I usually post this on a Monday but I'll have a busy day tomorrow so I'll start the ball rolling now.
I saw 4 films at the cinema this week.
1) Baywatch. 6/10. Inoffensive, entertaining enough although without any real belly laughs. Obviously the success of the 21 Jump Street films has inspired this glut of "reboot and pastiche some cheesy old thing". Baywatch's main problem was that it actually bothered to try to involve the audience in its "thriller" plot, which distracted from the humour. They should have had a more silly thriller plot, to pastiche the plots they used to have in the series. They even try to acknowledge this in dialogue when The Rock explains his theory about the baddies to Zac Efron who gets the only fourth-wall-breaking line in the film "this sounds like some entertaining yet far fetched TV show"
2) First part of a James Bond double bill to mark the death of Sir Roger Moore:
The Spy Who Loved Me. 6.5/10. This is often regarded as Moore's best Bond film and sometimes regarded as the ultimate Bond film. I found it disappointing (of course I have seen it before). It starts well enough, with a very smart way of introducing the female Russian agent to the audience, and of course the legendary ski BASE jump. It has a decent enough plot. It has the Lotus Esprit submarine which even before it hits the water must have been a real revelation to 1977 audiences just seeing a car shaped like that. It has Jaws!
But it also has Bond screwing up almost everything. I know he often does this but it's really glaring in this film. He keeps getting given scenarios that should be easy to solve, and then messing them up. The van sequence in the Egyptian ruins, with just him, Agent Triple X and Jaws, is a case in point. The Bond wisecracks don't work well (apart from the classic closing line) - the best innuendo comes from other characters ("Tell him to pull out" and "Lie down and let me look at it").
Also, we all remember Moonraker as being the film that ruined the whole Jaws thing by making him a comedy character, but actually this starts to happen in the second half of The Spy Who Loved Me. Finally, the villain is a lame knock-off of Blofeld. Shane Rimmer as the captain of the US submarine walks away with the acting honours in this film, btw. Finally....if you're in Cairo and need to get to Sardinia to try to prevent nuclear armageddon, I'd suggest that travelling by train is not the best idea
3) Second part of James Bond double bill:
For Your Eyes Only. 8.5/10
Always one of my favourite Bond films (in my top 4) I was worried that a big screen showing might highlight its flaws and drop its score but happily I still really enjoyed it. For sure it is flawed - I still don't understand the subplot about the bad guy sponsoring the teenage ice-skater, and that opening sequence whilst fun (and with great stunt flying) has no bearing on the rest of the film. But this was the first Bond to be directed by John Glen who is unacknowledged as having reshaped the way action films are made. This was the Bond film made as a response to the reaction to Moonraker (people didn't like how utterly over the top Moonraker was) so they went back to basics, with Bond as more of a hardman, barely any outlandish gadgets, and a toned down plot. The toned down plot does mean that the villain is even more lame than Stromberg, so we lose points there. But it's a straightforward plot and it's got some great action sequences which really shone on the big screen (Alan Hume's cinematography is great, and special mention to Al Giddings' underwater cinematography too). Arguably the best ski sequence in any Bond film, a very good underwater salvage sequence with Bond and Melina menaced by one goon in a JIM suit and one in a mini-sub, and finally THAT rock climbing sequence which actually isn't as nonsensical as I remembered. Good stuff.
4) Wonder Woman. 7/10
I know the rest of the world loves this more than I did. I did like it and would highly recommend it. Gal Gadot was a fantastic choice - barely known as an actress, "beautiful but not a simple pretty supermodel face", and perfectly competent in the role and able to carry a big budget extravaganza in a way that Henry Cavill in Man of Steel didn't quite manage.
Like For Your Eyes Only, and unlike some of the overloaded superhero films that have too many characters, this has a straightforward linear plot. It's also notable in that it is as much a First World War film as a superhero film. Hollywood doesn't really do First World War films, at least not much since the Second World War.
My main gripe with Wonder Woman (no spoilers as such) is that they give a lot of the driving of the plot and action, to the male lead. Given that people have been crying out for a female-lead superhero film for many years, and there was an opportunity here to really deliver that, this one almost felt like Wonder Woman was a convenient secret weapon for Captain Steve Trevor to use to help in his spy mission (in fairness, Captain America: The Winter Soldier was basically the Black Widow film as she drove the story in that one, but still).
So...For Your Eyes Only was my film of the week!
