Spectacular, revisionist film taking everyone’s favourite spy back to where he started: before he was given his Double 0 status. Yes, James Bond before he was technically licensed to kill. Interesting premise, and a welcome return to the character’s roots given the malaise that had settled over previous Bond, Pierce Brosnan.

In what would prove a fortuitous move, producers of the Bond movies decided to cast Craig in the role against type, a “blond Bond” so to speak, which angered purists who were against the idea. While many weren’t prepared to give Craig a shot as Bond, the producers were confident and pushed ahead, ignoring a petition by some fans to replace the actor with somebody else.

Good thing the angry fans didn’t succeed, because Casino Royale delivered one of the best Bond films ever made. Angry, sullen, physical and battered, this is perhaps the most human Bond of all, even more-so than Connery’s portrayal, which is regarded highly as one of the most consistent with what creator Ian Fleming intended. Craig delivered a frighteningly good Bond, suave and sophisticated, as well as macho and brooding, a kind of action-hero Bond mixed with the aura of an old-time leading man style.

The Bond films, up until Casino Royale, had slowly been moving into the realm of CGI-enhanced, one-liner riddled cliches, with Brosnan struggling to paddle in an increasingly larger sea of stupid plotlines, inadequate characters and ludicrously insipid stunts. Goldeneye managed to achieve something most Bond’s previously hadn’t been able to do: it made Bond modern, brought the character out of the sexual revolution and into the 90’s, the modern era where women were the equal of men, and the Gentleman’s Gentleman character was outdated. With this refreshing change of pace from past Bond outings, though, came the modern audience’s expectations of a modern Bond who could handle the challenges of the modern age. Digital Bond, so to speak. The last Brosnan Bond, Die Another Day, is representative of how ordinary the franchise had become, the digital tomfoolery and insipid one-liners (I mean, seriously, it was as bad as Arnold in Batman & Robin!) reducing the character to a cliche of his former self. Bond had forgotten to be serious.

So, with Goldeneye director Martin Campbell (who also helmed both recent Zorro movies!) at the wheel, Bond gets a total face-lift, another take on the modern Bond that is probably closer to what Fleming intended than any before. This Bond is cold, calculating, fearless and at times, ruthless. This ruthlessness is what endeared him to audiences the first time: he takes no prisoners, especially if you double-cross him. Yet, at his heart, he’s a caring kinda bloke. After all, when Vesper Lynd gets the ice cold treatment of death, he is sorrowful, almost contrite at her predicament. This, then, leads him to vengeance, which is to be explored in Quantum Of Solace.

Campbell strips away the anachronisms of the Bond legend, the cars, the gadgets, and returns the character to a more realistic version, less reliance on tricks and a winning smile, and more reliant on brawn and brains. The opening sequence with Bond, chasing a runaway target through, over, under and around various stationary objects (like buildings, cranes and other things) is stunning. Fast and furious, it delivers a new kind of Bond adventure, and prepares the audience to the fact that this ain’t your CG enhanced, double entendre-delivering glint-in-the-eye Bond we’ve all come to know: it’s real.

The interesting thing about Casino Royale, not for the matter that it’s been filmed before, using Sean Connery, is that it’s essentially a film about a card game. A game of chance, which essentially represents just about everything the spy game goes in for. Bond has always been lucky, he’s always had his nine lives, and then some. In Casino, however, he has to rely on his guts and sheer machismo to get the job done: no laser-firing wristwatch will zap that pesky rope this time about. But back to the card game.

How do you film something that’s just a bunch of people sitting around a table dealing cards? How do you generate excitement from that? Richard Donner achieved it with Maverick, one of the best examples of card-dealing-filmwork ever captured in modern times. Here, with the new, flashy, faster Bond, how do you take a story from the bam-bang opening sequence into a less action-oriented setting inside a casino? Even if the stakes are really high, aren’t these boys simply sitting about betting on cards?

Well, Campbell delivers the goods, getting Bond away from the table numerous times to insert an action scene, as the Bad Guys attempt to out-muscle our hero as he attempts to gamble the Governments money and get the cash off the Crying Blood Guy. Yep, this time, the villain cries tears of blood. Creepy, and if I can say this as one negative of the film, criminally underused. The actual card game, the reason for the film’s title, is protracted but interspersed with subterfuge and drama. It keeps things interesting, and you start to wonder if all poker games end up like this…..

Still, this Bond dazzles, with plenty of dramatic turns and a twist on the Brosnan/M relationship.. somehow, M (Judi Dench) is a lot more frosty this time out. No favours for Bond. No love lost, although you get the sense that M has a little glimmer of admiration for the up-and-coming spy.

Casino Royale is a breath of fresh air in the franchise, which was getting old and stale again quite quickly, mainly due to some shoddy production choices (who thought that idea of Bond jumping into a helicopter and falling out of a plane that had been destroyed by some kind of super-satellite was a good idea? Hands up the three of you!) and questionable scripting (although, if I can mention that I think the final line in The World Is Not Enough is perhaps the greatest single double-entendre in the entire Bond series!) and some truly ordinary acting (no, not including Brosnan) and in vast need of a makeover.

The Brosnan era was effectively washed away by this film, revitalising the series for more adventures, and we can only hope that the follow up is just as good. Quantam of Solace needs to maintain the feel and flavour established by Casino Royale, otherwise we may end up back to where we started with Die Another Day.

Casino Royale is one of the best Bonds we’ve seen. And I think the myth that Connery is the only man who played Bond properly is now, officially, retired.

Rating: 9/10

******************************************************

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

Oscar Nominations: 4

Oscar Wins: 1

Best Visual Effects (Stanley Kubrick)

Towering, revolutionary, benchmark film from director Stanley Kubrick, 2001 ranks as one of the true all-time great examples of what is achievable with the motion picture camera.

By today’s standards, this film still remains as powerful as it did the day it was first released. Back in 1968, when 2001 was released, man was about to step onto the moon, mobile telephones had yet to be invented, and the concept of interstellar space travel was still a pie in the sky idea touted by scientists as the next big advancement in human evolution.

The film revolves around a mysterious black monolithic block, which appears at several moments through Earth’s history, including The Dawn Of Man, as well as in a future where human’s live and work on the Moon, and in satellites orbiting the planet. Apes, space archaeology and a giant computer inside a spaceship with murderous intentions all add us to one of the most divisive, epochal motion pictures of the modern era.

Coupled with Sci-fi genius Arthur C Clarke, Kubrick fashioned a glimpse into a realistic future, based on knowledge of space at the time, with a grace and ease that has given us some of the most quoted and ripped-off scenes in movie history. The opening titles, of the Earth in the sun’s glare, to the tune of Also Sprach Zarathustra, are among the most recognised of all cinema sequences, as is the moment one of the astronauts, Dave, (played by Keir Dullea) removes the components from HAL’s processor to switch the system off. HAL, as a film villain, has been copied and sent-up more times in film that you could want to count. The calm, malevolent voice is chilling in it’s placation of the crew, as it calmly sets about killing them in order to preserve it’s own life.

Often touted as one of those films you should be high on weed to watch to fully understand (due to the fact it came out in the 60’s, this is probably an outdated idea, but one that’s interesting nonetheless) 2001 remains a cerebral affair, lacking in sledgehammer subtlety; if you think it’s going to be a simple space romp like Star Wars, you’re in for a shock.

Now, for the casual observer, 2001 is a fairly dense film to try and enjoy; in fact, it’s not a film you can really “enjoy” in the true sense of the word. I’d class this as a film you need to “appreciate” more than “enjoy”, as it’s subject matter tends towards the more abstract, with a reliance on symbolism and iconography rather than dialogue. The dialogue is relatively basic, fairly straightforward material, yet it’s the context that’s the key here. HAL’s dialogue, while certainly containing a sense of menace within the context of the film, is fairly harmless. Yet, when those red lights of death flash up on the hibernation chambers of the crew of the Discovery 1, you just know something bad is about to happen.

And that single, impassionate red eye is virtually unreadable, a symbol of automation’s unambiguous nature. The slow, deliberate space travel between Earth and the moon is significant within the context of this film, as most sci-fi films would have shown some super-rocket blasting it’s way straight into docking: instead, we have the careful precision driving of human astronauts who have to rely on absurd things like mathematical calculations and logic to obtain correct vectors and thrust-to-power ratios.

But aside from that, it’s the mind bending final act that confounds and divides most viewers. My wife, for example, despises this film as a waste of two hours of her life, an absurd film with no place in her list of movies she’s liked. Personally, I find 2001 to be a wonderful cinematic event, like looking into the very soul of humanity and our place within the solar system, within this cosmos. Yes, it’s deep, but not for everybody.

Just because a film is classified as a “classic” doesn’t mean every single person who watches it will subsequently enjoy or appreciate it.

The films narrative is multi-layered, a kind of homage to the art of film, within the film itself. We commence at the Dawn of Man, progress to “not too far into the future” and then a decade or two into the future, as we follow the abstract appearances of the Black Monolith. The Monolith is never explained, never understood by anybody within the film, and to this day remains as elusively distant as it did when we first saw it. Unlike the similarly themed Space Probe in Star Trek IV (you know, when Kirk and Crew return to Earth to hunt for Humpback whales… it’s everyone’s favourite!) this Monolith comes to Earth with no known motivations. It’s not covered with alien writing, it gives no clue as to it’s origin or purpose. This is one of the myriad baffling concepts raised by Kubricks seminal film.

The final stargate sequence, with Dave the Astronaut seeming to fly through space and time at quantum speeds, ending up in a  room reflected as a segment of his own mind (I think!) and gradually aging, until he becomes a giant planet-sized star child, has been often deemed the work of a deranged, or possibly drug-fuelled, mind: yet, it’s the symbolism that people still search for within the film that drives us crazy. Having no explanation as to the definitive answer to this question, has created a kind of mythology that surrounds the film and adds to it’s mystique.

It’s our general inability to understand what Kubrick was on about, and perhaps a cynicism on our part requiring us to look for an answer when none exist, that have created this cinematic paradox. We like our films to have a point, a conclusion, and if these two things don’t happen we can’t handle it.

But, since 2001 remains the most enigmatic of all Kubricks films, and while as obscure and strange as the narrative and point might be, it’s still a brave film to try and appreciate.

For the casual observer, this film will be a roundly unqualified disaster. For the more appreciative viewer, somebody who watches film and enjoys the subtleties and nuances it is able to offer, this will be a stunning investment of your time. It’s certainly not for everybody, yet it deserves appreciation for it’s technical and emotional accomplishment.

 

However, all the fluffery and smoke blowing over this film isn’t worth anything as far as figuring out whether 2001 deserves the title of a classic film. Most people in the know, you know, the kind who are often referred to as “they say”, would say that yes, this film’s quality is as indefinably classic as you can get, however, it’s subject and emotional distance are prejudiced to work against it.

2001: A Space Odyssey remains one of the pinnacles of a directors work, a masterpiece of cinematic storytelling and unconventional narrative. And yes, even though you may not “enjoy” this film in the truest sense of the word, there’s an undeniable power at work behind and in front of the camera here that is palpable, decades after it’s creation.

Rating: 9/10

 

Well, you have to hand it to Hollywood. If anybody’s going to stuff up a great idea for a movie, it’s going to be them. Yep, the old Clan Of The Cavebear styled adventure, with primitive tribes and woolly mammoths and sabre-toothed tigers is a bold idea, but one stung with stupidity at the hands of the worlds greatest example of directorial ineptitude. Yes, Roland Emmerich, I am staring firmly at you.

The last truly great film you directed, The Patriot, was a flag-waving, chest-beating non-conformist revisionary view of the American War of Independence. It was cheeky, violent and utterly flawed. Yet, it still managed to be entertaining.

10,000BC, with all the weird animals, strange tribes, and thunderous sound and visuals, is about as far from a complete film as you can get between opening and closing credits. And 10,000BC lacks the one thing that separates other films from each other.

It’s utterly nonsensical, devoid of logic and reason, and full of contrivances that make even the most resistant film-goer mentally wander off.

Steven Strait “stars” as D’Leh (or, better known as Homer Simpson’s eponymous D’oh!), a young man with a major fixation over beautiful Camille Belle, who plays the Girl, Evolet. I say Girl, because she has about as much characterization and personality as a bowl of chowder. That is to say, none. Strait is all chiseled looks and cloth undies, as he mopes about the mountainside after Evolet is kidnapped (along with a bunch of others) by slave traders.

Sure enough, filled with rage, he and a few other strapping young lads go off to get their stolen families back. With spears.

Managing to grunt out English throughout, pointing at the stars with blanched awe, and still managing to keep their fur undies on even whilst running from all kinds of weird creatures (even some that probably never existed on Earth in all it’s history), our hero and his band of trusty warriors manage to pick up a whole army along the way, before reaching their destination and beginning what can only be described as the first guerrilla campaign ever waged in history.

To be honest, about half way through I began to wonder if Emmerich had watched clips of Mel Gibson’s Apocalypto and thought to himself: sheesh, if Gibbo can do that, then I might have a go myself. Okay, so I’ll stamp out all the truly graphic violence, and perhaps make sure there’s a little bit of Queens English in the script, but again, if Gibson can do it, so can I. After all, I directed Godzilla and everybody hailed me a genius. Right?

No Emmerich, you ain’t no genius, I am here to tell you. This is merely Apocalypto-lite, directed by somebody who prefers animated visual effects over actual storytelling.

Where to start with this film?

The characters are all simple cliches, hardly developed (expect, perhaps, for the wonderful Cliff Curtis as the elder of the tribe D’Leh belongs to.) beyond the most indulgent pastiche of a genre character, and merely service the story to fulfill a plot that’s about as enthralling (and believable) as a film in which mammoths co-exist with what appear to be dinosaur holdovers. It stands to historical fact that dinosaurs died out long before man walked upright, or furry mammals came to exist.

Yep, taking giant strides into historical inaccuracy, Roland Emmeric again proves why he was a flash in the pan with Stargate and ID4, both films of inept storytelling but with enough rousing bravado to cover the flaws.

The diabolical sabre-tooth tiger effort, which looks poor and is scripted to behave in a way no animal would, is both frustrating and intriguing. Add in doses of mysticism and “the unexplained” and supposedly that’s enough to make a film. Nope, it isn’t. The chief villain (among the films many!) is a ubiquitously hidden SuperVillain who we never see, described at one point like some Alien Being from another world. Okay, so we take all this clap-trap in our stride, but Aliens? C’mon Emmerich, you did that in Stargate!

The Girl gets less lines than The Creepy Thin Man from Charlie’s Angels and seems merely in the film to provide a plot leap for the Hero to go rescue his fair maiden, all boobs and hair and eyes filled with sorrow (or high on cocaine, take your pick!) and this is just plain, simple, lazy filmmaking.

To say this film is bad is to call bad films great. This film is not only bad, it’s stupid. It treats the viewer like they’re an idiot. Pandering to the viewer with explanatory voice-over dialogue, throughout the entire movie, is staggeringly self-indulgent. Has Emmerich never attended film-school? One of the cardinal rules is “no voice overs”, or if required, limited at best. Here, the whole film feels like one giant voice-over, hammering home a point that nobody cares about or even understands. It’s so wiffle-waffley that in the end, it merely washes over you. Damn you Omar Sharif. How did you ever lower yourself to this?

Doug wrote a review about Sunshine, found elsewhere on this site, in which he expected much and obtained little in terms of intellectual gratification through that film. Now, I can completely understand how he feels. Sure, Emmerich lacks the subtleties of Danny Boyle’s finer work, but at least Boyle tries different things. Emmerich seems content to rely on his visual effects department to swallow his god-awful scripting and shine this dog-turd up and make it smell like a rose. Like the saying goes: you can’t make silk from a sows ear, and that’s exactly what Emmerich and his crew have tried to do.

If I ever have to show an example of how not to make a film, 10,000BC goes pretty close to top of the list. It’s derivative, clichéd, hackneyed in script and performance, and lacking a freshness that the idea could have truly delivered. It’s such a shame that so much money was spent producing something that was half-baked to begin with.

You may ask yourself how I can be so harsh on a film that made squillions of dollars at the box office. I reply to you, if this is the kind of film that makes squillions at the box office, what does that tell you about humanity. If films like this and Scary Movie 11 get green lit by studio heads with no brains, and intelligent scripts go begging like so much flotsam, then movies have a long way to climb to restore their integrity.

Rating: 2/10

I have a theory, you know, about films starring either Ashley Judd or Diane Lane. Both actresses are quite good at their craft, both have a natural way of presenting themselves and they look good on camera. The problem is, neither one of those fine women can pick a decent film to be in. Judd has appeared in some of the most over hyped films that ended up being turkeys that I can remember. Kiss The Girls managed to sucker everybody in to watch it, but ended up being a run-of-the-mill crime “thriller”. I use the term thriller loosely. Double Jeopardy, another Judd film, was an utter waste of decent talent both in front of, and behind, the camera. She was miscast in Frida and was good in the poorly received De-Lovely. She’s an actress with so much potential that’s gone begging by the generic scripting of Hollywood.

Take Lane as well. Her oeuvre includes such pearls as the recent Jumper, The Glass House, The Perfect Storm, Jack, Judge Dredd, Knight Moves and My Dog Skip. Better films of hers include Hollywoodland, Unfaithful (almost borderline though), Murder at 1600 (by-the-numbers, but solid) and Chaplin (bit part), so as you can see, she’s a been somewhat hit-and-miss. Generally, a Diane Lane film will have a couple of things going for it: Lane gives even the poorest script more value than it’s worth (Judge Dredd) and she’s attractive, so even if the film’s Crap you can at least have something good to watch.

Both actresses are similar in career paths, as near as I can tell.

Studio heads love them, audiences love them, but they keep making rubbish films in amongst the occasional pearler. But both have unlived potential that has robbed their careers of momentum to make themselves true stars.

Untraceable, while purporting to show the limitless power of the internet, intends well, but falls into the category previously ascertained as Crap. Lane stars as a cybercrime officer with the FBI, Jennifer Marsh, pulling night duty to help care for her daughter. Her partner and friend, played with wide-eyed enthusiasm by Colin Hanks, is quick with the sardonic retort and their rapport on screen is wonderful.

Problem is, the script hamstrings the potential for any kind of character development between them, as they slip comfortably into the time-worn cliché that is undercover law enforcement and dark, spooky offices and computer screens. Yes, you’re in for a whole lot of computer geek talk and multiple monitors of information, with little-to-no real pizazz.

When a killer sets up his own website, KillWithMe?.com, and proceeds to stream live footage of animals and people being slowly murdered (the more people watching, the faster the victims die), you can almost guess what’s going to happen within the first twenty minutes of the films opening. Genre pictures are a pretty worn out bunch, and Untraceable shows a lot of wear in its hackneyed plotting and by-the-numbers characters.

Yet, for all it’s faults, Untraceable is actually a pretty decent watch: if you don’t mind a TV-series plot and some banal dialogue, then you might enjoy this film. That said, it’s not for everybody. The film lurches from one Victim Of The Website to another, with each victim dying in increasingly inventive and grotesque ways. Although narratively this builds up the tension, by the films end you kinda know how it’s gonna pan out: yes, Marsh ends up in the hands of the Vile Villain and she’s put online just like every other victim, and it’s a race against time to save her before the viewing numbers go up and she gets the chop.

While perhaps not being a plot full of twists and turns, the film is taut enough to generate a moment or two of genuine thrills, although the fact that they are few and far between makes this more of a chore and less entertaining than it should be. To be honest, I kept looking at the Villain’s features and thinking he looked like a cross between a young Tim Robbins and Dominic Monaghan from Lord Of The Rings, but a lot younger and more menacing. It’s something about the eyes….

Untraceable is kind of frustrating: in one sense it could have been a great episode of NCIS or CSI or whatever those shows are called; on the other hand, a little more effort in scripting and this could have been a genuine contender for a real, live, scary film. As it is, it skirts the borders of the latter, but too often strays into mediocrity and cliché.

Which is a pity.

Director Gregory Hoblit, himself a half-decent director, definitely had some good ideas here, although the execution seems a little… off. It feels almost as though there’s something missing from the film, almost like there’s bits and pieces from the script that could have helped in character development that were removed to cut down the running time.

Hoblits command of the camera is great, generally speaking, yet here I find his reserve and restraint almost palpable, almost as if he’s scared to show something that we need to see. I understand the concept of not giving the audience everything on a plate, to keep something unseen to generate an emotional response: note to studios and directors – this only works if the script, and the characters, are developed enough for us to give a toss.

Unfortunately, this film isn’t that grand an effort that we even care, really. Unlike the more developed Fallen, and the more commercial Frequency, Untraceable is another genre flick Hoblit’s given us and has dented by high opinion of him.

Rating: 6.5/10

 

Fabulously entertaining comedy adventure film see’s TV hero Maxwell Smart make the transition to the big screen…. and as far as TV-to-movie remakes go, this is a Top Shelf Item.

Star of Evan Almighty, Steve Carell, plays Maxwell Smart, alongside Agent 99, portrayed by the stunning Anne Hathway, two Control Agents trying to uncover a plot to blow up the world, or perhaps just Los Angeles.

Get Smart, the film, for those living under a rock since the 60’s, is based upon the television series created by comedy duo Mel Brooks and Buck Henry, which ran for 5 years between 1965 and 1969. The show made household names of it’s two principal leads, the late Don Adams as Maxwell Smart, and gorgeous Barbara Feldon as 99. Control, the fictional spy agency rivalling the CIA or FBI, is in a constant battle against the forces of Kaos, a KGB-like evil agency (spoofed by Mike Myers in the Austin Powers films) with designs for causing… well…. chaos.

The show has become legendary in reruns, the familiar catch-cry of the show being a pop-culture classic: “Missed it by that much!” Max would exclaim, after narrowly failing to achieve something. Ideas such as the Cone Of Silence, the Shoe-phone, and the “old X in the Y trick” statement have now become instantly recognisable facets of the show.

The original series attempted to create a feature length version, entitled The Nude Bomb, in 1980, a decade or so after the series ended it’s TV run. While perhaps not retaining much of the zest of the original show, fan’s applauded the return to the screen of the shows original cast.

Talk of a Get Smart remake had been floating around Hollywood for years, a big budget version was often mooted with the original cast coming back for another shot. With the death of star Don Adams in 2005, plans for the film were put on hold, until Steve Carell stepped up to bat.

In recent times, film remakes of old TV shows have been a little bit hit and miss, varying in their success both commercially and critically. However, this new version of Get Smart rises above mediocrity, thanks, in no small part, to the confidence and ability of it’s superior cast. The film relies less on slapstick and things falling on Maxwell as he “bumbles along” and more on dialogue, insane scenarios being played straight, and a general sense of fun.

The problem I had with a direct copy of the TV show being made into a film is simply that there is no way a competent agency like Control would let such an incompetent nincompoop like Maxwell Smart out on the street. It’s the kind of tone taken by Johnny English a few years back, and not even Rowan Atkinson’s best non-Mr Bean comic skill could save that wretched film. With this film, however, director Peter Segal (50 First Dates, The Longest Yard) has ensured that the cliches of the TV show don’t interfere with what a modern audience would expect to see. Carell plays Maxwell straight: he’s not an idiot, although he does get himself into some pretty insane situations. He tries hard, and has worked himself to the bone to pass his Spy Exam. While perhaps a little anally retentive at the start of the film, his character arc is such that by the time the film ends, he’s a lot more relaxed and less highly strung. Well, almost.

There are subtle (and not so subtle) nods to the original show, and many of the props for the show are seen in varying forms throughout the movie, yet the film manages to include these time-worn ideas in a new, fresh, and funny way. The Cone Of Silence, for example, is beautifully updated in the new film: and poor Max happens to still manage to screw it up…. the results are hilarious. The Shoe-phone even makes a return, in one of the better examples of it’s use we’ve seen. Max’s original opening credits walk through the doors in that incredibly long passageway is redone, with a subtle and humorous edge.

Anne Hathaway is wonderful as Max’s foil in 99, a beautiful agent whom Max obviously finds attractive (as do most, it must be said!) and attempts to woo almost on their first meeting. Some have criticised her age difference with Carell, although there is a scene in the film which plays on this and attempts to bridge the gap with one of the most twisted and brilliant scripted moments in the whole film. Hathaway is a lot more hands on than Feldon was in the original show, and the subtle reference to Feldon’s black bob-cut hairstyle is shown at a lavish party sequence.

The Chief, this time played by Alan Arkin, is nothing at all similar to Edward Platt’s original portrayal, and to be honest, I think the film works better for it. Arkin is a go-getter Chief, another physical character in a film that is surprisingly rambunctious and stunt-laden. Well, perhaps not laden with stunts, as that would indicate there’s nothing BUT stunts, but you get the idea.

What really surprised me with this film, however, is just how funny it is. And consistently funny, not all over the place like most comedy films out of the US are. The script is witty, genuinely so, and with a heart that cannot be faked no matter how hard people might try. The one-liners and small jabs by the cast are played utterly straight, with total respect for the original characters, yet becoming new and fresh at the same time. Carell and Arkin get the lions share of laughs, playing it straight and yet with a tremendous sense of comic timing. Arkin manages to deliver one of the film’s funniest comebacks, after a particularly brutal car chase through a golf driving range.

The script delivers the tried and true one-liners that made the original series work: the “missed it by that much” remark is put into the film, in a way that’s hardly cheesy for ill-gained laughs. There’s others scattered throughout for fans of the original series, but in each case, the throwback lines are given a twist that makes them seem less corny and more acceptable… if such a thing were possible.

Get Smart was, above all, a pleasant surprise. I had half expected it to be full of corny dialogue, oafish storyline and mediocre production value. What I got was a lot more than I had expected! The production values on this film rival any major action film release, the script is dynamite, the story, while perhaps a little cliched, is still humorous enough to carry the film, and the actors all play this one for keeps… nobody, not even Terrence Stamp, get to sleepwalk through this one. I felt the film was just long enough to really allow each character to develop, and short enough not to become bloated and boring. Trying to shoehorn in all the original shows’ ideas may have had a negative impact on the film overall, so they simply took the creme of the crop of all those ideas, gave them a spit and polish, and let rip for the modern audience.

This will rank as one of the funniest, most surprising action/comedies of 2008, for me. I loved it, and will happily sit through it a few more times to catch what I missed the first time round. Excellent entertainment.

Rating: 8.5/10

Last week, I put forward a riddle:
Two coins make up 30c, and one of them isn’t a 10c piece. What are they?

It is from the episode My Lucky Night of the third series of hilarious TV Series, Scrubs. J.D. puzzles his antagonist, The Janitor, with the riddle for the whole episode. In the end The Janitor and his friend spent ages at the bank comparing every coin to come up with an answer, when J.D. reveals that the other coin is a 10c piece.

The Janitor and his friend then destroyed J.D.’s bike and explained: “It’s a riddle! Two guys destroyed your bike with a crowbar and a bat. One of ‘em wasn’t me!!”

NB. The riddle J.D. quoted actually used a ‘nickle’ instead of 10c. As an Australian Squirrel, I like to keep things the way I can understand them. A couple of you clever guys suggested cross-currency to get the answer. In either American or Australian currency, it’s still just that simple answer- one is not a 10c coin, but the other is.

THIS WEEK ON FERNBYFILMS.COM

This week, another classic film comes in for inspection for quality: 2001-A Space Odyssey is what we’re giving a look at this week. That’s on Saturday, so hold on tight for that one. Other reviews this week include Diane Lane in Untraceable, the historically innacurate 10,000 BC, Hayden Christensen proving he can’t act (as if there was any doubt!) in Jumper, plus the latest M Night Shyamalan flick, The Happening. Plus, as a special treat, tomorrow we upload our first look review of the Get Smart remake, which was released last week on DVD. We had a look the other night, and I think you’ll find our review quite complimentary. Check that out tomorrow!

Plus, with the relase across Australia this week of the new Bond flick, Quantam Of Solace (such a cool sounding title, wonder what it actually means?), we take a quick look back at the first Daniel Craig outing as the super-spy, Casino Royale. Get set for that on Thursday.

That’s all coming up this week here at fernbyfilms.com.

You may have noticed, if you’re a regular reader, that I have updated the Big List page with all the latest reviews. I have decided to update this page on a weekly basis, rather than monthly, to ensure people are able to easily access all the material on the site. So all of last weeks film, plus the rest of Novembers, will be online now on the Big List page.

In other news, soon we’ll be introducing Doug Shearer to you all, we’ll have a chat with him as he answers some questions in an interview I conducted via the interweb recently. A little bit about himself, what his interests are and why he’s come on board the site to write his monthly column. And what a column! I’ve already read a couple of articles he’s written and they’re wonderful: I can really say for sure that you’ll thoroughly enjoy them, and I am proud to present them on this site. I’ll be announcing a release date for his reviews during the month of December.

Recently, over at Fernby Films HQ, I have been hard at work in the editing suite trying to complete the upcoming Schoolyard Justice DVD. It’s progressing well, and I hope to have it released on the official website by the end of the year. Watch this space for more announcements.

Oh, and for those of you who wanted to hold the Secret Squirrel down and beat the answer to last weeks riddle out of him/her, as was stated in an email I received during the week…..your answer is coming. The Secret Squirrel reveals all later on today. Check back in a while for his/her weekly comment!!

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A special rant, if I may, for those of you reading this who live in the awesome country of Australia. You may have seen the No Clean Feed banner at the top of the sidebar to the right, and wondered what it’s all about. Simply put, the Australian Government wants to censor the Internet here in Australia. By putting filters at an ISP level, it wants to put certain material and websites on a list of banned stuff we aren’t allowed to see.

Ironically, early last week I posted an article about how ratings on films were somewhat inneffective these days. The topic of censorship has long been debated around the world about things like film, books, television (remember when the C-word was used on an episode of Sex & The City: how much controversy did that generate?!!) and other artforms. However, the internet was percieved as free from censoship and a place where any and all ideas could be put forth, regardless of political agenda, religious beliefs and other, censurial ideas. Some countries, such as China, have taken a stand against the Internet and see it as a perveyor of porn and filth, as well as ideas that don’t sit well with the Government’s idea on what is good for The People.

Here are Fernby Films, we do not abide by censorship of any kind. We believe that people have a fundamental right to view any material they see fit. Of course, this has to be contextualised with some kind of system where we don’t let our children see objectionable material, such as pornorgraphy or scenes of violence. However, putting a blanket ban on the Internet is not the way to go. Putting filters on ISP’s to stop people accessing certain material simply wont work. You can bet your bottom dollar that some smarty pants somewhere will figure out a way around it, and thus the problem will be exacerbated anyway. It stands to reason that asking ISP’s to filter content will slow down access speeds to the Internet, resulting in consumer anger.

The Goverment will say that they have an opt-out option, which is fair enough, although what they apparently don’t mention is the secret, level two filter that will apply to all Australian households, regardless of whether there’s children present or not. So while you may think you’re opting out of this filter, and getting full-feed Internet access, you still wont be.

I understand why the Government has tried to do something about what is seen as some kind of epidemic here in Australia. After all, you can’t have everybody looking at porn, right? What kind of world would that be? Okay, so I’m ebing faecetious, but the point remains: why does our Government feel that it has the right to tell us what we can and cannot see? Some kind of moral obligation? Sorry sunshine, your moral obligation to protect me stops at my front door. In the privacy of my own home, I should be able to watch, see and write and express my views, as I see fit.

For more articles on this topic, you can see them via Mick Kublers posting, on his website, uploaded during the week: No Clean Feed.

Because a small minority of vocal anti-Internet wankers have decided that they see the Internet as Evil, the rest of us should suffer.

While I do not agree with a large portion of questionably reprehensible content that’s available online for anybody to view, I think that people should be responsible for what they see online, not rely on Government intervention to stop the stuff they might happen upon, and it’s not up to the Government to try and extend their censorship hands around the World Wide Web.

I think that the Governments’ plan to try censoring the Internet, while doomed to failure, indicates a more subtle plan to make the country more PC, and stop people expressing ideas that could be seen as objectionable. The act of censorship has always been met with a backlash by the general population, and this should be no exception.

People think the Internet is too big to be censored.

They’re right. Keep the Internet free from censorship.

Rant over!

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Rodney T - Director, Fernby Films.