Category Archives: 5 stars

Films that scored a full 5 out of 5.

Ghost in the Shell (1995)

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100 Films’ 100 Favourites #36

It’s found its voice…
now it needs a body.

Original Title: Kôkaku Kidôtai
Also Known As: Mobile Armored Riot Police: Ghost in the Shell (Japan)

Country: Japan
Language: Japanese
Runtime: 83 minutes
BBFC: 15

Original Release: 18th November 1995 (Japan)
UK Release: 8th December 1995
First Seen: DVD, 2000

Stars
Atsuko Tanaka (Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence, Bayonetta: Bloody Fate)
Akio Ôtsuka (Black Jack, Paprika)
Kôichi Yamadera (Ninja Scroll, Cowboy Bebop: The Movie)
Yutaka Nakano (Cowboy Bebop: The Movie, Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence)
Tamio Ôki (Journey to Agartha, Wolf Children)

Director
Mamoru Oshii (Patlabor: The Movie, Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence)

Screenwriter
Kazunori Itō (Patlabor: The Movie, .hack//SIGN)

Based on
The Ghost in the Shell (攻殻機動隊 Kōkaku Kidōtai, literally Mobile Armoured Riot Police), a manga by Masamune Shirow.

The Story
Japan, 2029: Public Security officer Major Motoko Kusanagi and her team are assigned to track down and capture a dangerous hacker known as the Puppet Master, but they soon find themselves embroiled in a far-reaching conspiracy…

Our Hero
In a future world where humans can undergo varying degrees of cyberisation, Major Motoko Kusanagi is a “full-body prosthesis augmented-cybernetic human” — only her brain is organic. Her body is a generic mass production model, so she can blend in while being a kick-ass law enforcement officer.

Our Villain
The Puppet Master, a cyber criminal who hacks into people’s brains and gives them false memories. But is there something even worse going on behind the hacker?

Best Supporting Character
Kusanagi’s second-in-command Batou is stoic to the point of brusqueness — apparently quite a different characterisation to his portrayal in other Ghost in the Shell media.

Memorable Quote
“If we all reacted the same way, we’d be predictable, and there’s always more than one way to view a situation. What’s true for the group is also true for the individual. It’s simple: overspecialise, and you breed in weakness. It’s slow death.” — Major Kusanagi

Memorable Scene
Pursuing the Puppet Master, Kusanagi comes face to face with a six-legged tank. After a blazing gun battle, she tries to physically rip it open, her cybernetic body straining to breaking point — and beyond…

Technical Wizardry
Ghost in the Shell was groundbreaking in its skilful combination of traditional 2D animation with CGI additions. It used a process called “digitally generated animation” (DGA), which combined cel animation with computer graphics to create lens effects that simulated depth, motion, and unusual lightning techniques, as well as mixing in 3D CGI and digital audio.

Letting the Side Down
In 2008, Oshii revisited the film to create Ghost in the Shell 2.0, which regraded the colour, replaced some of the original animation with new CGI, omitted several scenes, and featured a remixed and re-recorded soundtrack. (More details here.) As is almost always the case when directors fiddle with their creations decades later, it wasn’t well received by fans.

Next time…
As befalls many a popular anime franchise, Ghost in the Shell has spawned a raft of sequels and reboots. The only direct sequel, Innocence, was released in 2004. TV series Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex ran for two seasons between 2002 and 2005, with the first run compiled into movie The Laughing Man and the second into Individual Eleven, all of which were followed by a final film, Solid State Society. Another reboot came in 2013 with direct-to-video series Ghost in the Shell: Arise, which so far totals five episodes and, last year, continuation film Ghost in the Shell: The New Movie. (Only four episodes have so far been released in the West, but the movie — which continues the story from the fifth episode — came out on Monday in the UK. Just to make things more complicated.) A live-action American remake is currently shooting for release in March 2017 — you’ve probably heard about it.

Awards
5 Annie Awards nominations (Animated Feature, Directing, Producing, Writing, Production Design)

What the Critics Said
“When Akira first blasted out of Japan back in 1991 it looked like the Western concept of widescreen animation would be changed forever. […] Unfortunately, it was not to be. Sure, on video, the Manga scene has gone from strength to strength, but as far as theatrical releases are concerned, nothing has really come along to match Akira’s sheer retina-scalding magnificence. Until now. […] From its baddie-eviscerating opening sequence through innumerable car chases, shoot outs and tongue-in-cheek dialogue exchanges, this is exactly the kind of film that James Cameron would make if they ever let him through the Disney front gates.” — Clark Collis, Empire

Score: 95%

What the Public Say
“both the film and Oshii have fallen into a kind of disrepute among the anime community. The common line on GITS is that it’s wordy, masturbatory, and pretentious with nothing going on intellectually and that the (plainly inferior but more easily accessible) GITS: SAC is a better alternative. I wanted to write this article to respond to that notion. GITS is a highly thoughtful film and worthy of comparison to virtually any scifi feature you could name. ” — tamerlane, too long for twitlonger

Verdict

Ghost in the Shell was the first anime I consciously saw, which maybe helps it earn a place here. It’s an initially accessible movie that’s also very complicated — there are pulse-pounding action scenes and a thriller storyline to keep things exciting, but also a lot of deep philosophical discussions, touching on themes of gender and identity. I think for some viewers the latter are a negative, while for others they’re the entire point. (I imagine the forthcoming Hollywood remake will either ditch or seriously curtail them, but you never know.) The combination makes for a stimulating (in multiple senses) sci-fi actioner.

Next… who ya gonna call? #37 !

The Raid 2 (2014)

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aka The Raid 2: Berandal

2016 #90
Gareth Evans | 150 mins | Blu-ray | 2.40:1 | Indonesia & USA / Indonesian, English & Japanese | 18*

I wasn’t as impressed as some were by The Raid when I finally got round to watching it two years ago — in my review I said its action was merely equal to other Asian fight flicks, asserted that Dredd had done the same story in a more rounded fashion, and compared the whole thing to Mamma Mia. To use a term that came up in my comments recently: where Mamma Mia is a chick flick, The Raid is definitely a dick flick. That’s probably why it’s taken me this long to get round to its sequel, which was at least as well-liked by the viewing public, if not more so (it has a higher rating on IMDb) — but I couldn’t trust that last time, so why this time? However, it turns out The Raid 2 is an entirely different kettle of fish.

That’s certainly true of the plot — this may be the least “just a rehash of the first film” sequel ever made. Starting mere hours after its predecessor finished, the sequel begins with good cop Rama (Iko Uwais) being co-opted into an anti-corruption internal affairs unit. It’s not just about doing the right thing, though: Rama wants a shot at Bejo (Alex Abbad), a rising criminal who murdered Rama’s brother. Rama is promptly asked to leave his wife and young son behind to go undercover in a prison with the aim of getting close to Uco (Arifin Putra), the son of powerful mob boss Bangun (Tio Pakusadewo). Unfortunately, instead of being sentenced to a couple of months as promised, Rama is given years in jail. Nonetheless, he manages to ingratiate himself with his target, and upon his eventual release is immediately granted a position in Bangun’s organisation. And, look, this is meant to be a review, not a plot summary — it all just spirals from there.

Where the first film was an efficient, simple thriller designed almost solely to link the startling action sequences, here writer-director Gareth Evans has created a sprawling crime epic. Anyone who’s seen the kind of gangster actioners Hong Kong cinema has produced since the ’80s or so will feel in familiar territory. That’s no bad thing, however, just a point of genre comparison. By expanding the world he’s created out in every direction, Evans has created a work that is not only bigger in a literal sense, but also deeper, more complex, and more interesting than the straightforward adrenaline rush of the movie that made his name.

That’s not to say The Raid 2 skimps on the action front, mind. Oh no. Far from it. If anything, the physical displays here are even greater, and certainly more varied. A free-for-all riot in a muddy prison yard brings to mind the church fight from Kingsman in its crazed frenzy; the first film’s Mad Dog, Yayan Ruhian, is back as a new character who gets a remarkable battle around a multi-level nightclub; the instantly iconic and aptly named Hammer Girl (Julie Estelle) gets a showcase on a subway car, and later double teams with her chum Baseball Bat Man (Very Tri Yulisman) to take on Rama; and that’s not even the climax, as our hero goes toe to toe with knife-wielding henchman The Assassin (Cecep Arief Rahman) in a kitchen-set rumble that has to be seen to be believed.

But as incredible as each of those are — and indeed they are — the highest of highlights is surely the car chase. There’s a chance you’ll have heard about this even if you’re not especially interested in the film: a bit of behind-the-scenes detail about how they achieved one particular shot went viral a couple of years ago. If you haven’t seen that, nor the film, then don’t seek it out — it actually kinda spoils it a little bit, knowing how it was done. (Without spoiling it, it was all done practically, whereas a Hollywood blockbuster would undoubtedly have done it with CGI — and spent as much on that one shot as Evans and co have on this entire movie.) The sequence is more than just one technically-impressive shot, however, but an exciting and innovative action scene all round, that definitely pushed the boundaries of the filmmakers’ capabilities (they had to get in a specialist outfit from overseas to help realise their ambitions).

Those are just the highlights — there are numerous smaller but no less accomplished sequences elsewhere, too. To be precise, there are 19 fight scenes, featuring more complex choreography than the first film — and it’s one of the fight choreographers who said that, so it must be true. The two-and-a-half hour running time may mean The Raid 2 isn’t the unrelenting action-fest that the first film was, but those memorable combats are just as much a part of the film’s DNA. I don’t think anyone’s going to feel shortchanged.

From a filmmaking point of view, it’s even more accomplished. Evans demonstrated he knew how to lens action in the first movie, but here the whole movie looks more polished and more expensive (even though it only cost $4.5 million). There’s greater ambition on display in every facet, including both the choreography and the camerawork. Most Hollywood blockbusters seem to push (or exceed) the two-and-a-half hour mark these days, and even when it fills that time, it feels like it’s partly because no one quite knew when to cut back. The Raid 2, however, feels suitably epic — just as you think a film that’s two-and-a-half hours long ought to feel, really.

For me, The Raid 2 outclasses its predecessor in every possible way, from the deeper and more involving story, to the jaw-dropping feats of choreography and performance, to the more assured and polished filmmaking. An instant action classic.

5 out of 5

The Raid 2 will be available on Amazon Prime Instant Video UK from tomorrow.

It placed 2nd on my list of The 20 Best Films I Saw For the First Time in 2016, which can be read in full here.

* The MPAA insisted on 4½ seconds of cuts to get an R rating. The UK version is uncut. ^

The Iron Giant (1999)

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2016 #86
Brad Bird | 83 mins | DVD | 2.35:1 | USA / English | U / PG

Adapted (loosely) from Ted Hughes’ children’s novel The Iron Man, the feature debut of director Brad Bird (The Incredibles, Ratatouille, now live-action stuff) relocates the book’s story to ’50s America and mixes in some Cold War elements. The film was somewhat verboten in our household when it came out, because the book was beloved and the film looked so different, but its reputation has only grown in the ensuing decade-and-a-half — and Hughes approved of it anyway.

This version sees the titular robot (voiced by Vin Diesel) crash to Earth near Maine in late 1957, the home of nine-year-old Hogarth Hughes (Eli Marienthal) and his mom Annie (Jennifer Aniston). After the giant eats the Hughes’ TV aerial, Hogarth tracks it to take a photo, and ends up saving it from electrocution when it tries to eat a power station. As the giant sneaks around the countryside eating cars and causing train crashes, it attracts the attention of government agent Fox Mulder from the FBI’s X Files Kent Mansley from the Bureau of Unexplained Phenomena (Christopher McDonald), who’s intent on uncovering and destroying the giant. Hogarth tries to hide the friendly creature with the help of artist Dean (Harry Connick Jr.), but could it be Mansley isn’t so wrong about the threat it poses?

The story, as reconstructed by Bird and screenwriter Tim McCanlies, integrates influences from ’50s B-movies (very apt for a giant robot ‘monster’) and Cold War/Space Race paranoia for a potent storyline that has a different emphasis from the novel’s “world peace” finale, but nonetheless is promoting understanding of alien/foreign powers and, y’know, deep stuff like that. Alternatively — or, rather, concurrently — it’s an E.T.-esque tale of a boy and his quirky alien friend. Bird was keen to emphasise character over action and mindless spectacle, and that’s really where the film’s strengths lie.

Well, that and the technical aspects. The animation is stunningly well done, exhibiting exceptional fluidity and detail in its character animation, in particular. That’s in spite of the film having a reduced budget and time schedule thanks to the box office failure of previous animations by the studio — in Bird’s words, they had “one-third of the money of a Disney or DreamWorks film, and half of the production schedule”, but that meant greater production freedom (so long as they managed that budget). I guess that’s why the film’s ended up only growing in stature since its first release — because it’s able to be committed to its creators’ vision, rather than being battered into homogeneity by a studio desperate for a return on considerable investment.

Beautifully animated and affectingly told, with a style that nicely homages classic sci-fi movies, The Iron Giant is a film that deserves the reputation it has gradually amassed — and which only continues to grow, I think. Last year saw the release of an extended Signature Edition, with a couple of short scenes added, which comes to US Blu-ray (alongside the original version) later this year. Just from reading about those new scenes, I’m not convinced they’ll improve the experience, but it’ll certainly be worth finding out.

5 out of 5

The Iron Giant was viewed as part of my What Do You Mean You Haven’t Seen…? 2016 project, which you can read more about here.

This review is also part of 1999 Week.

The Limey (1999)

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2016 #72
Steven Soderbergh | 89 mins | streaming (HD) | 16:9 | USA / English | 18 / R

There’s an argument to be made that, from a cinematic perspective, mainstream US cinema these days is boring. Look at the kind of films American auteurs were producing in and around the studio system in the ’90s and early ’00s: Pulp Fiction, Fight Club, Memento, Requiem for a Dream; films that experimented with how they told their stories, the shots they used, how they were edited. Does anyone do that now? Or does anyone do it successfully?

Personally, I’ll be adding Steven Soderbergh’s The Limey to that list. At its most basic it’s a straightforward thriller, in which a British crook played by Terence Stamp is released from prison and travels to L.A. to find out the truth behind the death of his daughter (played in flashbacks by Melissa George, which is kinda weird because she has little to do and no dialogue), and probably take revenge on those responsible. By all accounts, the screenplay by Lem Dobbs was indeed that run-of-the-mill. In the hands of Soderbergh, however, it becomes an arthouse-ish experience, mainly thanks to the editing.

It’s the kind of cutting that’s hard to accurately describe on the page without overdoing it. The movie jumps back and forth in time — not from scene to scene, but from shot to shot. For instance, Stamp’s arrival at the home of his daughter’s friend, and the conversation that follows, is jumbled up with shots of him on the plane, driving in the city, the people his daughter was associating with, and even within the conversation itself, sometimes speech continues on the soundtrack while we watch the characters not talking, or doing something else. This isn’t a conceit Soderbergh uses for one scene, or wheels out now and then, but an overall approach. Some sequences are more thick with it than others, but it’s always right around the corner. It creates a unique sensation. Not disconcerting, exactly, but mysterious and querying. It has you constantly question what you’re watching — is it a memory? A plan? A fantasy? A delusion? It draws connections back and forth across the timeline of the story, bringing out thematic angles. At its most key, it helps explain what happens at the end (too bluntly for some reviewers, I should add). This collage-like style — which unlike, say, Memento’s back-to-front narrative has no obvious in-story point — will certainly not be to everyone’s taste, but it presents an interesting challenge to our usual ideas of how a film should be constructed.

This led to a somewhat infamous commentary track on the film’s DVD release. The A.V. Club even included it in their New Cult Canon series — not The Limey, that is, but The Limey’s commentary track. In it, Soderbergh and Dobbs discuss the filmmaking process, understandably focusing on how screenplays get transformed, and how screenwriters get screwed over. The Limey that ended up on screen is very different to Dobbs’ screenplay, having been aggressively filtered by Soderbergh. This isn’t hard to believe — the film on screen is a very film-y film; how would you go about conveying the crazy editing style on the page, even if you wanted to? By the sounds of things the whole track is basically a friendly argument, and makes me wish someone somewhere would get round to releasing this on Blu-ray so I could hear it (the film looks great in HD, so I don’t much fancy settling for a DVD, thanks).

Despite the visual trickery, The Limey still works pretty well as a straightforward thriller. You have to be prepared to accept the slippery editing, because there’s no avoiding it, but the throughline of Stamp tracking down bad men and how he deals with them is still here. Personally, I’ve never much rated Stamp as an actor, but somehow he fits here. He’s a fish out of water, a man out of place — way out of place — and possibly out of time, too, seeming like a ’60s or ’70s British gangster transported to turn-of-the-millennium L.A. It’s no discredit to the supporting cast that they mainly exist to bob around in his wake.

At a guess, I’d say some would criticise The Limey for being a basic revenge thriller with a veneer of artistry applied in the form of its editing, while others would be turned away from its basic revenge thrills thanks to that editorial veneer. I’m always up for mashing together arthouse and mainstream, though, and here Soderbergh does just that, and in a way I found consistently thought-provoking, too. It’s discoveries like this that are the reward for digging into less-heralded corners of interesting filmmakers’ back catalogues.

5 out of 5

This review is part of 1999 Week.

The Limey placed 7th on my list of The 20 Best Films I Saw For the First Time in 2016, which can be read in full here.

Fight Club (1999)

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100 Films’ 100 Favourites #29

Mischief. Mayhem. Soap.

Country: USA & Germany
Language: English
Runtime: 139 minutes
BBFC: 18 (cut, 1999) | 18 (uncut, 2005)
MPAA: R

Original Release: 15th October 1999 (USA)
UK Release: 12th November 1999
First Seen: TV, c.2001

Stars
Edward Norton (American History X, 25th Hour)
Brad Pitt (Interview with the Vampire, World War Z)
Helena Bonham Carter (Room with a View, The King’s Speech)
Meat Loaf (The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny)

Director
David Fincher (Se7en, The Social Network)

Screenwriter
Jim Urls (Sweet Talk, Jumper)

Based on
Fight Club, a novel by Chuck Palahniuk.

The Story
The film’s nameless narrator is growing increasingly disillusioned with his mundane consumerist lifestyle, when he bumps into Tyler Durden. A free-spirited soap salesman, the pair have a fight for the heck of it. Finally experiencing some kind of genuine feeling, they set up an underground club for fighting, but it gradually becomes clear that Tyler may have bigger ideas…

Our Heroes
I am Jack’s nameless narrator. I am also Jack’s friend, Tyler Durden. Yes, just his friend…

Our Villains
The establishment! Capitalism! What’ve you got?

Best Supporting Character
Helena Bonham Carter hasn’t been fucked like that since grade school.

Memorable Quote
“The first rule of Fight Club is: you do not talk about Fight Club. The second rule of Fight Club is: you do not talk about Fight Club! ” — Tyler Durden

Quote Most Likely To Be Used in Everyday Conversation
“You are not special. You are not a beautiful or unique snowflake. You’re the same decaying organic matter as everything else.” — Tyler Durden

Memorable Scene
Called into his manager’s office to discuss his bad behaviour, the Narrator decides the best method of getting his own way is by enacting physical violence… on himself.

Technical Wizardry / Truly Special Effect
For what’s essentially a drama, Fight Club is overloaded with special effects and visual trickery. I don’t know if any are particularly groundbreaking in and of themselves, but several are particularly striking. A personal favourite, thanks to the perfect execution of the idea, is the shot where the Narrator’s condo is transformed into a living IKEA catalogue.

Making of
Marla’s original post-coital line was, “I want to have your abortion.” The studio objected to such an offensive line, so Fincher agreed to change it on the condition that the new line had to be used. The studio agreed, apparently unaware that such an agreement was never going to end well. Fincher wrote the replacement line, “I haven’t been fucked like that since grade school.” The studio asked for the original line back; Fincher refused. (It must say something about American values that abortion is considered more shocking than underage sex.)

Next time…
Nothing from the film, but Chuck Palahniuk has continued his novel in 10-issue comic book series Fight Club 2. A second comic series, Fight Club 3, is planned.

Awards
1 Oscar nomination (Sound Effects Editing)
1 MTV Movie Awards nominations (Best Fight for Edward Norton fighting himself)
1 BRIT Award nomination (Best Soundtrack — it lost to Notting Hill)

What the Critics Said
“Three factors elevate Fincher’s apocalyptic stew to something approaching art. First is Norton’s performance, as sneaky and shocking as that in his film debut Primal Fear. Second is Palahniuk’s story, which dances on a razor’s edge between life and death, expression and repression, ecstasy and agony. Third is Fincher’s dedication to making a film that looks and sound likes no other, one that powerfully illustrates what dementia looks like from inside and out.” — Carrie Rickey, Philadelphia Inquirer

Score: 79%

What the Public Say
“it’s hard to believe Fight Club is now 15 years old. As I was watching the film last night I found it hard to review because it is so ingrained in pop culture now it would be almost sacrilegious to say something bad about it. […] The first time I saw Fight Club I did not see the twist of [REDACTED] coming. I remember being surprised, but also very confused. I didn’t really understand how it worked then. On the second viewing it is easy to see a million clues pointing to this from the very beginning. Director David Fincher is very clever in how he orchestrates the film by giving you all these hints. He’s very good at walking that tight rope of not giving away too much. The twist is definitely one of the highlights of the film and why it is so memorable. It doesn’t feel cheap to me as some of these things normally do.” — Sherise, The Girl that Loved to Review

Elsewhere on 100 Films…
I reviewed Fight Club as part of a retrospective on Fincher’s films back in 2011, saying “Fincher’s films often look great, but Fight Club is surely the most visually inventive. A list of exciting spectacles could be endless […] To top it off, the ‘regular’ cinematography is grounded in Fincher’s trademark darkness, as if every shot was conceived as just black and he added only what light was necessary.”

Verdict

A controversial film to this day, Fight Club is a violent, explicit exploration of the turn-of-the-millennium Western male psyche, which hasn’t necessarily lost its relevance in the ensuing decade-and-a-half. Criticised by some for endorsing the anarchic lifestyle it depicts, praised by others for satirising that mode of thinking, and criticised by other others for not satirising it well enough, the film can certainly provoke a spread of views. There’s little doubt that David Fincher’s direction is memorably slick and inspired, however, and it has one of the most talked-about twists in movie history.

#33 will… boldly go where no comedy has gone before.

From Russia with Love (1963)

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100 Films’ 100 Favourites #32

James Bond is back!
His new incredible women!
His new incredible enemies!
His new incredible adventures!

Country: UK
Language: English, Russian, Turkish & Romany
Runtime: 115 minutes
BBFC: A (1963) | PG (1987)
MPAA: GP (1971) | PG (1994)

Original Release: 11th October 1963 (UK)
US Release: 8th April 1964
First Seen: TV, c.1995

Stars
Sean Connery (Darby O’Gill and the Little People, Zardoz)
Daniela Bianchi (Special Mission Lady Chaplin, Operation Kid Brother)
Pedro Armendariz (Fort Apache, 3 Godfathers)
Lotte Lenya (The Threepenny Opera, The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone)
Robert Shaw (A Man for All Seasons, Jaws)

Director
Terence Young (Dr. No, Wait Until Dark)

Screenwriter
Richard Maibaum (Bigger Than Life, Licence to Kill)

Adapted by
Johanna Harwood (Dr. No, Call Me Bwana)

Based on
From Russia with Love, the fifth James Bond novel by Ian Fleming — one of John F. Kennedy’s favourite novels.

The Story
When Soviet consulate clerk Tatiana Romanova offers to defect, she has one condition: that she is extracted by James Bond. Although M smells a trap, as collateral Tatiana offers a Lektor, a decoding machine MI6 have wanted for years. Bond travels to Istanbul to steal the Lektor, unaware he’s being manipulated by the criminal organisation SPECTRE…

Our Hero
The name’s Bond, James Bond. In only his second big-screen outing, so Connery is still establishing the character here — considering all the ‘fun’ antics that came since, Bond is quite a hard bastard in Dr. No and From Russia with Love (which is only appropriate for a government-sponsored killer, of course).

Our Villains
They may not be as grandiose as the volcano-dwelling types that came later in the series, but From Russia with Love has two of Bond’s most memorable adversaries: the hard former KGB officer Rosa Klebb, with her deadly shoe (well, it sounds silly when you put it like that), and assassin Red Grant, who may not know what wine to have with fish but could certainly gut you like one. A fish, that is. Not wine. You can’t gut wine.

Best Supporting Character
Kerim Bey, British Intelligence’s man in Turkey. An affable, witty soul, he’s also an invaluable ally during Bond’s time in Istanbul.

Memorable Quote
Tatiana: “I think my mouth is too big.”
Bond: “I think it’s a very lovely mouth. It’s just the right size… for me, anyway.”

Memorable Scene
On the Orient Express, SPECTRE assassin Red Grant manages to corner Bond in his compartment. Although he has Bond at gunpoint, Grant is distracted by the offer of gold coins hidden in Bond’s case. Bond tricks Grant into setting off the case’s booby trap, allowing Bond to tackle him. A rough close-quarters fight ensues.

Write the Theme Tune…
Having arranged and performed Monty Norman’s James Bond Theme for Dr. No (for which he didn’t receive a credit), John Barry was the main composer for Bond’s second adventure. However, the producers tapped Lionel Bart — then popular from Oliver! — to write the title song. Barry didn’t like that Bart’s lyrics had nothing to do with the film’s story, a point he set out to rectify when given full control of the soundtrack to Goldfinger.

Sing the Theme Tune…
A good answer if you’re ever faced with a trivia question about James Bond theme singers, Matt Monro was — so Wikipedia tells me — known as “The Man With The Golden Voice” and “became one of the most popular entertainers on the international music scene during the 1960s and 1970s.” With the Bond formula not yet fully established, a snippet of his song is heard on a radio early in the film, but not played in full until the end credits. (The title credits are scored with an instrumental version of the song, plus the James Bond Theme.)

Technical Wizardry
Projecting the title credits on writhing half-naked girls? It’ll never catch on.

Making of
Although Red Grant is presented as a physically-imposing male specimen, including showing off his half-naked physique the first time he appears, in reality actor Robert Shaw had to stand on a box when opposite Sean Connery because he was so much shorter than the Scot. (4 inches shorter, according to CelebHeights.com. Yes, that’s a real website.)

Previously on…
This is the second film about the adventures of James Bond, after the previous year’s Dr. No.

Next time…
The next film, Goldfinger, set the template for much of the rest of the Bond series. To date, that has encompassed a further 22 canonical movies, with the series’ 25th already in development. From Russia with Love was adapted for radio in 2012, the third of (to date) five Bond radio adaptations starring Toby Stephens as 007.

Awards
1 BAFTA nomination (British Cinematography (Colour))

What the Critics Said
“Don’t miss it! This is to say, don’t miss it if you can still get the least bit of fun out of lurid adventure fiction and pseudo-realistic fantasy. For this mad melodramatization of a desperate adventure of Bond with sinister characters in Istanbul and on the Orient Express is fictional exaggeration on a grand scale and in a dashing style, thoroughly illogical and improbable, but with tongue blithely wedged in cheek.” — Bosley Crowther, The New York Times

Score: 96%

What the Public Say
“From Russia with Love turned out to be amongst the best of the Bonds. Distinctly low key, and relying on the strength of its cast over the spectacular thrills and gadgetry that would come to define the series, it’s a great couple of hours’ cinema that may delight viewers who come to it expecting the same old nonsense from 007.” — Mike, Films on the Box

Elsewhere on 100 Films…
I reviewed From Russia with Love as part of a retrospective on Connery’s Bond back in 2012, when I noted it was “a very faithful rendition of the book. That makes it a Cold War spy thriller, albeit one with fantastical touches […] Mostly, though, it feels remarkably plausible. Sequences like the theft of a decoding machine from the Russian consulate, or the famous confined train carriage fight with Red Grant, have real-world heft rather than typical Bond action sequence fantasticism.”

Verdict

It’s only the second Bond movie, so there’s no template yet, but in retrospect From Russia with Love is an oddity among the Bond flicks of the ’60s and ’70s. Although it has many of the series’ regular trappings — exciting action, exotic locations, beautiful women, grotesque villains, nifty gadgets — it also functions as a straight-up ’60s Cold War spy thriller, with few of the fantastical touches the Bond films would become known for. Such atypicality means anyone looking for a “Bond formula” movie will be disappointed, but otherwise it’s an accomplished thriller, and one of the series’ finest instalments.

The first rule of #29 is… don’t talk about #29.

For a Few Dollars More (1965)

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100 Films’ 100 Favourites #31

The man with no name is back!
The man in black is waiting…

Original Title: Per qualche dollaro in più

Country: Italy, Spain & West Germany
Language: English and/or Italian
Runtime: 132 minutes
BBFC: X (cut, 1967) | 15 (1986)
MPAA: M (1969) | R (1989)

Original Release: 18th December 1965
UK Release: January 1967 (BBFC)
First Seen: DVD, 2003

Stars
Clint Eastwood (Dirty Harry, Unforgiven)
Lee Van Cleef (High Noon, Escape from New York)
Gian Maria Volontè (Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion, Le Cercle Rouge)
Klaus Kinski (Aguirre, Wrath of God, Fitzcarraldo)

Director
Sergio Leone (The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Once Upon a Time in the West)

Screenwriters
Luciano Vincenzoni (Death Rides a Horse, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly)
Sergio Leone (A Fistful of Dollars, Once Upon a Time in America)

Scenario by
Sergio Leone (The Colossus of Rhodes, A Fistful of Dynamite)
Fulvio Morsella (My Name is Nobody, A Genius, Two Friends, and an Idiot)

The Story
A pair of bounty hunters team up, in spite of their mutual distrust, to capture the most wanted fugitive in the Wild West. That’s the short of it — the ins and outs get complicated.

Our Heroes
The Man With No Name (who this time is called Monco) is played as coolly as ever by Clint Eastwood. This time he teams up with The Man In Black — not Johnny Cash, but Colonel Douglas Mortimer. Much older than Monco, but played with equal amounts of cool by Lee Van Cleef.

Our Villain
El Indio, a murdering, raping, bank-robbing outlaw. Has his own gang; has greater loyalty to money. May also be the first character to smoke marijuana in a major film production.

Best Supporting Character
Klaus Kinski plays a hunchback. I mean, what more do you need to know?

Memorable Quote
“Where life had no value, death, sometimes, had its price. That is why the bounty killers appeared.” — title card

Memorable Scene
It’s a Leone film; there’s a tense climactic pistol duel — surely that’s all the recommendation you need.

Memorable Music
The score is by Ennio Morricone, of course, so of course it’s fantastic. His main theme for The Good, the Bad and the Ugly may be more famous, but personally I prefer this one.

Letting the Side Down
I suppose I should mention the dubbing, which is always skew-whiff in these movies. But it is what it is.

Making of
Leone felt that Gian Maria Volontè’s performance was too theatrical, so he often subjected the actor to multiple takes in an attempt to tire him out. Volontè eventually stormed off the set… but, unable to get a ride out of the desert, returned to filming.

Previously on…
A Fistful of Dollars, also starring Clint Eastwood and directed by Sergio Leone, started both the Man With No Name Trilogy (aka the Dollars Trilogy) and the entire Spaghetti Western subgenre.

Next time…
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly completes the trilogy — not that it was intended as such by Leone: US distributor United Artists invented the “Man with No Name” concept as a way to sell the three films together. Eastwood’s character actually has a name, and a different one in each film at that.

What the Critics Said
“For a Few Dollars More, like all of the grand and corny Westerns Hollywood used to make, is composed of situations and not plots [but] on a larger, more melodramatic scale, if that’s possible. […] The rest of the film is one great old Western cliché after another. They aren’t done well, but they’re over-done well, and every situation is drawn out so that you can savor it.” — Roger Ebert

Score: 94%

The Joys of Putting Different Reviews Right Next to Each Other

What the Public Say
“It’s a wacky and irreverent film, exactly the type of cheeky genre fare that you’d expect as the follow-up to a blatant act of plagiarism […] This irreverence is what makes the film fun, but it also never stops it from being intelligent. Like its predecessor was to a slightly lesser extent, For a Few Dollars More is a film about the value of life (often literally and monetarily) and the cost of our connections with other human beings (specifically men in this predominantly male society).” — Wes, Screening Notes

Verdict

Sergio Leone defined the Spaghetti Western subgenre with A Fistful of Dollars, and some would argue perfected it with The Good, the Bad the Ugly, but in between those two he made this, my favourite of the trilogy. Leone’s trademark style tells a story whose scope is in the sweet spot between the first film’s one-town tale and the third’s epic narrative, with a pair of sparky heroes going up against a ruthless villain, and a nice twist in the tail.

#31 will be… Бонд зовут. Джеймс Бонд.

Flash Gordon (1980)

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100 Films’ 100 Favourites #30

Pathetic earthlings…
Who can save you now?

Country: UK & USA
Language: English
Runtime: 115 minutes
BBFC: A (1980) | PG (1987)
MPAA: PG

Original Release: 5th December 1980 (USA)
UK Release: 11th December 1980
First Seen: c.1995

Stars
Sam J. Jones (10, Ted)
Melody Anderson (Dead & Buried, Firewalker)
Max von Sydow (The Seventh Seal, The Exorcist)
Topol (Fiddler on the Roof, For Your Eyes Only)
Ornella Muti (The Last Woman, Tales of Ordinary Madness)

Director
Mike Hodges (Get Carter, Croupier)

Screenwriter
Lorenzo Semple Jr. (Batman: The Movie, Three Days of the Condor)

Adaptation by
Michael Allin (Enter the Dragon, I’ll Be Home for Christmas)

Based on
Flash Gordon, a newspaper comic strip created by Alex Raymond.

The Story
American football player Flash Gordon and journalist Dale Arden accidentally end up on the spaceship of scientist Dr Zarkov, which transports them to the planet Mongo. There, they learn the planet’s evil Emperor, Ming the Merciless, is subjecting Earth to natural disasters in a bid to destroy it. Flash must unite the warring factions on Mongo to defeat Ming and save the Earth.

Our Hero
He’s a miracle, king of the impossible. Just a man, with a man’s courage, but he can never fail. He’ll save every one of us. Flash! Ah-ah!

Our Villains
Max von Sydow is deliciously villainous as evil emperor Ming the Merciless. There’s a handful of similarly entertaining underlings, too, like scheming right-hand-man Klytus, who gets a great death, and right-hand-woman Kala, who gets some of the very best lines.

Best Supporting Character
Prince Vultan may be culturally iconic for one two-word exclamation, but it kind of encapsulates the presence he brings throughout the film.

Memorable Quote
Zogi: “Do you, Ming the Merciless, Ruler of the Universe, take this Earthling Dale Arden, to be your Empress of the Hour?”
Ming: “Of the hour, yes.”
Zogi: “Do you promise to use her as you will?”
Ming: “Certainly!”
Zogi: “Not to blast her into space? …uh, until such time as you grow weary of her.”
Ming: “I do.”

Quote Most Likely To Be Used in Everyday Conversation
“Gordon’s alive?!” — Prince Vultan
(Not that it’s likely to be appropriate in everyday conversation, but you’re still going to hear it said — especially if you’re ever around Brian Blessed.)

Memorable Scene
In Ming’s harem, Flash’s love interest Dale and Ming’s rebellious daughter Aura end up wrestling on a giant bed. Kinky! But it’s knowingly directed, with cutaways to sniggering servants indicating a deliberate commentary on such gratuitous girl-on-girl spectacles in other films.

Write the Theme Tune…
“Dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum FLASH! Ah-ah! Saviour of the universe!” Rock group Queen composed the entire score for Flash Gordon, and their unmistakeable sound is a significant part of the film. Best of all is that main theme, surely one of the most memorable and hummable pop themes for a movie ever recorded. If you’re interested in the making of the soundtrack, there’s a detailed article on Queen’s official site.

Technical Wizardry
The design work is great. The sets, costumes, and spaceships are all huge, vibrant, retro, often ridiculous, and wonderful.

Truly Special Effect
Skies full of swirling rainbow colours, rainbow clouds for the spaceships to float through, platforms that tilt over a rainbow vortex… OK, there’s a lot of rainbows, but it’s unique and looks great.

Letting the Side Down
There is so little that’s bad about Flash Gordon that I’ve left this section in just to point out that there is nothing bad about Flash Gordon.

Previously on…
The most famous earlier version of Flash Gordon must be the three cinema serials starring Buster Crabbe that were produced between 1936 and 1940. They’re great fun (I nearly made space for one of them on this list, but… not quite). There was also a live-action TV series in the ’50s and an animated one in 1979.

Next time…
An animated TV movie followed that last TV series in 1982. Flash was part of the Defenders of the Earth animated series in the mid ’80s, alongside other heroes such as the Phantom. Another animated series came along in 1996, while a live-action reboot was attempted in 2007. It looked terrible, and I’ve heard it’s one of the worst TV shows ever made. Reports of a new film being in development come along now and then, with Kingsman’s Matthew Vaughn being the most recently attached director. Until that rolls around, Flash’s main claim to current pop culture relevance comes courtesy of Ted and its sequel.

Awards
3 BAFTA nominations (Music (because Queen), Costume Design, Production Design/Art Direction)
3 Saturn nominations (Science Fiction Film, Supporting Actor (Max von Sydow), Costumes)
1 Razzie nomination (Worst Actor (Sam J. Jones))
Nominated for the Hugo for Best Dramatic Presentation

What the Critics Said
“Flash Gordon is played for laughs, and wisely so. It is no more sophisticated than the comic strip it’s based on, and that takes the curse off of material that was old before it was born. This is space opera, a genre invented by Edgar Rice Burroughs and Hugo Gernsback and other men of unlimited imagination harnessed to definitely limited skills. It’s fun to see it done with energy and love and without the pseudo-meaningful apparatus of the Force and Trekkie Power.” — Roger Ebert

Score: 82%

What the Public Say
“Star Wars was squarely heterosexual, but Flash Gordon could only have emerged from the same pop-culture closet that birthed David Bowie, Elton John, Mick Jagger, and Freddie Mercury […] As for the empty-headed dialogue and the puerile plot, isn’t it obvious those are both part of the point? Everyone involved (well, except maybe Sam J. Jones) knows precisely what this is and performs accordingly, with a straight face but with a small gleam in the eye. […] I don’t know if I’d want to know anyone who couldn’t love this movie, or at least enjoy it on some level.” — Rob Gonsalves, eFilmCritic.com

Elsewhere on 100 Films…
In 2009 I said that Flash Gordon was better than Star Wars. Well, I mean, I don’t know if I exactly stand by that, but I’m also not going to contradict it — Flash Gordon is awesome.

Verdict

Once reviled for being a laughably silly Star Wars cash in, the world has gradually begun to realise the truth: that Flash Gordon was always in on the joke. And it’s so obviously in on the joke, it makes a lot of the old reviews criticising it look embarrassingly tin-eared. It’s not meant to be a serious sci-fi adventure, like its big-screen Trek and Wars contemporaries. It’s designed to be camp, colourful, over-the-top, driven by cliffhangers and wackiness. It’s funny, it’s fun — it’s Flash! Ah-ah!

#31 will be… slightly more expensive.

Face/Off (1997)

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100 Films’ 100 Favourites #28

It’s like looking in a mirror — only not

Country: USA
Language: English
Runtime: 139 minutes
BBFC: 18 (cut)
MPAA: R

Original Release: 27th June 1997
UK Release: 7th November 1997
First Seen: TV, 22nd September 2002 (probably)

Stars
John Travolta (Saturday Night Fever, Hairspray)
Nicolas Cage (The Rock, Ghost Rider)
Joan Allen (Nixon, The Bourne Supremacy)
Alessandro Nivola (Mansfield Park, Jurassic Park III)
Gina Gershon (Bound, P.S. I Love You)

Director
John Woo (Hard Boiled, Mission: Impossible II)

Screenwriters
Mike Werb (The Mask, Firehouse Dog)
Michael Colleary (Darkman III: Die Darkman Die, Firehouse Dog)

The Story
FBI agent Sean Archer finally corners his nemesis, Castor Troy, knocking him into a coma in the process. Unfortunately, Troy has planted a bomb that will destroy Los Angeles, and the only other person who knows its location is his brother — and he ain’t talking. So Archer comes up with the perfectly sane and utterly foolproof plan to secretly have a face transplant and assume Troy’s identity. Unfortunately, the real Troy wakes up, takes Archer’s face, and kills everyone who knows the truth. Hilarity ensues! No, wait, it’s not that kind of movie — violent bloody action ensues.

Our Hero
Sean Archer, super cop. Looks like John Travolta, until he looks like Nicolas Cage. Don’t overthink it, it works just fine when you’re watching the film.

Our Villain
Castor Troy, super villain. Looks like Nicolas Cage, until he looks like John Travolta. Don’t overthink it, it works just fine when— wait, I did that bit.

Best Supporting Character
Castor’s brother, Pollux. Yes, that’s his name. Looks like Alessandro Nivola throughout.

Memorable Quote
Castor Troy: “Sean Archer here, who’s calling?”
Sean Archer: “Well if you’re Sean Archer, I guess I’m Castor Troy.”

Memorable Scene
The good guy’s teenage daughter — played by Dominique “Lolita” Swain, as if to ram the point home — is hanging out in her bedroom wearing next to nothing, when in walks the villain, who starts perving over her… oh, and he’s got her dad’s face at the time. This is the kind of scene you can have when your body-swap movie is rated 18, I guess.

Making of
According to IMDb, the studio wanted John Woo to take the slash out of the title, but he kept it so people wouldn’t think it was a hockey movie. I don’t know why you’d think it was a hockey movie without the slash, or why adding a slash magically stops it being a hockey movie, but that’s what it says.

Awards
1 Oscar nomination (Sound Effects Editing)
2 Saturn Awards (Director, Writer)
7 Saturn nominations (Action/Adventure/Thriller Film, Actor (both Nicolas Cage and John Travolta), Supporting Actress (Joan Allen), Younger Actor/Actress (Dominique Swain), Music, Make-Up)
2 MTV Movie Awards (including Action Sequence for the speedboat chase)
4 MTV Movie Award nominations (including Best Villain, shared between Nicolas Cage and John Travolta)
1 Golden Trailer Awards nomination (Best of the Decade)

What the Critics Said
“Travolta and Cage make superb adversaries, flip-flopping roles, first as hero, then as villain. What titilating fun to observe Cage seethe with venom and Travolta meet danger head-on, then see Cage become Travolta, as the latter adopts the unmistakable characteristics of the fiend. […] Face/Off is a masterpiece equal to the action classics Seven Samurai, The Wild Bunch and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.” — Roger Hurlburt, Sun Sentinel

Score: 92%

What the Public Say
“Gorgeously shot with lots of Ol’ West style close up on the eyes while silence is only interrupted by the sounds of gun magazines falling to the ground. Woo’s directorial vision and the clever exchange of snark and built up bitterness displayed in the dialogue are just two of the beautiful components displayed in the first 30 minutes of this film that set the tone of the fucking masterpiece that it is.” — Amy Seidman, This Film Is Better Than You, Deal With It

Verdict

After making his name as an “heroic bloodshed” director par excellence with films like A Better Tomorrow, The Killer and Hard Boiled, John Woo headed for Hollywood… and made Van Damme vehicle Hard Target and nuclear-warhead-theft thriller Broken Arrow. But after those he made this, surely one of the best action movies of the ’90s. Its sci-fi high-concept allows Travolta and Cage to have a whale of a time in each other’s bodies, and Woo’s trademark OTT action is as exciting as ever.

Next: #30, ah-ah! Saviour of the universe!

The Empire Strikes Back (1980)

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100 Films’ 100 Favourites #27

The Star Wars Saga Continues

Also Known As: Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back

(I may be a young whippersnapper, but I’m old enough that, when I was a kid, we still called it just The Empire Strikes Back. I thought that would be a nicer place for it among my 100 Favourites, therefore.)

Country: USA
Language: English
Runtime: 124 minutes | 127 minutes (special edition)
BBFC: U
MPAA: PG

Original Release: 21st May 1980 (UK)
US Release: 20th June 1980
First Seen: VHS, c.1990

Stars
Mark Hamill (Star Wars, The Big Red One)
Harrison Ford (Raiders of the Lost Ark, Air Force One)
Carrie Fisher (Star Wars, Hannah and Her Sisters)
Billy Dee Williams (Mahogany, Batman)
Frank Oz (The Muppet Movie, Monsters, Inc.)

Director
Irvin Kershner (Never Say Never Again, RoboCop 2)

Screenwriters
Leigh Brackett (The Big Sleep, The Long Goodbye)
Lawrence Kasdan (Raiders of the Lost Ark, Wyatt Earp)

Story by
George Lucas (Raiders of the Lost Ark, Willow)

The Story
After the evil Galactic Empire uncovers the Rebel Alliance base on Hoth, our heroes flee for the stars. Guided by a message from beyond the grave, Luke heads to meet an old Jedi master. Meanwhile, Han, Leia, Chewie, and the droids hide for a bit, then go to meet the only black man in the galaxy…

Our Heroes
Luke Skywalker: ace pilot; Jedi in training.
Han Solo: reformed criminal.
Princess Leia: wait, hold on, her planet was destroyed — surely now she’s either Queen Leia or, y’know, nothing?

Our Villain
Darth Vader: daddy issues personified.

Best Supporting Character
R2-D2 is the best supporting character in every Star Wars film, but in this one we are introduced to Yoda. Looks like a Muppet, as cheeky as a Muppet, much wiser than a Muppet. Probably. It’s hard to be certain.

Memorable Quote
“Try not. Do, or do not. There is no try.” — Yoda

Quote Most Likely To Be Used in Everyday Conversation
Leia: “I love you.”
Han: “I know.”

Memorable Scene
After a dramatic lightsaber duel, Darth Vader lops off Luke’s hand, his weapon disappearing with it. As Luke dangles over an endless fall to Certain Death, Vader decides this is the perfect moment to impart a big secret…

Memorable Music
The Star Wars Main Theme is all well and good, but here regular composer John Williams introduces us to arguably an even more iconic tune — it certainly gets played outside of the films more often, as a universal signifier of evil. That’s right, it’s the Imperial March! All together now: dum dum dum dum-duhdum dum-duhdum…

Truly Special Effect
To animate the tauntauns, Phil Tippett and ILM pioneered the use of go motion, a version of stop-motion animation that moves the puppet while the frame is being exposed so as to create motion blur, thereby making the effects more realistic. (It purposefully wasn’t used for the AT-AT walkers, to emphasise their mechanical movement by keeping it slightly jerky.) Go motion would go on to be used on films including Dragonslayer, E.T., RoboCop, and Willow. It was going to be used for the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park, but then someone had another idea…

Letting the Side Down
Lucas’ Special Edition fiddling isn’t as prevalent in Empire as in its original trilogy compatriots. If anything, the big windows in Cloud City are a nice touch.

Making of
The crew took crates of simulated snow from the Hoth set to the shoot in Norway, in case there wasn’t enough real snow on location. Somewhat ironic, then, that the location was hit by a snowstorm, coating the region so thoroughly that some of the scenes set in Hoth’s wilderness were filmed right outside the crew’s hotel.

Previously on…
The story begins, of course, in Star Wars. There’s tonnes of other material set before Empire, not least the infamous prequel trilogy.

Next time…
The Star Wars universe is immense, so don’t expect me to even attempt a summation of it. At the most essential, Return of the Jedi picks up the dangling threads of Empire and completes the trilogy, while last year’s The Force Awakens continues the narrative decades later, with more instalments to come in 2017 and 2019.

Awards
2 Oscars (Sound, Special Achievement in Visual Effects)
2 Oscar nominations (Score, Art Direction-Set Decoration)
1 BAFTA (Music)
2 BAFTA nominations (Production Design, Sound)
4 Saturn Awards (Science Fiction Film, Actor (Mark Hamill), Director, Special Effects)
4 Saturn nominations (Supporting Actor (Billy Dee Williams), Writing, Music, Costumes)
Won the Hugo for Best Dramatic Presentation
1 WGA Award nomination (Best Comedy Adapted from Another Medium — yes, really)

What the Critics Said
“It’s almost too much to expect that a sequel can ever top the success of the original, and I suspect that this will prove the case with The Empire Strikes Back […] While Empire doesn’t quite measure up to Star Wars in the freshness and originality of its script, and the plethora of space operas that has been jamming the screens ever since Star Wars has somewhat lessened the novelty of city-sized ships sailing the stratosphere, nevertheless this 20th Century-Fox release remains a rattling good entertainment, a worthy successor to the original — and far and away the best of its kind since Star Wars itself.” — Arthur Knight, The Hollywood Reporter (This original 1980 review also mixes up Yoda and Boba Fett. Fun.)

Score: 94%

What the Public Say
“the movie suffers from as uneven a vibe as its forebear, with, especially, the midsection lacking in elements designed to wholeheartedly sustain one’s interest. This proves to be especially true of Luke Skywalker’s ongoing (and less-than-captivating) training at the hands of Frank Oz’s Yoda, as such interludes suffer from a lack of momentum that bring the proceedings to a dead stop at each and every turn. […] an erratically-paced yet consistently entertaining installment in a not-quite-great sci-fi series.” — David Nusair, Reel Film Reviews (This site gives Episodes III, IV, V and VI a rating of 3/4, but Force Awakens a full 4/4. Just so you know.)

Elsewhere on 100 Films…
I’ve written about the original Star Wars trilogy twice before, both times back in 2007. Of The Empire Strikes Back’s modified DVD version, I said that “the big change comes in dubbing both Boba Fett and the Emperor with appropriate actors from the prequel trilogy […] Other than shunning the poor original actors in such a way, Empire is much the same as ever.” Then, treating the film as the fifth part of the saga, I wrote that “a variety of elements […] have a very different impact in light of what we’ve experienced in the first trilogy. The most obvious is the revelation that Vader is Luke’s father: it’s no longer a twist, of course, but the emotional impact on Luke still makes it an important moment. Yoda […] seems to have gone a little loopy after several decades alone on Dagobah”.

Verdict

What more is there to say about The Empire Strikes Back, really? According to some polls, it’s the greatest movie of all time; even if you don’t go that far, it’s a masterpiece of blockbuster science-fantasy adventure. Every moment is tuned to tickle the thrill-glands; every special effect a labour of love that, with their inventiveness and genuine physicality, remains largely impressive today. And it’s so well paced that most people completely overlook that the storyline is chronologically challenged (Luke travels to Dagobah, meets Yoda, learns a bunch of tricky Jedi skills, and heads off to Cloud City, all while the rest of the characters hide in an asteroid field and are locked up for about five minutes). Plus it has the audacity to end on an almighty cliffhanger/revelation double-header! And in that spirit: it’s not even my favourite Star Wars movie. But I’ll tell you about that another time.

#28 will star… Travolta/Cage.