R.I.P. Roger Moore: The 2017 James Bond Archives - Final Edition Trading Cards Are A Fitting Goodbye.

The Good: Archive box exclusives, Generally good collectibility, Some truly spectacular autograph card signers, Metal cards are neat, Cool relic cards
The Bad: Orientation issues,
The Basics: The 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading cards make a decent trading card set out of an unfortunately bad James Bond film!


Like many people, yesterday I awoke to the sad news that Sir Roger Moore had died. Roger Moore frequently was underrated and undervalued by James Bond fans, which is ironic because Moore had the most "canon" James Bond films under his belt (Never Say Never Again has licensing issues due to its distribution and its authenticity within the James Bond canon is frequently challenged and counting that film only makes a tie for Moore and Sean Connery having equal quantities of James Bond films). Sir Roger Moore was the James Bond whose films I grew up on and because it was the work I had seen him in the most (other Bond actors having effectively branched out from James Bond or came to Bond later in their careers), I most closely associated Roger Moore with James Bond. His death left me saddened and it seemed fitting that the day after he died, completely coincidentally Rittenhouse Archives released its 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading cards. As the name suggests, the 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading cards are Rittenhouse Archives's last James Bond trading card set for the foreseeable future (unless they do some form of In Memoriam exclusive set for Roger Moore) and so James Bond fans are saying a lot of "goodbyes" over the last twenty-four hours.

The 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading cards are actually an incredibly fitting way for fans of the James Bond franchise to say goodbye to Sir Roger Moore, as the trading card set is very heavy in Roger Moore material - the set features four autographed trading cards by Roger Moore and bonus sets from three of Moore's James Bond films - Octopussy, For Your Eyes Only, and A View To A Kill.

The 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading cards allow James Bond fans to complete their Rittenhouse Archives James Bond trading card collection with a lot of flair and some truly impressive cards.

Basics/Set Composition

Fully assembled, the 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading card set has 387 cards and is essentially four (or five) sets in one. As well, there is an oversized binder produced by Rittenhouse Archives that holds the entire set, with all of its associated chase cards, which has not always been the case for some of the bigger James Bond trading card sets! The set consists of 83 common cards and 304 bonus cards. The chase cards are mostly available in the packs of cards, though eight of them were incentive or promotional cards and could not be found in any of the packs. The 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading cards were released in boxes of twenty-four packs of five cards each.

Common Cards

The common card set for the 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading cards consists of eighty-three modern-looking trading cards. The entire common set recaps the plot of Die Another Day (reviewed here!). Sadly, the common set for the 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading cards are inconsistently oriented. While the backs of every card are portrait-oriented, the fronts of the cards vary between portrait and landscape orientation. That makes the cards something of a pain in the butt to place in the binder as there is no organic way to make the set look good from an orientation point-of-view.

That said, the photograph and writing for the Die Another Day common set in the 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading cards is universally wonderful. The 2017 James Bond Archives cards have the traditional UV-resistant coating which is flawlessly applied. The 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading cards feature a great range of vibrant pictures that have not been overly-promoted (and are different from the shots from the Inkworks Die Another Day set from when the film was theatrically released). Interestingly, Rittenhouse Archives included the image from the promotional card within the common set, which is not a usual thing for their trading card sets. The cards have a fresh look to them that makes it a visually-interesting trading card set. The backs are well-written and the cards detail the plot of Die Another Day quite thoroughly. The writing for the 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading cards common set is very entertaining and follows the plot of the film with a lot of detail.

Chase Cards

The 296 chase cards that can be found in packs and boxes of 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition essentially create three additional "common" sets and one bonus parallel set, in addition to more traditional James Bond chase cards. As is the habit in many of the newer trading card releases, there are no bonus card sets that can be completed with even a single case of trading cards; most require at least two cases with ideal collation to assemble the chase sets. The higher-end sets require three to six cases to complete.

The 2017 James Bond Archives trading card set features three extensive bonus sets that require multiple cases to complete. There are retro sets that retell the stories of For Your Eyes Only, Octopussy and A View To A Kill with 36, 32, and 30 cards each. The retro sets in the 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading cards illustrate an overall problem with the way Rittenhouse Archives approached their throwback sets (as a holistic collecting issue). Prior retro Throwback sets had up to 102 cards and the detailing on the plot of each movie was as detailed as for the common sets, the films for which Rittenhouse Archives was able to yield less material made for smaller sets. The three retro throwback sets in the 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading cards are well-written, though they have somewhat more condensed plotting than the common sets (the Octopussy set, for example, devotes a single card to the teaser mission whereas the Die Another Day common set has eight cards for the mission that came before the opening credits in that film!). Rittenhouse Archives did the best they could with the material they were able to cull from the three films in the 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading cards, but James Bond trading card collectors are likely to feel like they are getting less for their money on the throwback sets in the Final Edition cards. If Rittenhouse Archives had produced all of the throwback sets at the same time and more evenly distributed them through the last six Archives releases, the throwback sets in the 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading cards would not have been so anemic by the numbers.

That said, the photograph and the writing for the throwback sets maintains the high standards of quality that the other retro sets have embodied. The throwback sets, like many of the prior Throwback retro sets are inconsistently oriented and are more problematic to try to put into binder pages in any sensible way. All three of the Throwback sets in the 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading cards are made of a more retro cardboard stock to make the cards from the older films seem like they were from the period in which the films were released. The For Your Eyes Only and A View To A Kill sets features black and white photography on some of the card backs, but this is nowhere near as problematic as the Throwback sets for the color films that have black and white images on the fronts.

Two per box there are gold parallel cards for the Die Another Day set. The gold parallel set was limited to only 250 of each of the cards. The gold parallel cards are a particularly boring parallel card; they are distinguished from the common versions of their cards by limited gold foil lettering for the title on the front of each card and an individual foil-stamped number on the back, at the bottom of the card. While they are substantively similar to prior James Bond parallel cards, the parallel cards lack any real flash quality to them.

As part of finishing the James Bond trading card line, the 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading cards feature 24 SPECTRE and Skyfall Expansion cards. Found one per box, the twenty-four Expansion cards continue the common card sets from prior releases as bonus cards. The 9 SPECTRE cards for The Complete James Bond come together to form the movie poster for SPECTRE on the back, just like every nine-cards in the common set did. The other fifteen Expansion cards extend the Heroes & Villains, Bond Girls Are Forever, Bond Villains and James Bond Archives sets from prior releases with content from SPECTRE and Skyfall, perfectly continuing those sets and concluding them in a fashion consistent to the original releases.

The 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading cards concluded the 007 Double-Sided (Mirror Cards) card set that was begun early in 2016. The eight cards found in this subset in the 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading cards work together with cards found in the two prior sets to create a 24-card bonus card set. These beautiful trading cards feature the incarnation of James Bond on one side and the primary villain on the obverse for each of the James Bond films. The eight cards in the 007 Double-Sided set found in the 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading cards are every three Bond films starting with the third M3,M6, M9, etc. While this might create a weird ultimate collation the cards themselves are stunning and cleanly printed on a vibrant-looking mirror board that is very fresh looking.

Also found only two per case are two of the twelve Metal cards for the 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading cards. Featuring the movie posters for each of the last twelve James Bond films, the Metal cards are individually numbered on the back and they concluded a very cool set that was begun in the 2016 James Bond 007 Archives - SPECTRE Edition trading cards. Rittenhouse Archives has recently gotten into metal card production and the metal cards in the 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading cards reinforces the argument that Rittenhouse Archives knows exactly what it is doing with that technology!

The 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading cards feature fifteen Relic cards, split between fairly traditional costume cards (albeit in an uncommon portrait orientation) and relic cards of James Bond props. Rather cooly, the Relic card set features a dual relic card with prop materials from two different props from Quantum Of Solace. The costume cards are limited to 200 each and they are pretty typical costume pieces - James Bond suits, a top from a Bond girl and a supporting character or two's costume pieces. Unlike something like a Star Trek costume that has a variety of fabrics or colors, the James Bond costume cards with costume materials from Casino Royale, Quantum Of Solace and Skyfall have fabric swatches that are very consistent and unimaginative. Fortunately, the rarer relic cards are much more variable and intriguing for card collectors and James Bond fans.

As with most media-based trading card sets, the 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading cards feature autographed trading cards. This set of trading cards features a whopping fifty-six autograph cards, which includes awesome autographed materials like autographed costume cards and a gold signature card. The bulk of the autograph cards in the 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading card set are split between the familiar format of the 40th Anniversary set – which had very small pictures of the character’s head and were oriented in a landscape format – a single Women Of Bond autograph card and the vastly more popular full-bleed style which was portrait oriented with giant images of the characters and a minimal signing space at the bottom. The seven 40th Anniversary style autographs are highlighted by autographs by three different Roger Moore autographs and one extremely limited Daniel Craig autograph. I was pretty psyched that Ben Whishaw signed another card for this set.

In the full-bleed autographs, the 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading cards Rittenhouse Archives included one of the most incredible autograph line ups of all Rittenhouse Archives James Bond card set releases. In addition to a full-bleed Roger Moore autograph, there is yet another George Lazenby signature card. Rittenhouse Archives included first-time signer Tula alongside highly-coveted celebrities like Judi Dench, Halle Berry, Dave Bautista, Michelle Yeoh, Berenice Marlohe, Lea Sedoux, and Jeffrey Wright. Rather impressively, Rittenhouse Archives had held an incredible autograph card from fan-favorite villain Jaws portrayed by Richard Kiel before he died, which they released in the 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading cards. Most of the autograph cards in the 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading cards are from recognizable actors and characters from the James Bond films. This is one of nicest-looking autograph card sets for James Bond trading cards that Rittenhouse Archives has ever produced.

Non-Box/Pack Cards

The 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading card set has eight cards not found in any of the boxes or packs. There are three promotional cards – the usual general release, an exclusive one that Rittenhouse Archives is distributing at conventions, and the binder-exclusive promotional card.

The casetopper for the 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading card set is a pretty cool Die Another Day movie poster metal card. The Die Another Day variant movie poster cards are not individually numbered, but it is a metal card and it features artwork from the most recognizable movie poster for the film.

Then there are the incentive cards and they are split between the average and the incredible. For every six-cases ordered, collectors of the 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading cards received a Gold Signature Maud Adams as Octopussy autograph card. This card, predictably, looks amazing, though the value of it is not likely to be on part with prior 6-case incentive cards. The nine-case incentive card is an absolutely wonderful Christopher Lee full-bleed autograph card, posthumously released. This Scaramanga autograph card might well be the rarest Christopher Lee autograph card from Rittenhouse Archives and they look incredible!

The final two cards in the 2017 James Bond Archives set were exclusive to the Archive Box. Filling in one of the gaps in the Women Of Bond autograph card set is a Yvonne Shima autograph that was released as an exclusive. As well, Rittenhouse Archives released a true grail card in the form of a Sean Connery cut signature card, which could only be found in the Archive Box. The cut signature cards - the ones I've seen - look absolutely amazing with vibrant, clear signatures from Connery and they represent the only Sean Connery James Bond autograph card from Rittenhouse Archives.

Overall

The 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading cards might not be flawless, but they are a fitting tribute to Roger Moore and the final James Bond films that Rittenhouse Archives had yet to make card sets for. Collectors will want to hunt down everything they can from this set as it closes the book on James Bond - at least for the time - with a very high level of quality.

This set culls images from the James bond films Die Another Day, Octopussy (reviewed here!), For Your Eyes Only (reviewed here!) and A View To A Kill (reviewed here!)!

These cards are available in my online store! Please check them out here: 2017 James Bond Archives - Final Edition Trading Card Current Inventory!

For other James Bond trading card reviews, please check out my reviews of:
2009 James Bond Archives
2015 James Bond Archives
2016 James Bond Classics
2016 James Bond Archives - SPECTRE Edition

8/10

For other card reviews, please visit my Card Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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The 2016 James Bond 007 Classics Trading Cards Are More Than Enough To Please Most James Bond Card Collectors!

The Good: Comparatively easy to collect, Awesome bonus cards, Some truly decent autograph cards, Good writing
The Bad: Annoying orientation issues
The Basics: The 2016 James Bond 007 Classics trading cards are a pretty wonderful expansion on the concept Rittenhouse Archives developed several sets ago!


Until one of my biggest customers as a trading card dealer set me upon a quest to fulfill his James Bond trading card collection, I had not had anything to do with James Bond cards. Now, I deal in James Bond cards, along with Star Trek, Marvel, and DC Comics-themed trading cards! One of the nice aspects of coming late to the phenomenon of James Bond cards is that, in order to get the requisite product knowledge to satisfy my customers, I learned quite about James Bond cards and I have now a perspective to see what has worked for the franchise and what has, alas, not.

While a handful of James Bond trading card sets had a single Throwback set as a bonus card set in them, starting with the 2014 James Bond Archives cards, Rittenhouse Archives started creating trading card releases that had a primary set (focused on a single James Bond film) and three Throwback sets - essentially four sets in one. That format has been fairly popular, though some of the sets have been less successful than others given the bonus cards and autograph selections in them. But one of the solid conceptual winners was the 2016 James Bond 007 Classics trading cards!

The 2016 James Bond 007 Classics trading cards were produced in 2016 by Rittenhouse Archives, one of the biggest producers of non-sport trading cards in the industry, as one of two James Bond trading card releases for 2016. Unlike some of the prior sets that have same basic format, the 2016 James Bond 007 Classics trading cards are well-written, have some wonderful bonus cards to flesh out the series and some truly wonderful autograph cards.

Basics/Set Composition

Fully assembled, the 2016 James Bond 007 Classics trading card set has 455 cards and is essentially four (or six) sets in one. As well, there is a binder produced by Rittenhouse Archives that does not quite hold the entire set. The set consists of 72 common cards and 383 bonus cards. The chase cards are mostly available in the packs of cards, though seven of them were incentive or promotional cards and could not be found in any of the packs. The 2016 James Bond 007 Classics trading cards were released in boxes of twenty-four packs of five cards each.

Common Cards

The common card set for the 2016 James Bond 007 Classics trading cards consisted of seventy-two trading cards that look as fresh and new as any current trading card release. The entire common set recaps the plot of The World Is Not Enough (reviewed here!). There are few problems with the 2016 James Bond 007 Classics trading cards, but the common set is not at all flawless. Arguably the most problematic aspects of the 2016 James Bond 007 Classics trading card common card set is that the cards are inconsistently oriented. Some of the common cards are oriented with a portrait orientation, though most are oriented with the pictures in landscape format. That makes the set problematic to ty to arrange in any sensible way in a binder. The backs of the cards are universally in portrait orientation.

The 2016 James Bond 007 Classics trading card have the traditional UV-resistant coating which is flawlessly applied and the footage from The World Is Not Enough is bright and clear, which makes for a very compelling trading card set. The common card set has decent images and it is hard to complain about some of the obviously reused footage - Rittenhouse Archives used the image on card 58, for example, on a prior autograph card. The writings on the backs of the cards is well-written and compelling, retelling the story of The World Is Not Enough without the tiresome action sequences or occasionally corny dialogue! Despite that, it is irksome to not have a consistent orientation for the common set's images.

Chase Cards

The 376 chase cards that can be found in packs and boxes of 2016 James Bond 007 Classics essentially create three additional "common" sets and two bonus parallel sets, in addition to a handful of high-end James Bond chase cards that are very cool.

The 2016 James Bond Archives trading card set features three bonus sets that require multiple cases to complete. There are retro sets that retell the stories of The Man With The Golden Gun, On Her Majesty's Secret Service and Licence To Kill with 50, 60, and 65 cards in each set, respectively. These sets, like the The World Is Not Enough set are inconsistently oriented and are more problematic to try to put into binder pages in any sensible way. The The Man With The Golden Gun and On Her Majesty's Secret Service throwback sets are made of a more retro cardboard stock to make the cards from the older films seem like they were from the period in which the films were released. The set for On Her Majesty's Secret Service is rendered in black and white . . . even though the film was in color. This follows the trend of some of the other sets and is met with mixed reactions from fans. Despite that, the writing for all three chase sets is pretty decent.

One per box there are gold parallel cards for the The World Is Not Enough and License To Kill sets. Each of those sets were limited to only 125 and 150 of each of the cards and the cards are individually numbered on the backs. The gold parallel cards are a particularly boring parallel card; they are distinguished from the common versions of their cards by a gold foil rendering of the film's name on the front of each card and an individual foil-stamped number on the back, at the bottom of the card. The parallel cards lack any real "wow" factor to them, but they are consistent with prior parallel sets and they do look nice enough.

The 2016 James Bond 007 Classics trading cards feature three high-end chase sets, though James Bond cards have not gotten to the level of difficulty in collecting that sets that have sketch cards have! The most common of the three primary chase cards in the 2016 James Bond 007 Classics trading cards are Relic cards. James Bond trading card collectors have had a lot of costume cards over the years and the "relic" cards in the 2016 James Bond 007 Classics trading cards are exclusively costume cards - from the three newest James Bond films that were out when the set was released. As a result, James Bond trading card collectors get some new, portrait-oriented costume cards from Casino Royale, Quantum Of Solace, and Skyfall. Each one is individually numbered on the back out of 200 and there are thirteen different cards with costumes from a decent variety of Bond villains, Bond girls, and James Bond as their subjects.

Found only two per case (one in every six boxes of cards) were the 007 Double-Sided (Mirror Cards) and they are a generally neat idea, reminiscent of the "Mirror, Mirror" cards from the Star Trek Season Two trading cards (reviewed here!) that Steve Charendoff (the CEO of Rittenhouse Archives) designed when he still worked for SkyBox in the late 1990s! The front of each card in this bonus set featured James Bond and the back of these beautiful foil cards had the primary villain from the film. There are eight cards from this bonus set in the 2016 James Bond 007 Classics trading cards, spread out every third film - M1 Dr. No, M4 Thunderball, M7 Diamonds Are Forever, etc. This set is obviously incomplete and will be expanded upon in future sets! This is a bonus set well worth looking forward to the subsequent sets to complete.

Also two per case are one of ten SPECTRE Metal Gallery Cards. The metal cards are, like similar cards produced for sets like Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 2 (reviewed here!) are thick metal cards with big images of the characters on the front and an individual number on the back (there are 150 of each card). The SPECTRE Metal Gallery Cards are metal trading card replicas of the promotional images of the ten essential characters from SPECTRE and they look beautiful.

The 2016 James Bond 007 Classics trading cards features thirty-three autograph cards, which is another step down from the prior few James Bond sets. Autograph cards in the 2016 James Bond 007 Classics trading card set are split between the familiar format of the 40th Anniversary set – which had very small pictures of the character’s head and were oriented in a landscape format – and the vastly more popular full-bleed style which was portrait oriented with giant images of the characters and a minimal signing space at the bottom. The twelve 40th Anniversary style autographs include big names - Roger Moore and Jeffrey Wright - and actors with minimal influence or interest to collectors. Count Prince Mille, Safira Afzal, and Jimmy Roussounis had incredibly minimal roles, though it is cool Rittenhouse Archives tracked them down to get them to sign!

As for the full-bleed autographs, the 2016 James Bond 007 Classics trading cards had some prime signers - most notably Daniela Bianchi, Ben Whishaw, Naomie Harris and Jeffrey Wright, all of whom were first-time signers for James Bond cards! Popular actors like Pierce Brosnan, Maud Adams (as Octopussy this time!), and Sophie Marceau signed full-bleed autographs and they look great, enhancing the overall value of the 2016 James Bond 007 Classics set. This set features autograph cards from Samantha Bond, David Hedison, and Stanley Morgan yet again, but I found there was little to complain about; truly all one could have asked for that was not present in this set would have been an autograph from On Her Majesty's Secret Service, as that was the only of the four films in the primary chase sets not represented with autograph cards!

Non-Box/Pack Cards

The 2016 James Bond 007 Classics trading card set has seven cards not found in any of the boxes or packs. There are three promotional cards – the usual general release, an exclusive one to Non-Sport Update Magazine, and the binder-exclusive promotional card.

The casetopper for the 2016 James Bond 007 Classics trading card set is a fairly bland The World Is Not Enough poster card, which continues the downward trend of casetopper cards (they used to be cool autograph, sketch or autographed costume cards!). The The World Is Not Enough casetopper card is not individually numbered, foil or even sealed into its toploader! The casetopper is essentially a variant poster from the common card #1, which is a pretty disappointing casetopper.

Then there are the incentive cards and these follow the trend of recent Rittenhouse Archives releases! For purchasing six cases, dealers received a silver series autograph of Judi Dench as M. I think it is pretty much impossible to complain about getting another Judi Dench autograph and these look great! For buying nine cases, dealers were given a Daniel Craig gold series autograph card. The two copies of this card I found had fairly anemic signatures from Craig, though he doesn't have the strongest signature. Despite that, the contrast with the gold ink on the black background looked amazing!

The final card in the 2016 James Bond 007 Classics trading card set is the Archive Box exclusive Honor Blackman as Pussy Galore full-bleed autograph card. Found only in the archive boxes, which were randomly inserted into cases in addition to being an eighteen-case incentive for dealers, the Honor Blackman autograph looks great and is a wonderful incentive. Given that Blackman is 91, the fact that her signature looks so good is pretty amazing! The Honor Blackman incentive autograph card is likely to be one of the most enduringly valuable cards Rittenhouse Archives ever inserted into an archive box!

Overall

The 2016 James Bond 007 Classics trading card set is a wonderful tribute to the James Bond films it explores and a nice way to celebrate the franchise with some of the new autograph and bonus cards! The bonus cards look great and this is one of the newer James Bond trading card sets that has a wonderful mix of autograph signers that will thrill James Bond fans!

This set culls images from the James bond films The World Is Not Enough, Licence To Kill (reviewed here!), On Her Majesty's Secret Service (reviewed here!) and The Man With The Golden Gun (reviewed here!)!

These cards are available in my online store! Please check them out here: 2016 James Bond 007 Classics Trading Card Current Inventory!

For other trading card reviews, please check out my reviews of:
2009 James Bond Archives
2015 James Bond Archives
Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 1 trading cards

7/10

For other card reviews, please visit my Card Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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If You Get The Allusions, SPECTRE Utterly Fails.

The Good: Acting is fine, Action is entertaining
The Bad: Relies upon the canon to pay off its biggest moments, No deep acting moments, Minimal character development
The Basics: SPECTRE might be an all right action-adventure movie, but it is a lousy James Bond film and relies entirely upon the prior films to make the pass at sensibility.


Every now and then, I run into a film from a movie series that is exceptionally difficult for me to consider on its own. I want to consider each work I encounter - be it a television episode or a film or a beverage - on its own merits, as it stands as a unique creation. Every now and then, I encounter something that is virtually impossible to do that with and the latest James Bond Film, SPECTRE, is one such work. SPECTRE shows a continued lack of understanding among the writers of the James Bond film franchise as to the nature of the beast they are working with, much the way that Skyfall (reviewed here!) did. In fact, SPECTRE goes even further down the rabbit hole of ignorance and ridiculousness by attempting to tie together disparate elements of the James Bond franchise.

The reason I ultimately landed on panning SPECTRE was because it is, very clearly, not intended to be a standalone film at all. Instead, the entire film's final act hinges on understanding the relationship between James Bond and the criminal enterprise S.P.E.C.T.R.E., which was introduced in some of the earliest James Bond films. In other words, SPECTRE only works as a film if one understands the adversary who is orchestrating the carnage against James Bond and the worldwide spy community. S.P.E.C.T.R.E. was the foil of MI-6 and the C.I.A.; it was an international criminal intelligence organization that was out for profit and world domination from the shadows.

The problem is, to understand what S.P.E.C.T.R.E. was and to buy into the concepts of how it is operating in the world now, one has to accept the entire canon of James Bond films that came before. One also has to understand how the intelligence communities in the James Bond franchises work and that is entirely where SPECTRE collapses. The intelligence organizations in the James Bond franchise operate entirely on aliases. M is an alias for the leader of MI-6, Felix Leiter is an alias, Q is an alias . . . James Bond is an alias. In Skyfall we see the transition from one M to another and in prior Bond films, Judi Dench's M is referenced as having replaced the old man version of M. Felix Leiter loses a leg in one film, pops up as a black man with two legs later on. James Bond has not only been recast, but the line in the teaser of On Her Majesty's Secret Service (reviewed here!) obliquely refers from one Bond incarnation to another! Even the trademark "My name is Bond, James Bond," makes more sense in the context of an alias than as an inorganic catchphrase. If one has to condition oneself to recognize themselves by a new name, they would learn it by rote. Multiple people being conditioned the same way supports both the concept of the alias and the unchanging methods of the organization that hired its spies. Even, as The West Wing pointed out, the drink choice by the various incarnations of James Bond is intended as a dupe; it sounds like a specific drink choice, but it is the spy's attempt to remain alert while on duty while having the appearance of imbibing to blend in.

Amid all of the background stuff, the James Bond franchise includes films with specific dates, times, and technology levels, so unless the Daniel Craig incarnation of James Bond is in his 70s, SPECTRE does not work. And the personal nature of the villain in SPECTRE and his key line about their past undermines the potential ambiguity about the alias's going the opposite way. S.P.E.C.T.R.E.'s leader was familiar to a prior incarnation of James Bond, yet is younger than when last he was seen; things in a franchise have not been so muddied since the casting of Khan in Star Trek Into Darkness (reviewed here!). Like that film, SPECTRE relies upon the bang factor of fans knowing the rest of the franchise, while completely betraying all they actually know about their beloved franchise.

Opening in Mexico City on the Day Of The Dead, James Bond is on the hunt for thugs who plan to bomb a theater and then kill the Pale King. Shooting the bombmaker leaves the would-be assassin on the run and their meeting spot entirely destroyed. While Bond recovers a S.P.E.C.T.R.E. ring from the assassin and escapes via helicopter, the crowds below remain ignorant; having just seen what looks to them to be an amazing display of helicopter flying skills. Returning to England, Bond is benched by M and meets with Moneypenny, who informs him that MI-6 is abuzz with rumors that Bond went too far in Mexico City and is on the verge of being fired. Bond plays for Moneypenny a video left by the previous M ordering him to kill Marco Sciarra. Putting his trust in Moneypenny, Bond pays a visit to Q and learns that the double-0 spy program is set to be replaced with drones and all the good tech is being routed to 009.

Stealing 009s car, Bond heads to Rome for Sciarra's funeral, where he meets with the widow. Bond uses the ring he recovered to get access to a high level secret meeting of the criminal organization that is planning the murder of the Pale King. Moneypenny informs Bond that Mr. White is the Pale King and Bond confronts him. Bond keeps his word to White by tracking down White's daughter, Madeleine Swann and trying to keep her safe from S.P.E.C.T.R.E. Q confirms that all of Bond's recent adversaries have been working for S.P.E.C.T.R.E. and as Bond works to keep Swann safe, he unravels the mysteries surrounding the reorganization of S.P.E.C.T.R.E. and comes face to face with an old adversary.

Any analogy between SPECTRE and Star Trek Into Darkness is a decent one as both hinge upon moments intended for huge reveal and "wow" factor, but either leave newbies mystified or die-hard fans groaning and rolling their eyes. Take, for example, the revelation in Star Trek Into Darkness of John Harrison admitting that his name is Khan. The moment only lands for those who know who Khan is; Spock Prime's revelation to Spock later on that Khan is the most dangerous adversary the Enterprise crew ever faced is a weak, expository attempt to fill in the gaps for those who have not already seen the prior two works that included Khan. In an entirely analogous way, the revelation of who the shadowy man played by Christoph Waltz is absolutely fails to land if one has no context for him . . . and is utterly baffling for those who do understand who he is supposed to be.

Beyond that, within SPECTRE the time frame makes no real sense; Waltz's S.P.E.C.T.R.E. leader was thought dead twenty years prior . . . which would have had to been on one of James Bond's earliest missions given Bond's age in SPECTRE.

What SPECTRE does well is use the four recurring characters in the James Bond franchise exceptionally well. SPECTRE does not rely simply upon James Bond; this is very much a team effort between Bond, M, Q, and Moneypenny to save MI-6 from a hostile takeover from S.P.E.C.T.R.E. Despite containing all the familiar tropes - a villain who makes his plans annoyingly explicit, car chases, a literal ticking time bomb for a deadline and women who Bond appears to love (and at least one other he just shags) - SPECTRE becomes a decent team effort that uses the talents of the whole MI-6 team well.

On the performance front, Daniel Craig, Naomie Harris, Ralph Fiennes, and Ben Whishaw effortlessly slip back into their roles of Bond, Moneypenny, M and Q. Their characters may not substantively develop, but the performers work the material as well as they can. Even Christoph Waltz does a fine job as the film's primary antagonist; despite the character not making sense in context.

Ultimately, SPECTRE is more mindless fun than it is substantive. Fans of the spy thriller will get all that this film offers without the baffling continuity issues out of Captain America: The Winter Soldier (reviewed here!).

For other James Bond films, please check out my reviews of:
Dr. No
From Russia With Love
Goldfinger
Thunderball
You Only Live Twice
On Her Majesty's Secret Service
Diamonds Are Forever
Live And Let Die
The Man With The Golden Gun
The Spy Who Loved Me
Moonraker
For Your Eyes Only
Octopussy
Never Say Never Again
A View To A Kill
Die Another Day
Casino Royale
Quantum Of Solace

4/10

For other movie reviews, please check out my Film Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2015 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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What A Difference A Year Makes: The 2015 James Bond Archives Trading Cards Are Less Spectacular Than Their Predecessor!

The Good: Not prohibitive to collect (yet), A couple of good autograph cards
The Bad: Misprints, Orientation issues, Vast pool of uninteresting autograph signers, Lack of impressive bonus cards
The Basics: The 2015 James Bond 007 Archives trading cards are an awkward idea that makes for a poor sequel that feels rushed and churned out.


As a trading card collector and reviewer, I try to judge each set I encounter on its own. Every now and then, I find one that makes it too hard to do that. The 2015 James Bond 007 Archives trading cards are one such set. While the 2015 James Bond Archives trading cards are only the second James Bond set I have reviewed, after the 2009 James Bond Archives set (reviewed here!), my lukewarm reaction to the 2015 James Bond Archives trading cards cooled even more when I compared them to the 2014 James Bond Archives trading cards. The 2014 James Bond Archives trading cards were chock full of autograph cards and relic cards and, other problems aside, the 2015 James Bond Archives trading card set looks anemic by comparison, having no relic cards, fewer chase cards, and less and lesser autograph trading cards.

As one might expect, the 2015 James Bond 007 Archives trading cards were produced in 2015 by Rittenhouse Archives, one of the biggest producers of non-sport trading cards in the industry, as their annual James Bond trading card release. For the 2015 James Bond 007 Archives cards, Rittenhouse went with a retro look and feel for a couple of the chase sets, following in the tradition and concept of the 2014 James Bond Archives trading cards.

Unfortunately, between misprints, autograph cards that were not returned in time and rejected cards, the 2015 James Bond 007 Archives trading cards had a rushed feel that made for a less remarkable or impressive trading card set than they could have been.

Basics/Set Composition

Fully assembled, the 2015 James Bond 007 Archives trading card set has 622 cards and is essentially four (or six) sets in one. As well, there is an oversized binder produced by Rittenhouse Archives that still does not quite hold the entire set. The set consists of 90 common cards and 532 bonus cards. The chase cards are mostly available in the packs of cards, though seven of them were incentive or promotional cards and could not be found in any of the packs. The 2015 James Bond 007 Archives trading cards were released in boxes of twenty-four packs of five cards each.

Common Cards

The common card set for the 2015 James Bond 007 Archives trading cards consisted of ninety modern-looking trading cards. The entire common set recaps the plot of Quantum Of Solace (reviewed here!). One of the immediately problematic aspects of the 2015 James Bond 007 Archives trading card common card set is that the cards are inconsistently oriented. Some of the common cards are oriented with a portrait orientation, though most are oriented with the pictures in landscape format. That makes the set problematic to ty to arrange in any sensible way in a binder.

While the 2015 James Bond Archives cards have the traditional UV-resistant coating which is flawlessly applied, there is a rushed quality to the common set. There are some problematic misprints, most notably the repeated lines on both cards 43 and 44. While it is nice that Quantum Of Solace finally gets a full trading card set devoted to it, it is unfortunate that Rittenhouse Archives did not take the time to make sure it was done all right. Between the misprints and the lack of consistent orientation for the cards, the common set is executed problematically.

Chase Cards

The 525 chase cards that can be found in packs and boxes of 2015 James Bond 007 Archives essentially create three additional "common" sets and two bonus parallel sets, in addition to more traditional James Bond chase cards.

The 2015 James Bond Archives trading card set features three bonus sets that require multiple cases to complete. There are retro sets that retell the stories of You Only Live Twice, The Spy Who Loved Me and Goldeneye with 78, 93, and 102 cards each. These sets, like the Quantum Of Solace set are inconsistently oriented and are more problematic to try to put into binder pages in any sensible way. The You Only Live Twice and The Spy Who Loved Me throwback sets are made of a more retro cardboard stock to make the cards from the older films seem like they were from the period in which the films were released.

One per box there are gold parallel cards for the Quantum Of Solace and Goldeneye sets. Each of those sets were limited to only 125 of each of the cards - though I have yet to figure out how that works with one set being 90 cards, the other being 102 cards and only one of each of those cards being found per box (somewhere, it seems, there should be a stockpile of Goldeneye parallel cards). The gold parallel cards are a particularly boring parallel card; they are distinguished from the common versions of their cards by gold foil "007" on the front of each card and an individual foil-stamped number on the back, in the middle of the card. In addition to being especially annoying to find and collate from the packs to the sets (the card numbers are in the lower left corner, the foil stamped number on the back is in the middle right, which is covered up when one organically shuffles the cards to organize them from the packs!), the parallel cards lack any real flash quality to them.

Continuing the tradition of fleshing out prior common sets that featured the rest of the Bond films as chase cards in new sets, the 2015 James Bond Archives set features SkyFall expansion cards, one per box. The SkyFall expansion cards add cards to the James Bond Heroes & Villains set (6 cards) and Dangerous Liaisons (8 cards). While I'm seldom impressed by common cards as chase cards, the 2015 James Bond Archives SkyFall expansion cards are just a mess. Apparently, there were supposed to be 9 Dangerous Liaisons cards and one was rejected by the studio. Rather than resubmit to make the full nine-card set, Rittenhouse Archives cut the card and the result was three of the eight cards ended up with troubling misprints. DL19 features the last shot of SkyFall on the front, with text on the back about the beginning of the film. Similarly, the card that has the image of M dying does not have text that accompanies it and the film's train combat sequence that is supposed to open the set is on one of the latter cards in the SkyFall Dangerous Liaisons set. While Rittenhouse Archives is already looking into fixing the three error cards (and possibly releasing the ninth card with an image that gets approved), one has to wonder why the card company did not delay the set to get it right (especially when one considers that the set was not a sell-out from the manufacturer).

Then there are the autographs. This set of trading cards features forty-five autograph cards, which is another step down from the prior few James Bond sets. Autograph cards in the 2015 James Bond 007 Archives trading card set are split between the familiar format of the 40th Anniversary set – which had very small pictures of the character’s head and were oriented in a landscape format – and the vastly more popular full-bleed style which was portrait oriented with giant images of the characters and a minimal signing space at the bottom. The nineteen 40th Anniversary style autographs are split between big names - Roger Moore, Dolph Lundgren, and Sheena Easton - and actors with minimal influence or interest to collectors. Sure, Stanley Morgan and Shane Rimmer are new signers, but is the concierge from Dr. No actually a character collectors care about? Mathieu Amalric and Lundgren are wonderful first-time signers, but given that they appear in this set on the less-popular format than some of the other signers, it is hard to consider them big selling points for the set! They flesh out an autograph set that inexplicably has a Caroline Bliss (she was A70 in the Complete James Bond set with virtually the same image) and yet another Jesper Christensen autograph card.

In the full-bleed autographs, there are some impressive and hard-to-find autographs, including one James Bond (George Lazenby), Christopher Lee (Scaramanga), Halle Berry, Teri Hatcher and Maud Adams (not as Octopussy). Lee has the grail card from the full-bleed set, as he died just over a week before this trading card set was released. The full-bleed autograph cards are unnumbered, which might be in keeping with prior releases, which is really annoying for collectors trying to complete the set. Also irksome is how many of the signers are duplicates from prior releases . . . when there are several big names that could have been a part of the set. Barbara Bach (from The Spy Who Love Me) still has not been the subject of a full-bleed autograph card and this seems like the set that it would have been perfect for. While Jeffrey Wright was originally slated to sign for this set, his card was delayed. The three SkyFall full-bleed autographs are not the most significant potential signers - Ben Whitshaw, Ralph Fiennes, and Javier Bardem have not yet signed (neither did Adele or director Sam Mendes) - and between the signers who have signed for prior releases and somewhat unremarkable minor-character signers, along with the fact that there are fewer autograph cards than in the prior Bond sets, the 2015 James Bond Archives cards have an unremarkable feel to them.

That leads us to a commentary on the collectibility of the autographs. In general, the autograph cards have decent and fairly even distribution. The thing is, and I don't know why collectors haven't figured this out yet and dealers haven't highlighted it, there are five autograph cards that are ridiculously hard to find in the 2015 James Bond Archives set. Five of the autograph cards are classified as Extremely Limited, meaning that the signers signed less than 200 of each card. While some of these have inherent value - Roger Moore, Christopher Lee's final card release - the other three are more hit or miss - George Lazenby is hardly the most popular Bond and Nadja Regin and Yvonne Shima are both obscure characters and have signed for prior trading card releases. What people have not seemed to do yet (save dealers who opened a ton of cases of these cards!) is run the numbers. Assuming that those five cards were actually signed at 200 of each card and taking into account that all five of the autographs were found in the archive boxes (let's very conservatively assume there were 30 Archive boxes), that means that any one of those Extremely Limited autographs is found at a rate of 170 out of 8500 (the number of boxes of 2015 James Bond Archives cards). My experience of opening 18 cases netted only one Extremely Limited autograph in every other case. That means that the five Extremely Limited autographs should have some inherent value to the trading card collectors . . . but they are still consistently selling for less than $100 each, which is insanely low compared to their rarity. The full-bleed autograph cards of Regin and Shima are unlikely to reach a value on par with their rarity because the characters/performers are comparatively obscure.

Non-Box/Pack Cards

The 2015 James Bond 007 Archives trading card set has seven cards not found in any of the boxes or packs. There are three promotional cards – the usual general release, an exclusive one to conventions that Rittenhouse Archives attended, and the binder-exclusive promotional card.

The casetopper for the 2015 James Bond 007 Archives trading card set is a fairly bland SPECTRE preview card, which continues the downward trend of casetopper cards (they used to be cool autograph, sketch or autographed costume cards!). The SPECTRE cards are not individually numbered, foil or even sealed into their toploaders!

Then there are the incentive cards and these follow the trend of recent Rittenhouse Archives releases! For purchasing six cases, dealers received a gold series autograph of Britt Ekland as Mary Goodnight from The Man With The Golden Gun. Ekland's autograph card is another example of a step down from the prior release (the 2014 Archives set had a Roger Moore gold series autograph for the six-case incentive), though the card looks good. For buying nine cases, dealers were given a Daniel Craig autographed costume card. They were limited and hand-numbered to 250 and are a tough sell after the Craig/Judi Dench dual autograph that was the comparable incentive card last year!

The final card in the 2015 James Bond Archives set is the Archive Box exclusive George Lazenby gold series autograph card. Found only in the archive boxes, which were randomly inserted into cases in addition to being an eighteen-case incentive for dealers, the Lazenby autograph is similarly undervalued as the rest of the set.

Overall

The 2015 James Bond Archives set is a set designed to keep interest in James Bond collecting through the release of SPECTRE this winter and foreshadow inevitable future releases that make full common sets for SkyFall and SPECTRE. Unfortunately, the annual release of a James Bond set was treated with less respect, enthusiasm and access than prior James Bond releases. The result is a placeholder set that feels like a placeholder . . . and an unfortunately sloppy one at that.

This set culls images from the James bond films Quantum Of Solace, You Only Live Twice (reviewed here!), The Spy Who Loved Me (reviewed here!) and Goldeneye (reviewed here!)!

These cards are available in my online store! Please check them out here: 2015 James Bond Archives Trading Card Current Inventory!

For other trading card reviews, please check out my reviews of:
Star Trek Aliens
Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 1 trading cards
Cryptozoic DC Comics Super-Villains

4/10

For other card reviews, please visit my Card Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2015 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Simon Pegg's Remarkably Average How To Lose Friends And Alienate People.

The Good: Funny, Decent performances
The Bad: Light on character, Incredibly predictable
The Basics: Fun and funny, but not in any memorable or enduring ways, How To Lose Friends And Alienate People is worth one viewing, if nothing else.


Reviewing movies has become a genuine thrill for me lately. It is fun to get into screenings and tonight was the first time the "and guest" part of my screening pass was actually utilized. It's also the first night I was not seated next to a pair of giggling sophomores. It was a treat for me to be able to take my friend to see How To Lose Friends And Alienate People; she's a big fan of Simon Pegg. I thought I was a Simon Pegg virgin, but then I realized he was in Mission: Impossible III (reviewed here!), though his performance made absolutely no impression on me.

When the film was over, my friend informed me that I might like some of Pegg's works that he has written as well as performed in, as they utilize his talents better than How To Lose Friends And Alienate People. I have to take her word for it, though I think I would like to see Pegg in other movies, as this one was a remarkably average comedy. It wasn't great, it wasn't bad; I laughed. It killed an evening. And so it goes. In virtually every way, How To Lose Friends And Alienate People is an average film.

Sidney Young is a journalist who has never been on the a-list. In Britain, he is more or less despised while writing and editing a small magazine (The Post-Modern Review). After attempting to sneak into the BAFTAs with his pet pig (you know, the pig from Babe 3), he manages to crash an afterparty where he is chatting up Thandie Newton when his pig gets out and causes mayhem. This, however, brings him to the attention of U.S. publisher Clayton Harding, who was once a satirist and now owns some of the most successful magazines in the U.S. Clayton hires Sidney and the young Brit comes to the Big Apple to make his start.

Under the editors Lawrence Maddox and Alison Olsen, Sidney becomes familiar with the local up and coming talent, whom he is discouraged from speaking to while working on the "I Spy" desk. After meeting his idol, an aging actress named Rachel Petkoff - who is rejected for a feature in the magazine by Maddox - Sidney becomes infatuated with up-and-coming actress Sophie Maes. Sophie and the arrogant new director Vincent Lepak are both clients of Eleanor Johnson, so Sidney works to get on her good side. In the process, he and Alison discover they have more in common than they initially thought, Sidney inadvertently kills Sophie's dog and Sidney gets virtually everyone around him to despise him.

Actually, the title of the film, How To Lose Friends And Alienate People is something of a misnomer: Sidney starts the film as a man with no real friends and he simply continues wandering through his professional life trying to be edgy. Sidney states throughout that he does not want to be one of the a-list, he does not want to be one of the people behind the velvet rope and so when he encounters Vincent, his instinct is to try to take the young new director down a few pegs because Vincent has not accomplished anything, yet is treated like he owns the world. That instinct makes for an interesting character, but Sidney is surrounded by terribly serious americans who all take their jobs seriously and gawk over the stars.

The comedy in How To Lose Friends And Alienate People tends to come in the form, largely, of physical comedy. Things like Sophie wading through a pool to get through a crowd leave Sidney gaping. There are tried and true physical comedy moments, like Sidney dancing and his weird gyrations virtually clearing the dance floor off, Sidney and his landlady checking out the transsexual Sidney unwittingly brought home his first night in New York City with the classic head tilt, and quite a bit of sloppy eating gags. How To Lose Friends And Alienate People does not claim to be highbrow, but it strives for fun. The thing is, as far as the physical comedy goes, much of this movie contains Simon Pegg impersonating Rowan Atkinson. The body flailings, the mouth screw ups; these are hardly unique to Atkinson. However, the way Atkinson performs seems to be emulated by Pegg in many of the scenes that he is forced to carry with limited dialogue.

Largely, the movie succeeds on the level of fun, because there is not much to it that is substantial or surprising or new. From the moment Alison Olsen - who Sidney meets the night before he takes his job at the magazine at a bar - turns up at the magazine, the film becomes a fairly predictable sequence of events whereby Sidney strives to have sex with Sophie before Maddox does, while all the while developing a much more substantive friendship with Alison. As a result, How To Lose Friends And Alienate People is pretty much the intersection between the obvious fish-out-of-water comedy and the most predictable romantic comedy.

There are, however, two great character moments in the movie that make it worth recommending. The first is that Sidney is confronted with Rachel Petkoff, a star he truly is struck by. First, this provides Sidney with a moment that allows writers Toby Young (who wrote the book this movie was based upon, which I have not read) and Peter Straughan (the screen writer) to make a comment on how women are treated in Hollywood (or New York City). Age is not revered in the U.S. and Sidney's gushing over Petkoff makes for an enjoyable moment that says much about his character and about U.S. celebrity society. This moment also offers the potential for a real twist in the movie, which would have been for Sidney to pursue something with Petkoff. It is a shame the film chooses that moment to introduce Sophie in a big wet way that makes Sidney absolutely gush like everyone else at the party. It is a shame that potential was so quickly squelched.

The other character element for Sidney that makes How To Lose Friends And Alienate People worth watching is that he is estranged from his father. This reveals several secrets of his past that I shall not ruin, but do make him a much more interesting character. In fact, the only problem with these character revelations that come out from the estrangement of Sidney and his father is that once they are out, Sidney begins to act a different way. I resist the idea that once people are revealed to be smart, they suddenly act that way if they have been hiding it so effectively so long.

Outside Sidney, though, none of the characters are particularly likable. Clayton only is humanized in a few lucid scenes where he makes decisions based upon nostalgia, like hiring Sidney and sending Sidney to write a scathing article on Vincent. Maddox is cheating on his wife and Alison falls into the young stereotype of mid-twentysomething who is still solving her problems with alcohol. Similarly, Sophie is written like a bad cliche of the sudden starlet and when her dog Cuba disappears from the movie, it is not a moment too soon.

How To Lose Friends And Alienate People is undeniably well-cast. Jeff Bridges and Gillian Anderson return to the big screen after their summer blockbusters for roles that are not their greatest, but utilize them well enough to make the viewer psyched to see them when they show up on screen. This was the first movie I had seen Megan Fox in, but she was convincing as the absent-minded and vacuous sudden starlet. Rather problematically, her character appears wearing fur near the end of the film when she was characterized as a vegetarian who didn't wear anything made of animal, but this cannot be held against Fox.

Moments before How To Lose Friends And Alienate People began, my friend who accompanied me informed me that Kirsten Dunst was in the film and my heart sank some. For those who do not follow my reviews, I spent some time last year trying to figure out why Kirsten Dunst was considered a decent actress and I stopped when I finally saw Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind (reviewed here!) and Dunst was decent in it. In this, it is tough to evaluate her work; her character is such a bland archetype that there is not much to work with. That said, she does not infuse any real zest into the character and is largely relegated to playing straightwoman to Pegg's absurd antics.

As for Simon Pegg, he is decent as Sidney, but he does not light the world on fire. He is a good physical comedian, though his required flailings about in How To Lose Friends And Alienate People do seem awfully familiar as a fan of Rowan Atkinson. Still, the verbal comedy he is given is funny and he pulls off the role of Sidney well enough that I am curious to see him in other things.

Who will enjoy How To Lose Friends And Alienate People? Anyone looking for lighter fare. This is a screwball comedy for adults and it fits the bill for that. My "recommend" is for viewing, not for buying on DVD. It's enjoyable, but it hardly seems like it would be an essential piece for the library of fans of any of the performers involved.

For other works with Megan Fox, check out my reviews of:
Jonah Hex
Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen
Transformers

5/10

For other film reviews, check out my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2012, 2008 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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(Mostly) Managing To Combat The Notion That “If You’ve Seen One James Bond Film, You’ve Seen Them All,” Skyfall Remains Mixed.

The Good: Acting, Character depth, Specific plot feels fresh
The Bad: General plot is still terribly formulaic, Niggling continuity issues, Pacing
The Basics: Redressing many of the familiar elements of James Bond films, Skyfall manages to make the familiar plot feel fresh and new again.


Before summer began, one of my new friends expressed an interest in seeing all of the James Bond films before Skyfall hit theaters this Fall. I told her that seeing the other Bond films was not at all necessary to understanding the new one and, in fact, the more one sees of James Bond films, the less one feels they need to see the new one. I had no way of knowing how true that would be with Skyfall, at the time, but now . . .

Skyfall is an exceptional example of how style may trump the perception of substance in films and while my instinct is to say that the only people who will be really disappointed by the latest installment in the James Bond franchise are those who are the die-hard fans, the early buzz appears to be just the opposite. I credit that to director Sam Mendez more than anyone else as, objectively, Skyfall contains almost all of the familiar elements of any number of James Bond films, simply dressed up differently. Those raised on SPECTRE and Blofeld may want to extol the virtues of Silva and the other villains of Skyfall, but the similarities certainly outweigh the differences.

In fact, the fundamental difference between Skyfall and most of the other (but not all) James Bond films is the target and the stakes. The world is not explicitly on the line as it is in many of the classic James Bond flicks and the target of Silva’s machinations is MI-6 and M it- and herself. This makes the stakes far more personal for James Bond and M and allow Skyfall to feel much more intimate while it works toward the usual “defeat the villain” resolution one expects from a James Bond film. The attempt to develop the James Bond character is not lost on me; it merely becomes harder to justify or suspend disbelief for with the new, post-Casino Royale James Bond . . . at least for those of us who pay attention to things like continuity.

Skyfall finds James Bond partnered with Eve to stop a villain who has the potential to compromise MI-6, a mission that leaves James Bond effectively dead and on the outside of MI-6. That mission also puts an exceptionally valuable hard drive in the hands of villains who want MI-6 dismantled, a goal that starts with executing embedded operatives around the world and threatening M with the certainty that more deaths will follow. It does not take long for M, the leader of MI-6 (or at least James Bond’s section of it), to realize that the attacks are intended to hurt her personally and weaken her within the organization. So, she turns to the one operative she believes she can trust when he resurfaces: James Bond.

Pulling Bond out of retirement, despite the fact that he is unable to pass the physical and psychological requirement necessary, and arming him with the requisite munitions and information, M and James Bond come into conflict with Silva, a man whose motivations are more grounded than eccentric. Let to Silva through an assassin and then the woman who was waiting to see who would cash in the payment for the assassin, Bond confronts Silva on a deserted island. In combating Silva, James Bond and M find themselves as guardians of MI-6 itself and the stakes in their mission even higher as they capture and lose Silva, resulting in a chase that puts a small personal army on M and Bond's tail.

Skyfall is not bad, though it feels every bit as long as its two and a half hour running time, but it is by no means as original as many of the reviewers praising the film would have one believe. In fact, in several ways – most notably with the appearance of the Quartermaster, Q - Skyfall feels like a “Best Of James Bond” with names, actors and motivations changed (in a Mad Libs insert name/word/weapon here type way) to create the illusion of freshness.

Even so, it works. The reason Skyfall feels fresh enough to recommend is that the combination of the stylistic changes adds up to a film that feels substantive after a long rut of movies that left viewers wishing for (or inferring) a significance that was not actually present in the films themselves. In Skyfall, M becomes a fully viable, interesting, complicated character. In her – and the performance by Judi Dench – the viewer sees the weight of a lifetime of secrets weighing upon her character. In Skyfall, she is not the monolithic assigner of missions or the subtly-smirking leader who accepts the eccentricities of James Bond. Instead, in Skyfall, she is quietly wounded and there are moments when she feels the sting of her adversaries attacks on all she has built.

Fleshing out M allows Skyfall to explore loyalty and the sense of duty James Bond has. On its own, Skyfall excels at portraying a bond of trust and loyalty between Bond and M in a way that feels like more than just platitudes of honor and obligation. In Skyfall, protecting the world and MI-6 has a personal component and that binds Bond and M. Daniel Craig and Judi Dench play that brilliantly in the looks between them and the quieter moments their characters share. In fact, this is one of the difficult aspects of Skyfall to accept in context; this version of James Bond is still rather new to M and the level of trust she has in him is uncharacteristic for someone who has had such a history in an office such as hers. The best comparison I can make would be in the Star Trek franchise; the bond between M and Bond in Skyfall is treated as deep as the one between Captain Jean-Luc Picard and Data in Star Trek: First Contact (reviewed here!). The emotion, the love, that leads Picard to singlehandedly brave the Borg to try to rescue Data after everyone else has abandoned the ship in Star Trek: First Contact is viable entirely because that relationship has been developed for years and years over hundreds of missions where the two have shared risks and explicitly depended upon one another and their judgment. Skyfall’s M and Bond asks viewers to make the leap that Bond would have such a trust for M, despite the fact that she has administered from a greater distance (to extend the metaphor, Skyfall is like watching first season Picard exhibit seventh season loyalty and affection for Data; it makes no rational sense in context).

That said, the other aspect of Skyfall that pushes the film up into the higher ranges of an average genre film is the acting. Daniel Craig and Judi Dench have great onscreen chemistry as M takes to the field more and provides Bond with more of a hand’s on direction in Skyfall. Both performers make the character shifts work (and well!) and that change in chemistry makes the film feel fresh. Equally compelling is Javier Bardem as Silva. Bardem is able to be far more expressive than he was as the villain in No Country For Old Men (reviewed here!) and that makes the Skyfall villain feel unsettling and dangerous. Bardem brings energy to his performance that is matched by the younger performers, Naomi Harris and Ben Whishaw, to raise the level of peril in Skyfall; for a change, the Bond villain seems an even match for the resources of MI-6 (not some comic mismatch that makes the success of Bond’s mission seem utterly unrealistic).

As Skyfall develops, the film becomes a battle of wills and strategy between Bond and Silva and the credibility and gravitas of the actors sells the conflict. After so many James Bond movies that feel like generic action-adventure (and innumerable action adventure films that seem derivative of James Bond), Skyfall redresses and reinvigorates the spy drama well-enough to recommend it.

For other James Bond films, please check out my reviews of:
Dr. No
Thunderball
Die Another Day
Casino Royale
Quantum Of Solace

6/10

For other film reviews, be sure to check out my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2012 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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"Son Of Stalin Rise! Rise! Rise!" Archangel Is Disappointing

The Good: Not a bad idea . . .
The Bad: Poor acting, BBC production values, Lack of character, Dull
The Basics: In a disappointingly dull and erratically paced film with poor acting and cardboard characters, a historian is lured into proving Stalin had an heir to take over modern Russia.


As someone raised on PBS, I am used to watching BBC movies and there's a certain production quality one expects from the BBC in its dramas. Recently, I watched Painted Lady (reviewed here!) and while I was disappointed by it, it had a number of the conceits I would expect from a BBC drama. So, for example, orchestra music swells conspicuously during action scenes to choreograph the emotions of the viewer, there are long patches of dialogue with no music and scenes of violence are always frenetic. These conceits are part of the plague that is Archangel. Archangel might well be an archetypal BBC drama, but where most are smart and engaging, this is just boring.

British Professor Fluke Kelso is an expert in Joseph Stalin, Soviet dictator, who carries around the pained notion that Stalin was never brought to justice. While lecturing in Russia, Kelso is approached by an old former soldier, who claims he was with Stalin the night Stalin died. He is soon killed and Kelso hooks up with his daughter, Zinaida to find out what he died for. It first appears that he was in possession of Stalin's diary, but it turns out to be something else which puts the lives of Kelso, Zinaida and a newspaper reporter in serious jeopardy from elements of Russia's past and present (and presumably future).

Archangel is basically an action-adventure mystery that postulates that Stalin had descendants waiting to claim his mantle and lead Russia into a new bright future on his legacy. Kelso and Zinaida adequately express the sense of horror one would expect from such a movement based on Stalin's record of genocide and his lack of accountability for the same.

The thing is, Archangel is just dull. I like political thrillers and I have patience for all sorts of movies that take time to develop, like Smilla's Sense of Snow (reviewed here!), but Archangel just bored me. The BBC sense of pacing was off on this venture with long, slow bits that dragged accompanied by fast-moving character running away from everyone and everything. There was little balance. Less than stylistic, this just seemed sloppy.

Moreover, as a plot function, the movie builds, builds, builds and then pretty abruptly ends. Given all of the moralizing and emphasis on the importance of consequences in Archangel, it would have been nice to see the movie deal with some actual consequences, which it avoids.

Part of the problem with this movie is clearly in the characters. None of them are interesting or intriguing and watching them piece together historical mysteries is done in a way that does not make any of them seem interesting or engaging. Instead, the viewer sits and waits for the characters to become distinct in any way shape or form. They do not, though.

So, for example, protagonist Kelso is supposed to be an intellectual who is the only expert who can piece together the clues to basically open the door for a new Stalin to walk through. Kelso never presents himself with enough credibility for scientific reasoning or innate intelligence to make the viewer believe that he could care enough to fight this fight and/or actually succeed in proving anything. I don't doubt that the character is the expert he claims on Stalin, but he doesn't seem to be more than that. He lacks any real personality outside his profession in this film.

Moreover, the complex plot is utterly absurd from a realist perspective. I don't mean the possibility of a new Stalin coming to power in Russia, that's perfectly realistic. But one of my good friends in college was a refugee from the former Soviet Union, a young woman whose family fled oppression there and who later made trips back after the fall of Communism and something she always said resonated with me. Russians, as a society, are used to a corrupt government, it simply did not surprise the people there when their government lied to them. So, while Kelso is played by elements who want to see a return to Stalinism in order to have a person's identity confirmed and verified, it's completely unnecessary.

In short, pretty much anyone could go to Russia, declare themself a descendant of Stalin and they would have an instant credibility with a large segment of the population who would simply follow because the lie serves their own desires. Authentication is necessary for the international response, but for people used to being lied to, the old adage about creating big lies seems to hold.

Kelso is played by Daniel Craig, the latest James Bond and I only hope he did better in that role (Ironically, there is an actor in Archangel who looks shockingly like a young Sean Connery!). Craig is bland, affectless and not only unflappable, but uninteresting as Kelso. He plods through the movie adding nothing distinctive to the role and his acting drags the character and plot down.

He is not alone, though. None of the acting pops as even remotely interesting.

On DVD, Archangel is utterly ruined by the preview, so if you watch the preview on the disc, you'll have seen the entire movie (literally, some of the last shots of the movie are in the trailer). Then again, if I could get the last two hours back by simply watching the preview, maybe I should have . . .

For other films set in Russia, check out my reviews of:
Nightwatch
Defiance
Wanted

3.5/10

For other film reviews, check out my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2012, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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