The A-word.
It's the bane of cinephiles, everywhere.
That book you love; the comic you remember; the show you used to watch; the game you lost an entire summer playing? Oh, someone's adapted it and it's getting made into a movie! Whether a cause for pre-emptive celebration or foreboding caution, it leads to only one thing: expectation. And expectation is the death of the 'clean' movie-viewing experience; no matter how closely the film sticks to its source material, or how much it tries to distance itself, it will be faced with the hurdle of comparison.
And while the movie industry loves the pre-built marketing buzz of 'now a major motion picture!', they loathe the comparative references which will be made from the first review onwards. Because many punters will expect to get exactly the same reaction from a completely different medium, to a story they already know. And therein lies the problem.
In this monthly series, we'll look back at some of the most respected and best-loved properties which have made the perilous journey to the big screen; often with some controversy, and almost always with far too much hype. This isn't so much a review of the films themselves, more an appraisal of their suitability as an adaptation.
And so, Adaptation-season jumps through the smaller screen for its televisual-phase, beginning with the 1960s. An expertly crafted mix of espionage, action and wry humour, ITV's The Avengers*1 was a mainstay on British TV screens throughout the decade. The show quickly elevated its supporting star Patrick Macnee to leading-man status as John Steed, then paired him up with a succession of more-than-capable female counterparts. Of the 161 episodes made, only 139 are known to survive intact to this day. Even so I'm not made of time, so I took in a sampling from the Emma Peel (Diana Rigg) era of the show, watching nine episodes from 1965, '66 and '67 (series 4 and 5)*2.
The first thing that strikes you is how effortlessly charming the series is, despite being inescapably cheesy. When Steed and Peel aren't discussing plot-based matters, they're zinging off each other with almost every line, their flourishes and quips working in tandem rather than competition. Both Macnee and Rigg carry this off perfectly. What's particularly nice for a 'vintage' show is that Emma Peel's character is treated as an equal (narratively at least), rather than an ornamental sidekick who's there for the dads. That said, there does seem to be a concerted effort to have her in a form-fitting black leather jumpsuit by the time of the inevitable melee at each episode's climax. And while there's the occasional mild flirting going on between the leads, there's never any suggestion that it's anything other than verbal sparring, which is kind of sweetly refreshing.
That said, these episodes were never made to be viewed back to back, and in the age of binge-watching the show's structural mainstays and callbacks quickly begin to look… formulaic. From each installment's prelude showing some nefarious force at large, to Steed calling round at Peel's house to brief her on the case, to the bit where they split up and arrive at the villain's lair separately pretending not to know each other like an episode of Hustle, all the way through to the impactless gunshots, shonky fight-choreography, and a coda of the pair driving calmly victorious down the road; you get the feeling each script more or less wrote itself, bar the initial setting and the antagonists' character names.
Once we get into series 5 the presentation moves from black and white into colour (a big deal at the time, I assure you youngsters). With it, the production budget seems to have been raised, too. There are far more exterior location scenes (these were used largely as establishing shots in the earlier episodes), and Emma Peel's wardrobe goes from suave sophistication to full on swinging sixties (which helps accentuate the shows's colour, to be fair). But something seems to have been lost in the transition, with the more formal feel of the monochrome days behind it. By this point, the James Bond series was four movies into its stride and providing stiff competition in mixing spies, stunts and satire. While the Avengers episodes I watched from series 5 were still entertaining enough, there's the feeling that the writers were starting to feel constrained by hour-long, standalone stories. The programme was far from over of course, and went on for another thirty-three entries for its sixth and final series, before being rebooted as The New Avengers in 1976 (which lasted for a comparably short twenty-six episodes over two series).
All in all though, The Avengers is great, stylish fun, and proof that if the premise is strong and your leading characters have enough personality, the rest of the show will fall into place around them. It makes absolute sense that a big-screen adaptation would be on the cards at some point. I imagine this is why the film was commissioned, at least.
One thing which isn't addressed in the episodes I watched though, is who are the Avengers working for? Although we see a couple of his informants, Steed isn't shown having any contact with superiors or managing organisation. Who's alerting them to these injustices that they find with alarming regularity? Who are they accountable to if they mess up or even fail completely? Week in week out, people are dying here, and there doesn't seem to be any sort of handover or cleanup operation. Again, I suppose it's refreshing in the 21st century to watch a spy franchise which isn't bogged down with procedural bureaucracy, but still. Apart from anything else, who's bankrolling Emma Peel's wardrobe? She wears a lot of white in the early episodes, and that blood isn't going to come out, mark my words…
My favourite line comes from 1967's A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Station. Steed is having a face-off with the evil genius he's unmasked as being behind a mysterious series of deaths on a train line running into King's Cross:
Villain: You see, I am going to blow up your Prime Minister!
Steed: Oh… how do you know which way I voted?
I saw this film upon its cinematic release at Dreamland Cinema, Margate. I have vague memories of vaguely enjoying it, although not to the point of a) renting or buying the domestic-release or b) actually seeing it again, at all. I certainly didn't pan it to the point of most critics, otherwise it wouldn't have been chosen for Adaptation. Of course, I watched films differently in 1998. So a revisit after nineteen years should prove interesting...
Yeah, it's not great is it? Alarm bells start to ring when you notice the run-time is only 86 minutes, which isn't usually a great sign with live-action movies. And if writer Don MacPherson*3 and director Jeremiah Chechik are scaling up 50-minute TV episodes but can't break the hour-and-a-half mark? Well, it does not set the mind at ease for the journey to come...
And what a meandering and turbulent ride that is. The very dictionary-definition of British™, Ralph Fiennes dons the mantle of Steed, while his opposite number Mrs Peel is portrayed by Uma Thurman, who was at that time hot off the back of Pulp Fiction, Gattaca and Batman & Robin. Well, quite. Sean Connery and Jim Broadbent have been employed to play themselves (as per), and there's a bit of textbook stunt-casting in the form of Eddie Izzard and Shaun Ryder as evil henchmen. Well. Quite.
So what went wrong? The core idea of the film, that a crazed scientist is holding world leaders to ransom with engineered lethal weather patterns, is perfectly apt for the Avengers. The series was never about hard espionage, but the movie version borrows as much from the feel of 1996's Mission: Impossible as it does the James Bond pantheon. We're at least introduced more properly to Steed's employer this time, in the form of 'The Ministry', and it's interesting how much foreshadowing of Kingsman this entails*4. But the problem here is in the execution, not the concept...
No matter the genre or method of delivery, some titles feature the cast emoting, interacting and… well, acting, whereas others just feel like the performers are standing in a room waiting to deliver each line. The Avengers is the second one. A leaden script weighs down proceedings all round, but never moreso than the leading pair; Steed and Peel quip and snipe as usual but there's an uncharacteristic level of actual flirting here, while Fiennes and Thurman paradoxically share absolutely no screen-chemistry. They're also not entirely suitable for the parts they're playing. Thurman manages the British™ accent well enough, but that's about it. Fiennes meanwhile is far too posh for this role. Patrick Macnee's Steed (the actual definitive version, remember) was well-spoken and unfailingly polite, but not 'posh'. This means when it comes to getting his hands dirty, the 1998 iteration of the hero carries a look of disgust, rather than determination.
Dragging along the other end, Connery is neither good nor bad, of course; he is just Connery; an act which either works for a film or does not. Funnily enough, this outing makes an interesting viewing companion to his appearance in last month's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. I think the fundamental problem is setting this film in 'the present day'. Had it been a period-piece in the 1960s (a la Man From U.N.C.L.E.), it might have retained some of its innate charm. Unlike Bond and M:I, the primary-phase Avengers didn't try to move beyond their era, they embraced it and bowed out gracefully. As opposed to being booed off the stage.
I'm very aware that my pre-amble at the top states that this wouldn't be a review of the film, but its suitability as an adaptation. Unfortunately, the manifold problems with 1998's Avengers are precisely why it fails to carry on the legacy of Macnee and RIgg. Had this been an unbranded spy-caper it would have disappeared without trace, and certainly without the malice it attracted (or earned, depending on your point-of-view).
Misguided, certainly, but quite not a total failure, the oversize teddy bear costumes and CGI hornets of The Avengers aren't even the most painful part. Bad writing and terrible casting conspire to hobble what could (should) have been a fun, disposable cinematic romp. A lesson for us all, Chechik's film at least serves as evidence that Steed and Peel belong on the small screen...
Hell, yeah.
Hell, no.
The early one as a televisual history lesson; the latter out of morbid curiosity.
Not in the TV episodes I watched, and I didn't hear one in the film.
Level 1: The TV series featured, across its considerable run, appearances from Christopher 'Dooku' Lee, Peter 'Tarkin' Cushing, Julian 'Veers' Glover, Caroline 'Mothma' Blakiston, Brian 'Nass' Blessed, Michael 'Needa' Culver, Bruce 'Rieekan' Boa, Drewe 'Red Leader' Henley and Peter 'All Of The Stunts Throughout The OT' Diamond.
The movie version features Christopher 'voice-work on Battlefront and The Old Republic' Godwin. Outside of the iconic Laurie Johnson TV theme, scoring duties are handled by Joel 'Shadows of the Empire' McNeely. Not quite as impressive but you do what you can, I suppose.
*1 Arriving on our TV screens on 1961, the show pre-dated Marvel's famous comic-title by two years. And even though the ill-fated 1998 film had been subconsciously blanked-out by most movie-goers for over a decade, when it came to the 2012 MCU teamup, the decision was made to amend the UK title to 'Avengers Assemble' to avoid confusion between the two properties. No, seriously. After all, you wouldn't want a punter looking at a poster of Captain America, Iron Man and The Hulk while saying to their partner "let's not bother with this Avengers film, it's obviously a continuation of that misguided Ralph Fiennes outing from the last century and clearly nothing to do with the concentrated marketing blitz of Marvel/Paramount that's being going on for four years now…"[ BACK ]
*2 If you want an indication of how society in general has changed, the show's leading actor Patrick Macnee was born in 1922. So at the time of the 1966 episode of The Avengers, The Danger Makers, he was forty-four years old. While he's obviously dressed 'in character' for his part, the man is nonetheless perfectly suited to his level of sartorial maturity and accompanying deportment. I only mention this because while I was admiring his suits during watching, it really hit home that there was a comparison to be made. See if you can guess which one of these is me…
I am minded once more of the words of vampire and raconteur, Louis de Pointe du Lac:
"But times were different then. I was a man at your age…"[ BACK ]
*3 And sorry to go leaping in here right off the bat, but for the script's inclusion, mangling and butchering of a Blade Runner "time to die" reference, it can fuck right off. [ BACK ]
*4 Bizarrely, there's also an unintentional foreshadowing of 1999's Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, with a road-chase between Steed/Peel and a horde of giant mechanical hornets. The pursuit takes place on narrow, unmarked country roads - typical of the famous British countryside. But there are also intercut shots clearly produced in post-production pickup filming, with different colour-timing, where the road is twice as wide as the UK standard, and is divided by a central, unbroken white-line.
I am minded once more of the words of Mr Austin Danger Powers:
"You know what's remarkable? How much England looks in no way like Southern California...."[ BACK ]
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
The A-word.
It's the bane of cinephiles, everywhere.
That book you love; the comic you remember; the show you used to watch; the game you lost an entire summer playing? Oh, someone's adapted it and it's getting made into a movie! Whether a cause for pre-emptive celebration or foreboding caution, it leads to only one thing: expectation. And expectation is the death of the 'clean' movie-viewing experience; no matter how closely the film sticks to its source material, or how much it tries to distance itself, it will be faced with the hurdle of comparison.
And while the movie industry loves the pre-built marketing buzz of 'now a major motion picture!', they loathe the comparative references which will be made from the first review onwards. Because many punters will expect to get exactly the same reaction from a completely different medium, to a story they already know. And therein lies the problem.
In this monthly series, we'll look back at some of the most respected and best-loved properties which have made the perilous journey to the big screen; often with some controversy, and almost always with far too much hype. This isn't so much a review of the films themselves, more an appraisal of their suitability as an adaptation.
The final comic-adaptation of this run makes makes an interesting counterpart to the last two works of Moore's I've read. Whereas Watchmen took place in an alternate-present USA and V for Vendetta showed an alternate-future England, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen inhabits an alternate past.
Just before the dawn of the twentieth century on Blighty's shores, the literary heroes (and villains) of the era share a borderline steampunk world. Campion Bond, a government agent supervised by the mysterious M, draws together a strike-team to defend the interests of the British Empire, knowing a fantastic threat calls for an extraordinary solution. Calling upon Wilhelmina Murray, Allan Quatermain, Captain Nemo, Henry Jeckyll/Edward Hyde and one Hawley Griffin, the table is set for a rollocking adventure. A Victorian Avengers, if you will.
On the surface at least, League is an interesting combination of those previous works I've covered, in that it's a tale of bickering costumed adventurers pulled together to face a greater foe in the name of national security (Watchmen), and has a borderline fixation with an unattainable (or certainly unsustainable) Glorious Britannia™ which only existed in the minds of those who were benefitting from its excesses (Vendetta). But whereas Moore's earlier pieces had heavyweight social themes running through meticulous plotting, this story is more of a rip-roaring homage to Boys' Own adventure journals (although it is not a child-friendly tome), tongue-in-cheek and aimed at an audience for whom mockery is one of the sincerest forms of flattery. While the coarser humour never reaches levels of outright discomfort, Moore's comedic digs at colonialist attitudes of the past are, at times, barely distinguishable from the real thing. But he's always had a dark-streak when it comes to laughs.
The first book is steadily paced but it struggles to fit the main story-thread alongside all the character introduction (comprising six collected issues of the comic-run), although there's also a wealth of background in-universe material presented as an appendix. The second volume feels more problematic, beginning on Mars and working in characters from John Carter*1 and War of the Worlds. It's a strong start, but again the six-issue structure hampers the amount of storytelling which can reasonably occur with the now considerable cast. In the middle of the run you can feel Moore's attention wandering away, and the focus of the writing dips markedly, as a lengthy detour works Dr. Moreau and his menagerie of visual gags into the proceedings and any previous character-building is pretty much thrown in the bin.
The actual conclusion to the main narrative of Vol.II takes place over six panels, two pages from the end, and pretty unconvincingly to boot. It's as if Moore and O'Neill had suddenly realised that this was the arse-end of the last issue. This could, to be fair, have been a nod to my existing bugbear with some of the inspirational source-material, but it feels like a tacked-on ending to a gradually unravelling story.
Also, it would have been nice to see Mina actually using her 'super-power'. One proper female character in the whole thing and she gets pretty much nothing to do. I imagine that could be addressed in Volume III, but Vol.II's shenanigans*2 have put that well on the back burner to be honest…
Not as culturally insightful or impactful as the author's earlier works, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is nonetheless to be commended for its its scope, methodology and (for the most part) its execution. It's not that the books have nothing to say, just that they have enough trouble telling their own central story without throwing subtext into the mix.
But can I see why it'd be optioned for a film-release? Absolutely…
Wow, this film's taken some flak over the years. Some of it well-deserved admittedly, but in terms of an ensemble-cast Victorian superhero movie, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen delivers just fine. And it's not like the source-material is quite as iconic as others on the same shelf...
Landing in the same year as X-Men 2 and from the same studio, the film's very much of a similar style and tone, but that was largely 20th Century Fox's modus operandi circa 2003. Pretty much all of Alan Moore's arch humour has been replaced with an altogether more pedestrian action-movie-slapstick. Some of the visuals haven't aged particularly well in the intervening years, but it more or less holds up for a fourteen-year old movie crowbarred into the marketplace by a studio not content with having All The Mutants. And when you look at what Universal were putting out the year before with The Scorpion King, it ain't so bad.
Updates for the screen-version include the addition of Special Agent Tom Sawyer, the near-invincible Dorian Gray and the book's original villain (half) appearing under the pseudonym of The Fantom (spelling deliberate).
As screen-time gives more leeway than comic-pages, the actual character interaction is far better in the film (and many of the less savoury aspects of the book have been eliminated altogether), although the dialogue itself is perfunctory to the point of patronising. Sean Connery's Quatermain isn't just there for random bouts of exposition, he basically just describes things as they happen, like an in-universe Audio Description channel.
Is it a faithful adaptation of the book? Not particularly. Would it have been afforded the same cast, budget and distribution if it were? Absolutely not. But the book was an uneven pastiche mash-up at best, frequently getting sidetracked by its own gimmicks. The film may be imperfect, but it's consistently that way. It's not that the original work is 'unfilmable', just that Fox don't make movies like that (although we'll see what they do with the rumoured reboot, now that Deadpool and Logan have widened the scope a little).
Okay, it's not the best film of its genre (it's not even the best film of 2003), but LXG is a perfectly acceptable, if disposable, action/adventure movie.
...It starts better than it ends.
I'd read the graphic novel back in around 2004 and didn't really 'get' it, as I'd seen the film first (indeed that's why I bought it). Having revisited it and its companion volume in relative 'isolation', I get it more now but think I somehow like it less.
If you're intrigued by the idea and its possibilities, both.
I didn't hear one.
Level 2: That Sean Connery's in this (he's in next month's Adaptation, too), and he was in that Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade alongside Harrison 'Solo' Ford, Julian 'Veers' Glover, Michael 'Ozzel' Sheard, Nick 'Drallig' Gillard and Derek 'Yavin IV Guard' Lyons.
*1 At the risk of getting ahead of myself, I think we're all aware that the movie-version of League currently enjoys a less-than stellar reputation, with a critic-score of 17% on Rotten Tomatoes, whilst 2012's John Carter adaptation languishes at 51% (even though it's near-universally derided) and 2009's Dorian Gray sits at 43%. What is it about Victorian sci-fi that doesn't translate to the modern screen for audiences and critics? For the record and in the interests of full-disclosure, I'm one of about twelve people on Earth who enjoyed John Carter. I think the other eleven work at Disney, and even one of those sat in a Monday meeting after release and asked "…why can't we just buy Star Wars, though?". [ BACK ]
*2 And not to put-off anyone who hasn't read the books, but while Moore's fascination with erotica is well documented, League is a bit 'rapey' in more than one sequence. By which I mean four. It's not a defining trait of the book, but it doesn't have to be to leave a bad taste. [ BACK ]
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
It takes a certain skill to make the central character in your PG-rated adventure flick an 11yr old boy, and yet not be making a kids' film. Step forward Mr Terry Gilliam. Time Bandits bridges the phases of his career between Python and mainstream film-making*1, which turns out to be both its strength and its weakness.
The film feels a little like a companion-piece to Monty Python and the Holy Grail, with the surreal humour and roving quest carried over. It's definitely Gilliam reaching further than before (despite messrs Palin and Cleese having prominent comedic cameos), but he's not quite ready to take the strides he did in Brazil or Munchausen. There's also still the feeling that the film is a series of vignettes assembled into a screenplay, or a bare-bones story which has been padded out with previously written material.
The cast are a real mixed bunch in terms of acting (Ralph Richardson can't always have been like that, surely?), although they're all earnest and enthusiastic enough to carry the bizarre story forward. But it's really David Rappaport who shines as the Bandits' leader Randall, to the point where he's almost too good for the film. There are also some great effects and high production values at work, especially as you can often tell that there was a very finite budget available.
Despite Gilliam's stamp being all over Time Bandits, you're never quite sure who's actually in charge. Charmingly shambolic (at least some of which is intentional), like The Hobbit re-imagined by Douglas Adams…
Best line:Best line: "If I were creating a world I wouldn't have started with butterflies and daffodils. I'd have started with lasers. Eight o'clock, day one!"
Yeah, really. I've seen clips of it, of course, and even read the comic-adaptation in Return Of The Jedi Weekly back in the day. But never seen it. Until now.
I am, but I'm also glad I saw it in such close proximity to Holy Grail.
With reservations, yes.
There only bloody IS, an'all!
The film stars Kenny 'R2' Baker, Jack 'Jawa/Ugnaught/Teebo the Ewok' Purvis, Mike 'Logray the Ewok' Edmonds and Malcolm 'Un-named Ewok Warrior' Dixon.
*1 Well, as mainstream as film-making can be under Mr Gilliam's magnificent auspices...
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
We've all been there; Browsing in Blockbuster, the HMV sale or the bargain-DVD section in Sainsbury's, and we come across a plastic case which gives us an involuntary tingle of excitement. Someone's made a sequel to that movie we like! How did this slip under our radar? Why wasn't this on at our local cinema? Why are we only hearing about this now? Well, there's only one way to answer that question; it involves spending the requisite £3 and usually ends with the question 'Why did this get made, never mind how?'.
The rules for selection are as follows: 1) The film needs to be a poorly received sequel to a generally successful film (so no crap sequels to crap originals, and no crap remakes of originals), 2) Films from longer series are fine, but the choice needs to be part two of that line, 3) I'm not intending to watch any of the associated part-ones as part of this run (whether I'm familiar with them or not), so there'll be extra pressure on the crap sequel to work on its own terms. So join me as I delve into some of the crappest, most unwarranted follow-ups of all time (hopefully with a couple of underrated, misunderstood gems thrown in).
How bad can it be, right? I mean, the original was good…
#CrapSequels: Highlander II: The Quickening Cert: 15 / 109 mins / Dir. Russell Mulachy
Year: 1991 (5 years after the first movie)
The general feeling: RT Score: 0% / IMDB Score: 3.9
This film was released in the same year as Terminator 2: Judgement Day. Think about that for a second. The film begins with a solid five minutes of self-indulgent dialogue-free opera with an Old Makeup™ Christopher Lambert nodding along and having flashbacks subtitled as "A very long time ago". Further captions will include "Somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean", followed by "Still somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean". Self-deprecating in-jokes hardly seem appropriate with a film as severely flawed as this...
It becomes apparent from the early scene where Connor MacLeod walks into a grimy bar and fires up Queen's 'A Kind Of Magic' on the jukebox, that this is going to be a fairly desperate affair, with director Mulachy, as well as stars Lambert and Connery, hoping that the audience's goodwill will paper over the considerable cracks in the screenplay. The level of hammy acting is mortifying as everyone slips into B-movie mode, including genre stalwart Michael Ironside, who appears to have been paid to give a Jack Nicholson impersonation for two hours (complete with a self-tying ponytail accessory). Still, the jerky cackling of the 'porcupine twin' assassins at least gives me a clue as to the origins of Ray Park's performance as Toad in the first X-Men movie.
As heavily exposited as it is, the screenplay's sporadic zipping between "2024" and various points in Connor MacLeod's past means it manages to be a jumbled mess in a historical fashion, as well as a futuristic one. Speaking of such matters, Highlander 2's hackneyed use (even at the time) of dystopian regimes, long-haired street gangs and black-suited rebel commandos zip-wiring into an antagonist's facility, leaving a trail of library sound-effects in their wake, means that The Future™ has never looked quite so old. And just when your brain's adjusted to the Blade Runner-Lite proceedings, a man in a winged-suit who is quite clearly swinging on a rope, has a back-alley sword-fight with a man on a flying skateboard who is quite clearly swinging on a rope, like some awful hybrid of Tim Burton's Batman and Back To The Future II. The words "it doesn't get better than this" seemed painfully apt at that moment, for all the wrong reasons.
But it's not all 'the re-tooled oxygen-generator subplot from 1990's Total Recall'. Oh, no. Sir Sean of Connery drops in every ten minutes or so to deliver some ill-judged*1 humour into the proceedings as the 'man out of time' archetype. When he's not materialising in the middle of a stage-production of Hamlet and conversing with the actors without seeing the hundreds of people in the audience, or throwing his weight around in an inexplicably old-fashioned gent's tailors to replace his anachronistic clothing with new anachronistic clothing, he's being baffled by aeronautical flight and saying "dickhead" slightly too often. His efforts aren't the film's only attempts at comedy (satirical TV commercials and in-flight videos are always HA-HA-HILARIOUS, aren't they?), but they're certainly the worst.
In comparison with the above, the ungainly screen chemistry between Lambert and Virginia Madsen seems almost forgivable. Madsen stars as The Girl One™, athletic and earnest eco-terrorist Louise Marcus, who is so committed to her cause she has sex with MacLeod in the street about three minutes after meeting him (if it's any consolation, the sex itself only takes about 45 seconds, so she might be playing some sort of ratio-game, there). In fairness, it's difficult to imagine any pair of actors making things work in this film, but rest assured; they don't try very hard, anyway. Still, it's infinitely preferable to watching Michael Ironside whooping and cackling as he drives a passenger train at speeds of up to 600 mph (I don't know either, it's not explained), killing the passengers by making their eyes somehow bulge and explode in the process, all played out to some crappy 80's metal (I read the credits, I couldn't work out which song it was). Ironside's demoniacal glee at haphazardly topping civilians can only be matched by his knowledge that no matter how terrible he is in this film, he will never be called the worst thing in it.
I seem to be using the word "incoherent" a lot of late, but it's rarely as fitting as it is for this crap sequel.
Like a sweetmeat processing factory inhabiting every floor of a tower block, Highlander II: The Quickening is just bollocks on so many levels. What makes matters worse is that I apparently watched the "director's cut", and the thought that there's a worse version of this film out in the world somewhere really scares me.
Many moons ago, barely remembered it, though.
Many moons ago, vaguely disappointed with it at the time.
Probably, but it's a complete mess either way, so it doesn't really matter…
Inexplicably, Lambert and Connery are back, as is director Mulachy. And surely it CAN'T be shite when 'the talent' makes a return?
Well, it happened. I have no idea how, but it went on to be a very successful franchise.
If you're intent on watching it, Netflix (or equivalent). There's no point wasting money on this shite.
Didn't hear one.
How did this continue to be a film series as well as branching into live-action and animated TV shows?
*1 And when I say 'ill-judged', I also mean 'ill-timed' and 'ill-written'.
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
Bond Night:Goldfinger Cert: PG / 110 mins / Dir. Guy Hamilton
Oh come on, who doesn't love Goldfinger? Perhaps the ultimate Bond film, with the humour, charm and action all on full throttle. Plus an iconic opening song that's nicely worked into the overall film score.
The terrible acting from the troops in the gas-spray sequence loses it a point, but Connery rocking a blue velour shorts-onesie regains that.
An ageless treat that triumphs over its shortcomings with sheer, auric glee.
Yeah.
Yes.
Yes.
Cinema*1.
Yes.
Yes.
Nope.
*1 It gets fairly regular re-releases and convention showings. If you can, do.
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
The Avengers
The Avengers
We've all been there; Browsing in Blockbuster, the HMV sale or the bargain-DVD section in Sainsbury's, and we come across a plastic case which gives us an involuntary tingle of excitement. Someone's made a sequel to that movie we like! How did this slip under our radar? Why wasn't this on at our local cinema? Why are we only hearing about this now? Well, there's only one way to answer that question; it involves spending the requisite £3 and usually ends with the question 'Why did this get made, never mind how?'.
