Finally, A Review of a Movie Still in Theaters...

 

RoboCop

2014

D: Jose Padilha

**********

Pros: Good pacing, Gary Oldman, Michael Keaton, A few good ideas, Some decent visuals

Con: Disappointing action, Broken Aesop, World-building

     It would go without to saying that remaking a beloved classic is a risky proposition, but I’ve got to start typing this review somehow.  RoboCop (1987) is a camp sci-fi classic which holds a place in my heart.  Its memorable characters, well-balanced satire and campy ultraviolence make it a truly memorable film.  The remake seems to take the safe route by making it an earnest mainstream movie (PG-13).  Either the filmmakers didn’t get the original, or they might have been trying to avoid the remake’s risk of falling short in a direct comparison with it.  Personally, I think the truly respectable thing to do (besides not making it) would be to attempt to make it a satire and take advantage of the extra 28 years of material.  Then again, this may be a good thing since, as I’ve observed before, satire is generally not Hollywood’s strong suit.  When I saw RoboCop ‘14, I thought it was pretty good at first, but some thought and a conversation with friends made me see some flaws.  

     The movie begins with pundit Pat Novak (Samuel L. Jackson) ranting about how Omnicorp’s robotic drones are not allowed to patrol US soil even though they are peacekeeping in other parts of the world.  He then shows footage of ED-209’s patrolling the streets of Tehran with some other killbots.  Suddenly, a group of suicide bombers decide to blow up a few of them to make a point.  They make it clear that these protesters want to make sure they do not harm any civilians (they’re unusually considerate suicide bombers), and as we all know blowing stuff up in crowded city streets is a great way to minimalize collateral damage.  In the ensuing panic, the ED-209’s perform well until the young son of one of the bombers rushes out and threatens one them with a kitchen knife and is shot down.  This is probably supposed to be the equivalent of Kinney’s death at the hands of a malfunctioning 209.  

     Unable to convince Congress to legalize drones in America, Omnicorp CEO Raymond Sellars (Michael Keaton) devises a way to circumvent the law with a cyborg.  When Detective Alex Murphy (Joel Kinnaman) is seriously injured by a car bomb, he gets his opportunity.  Murphy got into this predicament by doing undercover stings with his partner Jack Lewis (Michael K. Williams) in order to take down crime lord Antoine Vallon (Patrick Garrow).  Vallon conspires with some corrupt cops to assassinate Murphy.  These stings could have been mentioned efficiently in a line of dialogue, but instead the movie resorts to a needlessly time-consuming flashback that doesn’t do much useful except pad out Lewis’ underwhelming involvement in the movie. 

     The head scientist leading the RoboCop program, Dr. Dennett Norton (Gary Oldman), is introduced while providing therapy to a guitarist with cybernetic hands (Raffi Altounian).  This scene establishes that emotion negatively impacts the physical dexterity of cybernetics.  I'm glad this never comes up later in the movie because it has nothing to do with our protagonist's situation.  Norton a typical peaceful-scientist-reluctantly-working-on-a-weapons-project stock character, but his conflict makes him one of the most interesting people in the movie.  When Murphy awakens for the first time as RoboCop, he has his memories and personality intact, a noticeable difference from the original.  He comments on how he can still feel his body, which is explained as phantom limb (which is usually supposed to be painful).  When he asks to see what’s left of his body, Norton has his robotic limbs and chassis removed to reveal that there is nothing left but his head, lungs, heart and (for some reason) one hand.  While the scene is technically not violent, it’s actually pretty graphic and stomach turning.  Kinnaman’s acting is hard for me to judge here because his character does not have the luxury of any kind of body language.

     RoboCop’s training under the tutelage of Omnicorp weapons expert Rick Maddox (Jackie Earl Haley) involves simulations and competitions with ED-208 drones.  When he is trounced by the drones, Omnicorp devises a disturbing idea: modify him so that in Combat Mode the AI takes over his decision-making while tricking his brain into thinking it’s in control.  Throughout the training, Maddox mocks RoboCop mercilessly for being a cyborg.  At first RoboCop responds by likably shaking his hand and smiling, but at the end of his first successful test he gleefully zaps Maddox with a taser (which you could die from) when he is not in Combat Mode.  So much for turning the other cheek.  The original RoboCop may have been cold and brutal, but he was never petty.  Throughout his training he gets occasional contact with his wife (Abbie Cornish) and son (John Paul Rutton).  Their arc is essential to the plot but not all that interesting.  His wife’s involvement is mostly just sobbing, not that I can blame her.

     When he’s finally done with his training, an absurd scene happens.  He’s about to get exposed to the public in a press conference, and they upload the entirety of Detroit’s crime records into his brain.  Why they are doing this two minutes before his rollout is anyone’s guess.  Instead of simply giving him useful information like photos and rap sheets, they also show him potentially traumatizing footage of violent crimes.  Worse still, they even upload footage of his own near death.  This predictably causes a panic attack.  Norton responds by ordering his dopamine levels dropped down to practically nothing, because apparently there’s no happy medium between “panic attack” and “cold and unfeeling.”  The result is that he frightens his family and apprehends a wanted criminal who happened to show up at his rollout.  The arrest was a result of efficient data scanning combined with crime records, not having a bulletproof cyborg.  Why don’t they just equip police cameras with this technology and have normal cops do the job?  Also, catching criminals is one thing, gathering evidence needed to convict them is another.  This is why RoboCop works better as a satire.

     RoboCop now acts more like the original RoboCop until he reexamines his own attempted murder.  After recognizing that his son had watched it from his bedroom and was traumatized (as we can tell from the child’s utterly blank expression), he regains his emotions, overcomes his programming and hunts down those responsible.  Nothing gets you back in touch with your humanity quite like revenge.  After he tracks down and unceremoniously kills Vallon and his gang, he exposes the corrupt policemen who conspired with him.  Mattox shuts him down remotely, and Sellars uses the police corruption scandal to convice Congress to legalize incorruptible drones.  I don’t know how this would make a difference since it’s not like people are not already familiar with police corruption, and putting drones on the street would prevent the higher-ups from being corrupt.  Anyway, the bill passes, allowing Omnicorp to unleash a bunch of robots that they had sitting around just in case public opinion did a 180 like it just did.  You know, because corporations love gambling with their money like that.                                  

     Omnicorp intends to kill RoboCop and make him a martyr, claiming that he had a psychotic breakdown (like that will make people less fearful of drones), but Norton rebels, reactivates RoboCop and disables his remote control.  Sellars responds by taking the Murphy family hostage.  RoboCop fights his way through multiple ED-209’s and Mattox to get to Sellars.  He has trouble saving his family from Sellars because the latter is wearing a special bracelet that prevents all Omnicorp drones from firing upon its wearer.   This is the equivalent of the original’s Directive 4 programming.  However, unlike the original, in which the solution is clever and consistent with the movie’s rule, the remake’s RoboCop simply wills himself into shooting Sellars anyway.  The day is saved, the bill is vetoed by the president and RoboCop is put back on the police force wearing a comfortingly familiar silver suit.  It’s exposited that Omnicorp’s holdings are getting taken over by its parent company OCP (a nod to the original).  Why is the parent company Omnicorp called Omni Consumer Products?  That doesn’t make sense.  And why didn’t they just call the company OCP anyway? 

     RoboCop ends up being a passably enjoyable film.  It’s well-paced and the characters are decent enough to make the movie watchable.  Murphy/RoboCop himself is a generally likable family man (taser incident notwithstanding), albeit his character arc isn’t as compelling as it is in the original.  The remake does have some good ideas with his character, though.  It’s good that the movie takes a different direction by having him retain his free will.  Yet in some ways he’s more controlled by Omnicorp.  He can be shut down by remote and is dependent on a dialysis machine to survive, whereas the original is more self-sufficient.  Lewis is a big disappointment.  As a fan of The Wire, I was excited to see Michael K. Williams in the role.  While Anne Lewis (Nancy Allen) was a strong character who had an important role in the movie and a well-developed partnership with RoboCop, Jack Lewis seems to show up only occasionally as an afterthought.   In an eerie similarity with another Paul Verhoeven remake, a charismatic actor from a critically acclaimed cable series was cast in an important role only to be given barely any screentime at all.  Gary Oldman’s Norton is compelling and well-developed because of how conflicted he is, but he loses some points with the dopamine scene.  Murphy’s family is credible but bland.

     Antoine Vallon is bland, and he’s really more of a plot point than a character.  Clarence Boddicker (Kurtwood Smith) of the original was a truly charismatic memorable villain.  He had no fear of the cops and slaughtered them with sadism and impunity, making him a dreaded presence.  He personally tortured and murdered Murphy in a cringe-inducing manner.  When Vallon ordered the hit, he seemed reluctant and almost had to be talked into it.  Though this cautiousness makes sense, it doesn’t make for a very strong villain.  In fact, Mattox seems to be the true equivalent to Clarence in the new movie, but he’s a pretty poor substitute as he’s not much more than a petty douchebag.  Most of the charisma goes to Raymond Sellars.  Michael Keaton does a very good job portraying an eccentric and corrupt CEO.  He’s one of the few elements that the remake genuinely improves upon.  Overall, the movie makes decent use of a good cast, but it lacks many things that made the original a classic.   

     One problem with the movie is with design and world-building.  The original did a great job establishing atmosphere with its dour, flat gray depiction of a run-down Detroit contrasting with artificially optimistic in-universe commercials.  The remake seems to be uniformly bright and shiny in its visual style.  It looks like every other movie today.  You don’t get the feeling that Detroit is in decay from this movie.  Considering that the city has been in a state of atrophy for years, and large parts of it look haunted, all they had to do was film more scenes in some of these areas.  They didn’t even need to resort to the R-rated bloodletting of the original.  It would be a good source of satire if the movie went in that direction, too.  It would be funny to see ED-209’s patrolling vacant slums as an attention-starved public project.  They could have also been made to look cute, so as to make people less frightened of them in universe.  Makes sense, and would be funny.  See how I said how a satire would be a better route.

Like this, except even cuter.

     Other design elements bugged me as well.  At first, RoboCop’s suit looked fine, like a more streamlined version of the original.  It was quickly replaced with a “tactical” black suit that looked like a guy in a plastic suit rather than a robotic body.  The movie even seems aware of how bad it looks since the in-universe justification is a brilliantly frustrating corporate line by Sellars: “People don’t know what they like until you show it to them.”    At least it’s good commentary.  I was also disappointed to see that the RoboCop didn’t drive a Taurus.  The Ford Taurus police cars in the original are a source of ironic amusement in the movie’s fanbase, and the new Tauruses, which actually are imposing and viable police cars, would be a good choice for a serious remake of RoboCop.  I was excited to see them in this movie, but I could barely catch glimpses of them in the background.  Instead, our hero rides a generic motorcycle.  What part of "RoboCop drives a Taurus" did they not understand?  

     A common complaint about the remake is the lack of R-Rated violence.  It’s true that the original’s bloody action scenes were highly effective, being shocking and campy when the needed to be.  The remake’s action is generic shakycam.  I was having high hopes about the Robo’s fight with multiple ED-209’s near the end, but aside from some cool laser effects, it was disappointing.  The battle with Vallon & Co. takes place in total darkness, and instead of having a consistent theme, it constantly switches from RoboCop’s night vision to the criminals’ night vision with a less effective version of Equilibrium’s muzzle flash fight thrown in.  The only time the shakycam cinematography is used effectively in battle is during the Tehran scene, where it’s successfully used to invoke discomfort when the robots patrol the streets.  When kitchen knife boy gets shot, the cinematography cuts effectively in a way that’s visceral yet tasteful.  Ultimately, however, the remake’s action is as forgettable as the original’s is unforgettable.

     The Novak Element is a mixed bag.  It’s a painfully obvious jab at The O’Reilly Factor, and I question the logic of making fun of someone by casting Samuel L. Jackson to play him.  It has its moments.  A hilarious (and true) bit of satire occurs when Novak has two opposing guests on the show and suddenly cuts off the feed of a guest who disagrees with him before he has a chance to answer a question.  The Novak Element also boasts some of the more interesting visual effects in the movie.  Still, it has a more humorous tone that clashes with the rest of the film.  The lazy attempts at satire in the newsfeeds certainly do not help.  Some supposed poetic justice about Mexico’s fighting against illegal American immigrants (yeah, they’d have every right to), and a classic example of individual hubris masquerading as a critique of human hubris in which Aliens contact us but think we’re too stupid to associate with (says more about the aliens than us).   

     RoboCop also fails at conveying its central message, which is clear: drones are bad.  While the movie does call America out for its reluctance in domestically applying drone activities it has no qualms about doing overseas, it generally doesn’t do a good job conveying its message.  Instead of making legitimate criticisms of America’s use of drones, it focuses on a rather less compelling argument.  A senator (Zach Grenier) asks Sellars if a drone would “feel bad” if it accidentally killed a child, and Sellars sheepishly admits it wouldn’t.  The real question should be, “Is it more likely to kill a child?”  The answer seems to be “no,” since the robots are consistently shown to be reliable when it comes to holding fire on unarmed targets.  The only time it shoots a non-threat is that kid with a kitchen knife, and even that was mistake of the programmers, not the machine.  The movie even clearly displays a robot handling a hostage situation better than a human.  The logic seems to be “Dead Kid + Traumatized Cop > Dead Kid.”  I will say that feelings are arguably important in the matter.  An enforcement robot may not any more evil than the government that employs it, but it doesn’t have the capacity to be less evil; it just follows its orders.  That might encourage brutality and oppression since no one making the decisions has to get xir hands dirty and there’s no chance of the drones’ growing a conscience.  Though dictatorships have gotten along just fine with human enforcers, that’s still a consideration.  The movie does not mention this.

     RoboCop is watchable and not at all as bad as the truly disastrious Total Recall (2012), but it’s no classic.  It has some good ideas here and there, but it simply isn’t daring.  I might have preferred Darren Aronofsky’s proposed version, as that does seem interesting.   This movie, however, doesn’t have edge or visuals to justify going to the theater to see it.      

            

I Guess Nostalgia Isn't Everything...

 

GI Joe: The Movie

1987

D: Don Jurwich

**********

Pros: Decent animation and action, Some amusingly over-the-top dialogue, Nostalgic value

Cons: Absurd story with a terrible retcon, Terrible hero

      I grew up watching GI Joe.  Even though it has a lot of nostalgic value for me, I do see that in was a silly cartoon in a lot of ways.  Even this direct-to-video movie released after the end of the second season was part of my childhood.  The story was simple: a US military force protecting the world from a sinister terrorist organization named Cobra.  When I revisited GI Joe: The Movie in recent years, I recognized it violated this premise that I had come to like.

       In the movie’s introduction, GI Joe stops Cobra from blowing up the Statue of Liberty.  Now most terrorist organizations would launch a surprise bombing without any warning and then make their demands, but Cobra had the courtesy to send troops parachuting into the city and attacking people cameras.  They must have had terrible counter-intel because the Joes where apparently lying in wait for them.  Cobra then sends one of its high-ranking leaders to plant the bomb in plain sight.  Needless to say, the Joes win the day and the battle ends with Cobra Commander (Chris Latta) calling for a retreat.  The intro is easily the best part of the movie.  The action is good, the animation is excellent and the music is also very enjoyable.

       After this, we see a mysterious figure approach a Cobra base while Serpentor (Richard Gautier) is inside giving Cobra’s High Command a “You-F---ing-Guys” speech.  Cobra Commander does what all of us are tempted to do, but most of us are too smart to do, in this situation and attempts to turn it against Serpentor.  The scene demonstrates why this is a bad idea.  Cobra Commander seems to think everyone else in the room has his back, forgetting that they were the ones who created Serpentor to usurp him in the first place.  Serpentor responds by singling Cobra Commander out for blame and even gains a leadership point by inviting everyone else to speak their minds when the latter accuses him intimidating them into silence.  Predictably, the other Cobras are more than happy to gang up on Cobra Commander now that the heat is no longer on them.

SWO Thermodynamics in action.

Interestingly, he is accused of cowardice, even though founding and running Cobra never stopped him from fighting alongside his troops on the frontlines.  In a sane world that would be considered the opposite extreme.  He’s given an unexpected reprieve when the intruder breaks in.  He intentionally misleads the others in pursuit of the would-be assassin, allowing her to reach Serpentor.  She reveals herself to him as Pythona (Jennifer Darling) and tasks him with capturing an invention called the Broadcast Energy Transmitter.

     In the next scene, Cobra forces attack the Joes in the Himalayas in order to steal the device.  Cobra Commander hypocritically second-guesses Serpentor for wasting resources to steal a top-secret weapon from the Joes, something he’s done multiple times in the past.  I must point out that Serpentor's catch phrase is "This I command!"  Neither he nor the writers realize how awkward that sounds if it's almost always immediately preceded by and imperative sentence.  During the battle Serpentor is captured, and Cobra Commander sees this as an opportunity to retreat.  He leads the Cobras to Cobra-La while being pursued by a few Joes.  They reach it and meet the forces of Cobra-La and Nemesis Enforcer (Peter Cullen), a winged man who communicates in bestial roars.  Cobra Commander greets him and is promptly bitch-slapped to the ground.  Nemesis Enforcer is awesome.

    At the Joes’ base, Beach Head (William Callaway) is training the Rawhides, GI Joe’s newest toy line recruits.  The group consists of a kunoichi named Jinx (Shuko Akune), an explosives expert named Tunnel Rat (Laurie Faso), a spy named Chuckles who seems more like dumb muscle in this movie, an MP named Law (Ron Ortiz), a guy who showed up in a basketball uniform named The Big Lob (Brad Sanders) and Lt. Falcon (Don Johnson).  Falcon is noticeably absent from the training, being too busy giving a tour of the Joes’ Top Secret base to a beautiful woman who turns out to be Cobra spy Zarana (Lisa Raggio).  Unfortunately, Falcon is the hero of the movie.  Duke (Michael Bell) berates him for this, and it is revealed that Falcon is his half-brother.  Beach Head takes other recruits through their needlessly lethal training.  When Tunnel Rat and The Big Lob (who provides his own sports commentary) easily defeat the obstacle course, Beach Head is visibly upset.  I know that a drill sergeant may act unimpressed to recruits to motivate them, but Beach Head’s private display of frustration suggested that he was genuinely angry that his recruits were succeeding.  Yet when he fills in for an AWOL Falcon as a sparring buddy for Jinx and defeats her, he dismisses her from the training until she fights him blindfolded and wins.  Um, Beach Head, isn’t the whole point of training dependent on the trainer’s being more skilled that the trainee?  Also, Jinx is Falcon's love interest, so it makes little sense to put them in the same unit, let alone have them sparring together.  Another test involves Law being told to find some (actual live) explosives.  Law suddenly breaks out his German Shepherd Order, who seems to be a very poorly-trained duty dog since he wants to play fetch with the explosives and almost gets his masters killed.  Beach Head’s a terrible drill instructor.

       Falcon again shirks duty, abandoning a watch post so he can sexually harass Jinx.  When she calls him out for playing hooky, Falcon describes the security barriers that Cobra has to face before they can rescue Serpentor.  In a pretty cool scene, we see the Cobras easily infiltrate each barrier as Falcon describes it.  Their job was made easier by the fact that he was not at his post to sound the alarm, and their rescue succeeds.  It’s bad enough that such an unlikable and deliberately irresponsible man is the hero of this movie.  What makes it worse is that he’s supposedly a Green Beret, which is remarkably insulting to real life Special Forces personnel.  Either he’s some idiot who found a green beret at a surplus store or GI Joe takes place in an alternate universe where Green Berets are useless screw-ups.  In an odd display of nepotism, Falcon’s relation to Duke saves him from the “ultimate punishment,” but he’s still sent to the Slaughterhouse, a rigorous training program run by Sgt. Slaughter (himself).  Somehow putting Falcon in a more elite training program doesn’t seem like appropriate punishment.  When Falcon is dumped by parachute into the desert, he sees a man who is clearly wearing an anti-Cobra symbol and somehow mistakes him for a Cobra.  It turns out he’s one of Slaughter’s trainees, the Renegades.  Slaughter makes him run to base and denies him food for not being fast enough, because who needs nourishment during heavy training?            

     Serpentor is brought to Cobra-La where he meets its leader Golobulus (Burgess Meredith as a probable reference to this movie).  He reveals to him that he was the mastermind behind his creation, not Dr. Mindbender (Brian Cummings).  Apparently, the idea of combining the DNA of various military geniuses into one being was too brilliant for a human mind to conceive….uuuunless you write cartoons, apparently.  Oddly specific advice for future writers: don’t try to claim an idea is inconceivable to the human mind after proving otherwise by describing it.  What’s funny is that this dumb retcon actually seems to be supported in the series (In the episode "Arise, Serpentor, Arise," Mindbender is clearly struggling to comprehend the dream that inspires him to create Serpentor).  It’s the only thing that is.  The entire canon of the GI Joe series comes crashing down when Golobulus tells everyone the “real” history of the terrorist organization called Cobra.  He tells the story of how Cobra-La once ruled the earth but was displaced by humans and their inorganic technology.  When a Cobra-La scientist disfigured himself after sticking his face into some kind of hazardous material, Golobulus chose him to lead an army to retake the earth for Cobra-La.  This man, of course, is Cobra Commander.  So Golobulus just entrusted world domination to a man solely based on his failure to use proper PPE during a science experiment, and he acts surprised that this didn’t work.  Trusting enormous responsibilities to stupid people seems to be a theme in this movie.   

Golobulus is shaped like one of my characters.

      Their plan is to use the B.E.T. the energize spores that are launched into orbit by these giant Space Needle-like plants.  The spores, when matured, will cause humanity to devolve into beasts, allowing Cobra-La to reclaim the world.  This begs two questions: how come no one ever noticed these giant plants, and how does it make evolutionary sense for them to develop a (reproductive?) trait that depends on an artificial power source that has never existed until now?  Naturally, most of the Cobra’s personnel, having just learned that everything they were fighting for was a lie and that there will be no more human civilization to rule over if Cobra-La succeeds, defect.  An alliance of opportunity is formed with the Joes and they work together to defeat this common threat to humanity….oh, wait.  Actually, everyone is totally okay with this.  Seriously, they just go along with all this bulls--- without batting an eye.  This may be because of their loyalty to Serpentor, who has reason to follow his creators.  This ignores the TV show, in which the Cobra leadership was becoming increasingly disillusioned with him as he proved to be no better a leader than Cobra Commander.  In the movie, they practically worship him.  The only one who has a second thought is Zartan (Zach Hoffman), whom Pythona silences with a big gemstone, even though Zartan has no way of knowing just how valuable it is. 

     Golobulus then punishes Cobra Commander for his frequent failures by exposing him to the spores, which cause him to slowly transform into a cobra.  When he is brought to the prison, the Joes attempt a breakout, but only Roadblock (Kene Holliday) and Cobra Commander escape.  They regroup with a group of Joes.  Sgt Slaughter and the Renegades stage an attack on a Cobra base, where they find out about Cobra’s new plans.  A slightly heartwarming scene happens when Mercer (Kristoffer Tambori), a former Cobra Viper, says this is the first he’s heard of this plan.  When the others are skeptical, Sgt. Slaughter says he believes him.  Falcon is captured, and the two funniest moments of the movie happen.  First, Serpentor’s interrogation of him involves light slapping, and then Nemesis Enforcer reacts with annoyance when Serpentor panics during the battle.  The Renegades escape, but Serpentor leads an attack of Cobra-La forces on the Joe base where the B.E.T. is kept.  The Cobra-La military, with its disgusting organic technology, does well in the battle and they succeed in capturing the device.  It makes one wonder why they couldn’t have just done that in the first place when the B.E.T. was right at their doorstep at the beginning of the movie.  Seems like it would save them a lot of time.  I like how Nemesis Enforcer rudely shoves the Dreadnoks out of the way when they can’t penetrate a protective shield.  He’s my favorite character in this movie.  Serpentor attempts to kill Falcon during the battle, but Duke takes the hit and dies lapses into a coma.  Now most Joe fans know the story behind this.  This movie was to come out before Transformers: The Movie, but was delayed.  Duke was supposed to die, but when they decided to change this because of the negative reaction that Optimus Prime’s death invoked from fans.  The change is very transparent.  It’s painfully apparent that his “death” is unaltered with the exception of someone saying he’s gone into a coma without any way of really telling. 

       The Joes invade Cobra-La to save the world.  Sgt. Slaughter fights Nemesis Enforcer and beats him up so bad that he apparently forgets that he could fly when he gets thrown into an abyss.  Jinx fights Pythona, who also falls into said abyss.  Falcon fights Golobulus, who sheds his bulbous hovering body to reveal that he is half snake.  Unable to stop the spores from being energized in time, he uses the B.E.T. to fry them as Golobulus flees to parts unknown.  The Joes flee the fortress as the overloaded B.E.T. causes a massive explosion.  In a painfully lazy and rushed scene, the voice of Doc (Buster Jones) is heard saying that Duke woke up from his coma, and the jubilant reaction of the Joes is quick and barely animated.  The movie ends with Jinx and Falcon looking up at the stars as Falcon says, “Thanks, big brother,” a line which makes no sense unless Duke actually is dead.

       Despite its nostalgic value, G.I. Joe: The Movie is a disappointment.  The story is absurd, even by G.I. Joe standards.  It’s clear that not as much effort was put into this as Transformers: The Movie.  The animation is good by direct-to-video standards and it’s an improvement over that of the show, but maybe borderline for a theatrical release.  Also, aside from the excellent intro music, most of the score is from the cartoon.  It sounds distinctive and adds to the nostalgic atmosphere, though.  Action scenes are good, and there’s a lot of entertaining, if cheesy, dialogue which makes the film watchable.  The Cobra-La retcon is a ridiculous violation of the show’s basic premise.  It must not have been received very well, since the cartoon was sunk until DIC revived it in 1989.  Amusingly, everything about Cobra-La was completely ignored (along with poor Big Lob), and was movie was only acknowledged to the extent that Cobra Commander was still a snake.  The show wasted little time in turning him back into a human and that was last of it.  With this movie providing perspective, it’s hard to accuse the recent live-action movies of “raping” my childhood.  Michael Bay's "Transformers," on the other hand...    

MEMORABLE QUOTES

SERPENTOR: Blunderers!  Fools!  We possess power greater than any on Earth, yet our conquests are stripped from us on every front!  Our most dangerous enemy is not GI Joe, but your collective incompetence!

COBRA COMMANDER: Hogwash!

SERPENTOR: What you dare say?

COBRA COMMANDER: The fault, most imperial Serpentor, lies not within us, but within you! Your leadership has been pompous, pusillanimous and pathetic!

SERPENTOR: Yes, leadership is at the very heart of this matter, but it is not mine that is inadequate, Cobra Commander.  It is yours!  Your ego-driven stupidity has converted victory to catastrophe for the last time!

COBRA COMMANDER: Go ahead, make me the scapegoat.  My loyal subordinates can testify to my superb stewardship of COBRA, but you don’t have the courage to let them speak!

SERPENTOR: Wrong again!  Defend him, if you can.

COBRA COMMANDER: Indeed they shall.  You first, noble Destro.

DESTRO: Militarily speaking, it’s only fair to say that Cobra Commander is a world class…buffoon.

COBRA COMMANDER: What?!  Baroness, Dr. Mindbender, brave Xamot and Tomax, you won’t let Destro’s treacherous assassination of my character go unchallenged, will you?

DR: MINDBENDER: Certainly not!  Destro forgot to mention your frequent displays of cowardice.

COBRA COMMANDER: [Groans]

BARONESS: …and you botched our desert campaign…

DESTRO: We had won, but you countermanded my order!

BARONESS: Your meddling brought us defeat again and again and again!

DR. MINDBENDER: You’re not just a fool, you’re COBRA’s curse!

XAMOT: Inept…

TOMAX: Insufficient…

TOMAX AND XAMOT: Inexcusable!

COBRA COMMANDER: Unsubstantiated fantasy!  Lies!  Lies! Lies!

CROSS-COUNTRY: [chasing his out-of-control Havoc over a hill] Stop!  Stop!  Stop! [running back over the hill]  Go, go, go!  It’s…

TOMAX: CO-

XAMOT: BRAAA!

QUICK-KICK: Snow Job, need a lift?

SNOW JOB: Maybe walking’s better for my health!

QUICK KICK: Since when are you the nervous type?  YOOO JOE!

SNOW JOB: Man with a problem, Quick-Kick!

QUICK-KICK: What are friends for?

ROADBLOCK: Cobra’s through, what do we do?

JINX: And you should be guarding Serpentor.

FALCON: Don’t sweat it.  Nobody could even get close to the stockade without an ID bracelet [Zarana uses the ID bracelet she lifted off Falcon to gain entrance to the base.  Wow, Falcon's really stupid if he didn't notice that], and even if they faked the bracelet the pentaplastic shield would stop them cold. [Pythona cuts through the shield with her acidic claws]  But for the sake of argument, let’s suppose our mythical intruders did make it into Serpentor’s cell block. 

JINX: Yeah?

FALCON: They’d still have to blast through a couple of yards of super-hard concrete [Monkey Wrench blows up the concrete wall, which should've alerted the base]

JINX: Uh-huh?

FALCON: Then they’d have to get through three of our best guys. [The COBRAs begin to fight the Joe guards]  It’s not just unlikely.  It’s impossible.

ALPINE: The alarm circuit’s been cut! How you at splicing?

GUNG-HO: Nothing like a little on-the-job training!

GOLOBULUS: Be silenced!  Or be silenced.

GOLOBULUS: Nemesis Enforcer, throw this worthless sewage into the Abyss of Oblivion. 

SERPENTOR: No, put him in with the Joe prisoners, so they can see the fate which awaits them.

PYTHONA: I like that.  It’s poetic in its own simplicity.

GOLOBULUS: [rubbing his eyes] A trifle melodramatic…

SERPENTOR: [lightly slapping Falcon] How many in your force? What is the purpose of your mission?  You can’t resist forever…

SERPENTOR: Nemesis Enforcer, finish him off!  We have work to do!  AAAHH!!  HELP! NEMESIS ENFORCER, HELP MEEE!!!!!!

SERPENTOR: He took the snake meant for your heart, but his sacrifice will be in vain!  This I command!

GOLOBULUS: The last thing you will hear is the cracking of your vertebrae one by one!

Bond vs. the Media

 

Tomorrow Never Dies

1997

D: Roger Spottiswoode

**********

Pros: Action, Music, Some Good Character Moments

Cons: Disappointing Third Act, Questionable Villain, Formulaic Plot, Bad News Puns

      As a child of the 90’s, I grew up with the Pierce Brosnan Bond movies.  Although many now write off these films in the same faddish way they write off Tim Burton’s Batman because now  that we have trendier movies, I think Brosnan was definitely one of the better Bonds.  GoldenEye, my second favorite movie in the franchise, has stood up to my adult expectations.  It did a great job of balancing the suave, charming side of the character with his dark, brutal character.  Unfortunately, the Brosnan Bonds steadily lost their edge, becoming softer and sillier until Die Another Day.  Having not seen Tomorrow Never Dies in a while, I was curious as to how it would hold up.

      The intro takes place on the Russian border.  Bond is spying on a terrorist arms bazaar where hacker Henry Gupta (Ricky Jay) is buying a military GPS encoder.  After the British fire a cruise missile at the scene and tell Bond to leave, he discovers that a Russian plane is carrying nukes.  To avert nuclear catastrophe, he decides to hijack the plane and fly it to safety.  Although it looked like a BAe Hawk at first, it was actually an L-39 Albatross.  It’s a pet peeve of mine when they try to pass off domestic aircraft as Russian fighters, but at least this trainer is from behind the iron curtain.  The action scene begins with an example of how Bond was getting softer during this time.  Bond lights a goon’s cigarette and punches him, commenting on how it was a nasty habit (in the books, Bond smoked enough cigarettes to kill a dragon).  He knocks out the navigator on the plane and takes off, only to be pursued by another fighter.  His passenger comes to and tries to strangle him with a wire, but Bond pulls the passenger ejection seat lever.  Fortunately for Bond, the movie forgets that the guy had a wire around his neck which should have cut his head off.  Somehow the man and the ejection seat bust through the bottom of the other plane and displace its own passenger seat without mangling themselves beyond recognition.  The enemy plane crashes, the bazaar is blown up and Bond escapes.

See that guy in the back?  He just came crashing through the bottom of the plane.

      After the intro, a British frigate (which doesn't seem to have any running lights on) finds its way into Chinese waters.  Working for media mogul Elliot Carver (Jonathan Pryce), Gupta uses the GPS encoder to make them think that they’re still in international waters.  Now, I know that in the Navy they have something called dead reckoning, which might help the sailors know something was up.  Also, at some point, the GPS readings would jump and not add up.  You’d think that their proximity to China might make them err on the side of caution.  When the Chinese retaliate, Carver’s men fire a remote control digging mole into the frigate from a stealth ship that looks like a larger version of Sea Shadow.  While the ship may be completely invisible to radar one wonders how neither the bridge crew nor the lookouts see the massive craft sitting by them not even a mile away when it’s not even fully dark out.

How do they not see it?  IT'S RIGHT F---ING THERE. 

After the frigate sinks, Carver tells his henchman Stamper (Gotz Otto) to makes sure that he murders the survivors with Chinese ammo, and Stamper uses an American M-60.  While the British Navy mobilizes for a counterattack, MI-6 sends Bond to investigate Carver, who has stupidly released news of the event suspiciously early.  Carver’s plan is to provoke a war naval battle in which he will launch a stolen British missile into a location where these China’s highest-ranking officials are gathered in one place at the behest of corrupt military leader General Chang (Philip Kwok), who will conveniently miss the meeting and take over control of the country.  Carver will then be given the exclusive broadcasting rights denied to him by China.  He’s really that petty. 

     While Pryce gives a solid performance, Carver has been criticized as a transparent straw version of Rupert Murdoch.  At one point, he says that he will provide “cool, objective coverage” of the Sino-English war he’s causing.  Personally, I’ve always thought it was supposed to be Ted Turner (you know, Carver = Tuner).  Turns out he’s actually based on this guy.  In fact, after he dies, M (Judi Dench) fabricates a cover story that’s a reference to Maxwell’s real life death.  Keepin’ it classy, it seems.  Carver isn’t the first Bond villain to be based off a celebrity.  LeChiffre was (somehow) based on Aleister Crowley.  Raoul Silva is basically an awesome version of Julian Assange (I personally think that Assange deserves to be depicted as a villain).  Even my favorite Bond villain, Trevelyan, is based off an infamous censor who was an annoyance to the producers of this film series.  The problem with Carver is the lack of subtlety.  As if the reference to some news mogul isn’t obvious enough, the writers had to keep putting bad news puns in the movie, and there’s even a swipe at Bill Gates and Windows.  Overall, the execution isn’t well done, but I do like the prospect of watching someone slam Ted Turner into a drill saying, “Give the people what they want!”

Bond was not happy about the cancellation of SWAT Kats.

     Still contemporary references age like fine wine.  Today's cringe trend chasing is tomorrow's interesting time capsule trivia (give the title credence).  This is good because this is the movie's biggest flaw.  
     While Bond’s development is not really as good as it was in GoldenEye, it’s still got some strengths.  He has some good conversations with Moneypenny, and the first half of the movie focuses on his former relationship with Carver’s wife, Paris (Teri Hatcher).  When he confronts her in Hamburg for information, they discuss their former relationship, which helps add depth to the movie.  While Bond retrieves the encoder, Carver has Paris killed by Dr. Kaufman (Vincent Schiavelli), who steals the scene before Bond quickly kills him.  While this does give the movie some substance, Paris is pretty much another woman who sleeps with/informs Bond and is immediately killed for it.  A tiresome Bond cliché.  After that pesky “emotion” and “character development” stuff is put out of the way, we can have a typical Bond movie. In the chase almost immediately following Paris’ death, Bond seems to have rebounded impressively.  

Dealing with bereavement seems to be one of Bond's strengths.

      This chase scene is the best part of the movie, and it’s possibly the best I’ve seen in the franchise (my other favorite being the one in Quantum of Solace).  While the Aston Martin DB5 is the quintessential Bond car, the runner-up is definitely the real star of this movie, the BMW 750iL.  Due the nomenclature of this German car, I suppose I can use the authority vested in me as an internet critic to treat you to a song I enjoy. In addition to being elegantly minimalistic and distinctively German in styling, it boasts some of the best features in the Bond car lineup.  In addition to the weaponry expected with these machines, it also has GPS (which I guess was special in the 90’s).  The badge on the hood raises to reveal a device comes in handy for an oddly specific occurrence during the chase.  Most importantly, the car features a remote control.  Q describes it as “surprising difficult to drive,” which seems natural considering how illogical and unintuitive the control style is.  Using a cell phone as the remote, the user moves his finger sideways to make the car go forward while moving vertically to turn the car.  Naturally, Bond masters it on the first try.  The chase scene is clever, featuring Bond controlling the car remotely from the back seat.  Editing is very good, free of any pesky modern gimmicks like racking, shaky cam or gratuitous CGI (we see some poorly rendered CGI satellites earlier in the movie, though).  Bond evades Carver’s thugs through a car park and sends the car falling off the top of the building.  I’m not sure what that accomplishes other than wrecking his nice car, endangering civilians and complicating his exit by attracting bad guys to the street outside.

     He returns the encoder to CIA agent Jack Wade (Joe Don Baker) and executes a HALO jump into the sea to investigate the wreckage of the frigate.  He finds that a missile is missing, and runs into Colonel Wai Lin (Michelle Yeoh), a Chinese spy he has had some passing encounters with earlier in the movie. The Chinese government has also noticed something suspicious about Carver’s stupidity indiscretion.  Wai Lin is ostensibly a cool action girl, but she is constantly at a disadvantage to Bond.  In the first scene she doesn’t do much other than introduce herself to the characters and audience.  In Hamburg, she actually gets Bond into a chase because she trips an alarm.  In the final battle, she ends up chained underwater and Bond gives her the Underwater Kiss of Life.  Of course, she has to get banged by him at the end of the movie, too.

     They finally team up in earnest in the South China Sea when they are captured and brought to one of Carver’s headquarters in Ho Chi Minh City.  They are threatened to be tortured to death by Stamper, who reveals that he’s angry with Bond because Dr. Kaufman was a father figure to him.  This vendetta doesn’t amount to much outside a few lines of dialogue.  Stamper is a borderline Bond henchman who doesn’t have any particularly memorable gimmicks outside platinum blond hair and a cold, precise demeanor.  Bond and Wai Lin escape from the building and are chased by a helicopter in the streets.  It’s an impressive chase scene where the two have to figure out how to drive a motorcycle handcuffed and it culminates in some impressive stunts.  Also, it’s one moment where Wai Lin seems to equal Bond.

     After this escape, they regroup in Wai Lin’s secret hideout where they dispatch some bad guys with goofy slapstick.  They proceed to sneak onto Carver’s stealth ship while it disembarks to aggravate the confrontation between the Chinese and British fleets.  This act of the plot is disappointing.  The two aforementioned chase scenes raised my expectations, but the gunfights on board the ship seem forgettable and sanitized.  It does bring the movie down a little as a popcorn film.  Long story short, Bond and his girl win, the bad guys die, and World War III is averted.

     The music is very good.  Sheryl Crow’s intro song is enjoyable, with heavy piano notes giving a distinctive feel to parts of it.  The visuals of this sequence involve creative use of CGI.  This movie marks David Arnold’s debut as the composer for this series.  It effectively mixes a classic Bond sound with techno and some distinctive themes.  Moby also provides a good techno remix.  It’s a noticeable improvement over Eric Serra’s techno score for GoldenEye which, like most techno scores, alternates between sounding atmospheric and outright goofy.

     Tomorrow Never Dies is enjoyable entertainment, but isn’t a classic.  It has its moments of characterization near the beginning, but it succumbs to tired Bond movie formulas.  Its biggest contribution to Bond canon was a cool car and that it's the movie where Bond switched from a Walther PPK to a Walther P99 for a while.  Still, it has good music and a solid cast and is worth checking out if you want to see some refreshing moments of pre-Matrix action at its best. It's also more vindicated now that journalists are becoming more obviously the enemy.              

        

                       

MEMORABLE QUOTES

MONEYPENNY: James, where are you? 

BOND: Oh, Moneypenny, um, I’m just here at Oxford brushing up on a little Danish.

GIRL: “Little?”

MONEYPENNY: I’m afraid you’re going to have to kiss off your little lesson, James.  We’ve got a situation here at the Ministry of Defense.  We’re sending the fleet to China.

BOND: Uh-huh.  I’ll be there in, uh, an hour.

M: I believe you once had a relationship with Carver’s wife, Paris.

BOND: That was a long time ago, M.  Before she was married.  I didn’t realize it was public knowledge. [glares at Moneypenny]

MONEYPENNY: Queen and Country, James.

Q: Your new telephone.  Talk here.  Listen here.

BOND: So that’s what I’ve been doing wrong all these years.

750iL: Please shut door now.

BOND: [in German] Don’t let her push you around.

CARVER: I think we should set an appointment for my wife with the Doctor.

BOND: It won’t look like a suicide if you shoot me from over there.

DR. KAUFMAN: I am a professor in forensic medicine.  Believe me, Mr. Bond, I could shoot you from Stuttgart und still have the proper effect.

DR. KAUFMAN: My art is in great demand, Mr. Bond.  I go all over the world.  I am especially good at the celebrity overdose, but I’m afraid, Mr. Bond, that our… [static] AH! Stamper!  Stop yelling in my ear, ja?

STAMPER: Sir, they can’t get into the car.

DR. KAUFMAN: Oh, you can’t be serious.  Did you call the autoclub?

STAMPER: Do you want to call them?  Make him tell you how to open it.

DR. KAUFMAN: Oh-o-okay, I ask.  This is very embarrassing.  It seems there is a red box in your car.  They can’t get to it.  They want me to make you unlock the car.  I feel like an idiot.  I don’t know what to say. 

DR. KAUFMAN: I am to torture you if you don’t do it.

BOND: You have a doctorate in that, too?

DR. KAUFMAN: Hmf, no-no-no-no.  This is more like a hobby, but I am very gifted.

BOND: Oh, I believe you.

[Goons are blocking Bond’s way in the car chase]

750iL: Reduce speed.  Pedestrians in roadway.

750iL: Reminder: Unsafe driving will void warranty.  

BOND: You were pretty good with that hook.

WAI LIN: It comes from growing up in a rough neighborhood.  You were pretty good on the bike.

BOND: Well, that comes from not growing up at all.

BOND: [acquiring a Walther P99] Ah, the new Walther.  I asked Q to get me one of these.

BOND: You forgot the first rule of mass media, Elliot.  Give the people what they want!