Being the father of three and the holder of a fifty-hour work week (NOT counting household chores) I tend to be late to the game when it comes to movies, especially when the holidays roll around. Now that Chstmas/New Years is past I have had a “buffer zone” (between work and family obligations) that gave me the chance to catch up on the latest James Bond film and a movie that has been bandied about in many Oscar conversations. Bond comes first…
Quantum of Solace is, well… a mess. Not a HUGE mess, mind you, just one of those messes that tends to linger in your bedroom, in front of the dresser… big enough to notice, just not one that you get offended at and have to clean up RIGHT NOW. It just kind of meanders about, as sub-par messes tend to do.
It has its moments (mainly, the first twenty minutes) and it has its charms (Daniel Craig, mostly) but it just kind of lies there. The movie is WAY too short in some respects – I still don’t know what the bad guys were after, besides keeping water away from poor people (a plot that is, well, comic-booky). The characters were underdeveloped and flat, another victim of the short running time methinks. I’m glad I just rewatched the last Bond Casino Royale a month ago… otherwise I would have been clueless, because this Bond starts five minutes after that one ended (and yet some characters have had some notable time pass/events occur since that film ended – lazy writing?).
In the end, it fails to do what even average Bond films do at times: excite me. Meh. Well, better luck next time.
Now The Wrestler, on the other hand: WOW. To say that Mickey Rourke gave the best performance I saw this year is an understatement (sorry, Heath). The last time I watched an actor so completely in character, and so raw and real and true, was when Brando played Don Corleone in The Godfather. It’s THAT GOOD a performance, and I feel pretty confident my hyperbole is in check here.
The script has some weak and contrived moments (I can see the ending coming a MILE away), and the other performances are inconsistent (Tomei is good, the actor playing the title character’s daughter, not so much), but putting that aside, this is a fantastic character study and one of the best of 2008. It’s my new favorite Darren Arronovski film.