Age is Just a Number

50 years of secret missions.  50 years of martinis (shaken, not stirred).  50 years of Bond girls.  And, of course, 50 years of Bond, James Bond.  Author Ian Fleming's iconic MI6 agent has appeared on movie screens 23 times since his debut in Dr. No in 1962, and audiences still haven't grown tired of him.  Since then, six actors have played the classic character, the first five being Sean Connery, George Lazenby, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton and Pierce Brosnan.  Then in 2006, Bond took a grittier turn when Daniel Craig took over the character for the first time in Casino Royale.  This was a darker reintroduction to the character that made the world of James Bond a lot more dangerous.  Two years later, Quantum of Solace failed to match the energy of the previous film, despite Craig's performance.

Now, the next chapter in the James Bond series, Skyfall, brings back the thrilling force that made Casino Royale unexpectedly powerful.  Directed by Sam Mendes, the film completely diverges from the story line created by the last two movies, but the intensity of the atmosphere and the amount that's at stake is as present as ever in this new story line.  This isn't just Bond's most important mission yet, but also his most personal, and there is a lot more than his life on the line.

While on a mission to retrieve a stolen computer hard drive with details of undercover agents, James Bond is accidentally shot by his partner, Eve Moneypenny (Naomie Harris), and presumed dead.  Meanwhile, the MI6 headquarters suffers a terrorist attack that may be linked to the stolen hard drive.  After Bond returns, the head of MI6, M (Judi Dench), reluctantly puts him back in the field to find out who is responsible for the surprise attack and who is targeting the agents.  Bond's search will lead him to Raoul Silva (Javier Bardem), a man who has past connections to MI6 and an appetite for revenge against M for reasons of his own.

Daniel Craig gives what could be his most vulnerable performance so far in his time with the James Bond character.  Throughout the film, he is reminded about how he isn't as fit to do the job of an MI6 agent as he used to.  In some ways, he's not the agent he was in the last two films; he suffers gunshot wounds and mental anguish from his childhood, which heightens his exposure to suffering.  And yet, he can still run, jump, climb, and shoot his way through henchmen, constantly defying expectations of his job capability.  But, Bond's on-the-job energy isn't his only interesting characteristic; he has a secretive past that seems to be a mental torture for him.  He's still the ladies man we know him as, expressing his sense of wit and whispering intimately to his new love interest.  However, his relationships with his Bond girls take a backseat to his boss-subordinate relationship with M, and it is with this that we see a different side of Bond.  Craig's Bond is more than a rough 'n' tough secret agent; he's an action hero with surprising emotional depth.

Judi Dench's M isn't just behind the scenes this time as Bond's boss.  She is subjected to the possibility of needing to retire, while also being one of the villain's main targets (for reasons I won't disclose here).  She is every bit as vulnerable as Bond.  Despite her age and the danger she faces, M faces these problems with as much power and courage as any of her younger agents.  She takes control of situations with an unbreakable authority.  Dench's commandeering of a role is mirrored by M's ability to lead her agency.  Her connection with Bond becomes more significant in this installment, as M is seen as a surrogate parent for Bond, which becomes evident in the film's second half when they visit a place from Bond's childhood past.

Javier Bardem submerges into the villainous nature of Raoul Silva as deeply as he did five years ago in No Country for Old Men.  However, his character this time around isn't a completely cold, emotionless and sadistic killing machine.  In this film, he tends to have a sense of fun when he's in the middle of his committing his evil deeds.  Without question, his best scene is his first, where he enters and speaks a monologue to Bond that reveals everything we need to know about his character, an individual with nothing but revenge on his mind.  Silva is one of the more intriguing of Bond's adversaries because Silva isn't just one of his typical villains; he's an anti-Bond.  This is emphasized by the strong contrast in their suit colors; Bond's is black, and Silva's is white, a night-and-day difference.  He has a troubled past with the MI6 agency, and he is everything that Bond is not.

As is tradition with every Bond film, Skyfall opens with a highly rousing action sequence.  It's a chase between Bond and a mercenary named Patrice as our hero tries to obtain the aforementioned hard drive.  This scene has everything: a car chase at the start to a motorcycle chase on top of the roofs of buildings to thrilling hand-to-hand combat on top of a moving train.

If that scene can draw you in, then the credits sequence is the selling point.  Adele sings the film's main theme, "Skyfall," and it tantalizes the audience with questions, such as "What is Skyfall?" and "What's the significance of it?"  Her achingly beautiful singing will immerse you into the tune, and will have you wondering at the mystery behind Skyfall and wanting to discover more about it.

The screenplay by Neal Purvis, Robert Wade and John Logan is appropriately linked to the 50th anniversary of the James Bond series, in that characters often talk about changes being made to the agency, such as whether or not MI6 agents are still effective, the possibility of M being replaced by someone younger, Gareth Mallory (Ralph Fiennes) and more.  The notion of "out with the old, in with the new" is highlighted by the presence of MI6 quartermaster Q (Ben Whishaw).  The scene of the introduction between him and Bond is a witty exchange of ideas of youth vs. experience and ways-things-used-to-be-done vs. ways-things-are-done-today: "Age is no guarantee of efficiency," says Q.  "And youth is no guarantee of innovation," replies Bond.  "Well, I'll hazard I can do more damage on my laptop sitting in my pajamas before my first cup of Earl Grey than you can do in a year in the field," retorts Q.  Bond learns to get used to these new gadgets, while the writers put in pieces of nostalgia from some of the older Bond films.

Director Sam Mendes doesn't make the usual James Bond film; this one isn't all about the action and high-tech gizmos.  With Skyfall, he puts in the deep human relationships that he's so talented at capturing, as seen in his films American Beauty and Revolutionary Road.  The scenes with the main characters interacting can carry as much weight and tension as the action scenes.  That's not to say that the action scenes aren't impressive.  This being Mendes' first Bond film, he stages the action very well.  The climactic showdown between Bond and Silva doesn't just have an abundance of thrills, but emotional resonance as well.

Skyfall makes the four-year wait for it worth our time, and cleans out whatever bad taste you still have from Quantum of Solace.  If future James Bond films can be like Skyfall, then I will accept the changes that Bond learns to accept, and will eagerly anticipate his further worldly missions.

Final grade: A

It's Paranormal, But Where's the Activity?

Ever since the first Paranormal Activity film was released in 2009, Paramount has followed up with a sequel every October to coincide with Halloween.  After seeing each film in years past, I would think to myself, "There isn't any way that the film-makers can come out with another one.  This is already good enough as it is."  For the first two sequels, I was gladly proven wrong, and each sequel succeeded in topping the one that came before it.  But then, the fourth movie happened.

Paranormal Activity 4 has set the franchise back in its quality of scares, and it looks like the disadvantages of needing to rush a movie for it to meet the usual October deadline has officially caught up to it.  The two directors from the third film, Ariel Schulman and Henry Joost, return to bring us the fourth installment.  The only scary, and unexpected, thing about this movie is how Schulman and Joost could go from making the most frightening installment in the PA mythology to making the least frightening installment.  It could be one of the most significant downgrades in between films of a series in the last few years.

The film takes place in November 2011, five years after the events of PA2, while the other movies take place in reverse chronological order.  This direct sequel focuses on a Nevada family with a daughter, Alex (Kathryn Newton), her younger brother, Wyatt (Aiden Lovekamp), and their parents, played by Alexondra Lee and Stephen Dunham.  One night as Alex is Skyping with her boyfriend, Ben (Matt Shively), she notices an ambulance outside of the house across the street from them, which belongs to Katie (Katie Featherston).  Although the family has never met her, or her son Robbie (Brady Allen), they believe them to be mother and son.  We, however, know him to be her nephew Hunter, who was abducted by Katie at the end of the second film.  As Robbie is taken in by the family as his "mom" is at the hospital, the family begins to experience some spooky (or not spooky, if you're the audience) happenings in their house, which may have to do with their new guest and a demonic spirit he might have brought with him.

The acting, at least for me, was never the main thing to critique in these films.  It's not that the acting is bad; the films all have the typical family-in-a-haunted-house performances that we have come to expect.  It's neither terrible nor great, just acceptable for the occasions.  Robbie plays the common creepy child character that has been seen in countless other horror films; but, again, it's what these kinds of movies call for, and the PA films aren't any exception.  As usual, there are the parents who refuse to believe that what's going on is real, until it's too late.

But sometimes, there are a few performances that are slightly better.  The relationship between Kathryn Newton and Matt Shively is a bright spot, engaging in some playful flirting and joking here and there in the film's several dull areas.  The older Katie figures more prominently in this installment; as compared to the previous two films where she only appeared in one or two scenes each.  Katie still has that certain chill factor because even when she's acting normal, we know the evil she has done when possessed and the evil she still desires to do.  However, the passable acting can only take the film so far.

One of the worst things about this installment is that it has devolved into mostly cheap jump scares.  Yes, the other PA films had some of these as well, but not nearly as many and were mostly in the start of the films just to get the audience's blood pumping (remember the closet scene from the beginning of the third film?).  Now, the scares are mostly people and the family's cat popping up in front of the camera, as well as the use of jump cuts to create scares, where we'll have a character in one spot and then, through a jump in the edit, appear in a different spot.  With this, you can see that the film-makers have become lazy with their frights.

As with each new entry in this series, more ways are introduced to film the events.  This time, the audience sees everything through laptop cameras, smart-phone video recorders, and even the Xbox Kinect.  Although the writers deserve some credit for coming up with new ways to present the footage, the laptops don't add anything different because they just sit around in different areas of the house recording from various points-of-view; they mostly copy what the security cameras did in the second film.  The way how the Xbox Kinect is used is that there's a laptop placed in the living room, and when all of the lights are turned off, the viewer can see the infra-red tracking dots that cover the area.  The first couple of times we see the dots, it's spooky to try and find where there is any sign of movement within the dots; however, it soon becomes a little boring and ineffective in creating scares.  Ultimately, these new methods of filming aren't as interesting as those used in the other installments.  I don't think anything can be as nerve-wrecking as the camcorder mounted on the oscillating fan in the previous film.

Zack Estrin and Christopher B. Landon were the screenwriters, and seeing how the latter wrote the vastly superior third PA, one would think that the same amount of terror would seep into the fourth movie.  Sadly, that's not the case.  Unlike the other three films that benefited from slowly growing tension that led to frightening conclusions, this film doesn't build much towards anything; which is ironic because the film's tagline reads, "All the activity has led to this..."  What little excitement this movie has is just thrown into the final act, and by that point, I was just too annoyed to get scared because of how long it took for something interesting to happen.  They even employ a few winks to some horror classics, such as The Changeling, The Shining, A Nightmare on Elm Street and The Exorcist, films that this movie doesn't deserve to reference.

What's near unforgivable with this movie is its ridiculous plot twist that comes about two thirds in.  It's one big cop-out because I was waiting for the reasoning behind the twist to be explained, only to have my hopes shattered.  To have us wait for anything good to happen for most of the movie and then not even bother to address the logistics to the twist is nothing but a slap in the face.  Now, we're going to have to wait for a fifth movie (it has already been greenlit for October 2013) for this plot twist to be explained, if the writers even decide to continue this story line.

The PA franchise is beginning to run the same cycle as the Saw franchise.  That is, it will come out with a movie every October, having the first few films be good and then a decline in quality will commence as the franchise gets farther in, due to the need to rush out the latest installment in order to make the viewers content no matter how good or bad it is.  Directors Ariel Schulman and Henry Joost should have done a better job with Paranormal Activity 4; not only because of how well they handled the third movie, but also because we wanted an acceptable horror film that rewarded our wait to see what happened after Katie kidnapped Hunter.  Whether these two decide to take another swing at the franchise with the fifth entry or not, the next film will need a director who can recreate the scares that had audiences returning to the theaters for the previous installments. Otherwise, if the fifth film can't bring the PA films back on track, hopefully one of the doors mysteriously opening on its own is the demon walking out and quitting.

Final grade: D+

A Hero and His Demons

Flight, directed by Robert Zemeckis, begins in a hotel room lit by the early morning sun.  The alarm clock rings at 7:14 AM, and awakens a groggy pilot (Denzel Washington) from a late night of under-the-covers fun with his flight attendant Katerina (Nadine Velazquez).  Bottles of beer stand near the bedside lamp.  The pilot takes a swig of beer, and then snorts a line of cocaine to lessen the effects of the alcohol.  This is airline captain William "Whip" Whitaker, and he's preparing to his next flight.

After having his previous three films consist of motion-capture animation, Zemeckis reverts back to live-action storytelling for the first time since he directed Cast Away back in 2000.  In his truly character-driven film, he dives into the depths of Whitaker's inner turmoil caused by alcoholism, and places him under the strictest of microscopes.  Whitaker's long road to sobriety is mined with constant alcoholic temptation, and the audience walks this road with him as the desire to reach the root of his problem grows to an absolute need and want for him to get better.  

In a routine day, Whitaker arrives at the airport for his flight.  After taking off and hitting some turbulence during a storm, the flight starts to go smoothly, and Captain Whitaker sneaks two small bottles of liquor into his orange juice.  Awhile later, the plane begins to dive out of the sky.  By nothing short of a miracle, Whitaker manages to land the plane in a field, and is labeled a national hero.  However, when investigations begin on what caused the crash, it is found in Whitaker's medical tests that he had alcohol in his system at the time of the accident.  It is then questioned if the cause of the crash was purely a technical malfunction, or if his inebriation played a part in it as well.  In the meantime Whitaker tries to dodge the media as he begins his efforts to rid himself of alcohol dependency.

Denzel Washington's character is a dark and troubled version of real-life hero Chesley Sullenberger, and his performance is mesmerizing.  That adjective fits the occasion because whenever there are any alcoholic beverages in the same shot with Whitaker, the audience watches him with unwavering eyes to see if he will succumb to his addiction or resist the biting urge to drink.  The audience sees the sense of detachment he feels from being separated from his family as Whitaker watches home videos of him with his father and son.  But, his refusal to stop drinking is keeping him back from what used to be a good life.  When he resorts to the booze, the viewer becomes infuriated with Denzel's character because his actions severely damage his familial and romantic relations, and threatens the safety of others; but, that's how the viewer can tell that he cares about Whitaker.  The viewer wants him to get better as Denzel's character expresses the pain of being trapped by his addiction.

Kelly Reilly gives a breakout performance as an ex-junkie named Nicole.  In the beginning she has needs to get her fix.  But, she still retains some degree of dignity as to what she will not do for drugs, refusing to give in to the crude demands of her supplier. And, behind her damaged appearance is someone who strives to make a better living for herself.  Reilly gives her character a stunning transformation from a drug addict to a responsible woman who begins to get her life back on track with the help of Whitaker.  And she, in turn, tries to help him the best she can.  The magic of her performance is that she is first seen as someone whom the viewer would least suspect would assist in a person kicking a drug habit, and yet, she becomes that individual who is Whitaker's only true friend in the film.

Don Cheadle and Bruce Greenwood appear as the crafty lawyer assigned to Whitaker and a representative in the airline's pilots union, respectively.  It's never quite clear if the two have Whitaker's best interests in mind, or are just looking out for the future of the airline company.  They put on gentlemanly personas, but the viewer must study them to find out what it is they really want from this situation.  John Goodman makes a humorous appearance as Whitaker's oddball, drug-dealing friend Harling.

The sequence of the emergency landing is a harrowing case of a disaster that's closely averted.  During the whole scene, the viewer feels as though he is in a flight simulator, bumping along with the turbulence and diving towards the ground.  Everything is sensed from the panic of the passengers to the tension of the pilots.  The way it is shot by cinematographer Don Burgess gives the audience views from inside and outside of the plane, and the shot of the plane gliding upside-down is unforgettable.

The screenplay by John Gatins doesn't bring in the actual hearing until the final 20 minutes of the movie.  Until then the film is rather a magnificently detailed analysis of Denzel's character, exploring the reasons as to why he struggles with alcohol abuse.  The screenplay first presents the film with two story lines with different central characters, one with Whitaker and the other focusing on Nicole.  But, they are thematically similar.  They both suffer from addictions and need help.  Their relationship is carefully developed as Whitaker takes in Nicole after she gets evicted from her apartment, and as Nicole tries to help Whitaker recover from his alcoholism.  As soon as the movie reaches the climactic hearing and a surprising revelation takes place, it's a time for the audience to make one last plea for Whitaker to do what's right.

Before Flight, Zemeckis had a 12-year-hiatus from live-action filmmaking after he directed Cast Away, which was carried by Tom Hanks' performance.  With Zemeckis' latest movie, it's clear that he still has the ability to handle a movie that is purely character driven.  The director makes Whitaker's character into someone the audience can feel strongly for, and doesn't turn Whitaker into the cliched booze hound that is normally seen in film; he is a respected pilot and supposed hero who has hit a rough patch with his alcohol abuse.  As seen in Zemeckis' filmography, he does have much experience with visual effects in his movies, and gives audiences a special effects treat with the emergency-landing sequence.

That sequence, however, means something more, and represents the entire movie.  It is not just one of the film's most memorable scenes, but it also has a symbolic use.  It represents Whitaker's life making its own emergency landing so he can save himself and improve the quality of his life.

With the combined efforts of the performances, screenplay and direction, Flight earns its wings.

Final grade: A