Could Skyfall Be a Legitimate Oscar Contender?

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences can be a fickle bunch, and has been notoriously dismissive of the James Bond series over the years despite the deserving contributions of many artisans in many different fields. But there's a chance Skyfall could change all that. Not because it's the best Bond film ever, but because it's a very good one that has come along at the right time. A few years ago, the Academy expanded the number of possible Best Picture contenders from five to ten, largely in response to the critical and audience favorite of 2008, The Dark Knight, getting shut out of a nomination. Ostensibly the number was increased for exactly this purpose: to give deserving big-budget, crowd-pleasing studio films a chance to compete with the indie darlings, historical epics and art films that typically dominate the awards season. Personally, I definitely think Skyfall is one of the best films I've seen in 2012 (and likely to remain so even by the end of December), and that it's deserving of a nomination in a field of ten. But then, I thought that about Casino Royale, too. But back then there were only five nominees, and, crucially, Sony didn't put a large Oscar campaign behind the film. In this altered Oscar climate, it might be that a serious studio campaign makes all the difference. Deadline's resident awards expert Pete Hammond indicates that we may see just such a campaign for this film. He points out the legitimacy of potential support in such categories as Best Director (Academy Award-winner Sam Mendes), Best Cinematography (9-time nominee Roger Deakins), Best Supporting Actress (Oscar-winner Judi Dench), Best Supporting Actor (Oscar-winner Javier Bardem) Best Original Score (10-time nominee Thomas Newman), and for the 15-time nominee (yet to score a win) for sound mixing, Greg P. Russell. To that list I'd certainly add Daniel Craig as a potential Best Actor. Even in a world where a Bond film might score a Best Picture nomination, I can't imagine the Academy recognizing an actor for playing 007 (sadly), but, still, Craig's stellar performance is certainly worth pushing for. Again, I'm not saying that he's the only Bond actor deserving of such a nod, but in this more enlightened age, he might be the first one who even has a shot! I hope that Hammond is right and Sony does campaign for this film, because it would be an incredible experience to hear the James Bond Theme played repeatedly during an Oscar broadcast, wouldn't it?

Tradecraft: Another Ben MacIntyre True WWII Spy Tale Optioned

Deadline reports that the Cohen Media Group has acquired the rights to Ben MacIntyre's latest bestseller about real-life WWII espionage derring-do, Double Cross: The True Story of the D-Day Spies . Their goal is to turn it into an international miniseries. According to the trade blog, the book explores "the efforts of five Allied operatives who specialized in turning German spies into double agents [who] greatly aided the success of the D-Day assault and eventual Allied victory." MacIntyre's extensive espionage bibliography includes For Your Eyes Only: Ian Fleming + James Bond, Operation Mincemeat: How a Dead Man and a Bizarre Plan Fooled the Nazis and Assured an Allied Victory (which also concerns Fleming, and his involvement in the famous mission that inspired The Man Who Never Was) and Agent Zigzag: A True Story of Nazi Espionage, Love, and Betrayal. The latter has been in development at Tom Hanks' company Playtone for several years, most recently with Muppets director James Bobbin attached. Deadline describes Double Cross as "the final installment of MacIntyre's WWII trilogy."

Mission: Impossible Contest Winner

We have a winner for last week's Blogiversary contest! After a random drawing, the proud new owner of Mission: Impossible - The Second TV Season is... Delmo W! Congratulations, Delmo! Thank you to everyone else who entered, and thank you, too, to those who included some very nice messages. I'll be replying to you all shortly, and mailing out Delmo's prize. And if you didn't win this time, don't despair: I've got another great contest coming up before the year's out, so be sure to try again for that prize!

Book Preview: Taschen's The James Bond Archives by Paul Duncan

Sure, there's a new Bond movie out today in the USA. Some of you might have heard of it. But there's also a very cool-looking new James Bond book out today, timed to coincide with that little Sam Mendes indie film. It's a massive hardcover book called The James Bond Archives, published by Taschen, a publisher known primarily for art books—and stunning, unique presentations. And true to that reputation, The James Bond Archives is pretty stunning and unique in its presentation. This is not a book you sit in an armchair and read on your lap. This is a book that you lay down on a table in front of you, flip open, and start reading. It's heavy, and it's huge! Not awkwardly so, however... satisfyingly so.

The James Bond Archives isn't just a cool collectible to stick on your coffee table and never refer to, though. It's also a very interesting book. I had wondered what the Taschen book could possibly tell me that I hadn't already read in James Bond: The Legacy or countless other histories of the film series. It does, however, manage to be original, and even to offer new material! Edited by Paul Duncan (who's also the primary contributor), different films are written about by different authors in different styles. This keeps things interesting, and allows for the inclusion of things like a Playboy interview with Sean Connery in its entirety.

The majority, however, is told in oral history format, which is a format I like a lot. It's also a format fairly rare to Bond; out of the many, many books on the subject over the years, the only other one told that way that I can think of is Barnes' and Hearn's Kiss Kiss Bang! Bang! The Unofficial James Bond 007 Film Companion. (There have been some very good magazine articles that approached 007 with oral histories, though.) The approach works well here, and many of the quotes are new to me and very enlightening.

There are also lots of pictures I've never seen before, and after the astounding number of official books on the Bond films, I find that pretty surprising! But there they are. Things like the above imagery of actresses Claudine Auger, Molly Peters and Martine Beswick posing for the Thunderball poster artwork.

On top of that, there's a good selection of storyboards and concept artwork, mixed with behind-the-scenes photos and more familiar production stills. Not just for the official films, either! Even though this book is officially sanctioned by EON, there are also chapters devoted to the rogue productions Casino Royale (1967) and Never Say Never Again! The James Bond Archives carries a price tag as hefty as the book itself, but it's a unique enough publication to warrant that. Even if you're saving this one for your Christmas list, be sure to at least ogle it in your local bookstore in the meantime! I'll try to offer a more in-depth review soon...

SKYFALL DAY!

The day is here at last! The 23rd James Bond movie, Skyfall, opens wide today in North America. Of course, many fans have had the opportunity to see it already, thanks to midnight shows and IMAX screenings a day early. And fans in various countries around the world have been watching it for a few weeks now. But now, all of America can see it... and they will. Skyfall is going to be huge here, just like it has been in Britain, where it's shattered box office records. Personally, I love the film. You can read my review here, and I will probably write even more about the movie soon. I've seen it twice more since writing that review, and am seeing it a fourth time in a few hours. I've seen it in real IMAX, fake IMAX and on a standard screen. Personally, I prefer the expanded "open matte"-style IMAX experience. While cinematographer Roger Deakins claims to have composed with both the 2.40:1 scope image (seen in traditional theaters) and the 1.9:1 image (seen in IMAX theaters, affording more picture at the top and bottom of the frame, but still not filling an IMAX screen entirely) in mind, to me the IMAX version (which is ultimately closer to what you'd see on a 16x9 television set) looks better. Frames in the traditional version seem artificially cropped at times. Others disagree, and feel strongly that the 2.40:1 version is preferable. Personally, though, I'd recommend seeing it on an IMAX screen if you have access to one. Otherwise, you're not missing out; Deakins' photography looks gorgeous on both version and you'll never notice the difference unless you watch the two versions back-to-back, as I did the other night.

Technicalities aside, though, this is a great Bond film and good looking enough for Deakins to be a strong Oscar contender, despite the Academy's long-held prejudice against Agent 007. So... enjoy!

Click here to read my review of Skyfall.

WARNING: Comments here on this post may include SPOILERS. Feel free to post your unedited reactions to the film below!

Tradecraft: Benjamin Walker Cast as Lead in HBO's Cold War Spy Series

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter star Benjamin Walker has been cast as the lead in HBO's long-in-the-works Malcolm Gladwell/Charles Randolph Cold War spy drama pilot The Missionary. According to Variety, "Walker will play an American missionary who gets caught up in Cold War intrigue while helping a young woman escape East Berlin." Randolph wrote the script and exec produces along with Gladwell (who makes a point of re-reading The Spy Who Came in from the Cold every five years), Stephen Levinson and Mark Wahlberg. The trade reports that "Icelandic director Baltasar Kormakur is helming the pilot."

More Alex Rider Graphic Novels Announced

With the series officially over, there may be no more Alex Rider novels coming, but the teen spy lives on in graphic novel adaptations from Walker Books. Writer Antony Johnston tweeted a link earlier today to an article on the publishing trade site The Bookseller with the official announcement. Johnston has previously adapted Anthony Horowitz's first four young adult Rider novels, Stormbreaker (which was actually based on the movie script rather than the book), Point Blank, Skeleton Key and Eagle Strike, and is now signed on to pen the next two, Scorpia and Ark Angel. While Johnston remains a constant, there is a change on the artistic front, with Emma Vieceli taking over from Kanako Damerum and Yuzuru Takasaki. Besides chronicling Horowitz's teen spy's adventures in the four-color format, Johnston should be well known to spy fans for his adult espionage graphic comics, including a run on Greg Rucka's Queen & Country Declassified, and the original graphic novel The Coldest City (review here), which was published earlier this year by Oni. Unfortunately, Alex Rider's new illustrated adventures are still some ways off. Scorpia is expected in 2014, with Ark Angel following in 2015.

Los Angeles Spy Fans: See Skyfall for Free Tonight at AFI Fest

Skyfall has been announced as tonight's (up until now) "secret screening" at the AFI Festival in Hollywood. It will screen tonight in the historic Grauman's Chinese Theater at 9:15. Tickets are free, but available only at the AT&T box office at the festival, located on the fourth floor of the Hollywood & Highland shopping center. Even then, I don't think a ticket guarantees entry, so if you plan on attending, be sure to arrive plenty early to line up.

Of course, Skyfall also opens tonight at midnight in IMAX locations around the country! 

Read my generally spoiler-free review here.

Tradecraft: Director Set for CIA/D.O.A. Thriller Expiration

Variety reports that stuntman-turned-director Ric Roman Waugh (who recently helmed The Rock's upcoming action movie Snitch) is set to direct the $50 million actioner Expiration for Emmett/Furla Films. It sounds like a spy version of the classic Edmund O'Brien film noir D.O.A., with (of course) the requisite shades of Bourne thrown in. According to the trade, Expiration "follows an ex-CIA operative-turned-assassin who fails to complete his final assignment after being poisoned. With 20 hours to live, he sets out to discover who poisoned him and settle the score before he dies." Brian Tucker (who penned the Russell Crowe/Mark Wahlberg neo-noir Broken City) wrote the script.

Network Spy Sale

Network, the awesome UK DVD company responsible for the Region 2 releases of so many classic spy series and ITC adventure shows, is currently running an all-spy sale called their "Shadow State Sale." It's a great opportunity to pick up some fantastic serious spy shows, like Callan (review here), The Sandbaggers and Danger Man, at reasonable prices! Network's Callan releases include the reunion telefilm "Wet Job" and what survives of the original monochrome series (review here), neither of which have been released in Region 1 to date, so American spy fans with all-region players should take note. Another notable Edward Woodward title included in the sale is the 80s miniseries Codename: Kyril (review here), which had been out of print for a while and is well worth seeking out! Further great titles on sale include the excellent Mr. Palfrey of Westminster (which contains bonus material not found on the Region 1 release reviewed here), The Quiller Memorandum, The Ipcress File (also with bonus material not found in Region 1), and the Sixties anthology series Espionage, among others. I'm not sure how long The Shadow State Sale runs for.

Tradecraft: Chris Hemsworth In Talks to Play Mitch Rapp

You know the spy genre is hot when all the rising stars attach themselves to potential spy franchises. Chris Pine is the new Jack Ryan, Tom Hardy is the new John Clark, Jeremy Renner is all the other spies. Well, not quite all of them, apparently; Deadline reports that my favorite of the up and coming male stars, Chris Hemsworth (Thor), is in talks to play Vince Flynn's Mitch Rapp in CBS Films' American Assassin, the inaugural film in their long-gestating potential franchise. I haven't read any of the Mitch Rapp books, so I can't comment on his appropriateness for the part, but I do think that Chris Hemsworth has what it takes to be a real-deal action hero, and I've been hoping he would topline a spy movie sooner or later. He's certainly seems more appealing to me than some of the other names bandied about for this role, like Matthew Fox or Gerard Butler. Although American Assassin is the eleventh Mitch Rapp novel, it makes an ideal introduction to the character on film because the novel is, as the trade blog puts it, "a prequel that explains how tragedy transformed Rapp from a college scholar and athlete into a ruthless hunter of terrorists for the CIA." As previously reported, Bruce Willis is in talks to play Rapp's Agency mentor, and Jeffrey Nachmanoff (Traitor, Homeland, Legends) is directing. Mike Finch wrote the latest draft of the screenplay, polishing a version Edward Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz worked on when Zwick was attached to helm.

Matt Damon's Still Grumpy About Bourne

I love Matt Damon in the Bourne movies. But boy is he grumpy! He seems to be emulating Sean Connery's post-Bond attitude about 007, though after just three movies as opposed to Connery's eventual six (in the official line-up), I'm not sure he's earned it. He first got grumpy right after The Bourne Ultimatum, saying on the press tour for that film that "we have ridden that horse as far as we can" and adding that he felt like "a bit of a prostitute" for going as far as he did with Bourne (along with the Ocean's sequels). Later, promoting Invictus, the actor declared that he flat-out wouldn't return to the role without director Paul Greengrass at the helm. (Greengrass had already passed on a fourth film.) He's stuck with that ultimatum, but now taken to badmouthing the direction the franchise has gone in without him while he's at it. (Damon and Greengrass had a very public feud with Tony Gilroy, the screenwriter who contributed to all three Damon films and went on to write and direct this summer's spin-off The Bourne Legacy.) Even though Gilroy was hopeful earlier this summer that Damon would return to the series to face down or team up with Jeremy Renner's Aaron Cross (and went out of his way in interviews to praise and placate Damon), the original Bourne star does not seem eager. Last month he rather dismissively told Movieline that he hasn't seen The Bourne Legacy, but, "from what I understand, it kind of relives [Ultimatum] from a different perspective. What that means, because they use our actors and characters, is that whatever they said [in Legacy] is true and so we'd have to acknowledge it in any Bourne movie that we'd do. And that makes it really tough." According to the website, he then laughed and added,"I don't think we can do the Dallas it-was-all-a-dream scenario. I don't think the audience would go for that after they paid money to see a movie," before finally acknowledging that, "I'd really love to do another one because I love the character."

Of course, if Damon ever gets around to watching Gilroy's film, what he'll learn is that Gilroy bent over backwards not to impact the events of the Damon/Greengrass movies, much to the detriment of Legacy, which ultimately offers zero forward momentum in the series. It would be a shame if the producers went to such lengths to leave the door open for the return of Damon and Greengrass only to have them refuse forever, but as of now that seems to be Damon's stance. He went on to tell the interviewer that it would be "a real struggle" to continue the adventures of his character, since Bourne's motivation in the first three films was to find his identity, which he finally did. "Where do you go next?"

Well, personally, I'd offer him the answer that I always bring up in these stories: go back to the books! There are two and a half whole entire Ludlum plots that the movies haven't touched, since neither Supremacy nor Ultimatum remotely resembled the novels. There are also huge chunks of the first book yet to be explored, including its primary antagonist, the international assassin Carlos the Jackal. While the real-life Carlos was finally captured in the 1990s, it would be easy enough to create a fictional present-day analogue, wouldn't it? I think it would be amazing if the films returned to the much more detailed plot of that first novel, and revealed that there was a whole other layer to Bourne's missing memories than he's yet discovered, and that what he thinks are answers may only lead to more questions. With a little finesse, I think they could pull that off. Ludlum's Supremacy might be easier to tackle, however, since the story more or less stands alone and takes place primarily in the Far East, which is new territory for Damon's mostly Europe-bound Bourne. (It's a slight problem that the films killed off Marie, who plays a major role in that book, but with a little creativity surely the filmmakers could substitute Julia Stiles' character, Nicky?) The primary mover away from the books was Tony Gilroy, who publicly disparaged them. Therefore, it's very easy for me to side with Damon and Greengrass (not that I know the ins and outs of the dispute) over him as curators of the series' future. But Damon really needs to stop being such a grump about it all the time!

Tradecraft: Brenden Fraser Bows Out of TNT's Legends

That was quick. Just a few weeks after he was announced as the star, Brenden Fraser has left the TNT spy series Legends. Deadline reports that the actor and showrunner Howard Gordon (Homeland, 24) "did not see eye to eye on the character and couldn’t bridge their creative differences." That doesn't mean the series is dead, though. According to the trade blog, "the role will now be recast." Sounds good to me. Whatever the creative differences were, I'm apt to trust Gordon based on his espionage track record—especially the phenomenal Homeland. This is the latest wrinkle in the show's particularly long development, which included a jump from NBC to TNT. Legends is based on the novel by Robert Littell (The Company), and produced by Gordon, Jeffrey Nachmanoff (Traitor) and Mark Bomback. David Semel is directing. I'm eager to see who they replace Fraser with!

[Over] Analyzing the For Your Eyes Only Poster (Or: When is a Crossbow Just a Crossbow?)

Here's an interesting post that I started writing over a year ago, and, like many posts, never got around to finishing. But I came across it today, and figured it was worth hastily finishing and posting amidst all this James Bond excitement of late. So think of it as a lost post from the Double O Section Mission Archives, hopefully still somewhat relevant and worth reading...

Peter Lorenz at the excellent, fantastic Illustrated 007 blog (a site I really can't say enough good things about) recently posted a piece of For Your Eyes Only concept art that basically amounts to an unfinished prototype for the poster we all know and... Well, some of us love. Others don't. That tends to be a very divisive poster. In my household, the division is pretty easy to pinpoint as it runs down gender lines. My (now ex-) girlfriend's exception to it meant that my own US advance was one Bond poster that would never be framed on the walls of our old, shared apartment. But there are also men who hate that design, and women who love it. To me, it's basically a striking visual concept, a layout that, love or hate, you're unlikely to forget. I'd say it's quite a compliment to a piece of movie advertising that it still sparks debate three decades after the fact!

Anyway, Peter's post got me thinking about this debate, because that unfinished piece of Brian Bysouth art in which the woman whose legs and butt are displayed so prominently is not merely cut off, as she appears on the final poster, but unfinished. If one were inclined to read too much into posters (a hobby I rather enjoy, myself), one would not be remiss for thinking that this image of the unfinished woman might perfectly portray the sexism of the Bond franchise. (Again, that's a subject to which there are two sides. In college a good friend and I presented a paper at a conference on action films reading the Bond canon as feminist text. And I think at least a couple of our arguments held merit, as have some made by many others on the subject.) What is a woman to Bond, someone more judgmental than I might ask, but her parts—and not even their sum? ("Splendid protuberances, front and rear," wrote Ian Fleming in Casino Royale... to spray some gasoline on this hypothetical fire.) Of course, this is the point in this hypothetical debate where a voice of reason might interrupt, and point out that what we are discussing is an unfinished piece of artwork, and not any sort of intentional commentary on gender politics in Bond films. But it's fun to think that way, isn't it?

So thinking along those lines sent me running to one of my two favorite scholarly tomes ever penned on the subject of 007 (a resource I frequently cited in film studies classes in college), specifically to Tony Bennett and Janet Woolacott's analysis (or possibly over-analysis, depending on your perspective) of that poster on page 242 of their book Bond and Beyond: The Political Career of a Popular Hero (Methuen, 1987):

Since the 1970s, this licensed adjustment of traditional norms of female sexuality has given way before an obsessive concern to effect a redistribution of phallic attributes back from women to men. Publicity posters for the Bond films of this period thus typically represented the relations between Bond and 'the Bond girl' in the form of a contest between two rival sources of phallic power and authority.

The poster for For Your Eyes Only, read from an anxious male perspective, is a case in point. The foreground is dominated by the buttocks and legs of a girl clad in swimming wear and seen from the rear. She stands with legs astride, the relations between her two feet - clad in high-heeled shoes - and her crotch form a triangle with the crotch forming the apex. Her right hand holds a cross-bow, sprung for action and armed with an arrow, pointing to the ground. Bond is framed within the triangle formed by the girl's legs and crotch. Diminished by the girl's domination of the foreground - his head is level with her knees - Bond is placed directly below the girl's crotch, gun in hand with his gaze directed anxiously not to the viewer or to the girl's face but to her crotch. Outside the triangle formed by the girl's legs, a variety of action scenes from the film are depicted.... The 'adventure' elements of the plot are thus relegated to the margins of the composition, a series of escapades which have a distinctly Boy's Own flavour compared with the central challenge which Bond has to respond to: restoring the symbolic order of the phallus by 'outgunning' the girl whose phallic power threatens to overwhelm him.

Well put, no? I wonder if that's exactly what Brian Bysouth was thinking? So what is this poster to you, dear readers? Sexist, misogynist objectification of women? A desperate man's attempt to restore the symbolic order of the phallus? Or just a clever image dreamed up by a savvy marketing department who knew how to sell their product? Good art? Bad art? Please, chime in!

If you're into Freudian takes on spy imagery, also check out the post Lipstick Feminism: Gender Roles in Deadlier Than the Male (Or: When is a Speargun Just a Speargun?)

Blogiversary Contest: Win Mission: Impossible - The Second TV Season on DVD

I promised a contest, didn't I? I know everybody's thinking Bond around the clock right now with the new movie and the anniversary (and I'll probably have a Bond contest or two in the next few weeks), but I'm going to shift gears for a moment to another one of my favorite spy series: Mission: Impossible! Specifically to one of my favorite seasons of that show, Mission: Impossible - The Second TV Season. (Read my review of it here.) Season 2 introduced audiences to team leader Jim Phelps, played by the incomparable Peter Graves, but retained the most classic incarnation of the team from the first season, including Martin Landau, Barbara Bain, Greg Morris and Peter Lupus. To enter to win this DVD set, all you need to do is send me an email with the subject heading "M:I Contest" including your name and mailing address by 11:59 PM, Pacific Time on Thursday, November 8, 2012.* The winner will be announced next Friday, November 9.

*The Fine Print: One entry per person, please. Double entries will be disqualified. One prize-winner will be drawn at random and announced on Friday, November 10, 2012. The winner's first name will be posted here and he or she will be notified via email. All entries will be deleted immediately after the contest’s close, and no personal information will be retained or transmitted to any third parties. The contest is open to anyone, in any country, but foreign readers should note that these are Region 1 NTSC DVDs and be sure they have the proper equipment for playback. Unfortunately, the Double O Section cannot assume responsibility for items lost or damaged in transit.

Deborah Lipp's Video Essay About Being a Feminist Bond Fan

Deborah Lipp, author of The Ultimate James Bond Fan Book and fellow Bond blogger, has posted an excellent and very personal video essay on IndieWire about being a female Bond fan, being a feminist, and reconciling the two. (Or perhaps why there shouldn't be any need to reconcile them.) It's a highly recommended watch!

Sixth Blogiversary

Amidst the excitement of a new James Bond movie and the milestone of this blog's millionth hit last week, I'm a day late in celebrating another milestone: the Double O Section's Sixth Blogiversary. I started this blog six years ago as we were looking forward to a brand new Bond movie with a brand new Bond that proved to be one of the series' best entries. Now we're on the verge of another new Bond movie (in America, anyway; for British readers it's already here!), one that I suspect will prove the biggest ever at the box office, and the excitement is palpable. In the six years I've been blogging about spy movies, the genre has only become more and more popular. We've seen terrific new movies about some of spydom's greatest heroes, including Bond (of course), George Smiley, Jason Bourne and Ethan Hunt. We've seen the rise of exciting new spy heroes like Bryan Mills, and seen historical spy missions thrillingly chronicled on film, like the so-called "Canadian Caper" in Argo. We're really living in the the second Golden Age of Spy Movies, with the genre at its greatest height since the Sixties, and it's been a great pleasure to chronicle it. With Skyfall about to take the world by storm, I don't see the genre declining any time soon, and I look forward to continuing to blog about it for years to come! But all that's just  me blathering. A better way to celebrate this blogiversary is with a new contest. It's been way too long since we've had one of those! Check back tomorrow for a chance to win a great spy prize.

See Bond Pitted Against Bond

Brad Hansen, co-host of that epic Bondathon last year and creator of the excellent time-lapse video chronicling it, has edited a very clever new video pitting all the Bond actors against one another. It's quickly gone viral (including hitting the front page of Yahoo!), and deservedly so. Take a look, and be sure to watch all the way to the end, which might be the most brilliant bit.

Movie Review: Skyfall (2012)

A note on spoilers: I will not spoil any of the things that shouldn’t be spoiled about Skyfall. However, it’s not possible to write a good review without discussing some plot points of a film, so I will be doing that. If you want to remain completely virginal and you’re avoiding all reviews, avoid this one, too, until after you’ve seen the film. But if you just want to avoid the big actual spoilery spoilers, then you needn’t fear. And those things are worth discussing, so I may well revisit Skyfall once the film has opened in North America on November 9, but until then I shall refrain from discussing such things, and I would appreciate it if commenters from territories where the film has already opened also avoid doing so until then. There's plenty to talk about besides!

There’s already been ample hype and hyperbole touting Skyfall as “the Best Bond since Goldfinger!” or “the best Bond movie ever!” and whatnot. Is it that? Well, obviously such judgments are in the eye of the beholder, but most likely no. I mean, there have been a lot of good Bond movies over the years, right? So I’m not going to leap straight to such ecstatic claims, but I am going to say that this is definitely one of the good ones; Sam Mendes has made a damn fine Bond film! It offers up heaping doses of classic 007, along with plenty of exciting new things we’ve never seen in a Bond movie before in nearly equal measure—which is no mean feat. And it feels thoroughly satisfying in the end, which I’d say guarantees numbers in America to match those we’ve already seen in Britain. Skyfall is going to be huge. And deservedly so. But I was by no means certain of any of that as the film began.

All of the good reviews that I had read or heard, all of the hype, all of the fantastic trailers… that all went out the door as soon as the film began. Because it began, like Quantum of Solace before it, without a gun barrel. I said it all before when I reviewed that film, but apparently it bears repeating: to me, the iconic gun barrel sequence, the dripping blood, and accompanying music are thrilling in their own right. They get my blood pumping for that perfect blend of unequaled action and unrivaled globe-hopping glamor sure to follow. They tell the audience, “You are watching a James Bond movie, so fasten your lap-straps!” That’s why the gun barrel comes up front, not at the end of the movie or in the middle or upside-down or inside-out. There are certain aspects of Bond that no filmmaker should mess with, and that is one of them.* Without a gun barrel sequence, you could be in for an off-brand imitation like the ’67 Casino Royale; with a gun barrel you know you’re in EON’s capable hands, expecting brand-name Bond and guaranteed a good time in the theater. And audiences expect that promise up front. I certainly do. So when I sit down for a Bond movie and it fails to deliver on that expectation, I’m instantly disappointed. Consequently, in those opening seconds, director Sam Mendes undid all of the goodwill I brought with me to this movie. He dug a hole for himself that he would have to work hard to get out of. Marc Forster did the same thing in Quantum of Solace, and he never managed to get out. He never won me over. Luckily, Skyfall is not Quantum of Solace (not by any means!), and Mendes did manage to win me back fairly quickly with a rousing, Istanbul-set pre-title sequence that surely ranks among my favorites of recent vintage. (Even so, though, even as I was watching action I loved, I was still rankled in the back of my mind by the lack of gun barrel. Hopefully that won’t affect me upon a second viewing, and hopefully this warning will alleviate similar discomfort in other viewers.)

I’ve discussed my love of Istanbul as a spy film backdrop plenty of times before (most recently in my Taken 2 review), and Mendes makes the best use of the city I’ve seen in a long time. Remember that cool but somehow somewhat underwhelming foot chase along the rooftops of the city’s grand bazaar in The International? Well, now imagine it on motorcycles. It’s no longer underwhelming in the least! And, happily, Mendes directs the action in such a way that (for the most part) you can tell exactly what’s going on. And editor Stuart Baird (Casino Royale) cuts it in such a way that you can tell what’s going on. There’s none of the muddled confusion that plagued all of Quantum’s setpieces. Furthermore, this opening sequence, like the one in GoldenEye, depicts 007 working in tandem with a fellow agent rather than on his own or with sexist after-the-fact female assistance ala Thunderball or A View to a Kill. And, personally, I like seeing that. It also involves M more integrally than ever before in a pre-title sequence (even Tomorrow Never Dies), setting up a greatly expanded role for Judi Dench in the film to come.

By the time the now-familiar opening notes of Adele’s theme song kick in (by the way, Movieline has an in-depth, must-read analysis of said song), I was fully on board with this Bond outing. Daniel Kleinman’s title sequence is also first-rate, a real return to form after the lackluster job MK12 did on Quantum of Solace. Like Kleinman's work on Casino Royale, this isn’t a straightforward Maurice Binder pastiche; he brings in fresh elements appropriate to the story while retaining essentials of the past. And the movie that follows does that as well.

In a way, Skyfall is so schizophrenic that it almost shouldn’t work—but it absolutely does work. It’s torn between the past and the future, parading all sorts of classic Bondian elements dating back to the Sixties (some of which haven’t been seen in quite a long time) only to then tear them down with deconstructionist lines reminiscent of Daniel Craig’s “Do I look like I give a damn?” when asked in Casino Royale if he wants his vodka martini shaken or stirred. But then, after rejecting them, it somehow builds these classic elements back up again. Mendes desperately wants to have it both ways—and he gets what he wants, and makes it work. Somehow, the 50th Anniversary references to past Bond movies end up working amidst all the deconstruction. (There was, however, one throwaway line of this sort about Q gadgets that almost made me cry as well as laugh because I miss the gadgets so!) At times I worried that by playing on fans’ nostalgia for the series’ classic elements (like one sequence that combined The James Bond Theme and an Aston Martin in such a way as to arouse audible cheers from the whole audience), Mendes risked damning the whole series to Trotsky’s dustbin of history as much as celebrating it. Bond movies shouldn’t rely too heavily on nostalgia, but Mendes and screenwriters Neal Purvis, Robert Wade and John Logan are clearly well aware of this, and always auto-correct. The mixture of nostalgia and post-modernism, in fact, is almost as thrilling and suspenseful to watch unfold as the action on screen. I kept gasping in fear that the film would veer too far in one direction as it came precipitously close, only to then clutch my seat as it suddenly careened the other way.

The actual action is equally thrilling, but comes in surprisingly spare doses. There are lengthy stretches where Mendes gives full attention to other aspects of Bond, like the spycraft (including more le Carré-esque bureaucracy and politics than we’ve ever seen in a Bond movie before—and even a subtle visual reference to Tomas Alfredson’s film of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy) or the scenic travelogue shots, which in the more-than-capable hands of master cinematographer Roger Deakins look more beautiful than they have since the Sixties. The only classic Bond element that, perhaps surprisingly, isn't really played up is the sex. Despite Craig’s Bond sleeping with more women than he did in either of his previous outings, Skyfall is more interested in Bond’s professional relationships than his intimate ones, and boldly gives them precedence. The gamble pays off.

Performances are quite good across the board. Sam Mendes is an actors’ director, and, sure enough, he coaxes the best out of his stars. Cubby Broccoli is oft-quoted as saying that it takes three films for Bond actors to really come into their own, and I think history bears him out. Thanks to the reboot aspects of Casino Royale, Daniel Craig has had a slightly different journey than his predecessors, but Skyfall marks his most comfortable performance as 007. (In part this is thanks to the welcome return of the series’ trademark humor, largely absent from the last two outings.) He's fantastic. With more to work with than ever before, Judi Dench rises to the challenge and delivers her best turn to date as M. Is it possible that she could actually score an Oscar nomination for acting in a Bond film? I think it is. After a decade of appropriate histrionics as arch-villain Voldemort in the Harry Potter films, Ralph Fiennes delivers an unexpectedly subtle (and quite impressive) performance as a government bureaucrat. I was somewhat dubious about Bond Girls Bernice Lim Marlohe and Naomie Harris (I'm not sure why), but ended up really liking both of them quite a lot. (Neither of their roles proved to be what I had expected, either.)

Javier Bardem relishes his villainous turn as the mysterious Mr. Silva (displaying notable shades of Walken and Brandauer in the pantheon of Bond Villains), but his character proved the most frustrating to me. If Elliott Carver owed something to Rupert Murdoch, then Silva’s closest real-world cousin is Julian Assange, which is certainly topical and timely, but the flashes we get of backstory for him prove ultimately more frustrating in their fleeting nature than rewarding. In the end, he feels like a sketch of a great villain rather than a deeply-nuanced Caravaggio painting of one. A small part played by Albert Finney also proved frustrating, but for an entirely different reason, and certainly no fault of Finney’s. The role seemed so clearly written for Sean Connery as a sweet 50th Anniversary nod that it was frustrating not to have him actually playing it! That would have been priceless. Oh well.

Overall, all of Skyfall’s well-fleshed-out characters, rich performances, beautiful photography, exotic locations, visceral action, Komodo dragons (yes! I said Komodo dragons!), and equally entertaining nods to the past and future alike add up to a pretty incredible Bond film. If Quantum of Solace owed a debt to the Bourne movies (which, in turn, of course, owe a tremendous debt to Bond), then Skyfall’s debt is to Christopher Nolan’s Batman movies (which, in turn, also owe a huge debt to 007; as Craig says, “That’s the circle of life.”). This will no doubt be widely remarked upon, but the real debt owed here, as with both Bourne and Batman, is to James Bond himself. Sam Mendes may have seemed a somewhat unusual choice to direct a Bond film, but he proved to be just the man for the job, and it’s his avowed love of this series’ past that makes this movie work so well, and, by the end, sets the series on a clear course for its future. When the final credits role (accompanied by Thomas Newman’s entirely satisfying score, which I’ll no doubt write more about in the future), Bond fans will likely feel an intense satisfaction. I know I did. Skyfall is a very gratifying movie, and an excellent course-correction after the disastrous Quantum of Solace. Everyone should see it. And trust me—I haven’t even mentioned the best stuff!

*The one exception is in the 2006 Casino Royale, which, being an origin story, has its reasons for situating the gun barrel elsewhere. And even then, it’s still near the beginning! But for some reason the one-time success of tinkering with the gun barrel position has led EON to believe it bears experimentation every time.

Tradecraft: 007 Teams Up With OSS 117

James Bond is teaming up with Hubert Bonnisseur de la Bath... and Charlotte Grey, and, um, the man who knew too little, and Argo's John Chambers and... well, it's too bad George Clooney never ended up playing Napoleon Solo or Matt Helm (both roles he flirted with at one time or another), because none of those other names are really in a league with the first two. If Clooney had been Helm, then Monuments Men really would be an all-star spy team-up. As things stand, it's still a very impressive all-star tream-up, if not all-spy. Deadline reports that Clooney has lined up Daniel Craig, Jean Dujardin (OSS 117: Cairo Nest of Spies, The Artist), Cate Blanchett (The Good German, Charlotte Grey), Bill Murray (The Limits of Control, The Man Who Knew Too Little), John Goodman (Argo), Hugh Bonneville (Tomorrow Never Dies, Downton Abbey) and Bob Balaban (The Tuxedo, Gosford Park) to star with him in his latest directorial effort, Monuments Men. The stars will play an international assortment of art historians and museum curators who team up to recover art treasures stolen by the Nazis in the final days of WWII, and prevent the destruction of masterpieces. The fact-based drama is penned by Clooney and his regular producing partner Grant Heslov, who previously wrote Goodnight and Good Luck together. (Heslov might be better known to spy fans as the techie in the van with Tom Arnold in True Lies.) The pair will also produce the Sony/Fox co-production, which reunites the entire crew of their most recent spy production, Argo (review here), including composer Alexandre Desplat (Largo Winch, The Ghost Writer). Shooting begins in Europe March 1. Just seeing Craig and Dujardin together would guarantee my ticket sale, but that hugely impressive line-up sweetens the deal all the more. I'm definitely looking forward to this one!

Upcoming Spy Blu-Rays: Flint in High-Def

Specialty label Twilight Time, who release 20th Century Fox catalog titles in limited editions of 3,000 (and began their run with a spy release, The Kremlin Letter), unveiled their first titles of 2013 on their Facebook page yesterday... and among them are two eagerly awaited Blu-ray spy titles! Our Man Flint (1966) makes its high-definition debut on January 15, and its 1967 sequel In Like Flint follows a month later on February 12. Both star the inimitable James Coburn as the flawless superspy Derek Flint. No details are available yet, but Twilight Time Blu-rays tend to retail for $34.95 and the most common extra is an isolated score track. (Jerry Goldsmith composed the wonderful Flint music.) I happen to know for a fact that there was a documentary about the Flint films produced several years ago for a cancelled Fox Blu-ray release. I really, really hope that turns up on one of these Twilight Time discs! Twilight Time titles are sold exclusively by Screen Archives Entertainment.

Movie Review: Argo (2012)

In Argo, director Ben Affleck successfully blends history and pop culture nostalgia to create one of the best spy films of the year, deftly jumping from genre to genre and combining laugh-out-loud humor and nail-biting suspense in ways that shouldn’t work... but undeniably do. Based on a chapter from the memoirs of real-life CIA exfiltration specialist Tony Mendez and a WIRED Magazine article about the recently declassified mission, Argo tells the story of a real CIA rescue mission that has all the hallmarks of a Jim Phelps operation from the Mission: Impossible TVshow. It’s impossible not to think of that show, in fact (which is among the highest compliments I can pay to a modern spy movie), watching the events of Argo unfold.  When Mendez (played by Affleck) suggests disguising American hostages (or would-be hostages) as a Canadian film crew scouting locations for a Star Wars-inspired sci-fi movie to extract them from hostile Iran, it sounds just like the zany capers Phelps would dream up on the show. And, just like Phelps in the early days, Mendez goes on to select a team of non-spy professionals in their given Hollywood fields to pull it off. Just like Phelps in the later days, he and everyone else wear gaudy Seventies fashions while doing it! (Mendez’s boss even gives him a version of the standard “disavowed” warning from Mission: Impossible, instructing him that should he be captured, the Agency “won’t claim” him.)

Adding a dash of documentary to its multi-genre quiver, Argo begins with a succinct history lesson detailing America’s sordid history with Iran, including the CIA’s installation of the puppet Shah who safeguarded U.S. oil interests while allowing his people to be tortured. But just because we understand their anger with America doesn’t make it any less harrowing when the film then puts us inside the American embassy in Tehran during the early days of the Islamic Revolution as a frenzied protest turns into an assault on U.S. sovereignty. Diplomats hasten to incinerate or shred as many files as they can as furious Iranian students overrun the building, seizing hostages. During this powerful opening scene, Affleck demonstrates an impressive Paul Greengrass-like ability to thrust his audience into the center of the action (and not just by quick-cutting and shaking the camera around chaotically, either). You really feel these Americans’ terror as the hostage-takers pour in.

Six terrified Americans, however, manage to escape onto the streets of Tehran amidst the chaos. With nowhere else to go, they end up finding refuge at the personal residence of the courageous Canadian Ambassador Ken Taylor (wonderfully played by Alias’ Victor Garber). And there they remain… for two and a half months. That’s when the State Department decides to put together an exfiltration plan, initially inviting Mendez and his Agency boss Jack O'Donnell (Brian Cranston) purely as a matter of protocol. Mendez can’t help pick apart their faulty plans, however (State wanted them to bicycle across the border in the middle of winter), and soon finds himself with the responsibility to come up with a better one. Inspiration strikes when his son directs him to a Planet of the Apes movie on TV. There are no more foreign teachers or aid workers left in Iran to convincingly disguise the Americans as… but everyone knows that Hollywood movie studios will “shoot in Stalingrad, with Pol Pot directing, if it will sell tickets,” as Mendez puts it. And Iran has desert and Arabian Nights-like locations that would lend themselves to one of the budget sci-fi epics that preponderated in the wake of Star Wars. As O'Donnell tells the State Department, “it’s the best bad idea we’ve got.”

Mendez is authorized to set up a fake film production, for which he recruits a pair of Hollywood insiders. One is legendary make-up artist John Chambers (the man responsible for much of that Apes make-up), who’s worked with the CIA before by creating disguise kits, and the other is once big-time producer Lester Siegel, who insists that if he’s going to produce a fake movie, it’s going to be a fake hit. Both characters are played excellently, by John Goodman and a sure-to-be-Oscar-nominated Alan Arkin, respectively. While Chambers’ real name made it into Mendez’s book and the movie, the Siegel character is a composite of several unnamed people. As Mendez pretends to be bigshot in Hollywood (“you’ll fit right in,” Chambers assures him), Siegel takes out trade ads and drums up publicity for their fake sci-fi epic, Argo, by hosting a staged reading of the script, complete with actors in cheesy sci-fi costumes.

The whole Hollywood section has a very Ocean’s 11 vibe to it, and plays out largely for laughs, yet Affleck manages to segue seamlessly from that into the visceral suspense of the actual mission as Mendez slips into Tehran on a fake passport (by way of a brief meeting with British Intelligence in Istanbul to collect his visa). Certain visas are needed for entering and exiting the country, and various permits are required for a film crew from the Ministry of Culture, all of which leads to some suspenseful and well-executed spycraft of the sort we’re used to from fact and fiction alike. There’s dissent among the party of Americans Mendez is there to rescue, as well, and it’s deftly handled by the skilled actors. (Standouts include Tate Donovan, Kerry Bishé  and Scott McNairy.) Especially following a harrowing trip into the heart of the city to sell the cover (they’re accompanied by a representative from the Ministry of Culture, but still subjected to a torrent of anti-American demonstrations even as they pretend to be Canadian), some of them are none too eager to accept Mendez’s out-there plan. But there’s a ticking clock. They won’t be able to stay in the ambassador’s house much longer… and then what? If they're discovered, the fear is they'll be publicly executed. Even though audiences likely know the outcome going in, Affleck still manages to generate some blistering suspense during the film’s final act. (Though he and writer Chris Terrio resort to creative license to heighten what actually happened.)

Not only do costume designer Jacqueline West and production designer Sharon Seymour do a fantastic job of recreating exceptional period detail in Washington, Hollywood and Tehran, but Affleck reinforces the era by shooting in a style and aesthetic instantly evocative of the late Seventies. The film stock is attractively grainy (he reportedly achieved this effect by cutting his frames in two and then blowing them up), and the studied camera movement recalls paranoid spy and conspiracy thrillers of the era like Scorpio, 3 Days of the Condor, All the President's Men and Peckinpah’s The Killer Elite. Best of all (and setting the appropriate tone from the film’s opening moments), there’s even a period-appropriate retro Warner Bros. logo! (If only GK Films had followed suit and created a fake one from that time even though they didn’t exist then; when their logo comes up after the WB one, it sort of kills the effect.)

There’s something in Argo to please just about everyone. First and foremost, it’s a killer spy movie with a very Mission: Impossible feel and a very Scorpio look, both of which are likely to appeal to readers of this blog. Beyond that, it richly evokes the period in a way likely to equally interest those who lived through it and those born since. Then there’s also the geek nostalgia factor. Fans of those late Seventies Star Wars rip-offs (among whom I count myself, Starcrash being my favorite) will thrill to the loving Hollywood details, and likely wish that the film had actually been made. (They’re also likely to enjoy the final shot of the movie, which serves as a heartfelt tribute to those films and their fans.) Fortunately, even if it wasn’t made, Argo served a higher purpose well chronicled here, and the implausible-but-true story of its non-making, now also called Argo, is an instant classic of multiple genres.

Tradecraft: Homeland Renewed For a Third Season

Deadline reports that Showtime has renewed Homeland for a third season. After the show swept the Emmies and posted its best ratings yet this season, that hardly comes as a surprise, but is still welcome news for fans of intelligent spy TV drama. Commensurate with te first two seasons, the order is for twelve episodes. Man oh man do I wish I hadn't had to drop my pay cable stations this summer! It's very hard to wait for DVD to watch this season...

The Double O Section Celebrates its Millionth Hit

Today is a milestone in the six-year history of this blog, as the Double O Section racked up its 1,000,000th hit! (And it's 1,000,007th hit.) Thanks, as always, to everyone who reads it regularly or visits from time to time for contributing to that achievement. I'm sorry things have been a bit slow around here for the past few months, but that's going to change very soon as I return to regular reviews and even some new contests! So stick around for the next million. Be seeing you!

Tradecraft: John Logan Signs On For Two More Bond Movies

Variety reports that Skyfall co-writer John Logan has been hired to pen not only the next Bond movie (Bond 24 in the official cycle), but also the one after that, Bond 25. Logan wrote Skyfall with Bond regulars Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, who have worked on every Bond film since The World Is Not Enough in 1999. (The pair also penned the Bond send-up Johnny English.) According to Mike Fleming at Deadline, Logan pitched "an original two movie arc" to producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson while they were shooting Skyfall, and the scribe has already begun work on the scripts. Both Deadline and Variety speculate that this would open the door to potentially shoot Bond 24 and Bond 25 back-to-back, which would be a first for the 50-year-old franchise. The hiring also marks a changing of the guard at EON, since Purvis and Wade have traditionally generated the first drafts of the recent Bond screenplays before people like Paul Haggis and Logan were brought on to rewrite their work. These new scripts are clearly beginning with Logan. Does this mean that Purvis and Wade won't be involved at all? It's certainly possible that they're Bonded out after five films in a row, but the pair seem so entrenched in the Bond family that I wouldn't be surprised if the roles were reversed and they were called upon to do a pass on the Logan scripts at some point in the future, since they know so well exactly how the producers envision 007. Besides Skyfall, Logan's credits include Gladiator, Hugo, The Aviator and Any Given Sunday. Logan is an avowed Fleming fan, and has gone on record as saying that "Bond should always fight Blofeld," so as long as trades are indulging in rampant speculation (about the back-to-back shooting), I'll allow myself some as well and reiterate my hopes that these upcoming films ("The Logan Duology," if you will) will see the return of 007's greatest enemy!

Movie Review: Taken 2 (2012)

Almost four years after the original Luc Besson-produced, Liam Neeson-starring neo-Eurospy flick Taken (review here) became a surprise hit, a sequel finally arrives. And it delivers pretty much exactly what a Taken sequel needs to deliver. Think of Taken 2 as the Die Hard 2 of the Taken franchise: it adheres to the same basic formula of the original with the slightly diminishing returns inherent in reheating a premise… but does so in such a way as to leave fans of the original satisfied that they have, indeed, just seen another Taken movie. Gone, sadly, is the element of surprise that worked so well for the first film, when anything seemed possible around any corner. (I’ve never seen an audience uniformly gasp and jump in their seats the way they did when Neeson’s character suddenly shot someone in the arm unexpectedly.) That’s not really possible the second time around. So what we’re left with instead is the other thing that drove the original: Liam Neeson being a badass in a foreign city. And when the city is as photogenic as Istanbul is, that’s enough for me.

This is, of course, the first of two major spy movies taking advantage of Istanbul’s scenic minarets this fall. (Three if you count a brief scene in Argo.) We will see those same inviting rooftops play host once more to an exciting chase sequence in Skyfall, as we’ve seen them do countless times before, and it never gets old for me. Istanbul is one of my very favorite spy locations, lovingly photographed in genre entries as diverse as Bond movies From Russia With Love and The World Is Not Enough, Eurospy titles like Fury on the Bosphorous and From Istanbul, Orders to Kill, actual Turkish spy films like Golden Boy, and neo-Eurospy entries like The International. I’m happy to report that the ancient city uniquely bridging East and West is well-utilized in Taken 2 (though sadly Neeson never threatens to “tear down the Topkapi Palace” if he has to).

The movie’s plot is a direct continuation of the first film… though not so direct that you couldn’t pick it up easily enough not having seen that one. After former CIA agent Bryan Mills (Neeson) used his “unique skill set” to save his daughter Kim (Maggie Grace) from Albanian sex traffickers in Paris, Kim has returned to her home in Beverly Hills and tried to get on with her life. Thus we begin, per formula, with the same sort of cheesy domestic scenes that began the first movie, but they’re far less excruciating this time—even enjoyable. That can mainly be credited to Grace. If there were a Golden Globe for “Most Improved,” Maggie Grace would surely win it hands-down! No doubt slightly embarrassed being a 29-year-old playing a 16-year-old, in the first film she overcompensated by playing Kim like she was 8. Not this time. Now (perhaps thanks to her experience playing a full-grown heroine in another Besson-produced neo-Eurospy flick, Lockout), Kim is a functioning adult. (Well, teenager. She still hasn’t passed her driving test.)

Bryan, meanwhile, is making some inroads with his ex-wife, Lenore (Famke Janssen, looking every bit as stunning as she did in GoldenEye 17 years ago), after her rich-guy husband (24’s Xander Berkeley, not present in the sequel) left her. Bryan proposes that his ex and daughter meet him in Istanbul for a vacation when he’s finished up a 4-day private security job. And that, of course, proves to be a bad idea. (The Taken movies might be the first anti-tourist spy movies, insinuating that whenever Americans travel abroad, they inevitably get targeted by sex traffickers and their families! I actually know some women forever put off Parisian vacations by the first film.) Istanbul is too close for comfort, it turns out, to Albania, where a little village mourns the loss of many sons (all awful, evil criminals—but no matter) slain by Mills in the first film. Chief pallbearer is grieving father Rade Sherbedgia (The Saint, 24, M:I-2), and whenever he shows up there’s bound to be trouble. Sherbedgia’s character, Murad Krasniqi, leads a small army, like pigs to slaughter, on a road trip down to Turkey to have their revenge on Mills and his family.

Luckily, when Bryan and Lenore are, ahem, taken (after a rousing pursuit through the city’s old world streets and bazaars), Kim is back at the hotel hanging out by the pool. This enables Bryan, through some ingenuity learned in the CIA, to secretly contact her and instruct her on how to find the location where her parents are being held. His circuitous plan involves Kim throwing hand grenades all over Istanbul (don’t ask), but it’s suitably filmic and fun to watch—and it works! The film’s best scenes involve Mills and his daughter teaming up to save Lenore. Whether Bryan is talking Kim through a rooftop foot chase over a cell phone or shouting driving instructions at her during a high-speed car chase through the labyrinthine streets of Istanbul, the high-octane father/daughter bonding adds a welcome new dimension to the Taken formula.

The biggest disappointment compared to the first film comes from the action sequences. While I’ve enjoyed a number of Olivier Megaton’s films, he doesn’t have Pierre Morel’s gift for directing fights and chases in a lightning-paced manner that still enables viewers to always know exactly what’s going on. Instead (here more than in Colombiana or Transporter 3, unfortunately), Megaton and his editors fall back on that oh-so-popular zeitgeist crutch of cutting the fights up so rapidly so as to render them incomprehensible—seemingly in an attempt to disguise the fact that they weren’t shot very dynamically to begin with. Megaton’s perfectly adept with car chases and firefights, but resorts to that stroby fast-cutting to cover up the shortcomings in Taken 2’s mano-a-many-mano fight scenes. That’s a shame, because audiences want to see Liam Neeson being the badass we know him to be from the first film unencumbered by such gaudy distractions.

The directing doesn’t live up to the first film, but the surprisingly solid script makes the most of delivering a new storyline within the confines of the established series formula. The exotic setting is top-notch, Neeson is as good as ever, Grace is dramatically better than before, and there’s more Famke Janssen, which is always a good thing. The sequel also benefits from a more clearly defined villain to root against, and milks some considerable humor from the previously grating domestic scenes. (There’s almost as much anticipation in seeing how the world’s most overprotective dad will react to his daughter’s new boyfriend as how he will save his ex-wife from being slowly bled to death while suspended upside-down!) All-in-all, Taken 2 is a sequel that delivers the expected goods, and should appeal to fans of the original and fans of the neo-Eurospy genre at large.