I take this as a tacit apology for Quantum of Solace, as much for his fellow characters as for his audience. Skyfall is a resurrection narrative, a literal reinscription of the Bond mythos. The generic "bad grammar" of Solace is corrected systematically, starting with the traditional pre-credits sequence. As always, this is pure spectacle and is satisfying on those terms alone (indeed, all the stuntery in the film is clean, well-choreographed, and logical), but a simple gesture reintroduces Bond as we knew him before; as Bond leaps onto the back of a train, which he has just creatively demolished, he adjusts the cuffs of his shirt before continuing the chase. It may seem a banal thing in isolation, but it's a crucial signal, something which Craig-Bond has too often forgotten. Even on the level of story, Skyfall is an investigation, and ultimately a validation, of the renewed relevance of 007. Instead of trying to "update" Bond, Skyfall retrofits his world, gives him Moneypenny, Q, his Astin Martin DB5 (complete with ejector seat!); it places him once again in exotic locales, all shot in expressionistic tones; henchmen routinely meet beautifully absurd deaths; and in a world of increasingly cybernetic, faceless threats, embodies the Other in the classically cheesy villain Raoul Silva, played with aplomb by Javier Bardem. Such retroactivity never seems merely self-referential or cannibalistic, and it's truly wonderful to see the series finally come to terms with its status as an anachronism rather than try to compensate for it. Skyfall is unquestionably Craig's best Bond film, one that finally proves, beyond doubt, his qualifications.

Nobody Reviews It Better: Casino Royale (2006)

Enter Daniel Craig in the chiaroscuro of film noir for a most unusual pre-credits sequence. Today Thrasher breaks down Casino Royale, a radical Bond film that thankfully challenged many of the stagnant tropes of the series. Regrettably, in the long run it may have been overaggressive in shrugging off much of what makes a Bond film distinctive. But that's a tale for Chicken Man to tell in the final installment of Nobody Reviews It Better.

 

When Bond looks at a bartender, who innocently, even expectantly, asks him how he would like his vodka martini mixed, and Bond replies, "Do I look like I give a damn?", well, that is precisely the sort of generic insouciance Daniel Craig needed to distance himself and the series from the bloated extravagance of Die Another Day. Such an unconventional response is an immeasurably important moment. It's a moment that signifies a significant change in the tenor of the series. Indeed, so much of Casino Royale is given over to reconfiguring Bond that it seems like Craig's Bond is not quite Bond yet, he hasn't earned that title; he's very much Bond-in-training. And quite unlike the others, you would never think to describe his 007 as a smooth operator. He fails at his job, and often. For his first real mission after attaining 00-status (has there ever been a starker contrast in the series than the one between the CGI-driven finale of Die Another Day and the film noir pre-credits sequence of Royale?), Bond must travel to Montenegro to enter an ultra-high-stakes poker game organized by Le Chiffre, one of the world's most notorious and terrorist-friendly bankers. During the game, Bond loses. It's something that would never have happened to Sean Connery, Roger Moore, or Pierce Brosnan; they were all faultless, invincible gamblers. Sure, Bond gets back in the game with the help of his old CIA pal Felix, but seeing Bond lose like this, even once, shakes loose decades-old expectations and prepares us for something new. That's what makes his unexpected, monogamous devotion to fellow agent Vesper Lynd work so unexpectedly; when you unseat one set of conventions, you make it possible to unseat them all, and Craig thankfully tosses aside the womanizing connotations of the role in favor of love, something Bond hasn't hasn't had the courage to try since On Her Majesty's Secret Service (and, to some degree, in the Timothy Dalton films). Lest you think it's all wine and roses, Casino Royale has many outstanding action and suspense numbers, even though I think the hand-to-hand fights, despite their suitably brutal presentation, are sometimes filmed in a confusing, headache-inducing manner. For all his "failings," though, this Bond emerges with our respect, and soon enough our sympathy. When the iconic theme music finally plays at the end (an astoundingly astute use of the music, I might add), he's earned it.



Nobody Reviews It Better: Die Another Day (2002)

It's Thanksgiving today in our cushy Montreal office, so to celebrate, we offer you the second part of a 007 double-header this weekend. Thrasher returns to Die Another Day for the first time in 10 years, and believe it when we tell you, it hasn't aged gracefully. Unlike Moore-Bond's final outing, Brosnan-Bond was still more than suitable for the role; it's just the material that got bloated. Casino Royale was the recoil, and that's next up in Nobody Reviews It Better.

At least we got Nightfire out of all this.

Back in the Geocities days, I wrote this about Die Another Day: "I meant to say that [Halle Berry] is clearly not very good in her role as Jinx, and together with Bond they are content to trade insipid sexual innuendos throughout the film, something that was immensely annoying on my second time through." Go ahead and add a third time to that statement. Without question, Halle Berry is the worst of Bond's coterie of gal pals, and she doesn't just "trade" those insipid sexual innuendos with Pierce Brosnan, she speaks entirely in them. Pun is just about the only language she knows, and everything she says will make you cringe ("Ornithologist, huh? Wow. Now there's a mouthful."). It's too bad, really, because when she's not onscreen the film isn't that bad, certainly not as bad as I remember it. Of course, there's a rather odd plot involving a few North Koreans who use gene therapy to become snooty, sneering Brits, and a giant satellite laser called Icarus that melts away an ice hotel, but that's fine. It works generically, anyway, seeing as how most Bond narratives are pretty far-fetched. What matters most is that everything is executed well, and with conviction, and the first half of Die Another Day works. By far the best action sequence in the film is Bond's fencing match with "white" playboy Gustav Graves; it's so carefully constructed and exciting it manages to overcome the completely unnecessary Madonna cameo by sheer, boundless will (incidentally, I'd be remiss if I forgot to mention just how god-awful her theme song really is, about as bad as her acting). And for eagle-eyed Bond aficionados, there's plenty of Easter eggs and hidden references to find. But such references, cute though they may be, only serve to remind viewers of much older, much better, and much less anniversary-driven films. This becomes even more clear once Halle Berry, after disappearing following a short introduction at the beginning of the film, suddenly reappears for Round 2 of her pun war with Bond ("Oh yeah, I think I got the thrust of it."). Patience wears thin during these exchanges, and it seems as if their uninspired dialogue has been matched by a series of equally uninspired stunts in the second half. There's a phenomenally lame laser grid boxing match between Bond and Gustav's muscular bodyguard, and in the background Jinx flails around while strapped to a malfunctioning chair, still saying idiotic things ("Switch them off, or I'll be half the girl I used to be!"). Bond even goes surfboarding for a minute or two, and his CGI self hasn't aged gracefully over the past decade. Furthermore, there's a strange and intermittent use of slow-mo in the fight scenes that seems absolutely at-odds not only with the style of this film, but of the whole series as well. DAD may be an overblown mess, but there's still some enjoyment to be salvaged from the rubble. There's just a lot of rubble to clear first.



PS1 Review: 007 Racing (2000)

 

It's not a bad idea, right? Perhaps 007 Racing is somewhat misleading as a title (it's not as if Bond has joined a Formula 1 circuit), but it's a bankable project theoretically. In execution, however, things fall apart rather quickly. Remember, 007 Racing was released on PS1 roughly a year before Agent Under Fire arrived on PS2. AUF had a much more refined "racing" component, thanks in no small part to the first draft sensibilities of Racing. There's not much of a story going on here, just a collection of mission briefings and vague allusions to the films. Similarly vague mission objectives present frustrating and artificial levels of difficulty. Replaying the missions so often (while Q repeatedly yaps in your ear with the same three or four disapproving soundbites) wouldn't be problematic if the graphics didn't insist on muddying the waters even further. Everything is so pixilated and poorly animated that it all becomes a nauseating, low-speed blur. Furthermore, there's little sense of urgency or speed; proceeding through the missions at little more than the pace of brisk walk is not only enforced by the cramped level designs themselves, but it's strategically necessary as well. More often than not, missions devolve into a demolition derby with stinger missiles that routinely do more damage to your Astin Martin than your adversaries. And it's not as if your car handles like a dream, either; it's slippery at "high" speeds and prone to ignoring your button commands whenever. It's hard to say which of these aspects make 007 Racing so difficult, but their gestalt certainly makes you want to turn it off with the quickness. This is not Spy Hunter; stick with that one instead.

Artistic rendering of 007 Racing.

Nobody Reviews It Better: Tomorrow Never Dies (1997)

How do you follow up something as seminal as GoldenEye? For Pierce Brosnan, you kick back and settle in for the ride. In this installment of Nobody Reviews It Better, Thrasher catches up with Brosnan-Bond as he relaxes in the well-earned comforts of formula.

i totes got a licenz 2 kill, lol

Pierce Brosnan's 007 loves his toys, even more so than Sean Connery, and the scenes in which he remotely, and so deftly, maneuvers his new car with a cell phone is likely the best evidence of his growing technophilia. Though GoldenEye had its share of pocket-sized gadgets, Tomorrow Never Dies is tops in Q-labs exhibitionism, and yet, despite the increased sophistication of the electronics, it's a tried-and-true, traditional Bond film. Elliot Carver may be an intriguing, and very contemporary, take on the megalomaniac super villain, but he's still seeking out his worldwide empire, just like Dr. No, Goldfinger, Blofeld, and others. He plans to further his news supremacy via yellow journalism; specifically, he coordinates the disappearance of a British warship in the territorial waters of China, thereby pushing the UK and China close to war, and thereby putting himself in a position to assume the exclusive broadcast rights once the smoke has cleared. Bond is quickly sent abroad to sort things out before it all goes sour, and that's where he runs into Wai Lin (Michelle Yeoh), one of the more respectable (if not exactly well-rounded) female cohorts in the entire canon. Bond and Lin make for a pretty good team, and their motorcycle chase through the crowded streets of Saigon is a ludicrous, enjoyable sequence. All the action is handled competently, even though some of the special effects and CGI have not aged gracefully (this is especially noticeable when Bond and Lin use one of Carver's banners for a makeshift escape). Still, though, it's obvious Tomorrow Never Dies is little more than a routine mission for Bond. Eventually Carver captures him, tells him far too much of his nefarious schemes, fails to kill him when it would be advantageous to do so, and so on. Maybe that's part of its charm; Dies may play it safe, but it proves the formula is still satisfying when followed properly. As Bond tells Carver, "You forgot the first rule of mass media, Elliot: give the people what they want!" And who would know this better than Bond? He's been doing it (better) for fifty years.



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: 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.

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.

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.

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.

License to Kill and Die Another Day (!) in 007 Legends

Well, this is a small surprise.


Guess I was right about License to Kill and OHMSS. As for Die Another Day, quite frankly I'm shocked at that choice. They might be able to get some fun out of it, and maybe I'm only sceptical because I've never been a fan of that one, but it seems like an odd pick. And what's going on with the whitewashed Halle Berry? Like I told Chicken Man, they should've just redone Nightfire, since that was a better movie anyway. It was even released at the same time, and it has multiplayer and Skyrail (Nightfire fans know what's up).

007 Legends is supposed to feature five classic Bond missions, in addition to an unspecified amount of Skyfall material. Keeping this latest announcement in mind, we now have four films confirmed for the game: Moonraker, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, License to Kill, and Die Another Day. Will my original prognostication come true, that being Dr. No as the fifth and final classic Bond? Stay tuned.

Nobody Reviews It Better: On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969)

A drastic change, indeed. Today Thrasher looks at On Her Majesty's Secret Service, of the most unusual, and one of the most interesting, Bond films to date.

More than any other Bond film, certainly before and arguably since, On Her Majesty's Secret Service is a strange one. It's weird. It's different. It's also immensely interesting, for Bond fans especially, because of these differences. Many consider this the most faithful Ian Fleming adaptation, but for me that's an insight of minimal critical value. No, what matters here is how George Lazenby develops such a strikingly different character from his filmic predecessor. Gone is the dry cruelty of Sean Connery, and in its place is a softer, more humored, more human Bond that directly confesses his shortcomings to the spectator, plays at being disinterested in young women, and silently sobs before the end credits. Oh yes, it's truly difficult to imagine Connery playing this role. OHMSS is quite daring compared to the others, it's practically an art film with substantial financial backer. Much like Casino Royale, this one takes what we know and inverts it, but not for the sake of criticism; it's like a knowing wink, flipping things around a bit to keep us interested, to keep the Bond formula fresh, and indeed we'll see that most of the generic gambles this film takes are immediately withdrawn by the next film.

And what do we make of that odd pre-credits sequence, where Bond trails an unidentified woman to a beach at dawn, saves her from drowning, is attacked by thugs, and, when the woman sneaks off without so much as a "Gee, thanks," turns to the camera and remarks, "This never happened to that other fellow." I believe it's an open admission of guilt, a concession to the spectator, essentially telling us upfront that, Hey, Connery may not be here, but don't blame us, and let's have some fun anyway. Not only that, but it also sets up the kind of Bond that Lazenby will be. In a way, these uncharacteristically modest words prep us for a Bond not as self-assured, not as rugged, and certainly not as boorish as the Connery iteration, even though the stylistics of the fight scenes in OHMSS might tell us that 007 is more brutal than ever. In that sense, the kind of baroque camera work on display here seems quite at odds with the rest of the film, and would absolutely be a better fit in the previous five films. Nevertheless, the non-hand-to-hand action set pieces in the film are fantastic, well-choreographed affairs, especially the ski chase, and the bobsleigh beatdown between Bond and Blofeld. OHMSS should also be commended for its most radical challenge to the series' grammar, something which had already become staid and subject to parody, and that's the infamous tragic ending. It's never really been done since, although I suspect it may return sometime during Daniel Craig's tenure as 007. Too bad Connery had to return so quickly to the series, only to take Bond's true tragedy and spin it into another one-liner.

Nobody Reviews It Better: You Only Live Twice (1967)

Following an unexpectedly lengthy hiatus, due to unforeseen, international business, our series continues with Thrasher's thoughts on the fifth entry in the 007 cycle, You Only Live Twice.

Watching You Only Live Twice today, it’s hard not to think about Austin Powers; though Mike Myers’ films broadly parodied the conventions of all things spy, and obviously its most notable cinematic agent has always been James Bond, You Only Live Twice seems to bear the burden of Powers’ mockery (its love, really). It’s also hard to not see why this one is so easily sent-up. Continuing the trend started by Goldfinger, each successive Bond has been bolder, more salacious and more strange, and its only mission, seemingly, to top the spectacle of the previous film. In many ways, Twice has them all beat, at least when it comes to fireworks. There’s even a pre-credits sequence, in which Bond is “killed” while “on the job,” that brings us back to the gimmicky surprise of From Russia With Love’s opening number. This time, however, MI6 has staged Bond’s death to swerve SPECTRE (a plot device the upcoming Skyfall seems likely to borrow, if the most recent trailers aren’t misleading us). Liberated by his “death,” 007 is sent to Tokyo to investigate the origins of a secret rocket launched into space, which has stolen (or is it swallowed?) American and Russian spacecraft in orbit, setting the two nations at even greater odds than before. Of course, Britain is positioned by this film as the benevolent arbitrator, trying to cool the tensions between two trigger-happy superpowers. The Brits’ efforts are mostly ineffectual, however, and soon war is imminent.

No troubles, though, because Bond’s on the scene, and he has an arsenal of hokey gadgets to help him succeed. “Little Nelly” is the most prominent of these toys, a quick-assemble helicopter he uses to locate the requisite secret volcano lair (“Is it a hollow dead volcano like I asked for?”). Bond is, inevitably, attacked by enemy aircraft, and he engages in one of the sloppiest action sequences in the series. Though green screens are inevitable, and forgivable, in these early Bonds, this time around they are lazily used, incongruous close-up shots inserted into the dogfight, and the effect is unanimously silly, and are in no way pleasing because of their silliness. Same goes for most of the shots involving the launch or recovery of spacecraft. You Only Live Twice is quite often a film stretched beyond the capabilities of its craftsmen. And even though the Japanese locales look lovely and the culture is rendered in a relatively fair manner otherwise, it’s hard to explain, much less excuse, Sean Connery’s yellowface disguise as Japanese peasantry. Is it one of those things you just chalk up to “the times,” shrug, and move on? This is an old film, culturally, aesthetically, stylistically, and socially, so what are the effects of such racism? How much less virulent is the offense when this much time has gone by? Sure, the film has a strictly narrative explanation for his portrayal, and he doesn’t even speak in stereotype, but exactly how much better is this than, say, Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany’s? Should I, we, still be offended? It’s tough to say. Twice is more obviously offensive than most Bonds, but I suspect there’s always a bit of sublimation going on for modern audiences watching these old Bond movies; they’re so old-fashioned (there’s a fairly typical bit in Twice when Tiger Tanaka, an ally, tells Bond, “In Japan, men come first and women come second,” and Bond responds, not at all sarcastically, “I just might retire to here.”) that to enjoy them you have to ignore the deeper meanings, or at least resolve not to fight against them, or openly laugh at them, or else the politics might make you want to put a brick through your TV.

Following a rather dull middle portion, things do pick up by the end, and the ensuing ninja-henchmen-Bond-Blofeld firefight is an enjoyably excessive affair. Still, I can’t help but notice the general weariness, not just on the visage of Connery, but on the series as a whole. A change, and a particularly drastic one, was certainly necessary to let the series breathe a bit, even if it was only a temporary, fleeting fix. That reprieve would come swiftly.

Nobody Reviews It Better: Thunderball (1965)

Code Redd Net continues its sequential look at all 22 official James Bond films with Thrasher's take on Thunderball, a film in the midst of '60s Bondmania.

Since Chicken Man took up reviewing duties with his excellent pieces on From Russia With Love and Goldfinger, I pick up Bond with Thunderball, and it's really quite jarring to go from the low budget conservatism of Dr. No to the benign excess of this spectacle. Thunderball is lavish, to say the least, and often strikingly self-aware; conventions codified only one film earlier are already sent-up within the series, as when 007 attempts to seduce SPECTRE agent Fiona Volpe, only to be rebuffed when she remarks, "But of course, I forgot your ego, Mr. Bond. James Bond, the one where he has to make love to a woman, and she starts to hear heavenly choirs singing. She repents, and turns to the side of right and virtue." Such words are practically intertextual, referring just as strongly to critical discourse as to strictly narrative explanation, as in Pussy Galore's swift side-change after being seduced by Bond in Goldfinger. And the now traditional pre-credits sequence is almost as superfluous, and downright silly, as it would ever be: after Bond attends the funeral of an obscure SPECTRE operative (interestingly, Bond remarks that he regrets not killing the man himself, and this may be another, albeit only verbal, example that "Bond does, in fact, kill when it might not be necessarily warranted," as Chicken Man so adroitly noted in the comments to my review of Dr. No), he is attacked by the widower, who is only revealed to be a man after Bond has served "her" a proper knuckle sandwich, and from there Bond makes his escape via jet pack. Seeing Connery flying that jet pack, and wearing that silly helmet all the while, is certainly a thing of camp beauty, and Thunderball is one of the campiest Bonds of all. Still, entirely earnest praise must be awarded for the finale, an underwater ballet-brawl that is both unique and well choreographed, and it's a finale that more than makes up for a fairly tepid, exposition-laden middle. It's a bit gauche, but Thunderball has appeal enough, and it's worth a second look if you've seen it before.

Previous Entries in this Series:

Dr. No (1962) by Thrasher
From Russia With Love (1963) by Chicken Man
Goldfinger (1964) by Chicken Man

Nobody Reviews the Games Better, Either

Now that our James Bond retrospective film series is in full swing, I thought I would take this time to remind all of you of the considerable collection of Bond game reviews we have just hanging around Code Redd Net.

First, and certainly foremost, we have my review of Everything or Nothing, a game which cleaned up at the Code Redd Net Awards in November, winning both Best Co-Op Multiplayer and Best Bond Game honors. Not only that, but Chicken Man and I put it on our respective Top Ten Video Games lists in February. EoN is truly one of the most honored games in our history, and deservedly so. Get yourself a copy.

Chicken Man has the unofficial EoN "sequel," From Russia With Love, covered for PS2.

You can also read a few archival pieces from the Geocities days, specifically our reviews of Agent Under Fire and Nightfire.

If you're in the mood for The World is Not Enough -- and really, who wouldn't be? -- you can always check out Chicken Man's thoughts on the N64 TWINE, or my own on the PS1 TWINE.

Boy, GoldenEye: Rogue Agent sure was horrible, wasn't it?

And should you get sick of gushing praise, you can refresh yourself with the faint praise in my Quantum of Solace, GoldenEye 007, Blood Stone, and Tomorrow Never Dies reviews.

We even dedicated a whole podcast to the subject! To make things easy, here's the episode embedded:


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