2002
What a way to screw up a
Fortieth Anniversary.
My daughter was not a
big fan of the remix of the gun barrel theme, the whole opening credit torture
scene, nor Bond’s treatment during it.
She got excited when she
recognized Hong Kong, though.
I got excited that she
recognized Hong Kong as well. Clearly we have been watching enough of this kind
of film.
While she objected to
his barging into a yacht club in his disheveled state, she objected far more
strongly to the “gift” sent up to his room.
“Peaceful Fountains of
Desire!?!?!
That's her name?
Why is she eating a
fig? This movie has issues!”
That was pretty much her
mantra for this film.
At first she found some of it “So weird its funny” but once we got to
“Blood from the torso”
to win the sword fight, we were firmly locked onto:
“This movie has issues.”
She, my wife, I and
probably everyone who sat through it concluded the sword fight was far too long
and got boring.
Good acting always wins
thought, and my daughter stated out loud once more:
“I really like this M.”
Similarly, the Q scene
was a hit in our home, along with Bond demonstrating what most people think of
extended instruction books. We were all
sad that John Cleese didn’t get to do any more turns as M.I.6’s armorer.
The VR fake out scene also caused an emotional reaction:
“MONEYPENNY’S DEAD!!!!!”
She was startled to find
Miranda was an agent, but experienced enough to know Jamesbonding was
“inevitable” in spite of her “no fraternization” speechifying.
She felt proven correct
when they had to kiss each other to hide later on:
“There it is…and I liked
her.”
She restated that
sentiment when it was revealed that she was the evil mole.
“It was her…man; I liked
her better than the other girl.”
Clearly there is far
too much just enough yet still quite a bit of Doctor Who in our lives based on the following quotes about Graves
and his medical condition:
“He doesn’t sleep? Oh, he’s a robot.”
“A special sleep mask? Where
are the killer eye boogies?”
I have mentioned
previously that the writing quality descended to the lowest factors whenever
Bond and Jinx traded forced sounding quips.
My daughter had an interesting opinion of those as well:
“What is this garbage?”
She noticed most of the
tributes that showed up along the way to the past four decades of Bond. However,
when 007 used the rebreather she didn’t say anything so I asked if she caught
the Thunderball tribute. She answered:
“I don’t know, I wasn’t
paying attention.”
I inquired, “Now or
during Thunderball”
“Yes.”
Considering this film
had elements of the main villain that made it a closer adaptation of the Moonraker novel than the often maligned
Roger Moore film was, going the crazy laser route was one of many less than
wise choices.
“This is stupider than Moonraker.”
The characters’
intelligence was similar scoffed at.
During the lead up to the “dramatic” reveal of what Icarus really does,
she blurted out.
“It’s a missile ray gun
thing, duh!”
Side note: Good thing the United States only owns ONE
missile, or they wouldn’t have needed James Bond at all for this one.
I had no real defense
for her tuning out during much of the story, but tried to get her attention for
the action scenes she usually likes.
She stared blankly at
the rocket car- space beam-para surf adventure.
I tapped her arm, but
before I could ask anything, she said:
“That was terrible blue
screen and CGI at the same time!”
I tried again saying, “The
car chase is kinda cool.”
She cranked up full
teenager mode for that one, with a hearty:
“Eh.”
Having seen Jaws and many
other henchmen come back from ridiculous fates, she did keep hold of the idea
that Zao was fine as his car went through various horrors in the collapsing ice
hotel…
Right up until the
chandelier fell on him.
“Now, he’s dead.”
As much as I am a fan, nay
a connoisseur of well used profanity in film, I have to agree with my
daughter’s view that Jinx’s “Bitch” at the end of yet another overextended
fight scene was not needed and added absolutely nothing to the film.
Her last two
observations also were perfectly in line with my thoughts on what became the
end of “classic” Bond.
A) Moneypenny’s fantasy trip using the Virtual
Reality goggles:
“Whaaaaaaat???? I wish I never saw that. Totally out of character.”
B) Her final thought:
“It was so so so long.”
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