Re-Evaluating: Geekdom

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Perhaps one of the most hated movies in all of Geekdom, how is it really? Not bad... It reminds me of Licence to Kill in the sense that in LtK the first 40 minutes are dreadful and then it's really good, while DaD starts off really good and just slips into god knows what. Let me just point out at the end of the movie, I decided that it was decent around 6.5/10 and had some memorable moments. For example, the opening scene is excellent and very fresh way to start the movie, and the following bits with M is excellent as well. The movie has a lot going it's way in terms of seeing who James Bond is by rebuilding the character, but that's all in the first hour. Things start to go a little sour when the Gene Therapy Clinic shows up and you're like WTF? BUt you figure, it's a James Bond movie you can over-look it, and then the movie keeps on going pretty well, you get to the ice palace, James Bond is being chased by a killer death ray from the sky(which I'm cool with), then he's ****ing surfing? After that the movie takes a nose-dive.

The silly nature of the movie in a lot of ways is charming, part of the problem lies in the ****ty set design. If you're going have gene therapy, make it look cool, not like a neo-disco 80s danceroom with the neon lights, if you're going have a robotic suit, at least make it useful other than some 5 minute thing at the end of a movie, and again make it look cool. I think major problem with the movie is set-design and prop-making looked really cheesy, along with some of the effects. But in the end for a majority movie the first hour and a half, the sillyness works more than it doesn't. It was nice to sit back and see a silly James Bond plot again, while TND was silly, it wasn't Moonraker level silly, and it was fun seeing that again.

Some other things I liked about the movie, Jinx and Miranda, I like how this movie try turning everything on it's head, it really allowed for some contrasts to the James Bond character. However, like Kevin I believe said, you can't go too far with the changes before the producers reel you in, and that's what in the end really kill this film. For every change they had, they had a typical bond move to back it up. Also the pay-offs in the film were terrible, and the movie gets self-indulgent. For example Kao and Bond have a car chase, in which they start at the ice palace, leave it going miles, and hten come back, it all feel useless and gratutious since nothing is accomplished.

The sad thing about this movie is it could of easily been changed, had they made some last minute editing changes. For example they should of cut the surf scene since it looks horrible, cut out all the robot suit scene, they really should of just refilmed the entire climax... Honestly him sniping the guy out at the airfield would of been better than what they did, the whole airplane scene just drags tremendously. In the end I enjoyed it, it was far from perfect but it wasn't god awful...

6.5/10
 
Oh I agree, I enjoyed the movie (though annoyed by the ending and Berry's performance) when I first saw it in theaters. It just doesn't hold up to multiple viewings (at least in the same decade).

The first 45 minutes or whatever are really good, all the way up and through the sword fight. The only annoying thing is how bad Berry is (as usual). Then you see Q and more M and it's cool. Then bam, it goes into ****fest soon as we hit Iceland.

Oh well.
 
DACrowe said:
Oh I agree, I enjoyed the movie (though annoyed by the ending and Berry's performance) when I first saw it in theaters. It just doesn't hold up to multiple viewings (at least in the same decade).

The first 45 minutes or whatever are really good, all the way up and through the sword fight. The only annoying thing is how bad Berry is (as usual). Then you see Q and more M and it's cool. Then bam, it goes into ****fest soon as we hit Iceland.

Oh well.

Yeah, it's quite sad... And I think part of the problem was they saw it was oging be different and try ot force it back to traditional bond film along with Japenese aestetics, it reminded me of Godzilla Final Wars ando ther Japenese action movies I've seen which is good concepts but terrible execution with ****ty CGI... Halle Berry okay because she ****ing hot but her performance is grating... :( I really dug the sword fight and a lot of other stuff though, yeah I don't think I'll be revisiting it anytime soon.
 

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