This Spirit is dead on arrival!

The Spirit ½«
PG-13, 103m., 2008

Cast & Credits: Gabriel Macht (Denny Colt/The Spirit), Samuel L. Jackson (Octopus), Scarlett Johansson (Silken Floss), Eva Mendes (Sand Saref), Sarah Paulson (Dr. Ellen Dolan), Dan Lauria (Dolan), Stana Katic (Morgenstern), Johnny Simmons (Young Spirit), Louis Lombardi (Pathos/Logos/Ethos), Paz Vega (Plaster of Paris), Jamie King (Lorelei Rox). Written and directed by Frank Miller.



If there is a future in terms of wowing audiences with a great story, it is officially dead in The Spirit; a comic book movie about a superhero (I think) based on a graphic novel or a series of graphic novels by Will Eisner.

The film is nothing more than a mass marketing toy; something the studio can promote through licensing contracts to various toy makers like Art Asylum as a means to produce cool looking 6’ or 12’ inch figures based on the film’s characters. I wouldn’t be surprised if sitting on the shelves at local comic book stores along with a figure of “The Spirit” are three or four versions of the villain played by Samuel L. Jackson as The Octopus dressed in a number of eye catching outfits. I am equally certain there will probably some very detailed sexy looking figures of all the femme fatales in the film played by Scarlett Johansson, Eva Mendes, Sarah Paulson, and Stana Katic; all of which will likely come equipped with fashionable high heels, leather boots and outfits and lots of dark ruby red lips.

If the film had boasted a number of special effects, it would be a prime candidate for showings at IMAX theaters, the way audiences were given the chance to see The Day the Earth Still remake in the format. I am convinced studios no longer care about whether or not a story is any good. All that matters to the powers that be are making the visuals impressive enough to score some extra bucks showing it on IMAX.

If you remember anything about The Spirit, it won’t be the storyline. The plot is as thin as the paper the screenplay was written on. I am still not sure how hero Denny Colt (Gabriel Macht), a police officer killed in the line of duty came back to life fighting crime throughout Central City as “The Spirit.” He is like Halle Berry’s Catwoman leaping from high-rise to high-rise in the dead of night, walking on electrical wires like they are sidewalks.

Likewise, I am even more confused as to how The Octopus was also given superhero, or I should say supernatural characteristics. Something fans of Eisner’s comic books will be eager to set me straight, provided there are any out there who really think this movie lives up to the graphic novels they have enjoyed reading. Like Alan Moore’s Watchmen, I have never read any of Eisner’s Spirit novels and thanks to this film adaptation, I don’t think I ever will.

The film was written and directed by Frank Miller, who with the help of director Robert Rodriguez and screenwriter Quentin Tarantino, helmed Sin City (2005), a series of popular graphic novels Miller also wrote. I didn’t care for that picture’s dark subject matter, which was garbage but at least it was garbage with style. It boasted a great comeback performance by Mickey Rourke as a hulking muscle bound convict who was more unrecognizable here than he is in his current critically acclaimed role in The Wrestler (2008).

Sin City’s trashy subject matter though, at least, had substance whereas The Spirit’s story is completely devoid of any. Apparently, the only thing Miller was concerned about here was capturing how the characters dress, their colors, mannerisms, and names. The Spirit is always wearing a black suit and Lone Ranger mask and hat, for example, along with the red tie and white tennis shoes.

Then there are the names of some of the femme fatales like Sand Saref (Eva Mendes) whose role as a former girlfriend of The Spirit requires her to drop her towel after stepping out of the shower in front of him and xerox copies of her ass to a city official she bribed. As for Scarlett Johansson, the only thing worth remembering other than playing the Octopus’ partner in crime is her name Silken Floss, which I have a feeling has nothing to do with the dental profession.

The only actor to come out unscathed here is Jackson, whose overacting borderlines on humorous sadism. When The Octopus isn’t busy being astounded watching one of his bald dim-witted minions in the form of a tiny head on top of a big foot jumping around on a table, he dresses up as a decorated Nazi officer telling The Spirit about his search for a special vase containing the blood of Heracles that can turn him into a God. At the same time, he threatens to chop The Spirit into tiny pieces sending his remains to various zip codes throughout the country. As if that isn’t enough, The Octopus takes great delight in seeing cute white kittens dissolve in some sort of liquid to the point the only remains are their eyeballs.

“We really need to have more people over for this kind of stuff,” he tells Silken Floss.

I suspect Jackson’s reason for the overacting is he already knows just how ridiculous this movie is so he rises above the unbelievable material with a standout one note performance of his own. His role is the only thing keeping me from awarding this movie the NO STARS rating it really deserves.

Then again, it’s only in America where people can start over again and be forgiven for their mistakes, especially in Hollywood. Perhaps a few years from now, should some studio decide to resurrect The Spirit franchise, they might just take Silken Floss’ last words near the end, when she notices a body part of The Octopus crawling in the snow as sound advice. My gutter mind made me think the body part was that of the male anatomy below the waist. It certainly looked like it from far away. It turns out it was a finger. Silken Floss picks up the moving part and puts it in her bra and says “Start from scratch.”

A part of me hopes studio execs, if not die-hard fans of The Spirit graphic novels, don’t take those words literally and start working on another production.

©12/30/08

The Cliff Notes version on how rogue Nazis plotted to kill Hitler

Valkyrie ««½
PG-13, 120m., 2008

Cast & Credits: Tom Cruise (Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg), Kenneth Branagh (Major-General Henning von Tresckow), Bill Nighy (General Friedrich Olbricht), Tom Wilkinson (General Friedrich Fromm), Carice van Houten (Nina von Stauffenberg), Thomas Kretchsmann (Major Otto Ernst Remer), Terence Stamp (Ludwig Beck), Eddie Izzard (General Erich Fellgiebel), David Bamber (Adolf Hitler). Written by Christopher McQuarrie and Nathan Alexander. Directed by Bryan Singer.



The story about the last of fifteen unsuccessful attempts to assassinate Adolf Hitler in 1944 sounds like the kind of movie that has the word “epic” written all over it; perhaps more than that. If done right and properly marketed, the story is the kind of film that ought to be the perfect candidate for Oscar nominations.

Valkyrie tells that tragic story but it is neither “epic” nor does it boast the words “Oscar worthy” despite being released at a time when a number of films are vying to be Academy Award contenders right now. The screenplay written by Christopher McQuarrie and Nathan Alexander and directed by Bryan Singer (Superman Returns-2006) is a two-hour Cliff Notes version of how those events happened completely lacking in suspense.

Perhaps the trouble began when the decision was made to have this film originally released as a summer movie last August and marketed more as an adventure movie. Rumors abounded that the film starring Tom Cruise as Nazi Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg; the leader responsible for plotting to kill Hitler, was going to be a flop. When the trailer premiered earlier this year, audiences wondered what was up with the eye patch Cruise’s character wears. Originally set for release in February 2009, when audiences embraced the film late this year during a successful test screening, the studio opted for a Christmas Day release instead.

There is no doubt much of the film’s success was going to ride on Cruise who has been under a lot of entertainment media scrutiny the past few years. All of which he brought on himself. His professing of love for now wife Katie Holmes jumping on the couch in front of Oprah Winfrey and arguing with Today host Matt Lauer about Scientology was just the tip of the iceberg. His collaboration with director/star Robert Redford in last year’s anti-terror-war political drama, Lions For Lambs, was a box office flop. One could say his recent Golden Globe nomination for his role as a balding, dancing heavy-set movie producer in this summer's successful comedy, Tropic Thunder, is a comeback.

On one level, Valkyrie could also be his comeback movie as well. His approach to the character is one of complete seriousness. Cruise has never been quite this believably dramatic portraying a historically tragic character since his role as a disenfranchised Vietnam veteran in Oliver Stone’s Born On the Fourth of July (1989).

The problem here is the screenplay. I cannot help but wonder what kind of movie Valkyrie could have been if Steven Spielberg handled the project. Like The Mist (2007), where I heard the phrase, “The Mist” uttered numerous times throughout the film, I must have heard three or four of the conspirator characters in Valkyrie utter a similar phrase about how they must show the world that not all of Germany was for Hitler.

“We have to show the world that not all of use are like him” was one such phrase and I heard it uttered a couple more times before the conspirators made their final plans.

I suspect the greatest obstacle a screenwriter faces is being able to make a story, on which the audience already knows how it is going to end, suspenseful to the point we hope the film ends on a more positive note. With Titanic (1997), I kept hoping the ship wouldn’t sink. I felt the same way watching The Perfect Storm (2000) hoping the sailors would make it home. History said otherwise.

Watching Valkyrie, I asked myself, “Shouldn’t I be on edge watching Cruise’s character stealthily walk away from Hitler’s bunker shortly before the bomb explodes hoping he’ll get away?” I wasn’t.

You would think sitting in a theater full of people opening day that if anyone was paying the closest attention to the story, they would gasp or get upset when one of Stauffenberg’s officers is three hours late in giving the orders for SS officers to take over various Nazi districts and arrest high ranking German officers loyal to Hitler despite lack of confirmation on whether The Fuhrer is really dead. All there was among the audience was dead silence.

By the time the conspirators were caught and executed near the end, it was too late to show any anger or emotion for these brave heroes despite one scene where one of the traitors tells his Nazi judges how their day of reckoning is coming with the fall of Third Reich.

I wasn’t surprised to have learned shortly before the end credits rolled that a memorial is dedicated to the conspirators that stands in Berlin. Their story deserves a much better, more emotionally power driven movie compared to the final product eventually released.

©12/30/08

A sci-fi remake environmentalist wackos will love

The Day the Earth Stood Still ««½
PG-13, 110m., 2008

Cast & Credits: Keanu Reeves (Klaatu), Jennifer Connelly (Helen Benson), Kathy Bates (Regina Jackson), Jaden Christopher Smith (Jacob Benson), John Cleese (Professor Barnhardt), Kyle Chandler (John Driscoll), James Hong (Mr. Wu). Screenplay by David Scarpa based on source material from Edmund H. North’s screenplay, The Day the Earth Stood Still. Directed by Scott Derrickson.



Midway through The Day the Earth Stood Still, the alien Klaatu, in the form of a human being played by Keanu Reeves and impeccably dressed in the kind of dark three piece suits secret service agents wear, stands in the middle of a busy train station observing every day life. He sees a young kid who watches him manipulating a snack machine so he can grab something to eat. Klaatu is on the verge of offering the kid part of the sandwich when the mother comes by grabbing him by the arm. I wouldn’t have been surprised if the mother yelled at the kid for either running off or scolding him about talking to strangers.

Klaatu also notices two people arguing over a train ticket when one of them is critically injured. The filmmakers could have used better, perhaps more powerful examples, of how society has become intolerant and violent towards others. The past few days I have read about how a former Utah police officer went on a shooting spree during the 5 p.m. rush hour on the Dallas freeways. Browsing the internet this morning on Christmas Day of all days for such carnage to happen, I came across yet another disturbing story about a divorced man in a Santa suit going postal at a Christmas party and then setting the home on fire. As of now, CNN has reported the death toll currently stands at nine.

These would make for perfect examples, and there is no doubt a lot more, as to why if I were an alien from a far more advanced race, would decide enough is enough. My race has given the people of Earth decades to change and they have only gotten worse. If what my race has witnessed watching the news is not enough to convince me the time has now come to extinguish all human existence, then surely that one gunshot from a military official mistaking my presence here on Earth as a threat to mankind would be reason enough to wipe out the planet as we see early on in The Day the Earth Stood Still.

If aliens do exist, I believe the reason they have not made their presence known to us with the exception of all those funny looking bright lights in the skies is because we are, in fact, a violent race bent on self destruction and races from other worlds are far more intelligent to not engage war.

I know, I know. There is no doubt everyone reading this review will tell me for every rotten apple we have in the world who do harm to others, there are hundreds more who have compassion and believe humanity is worth saving.

The depressing news constantly reported on a daily basis, however, that I often hear about leaves me to believe otherwise. I have to confess, sometimes I wonder if the Almighty isn’t on the verge of deciding if He should create another worldwide flood as told in The Bible’s Book of Exodus, wipe out the human race and start over.

At one point midway through the movie, I felt as though the filmmakers had read my mind. When government officials notice faint images of giant octopuses and other creatures being transported into the thousands of giant spheres throughout the world, one adviser calls them “arks.” And what happens after that asks one, the president’s adviser (Kathy Bates) says, “The flood.”

That doesn’t keep astrophysicist Helen Benson (Jennifer Connelly) from pleading with Klaatu arguing how when things get bad, the human race has the ability to change.

Call me The Grinch or Scrooge if you wish but I was actually looking forward to seeing humanity get its just desserts in The Day the Earth Stood Still. The original 1951 classic on which this version is based and what many will probably call this one completely unnecessary came out at the height of the growing Cold War. The alien Klaatu and his giant robot, Gort, planned to obliterate Earth because of our ability to destroy ourselves through nuclear war.

The Cold War may be over but that doesn’t mean fifty-seven years later with this remake, we still don’t have the ability for World War III. The filmmakers unfortunately decided to go another route with the screenplay. Instead of our nuclear capabilities, Klaatu says the human race must be wiped out because of the way we have treated Mother Earth.

“Your people treat the Earth the way you treat each other,” Klaatu says.

Alas, what we get here is a remake mindless college students will embrace who have been brainwashed by the impending threat of rising oceans and melting icebergs discussed by Al Gore in An Inconvenient Truth (2006). This is for people who stupidly think the winter weather sweeping over much of the country right now and the increasing number of hurricanes, or lack thereof, has to do with all the chemicals corporations have put into the Earth’s atmosphere. This is a movie employees who just happen to be environmentalist advocates, end their emails saying, “Do you really need to print this email out? Have a heart and save a tree.”

Were it not for the film’s unbelievable premise, I was ready to give The Day the Earth Stood Still my full endorsement. Even before seeing it, I didn’t believe any of the negative reviews the film was getting. I found there was a lot I did enjoy.

I liked the performances, in particular Reeves who actually acts as though he is from another planet, playing an alien inside a human being like he is a man trapped inside a woman’s body.

“This body will take some getting used to,” he says.

I actually felt like Benson’s character did in the beginning when she is told the world might end in a couple of hours. If you were told the world was going to end and you couldn’t get to your loved ones in time, don’t tell me you won’t sneak into a bathroom stall with your cellphone, despite the military’s ruling that all cellphones be confiscated, calling to tell your adopted son in so many words to stay in the basement tonight.

There are some memorable scenes as when Klaatu redoes some calculations a renowned professor (John Cleese) had been working on for years. I especially enjoyed an emotional scene where Benson’s stepson (Jaden Christopher Smith), after witnessing how Klaatu brings a police officer back to life after being threatened, the kid leads him to the grave of his father killed in the Iraq War and asks the alien to do the same. Klaatu tells the kid the difference is he didn’t mean to hurt the police officer. He can’t interfere with what’s already happened.

The movie can even be played for laughs. I found it odd that for a country in peril that the president of the United States is nowhere to be seen. Instead he sends his two advisers to investigate the giant sphere landing in New York City’s Central Park. I would think, as president, being visited by aliens would take much more precedence over everything else.

Then there is the Gort robot himself who reminded me of the African killer bees in The Swarm (1978) which when on screen was nothing more than a bunch of flying black spots. By comparison, Gort becomes a giant swarm of black flies that engulfs people and eats away at all the nation’s landmarks.

When it comes to movie remakes, I have always seen them as curiosity pieces; a chance to see what the filmmakers can do differently over the original. Now, given the slew of largely unnecessary remakes Hollywood is intent on making, if it turns out I haven’t seen the original, which was the case with The Omen (1976), I look at the new version as though I am seeing something new for the first time. And yes, I did like 2006 remake of The Omen.

By comparison, I still haven’t seen the original The Day the Earth Stood Still, though I am well familiar with the premise. This new version almost won me over. Thankfully, this is where the two and a half star rating with my definition “worth a look” comes in handy. Awarding this movie two and a half stars is my way of saying I am not endorsing it but I am not saying I didn’t like it either. My response is down the middle.

-Trivia note: It probably means nothing except maybe to Star Wars fans but the alien name “Klaatu” from the original 1951 classic was also given to one of the alien characters in Return of the Jedi (1983).

©12/26/08

What do you do when the one you love happens to be a vampire?

Twilight «««½
PG-13, 122m., 2008

Kristen Stewart (Isabella Bella Swan), Robert Pattinson (Edward Cullen), Billy Burke (Charlie Swan), Ashley Greene (Alice Cullen), Nikki Reed (Rosalie Hale), Jackson Rathbone (Jasper Hale), Kellan Lutz (Emmet Cullen), Peter Facinelli (Dr. Carlisle Cullen), Cam Gigandet (James), Taylor Lautner (Jacob Black), Anna Kendrick (Jessica Stanley), Michael Welch (Mike Newton), Christian Serratos (Angela Weber), Gil Birmingham (Billy Black), Elizabeth Reaser (Esme Cullen). Screenplay by Melissa Rosenberg based on the book by Stephanie Meyer. Directed by Catherine Hardwicke.



“I know what you are. You’re impossibly fast. And strong. Your skin is pale white, and ice cold. Your eyes change color and you never eat or come out into the sun.”

Such are the strange, troubling characteristics Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) says about her boyfriend, Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson); the new kid in school.

It isn’t long before Bella calls him the one word he demands to hear her say out loud. "Vampire."

The characteristics Bella notices about Edward don’t only happen in Twilight. Vampires in movies have exhibited these same predictable traits in hundreds of horror films previous, so much so, that I have gotten bored with the character and the storylines. I know exactly how the hero plans to kill a vampire in the end. If the Prince of Darkness doesn’t become a smoking fireball after being doused with drops of holy water, a cross, or getting a stake through his/her heart or die as a result of staring at the sun, I would probably be disappointed.

What makes Twilight so surprisingly original is it gives us a completely different take on how vampires live in today’s world. Apparently they don’t become fireballs when they step out in the sun. Their skin just becomes diamond-like. If I were a vampire-hunter, I’d probably look forward to the knowledge that once I killed one, I’d be left with piles of diamonds I could cash in. Women would just find their life-like image, “beautiful”, which is exactly what Bella says when Edward shows her what happens to him in the sunlight.

The film is based on a series of novels by Stephanie Meyer who might just be called the J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter series) of vampire stories given their popularity among young readers ages 12 and up. Not to mention the number of pages each of her four novels (Twilight, Eclipse, New Moon, Breaking Dawn) ranges from 500 to 700 pages. Were it not for the media coverage surrounding Breaking Dawn, Meyer’s final book released last August in the series in addition to the upcoming adaptation of her first book into a feature film, I would have never heard of this horror series. Then again, I don’t go browsing through the young readers section of the bookstore either.

Watching Twilight, I admit I was ready to dismiss this horror/romance as being only for the young girls and women in high school and college, which would include fans of the vampire genre and fans of Meyer’s books. Much the way I felt Sex and the City: The Movie (2008) was a “for women’s only film” for die-hard fans of the cable television series, fans of fashion, sex, and a massive fetish for high heels.

Needless to say, I was right. On the surface, Twilight does only appeal largely to teenagers and I can understand why. What female in high school doesn’t dream about defying one’s friends and parents and dating the “rebel” either no one wants to associate with or doesn’t know much about? I could just hear the words, “How romantic” when Edward and Bella are alone in his room together and she turns on one of his music cds without knowing the title happened to be composer Claude Debussy’s “Clair de Lune.”

There is even a moment that reminded me of the scene in Superman: The Movie (1978) where the Man of the Steel takes Lois Lane on a romantic night flight throughout Metropolis. By comparison, Edward takes Bella on his back and goes flying throughout the forests of Washington state, jumping from tree to tree like Tarzan.

I am one hundred percent certain the hearts of all those teenagers watching this movie melted when they saw the two alone near the end at Bella’s prom dancing under the gazebo; which happens to be where she pledges her undying love for him.

No, it wasn’t the romantic storyline that got me. What interested me was the background about Edward’s vampire family-life; thanks in part to Melissa Rosenberg’s adapted screenplay which is full of dry wit.

When a friend tells Bella how he disapproves of her going out with Edward, he says the reason he doesn’t trust him is because he looks at her like she is “something to eat.”

I found it humorous seeing Edward’s vampire family, who have never made a meal before, try cooking Italian when they meet Bella for the first time. Then there is their love for playing baseball during violent thunderstorms where they can hit the ball much farther than outside the average ballpark and thanks to their flying abilities, catch the ball miles away.

There is a subplot involving a group of rogue vampires (I think), one of who sees Bella as lunch because she is a mortal. There is also another group of characters; a family of werewolves who reside in the same area of Washington and don’t get along with Edward’s vampire clan; a squabble that has apparently been going on for centuries.

I am certain all this will make more sense to someone like me who will probably never read the books or will be too embarrassed to pick one up given the group of readers this series appeals to, but will instead see the films. The studio, Summit Entertainment, is now hard pressed into getting the her second book adapted for the screen as soon as possible. I have to wonder if the reasons to getting it done out are not two-fold though given that one, vampires don’t age and if this series goes on for the next six to eight years, the actors playing them will. Or two, the reason being to rake in a quick $120 million over the course of three weeks time like this one has done to date.

My interest in seeing how this series pans out will not be to see whether Bella becomes a tragic pawn in what might be a twisted horror rendition of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet where two rival families, one vampire and the other werewolf are at war with one another.

It will be to learn more about this decades old family who move from state to state, where there is not much sun, and can enroll in area high schools because they always stay the same age of 17.

Twilight is a vampire movie where like Bella, I was expecting to see a lot of dungeons and coffins. What I saw instead was a beautiful home in the middle of a forest surrounded by moats.

I have to wonder if in the next one, Edward tells Bella being a vampire is nothing like what you see in the movies.

©12/9/08

When you are out for revenge, who has time for small talk?

Quantum of Solace «««
PG-13, 105m., 2008

Cast & Credits: Daniel Craig (James Bond), Judi Dench (M), Giancarlo Giannini (Rene Mathis), Mathieu Amalric (Dominic Greene), Jeffery Wright (Felix Leiter), Gemma Arterton (Agent Fields), Olga Kurylenko (Camille). Screenplay by Paul Haggis, Neal Purvis, and Robert Wade. Directed by Marc Forster.



I am not a die hard fan of the James Bond series. I look at the longest running spy franchise the way I look at most, if not, all sporting events. I don’t mind spending a few hours watching a hockey game. Just don’t call me a fan as I have no favorite team, much the same way that I have no favorite actor who’s played 007 since Dr. No (1962).

The only time I ever get interested in the James Bond series is whenever the producers are searching for another male lead to fill 007’s shoes. When I saw Casino Royale (2006), I went in with the only impression the film would have the distinction of being the longest of the 21 Bond movies to date; 144 minutes. I got more than that. When it was over, I was pleasantly surprised. After all these years of sitting through a series of movies that were largely formulaic and predictable, here, finally was a James Bond movie where the producers and screenwriters decided they should take a different route with the character and explore how he got started.

When Daniel Craig’s lean, muscle bound blond 007 says “Do I look like a give a damn” in response to a bartender’s question how he’d like his dry martini in Casino Royale, I said to myself, “Yes!” Now this is a James Bond I can identify with. Like Timothy Dalton, whose only two outings as 007 I enjoyed were The Living Daylights (1987) and License to Kill (1989), Craig’s Bond was a spy who was mostly all business, though he can still find time for pleasure every once in a while.

I had the same similar feeling about Quantum of Solace. Like Casino Royale, a part of me went in knowing the twenty-second installment in the franchise will have the trivial distinction of being the shortest of all the Bond movies; one hour and forty-five minutes. Again, I was pleasantly surprised to learn the film offered a lot more. In fact, it didn’t feel like 105 minutes.

I guess I should have expected a shorter running time here. When someone is out for revenge, who wants to spend time making small talk? Perhaps that’s what screenwriter’s Paul Haggis, Neal Purvis, and Robert Wade had in mind when they adapted author Ian Flemming’s short story, Quantum of Solace, into a full-length adventure. The film literally hits the ground running with a confusing car chase throughout the hills of Europe and takes very little time to rest when it comes to delivering action. I confess it took me several minutes to realize the car chase sequence had to do with where Casino Royale left off in which 007 went after the ones responsible for killing his girlfriend, Vesper Lynd (Eva Green).

Within the first half hour, Bond’s boss M (Judi Dench) isn’t the only one upset that most every person 007 goes after ends up dead before he can get any answers out of them. I overheard someone in the audience say, “Damn, James.”

If I were a film critic who had been in the journalism profession reviewing movies for twenty years plus, I admit I would cringe every time I had to see a Bond movie and write a review because there wouldn’t be a whole lot to say. The word that has best described most, if not, all of these movies is “formulaic.” They all open with an action sequence where Bond is off on some mission to which he comes out alive, of course. Then the theme song by a popular singer plays as the opening credits flash on the screen and images of 007 are mixed in with shots of beautiful women before we get down to the main story that has Bond out to save the world from a maniacal villain. To not see Bond bed or befriend at least one or two women along the way would go completely against what we’ve come to expect from the character and these movies.

In Quantum of Solace, Bond meets Camille (Olga Kurylenko) who it turns out the two have the same thing in common; they want revenge.

When Camille asks him if he ever caught the person responsible for the death of his possible significant other, she says, “Tell me when you do, I’d like to know how it feels.”

Watching Casino Royale and now Quantum of Solace, I am left with the impression the filmmakers want to take this series into a completely different direction. “A Bond for a new century” one might say. Craig has even said in interviews that perhaps it might be time for an African-American to take on the role now that the United States has an African-American president who will be taking office this January.

What we’ve been given here with these two films so far are femme fatales whose names don’t turn on the dirty minds of men or women when they hear someone say, “My name is Pussy Galore.” Anyone who tells me their mind hasn’t wandered through the sexual gutter at least once upon hearing the names “Dr. Holly Goodhead” or “Xenia Onatopp” is a born liar.

By comparison, when Bond meets up with a fellow agent in Quantum of Solace, she introduces herself strictly as “Agent Fields” (Gemma Arterton). I had to laugh upon seeing the credits though as her name was actually listed as “Strawberry Fields.” Perhaps the filmmakers didn’t want to go through any legal issues asking surviving members of The Beatles for permission to use the name.

Also still missing is Q; the guru of technical gadgetry responsible for supplying Bond with a supply of communications devices and weapons to help him carry out his latest assignment. No doubt we will probably see him for the first time in the next one.

Even the villain, Dominic Greene (Mathieu Amalric), comes off as someone whose diabolical plans seem more simplistic. His hideout looks a hotel in the middle of a sandy desert that reminded me of how gangster Bugsy Seigel built a hotel/casino in Las Vegas in the middle of nowhere back in the late 1940s and no one showed up opening night.

Greene’s front is making organizations believe the money he needs is to help the environment when behind closed doors, he uses contacts within the Central Intelligence Agency and the British government to help overthrow a regime in Latin America that would grant him full control over the country’s oil and water supply.

Now if the screenwriters had been really clever, this character could have been a great jab towards former Vice President Al Gore and the environmentalist wackos who make millions fooling the gullible public into thinking society isn’t doing enough to protect the planet’s natural resources.

I wouldn’t be surprised if in the next Bond movie, the villains are for example, Al-Qaeda, tackling the kinds of sinister masterminds we are confronted with today instead of conjuring up characters whose delusions of grandeur range from someone who builds a space station that can help bring about the destruction of mankind in Moonraker (1979) to an industrialist planning to destroy Southern California to corner the microchip market (A View to A Kill-1985).

I have a feeling though the filmmakers won’t want to stray too far from a winning formula that’s been able to generate millions at the box office for more than forty years now. I knew it would only be a matter of time before Bond is back to doing a normal mission, which will likely be how the next installment plays out.

Come to think of it, if the words “James Bond will return” had not shown up at the end credits, I probably would have been disappointed.

©12/5/08