International Espionage and Secret Spies

Just as I did last year, I vow to review every movie that I watch over the course of 2009. This includes films that I view at the multiplex, movies that I catch via DVD, and anything that I happen to find on television. I’m still clearing out the backlog from 2008 and this post is a part of that.

In case you haven’t noticed, I have quite the eclectic taste in movies. From comedies to frightening horror flicks, I’ll tackle them all. For this weekend, the focus shifts over to the world international espionage and super spies. Do you have a soft spot for being sneaky and stealthy? Do you take your martinis shaken, not stirred? Well, this is the movie review roundup for you.

Burn After Reading has to be one of the stranger films of 2008. I went in expecting a reasonably coherent plot line that would be expressed through some of the best actors on the planet today, including Brad Pitt, George Clooney, and John Malkovich. Well, truth is stranger than fiction. The story was anything but coherent and I found myself terribly confused at several points in the movie, but I feel that was almost the point. Government “intelligence” can sometimes be a misnomer, following leads that aren’t really leads and deducing “facts” that are anything but. The scene between Pitt and Malkovich inside the car was priceless, largely because of the intense anger expressed by John’s character. He’s virtually on fire. Burn After Reading is quirky and entertaining, but I didn’t think it was as great as everyone was saying it was.

Get Smart is a remake of a popular television series that I never watched. I “got” mos of the references, like the use of the shoe phone, but the backstory to this super spy adventure was mostly new to me. Steve Carrell does a convincing job as a hapless international agent, bumbling his way through the case and just finding a way to make things work. It also helps that Anne Hathaway is simply breathtaking in Get Smart (I never thought she was all that attractive before this flick). This movie won’t win any awards, but it is a healthy diversion.

Casino Royale was widely applauded as possibly the best James Bond movie ever created. It was okay, I suppose, but I wouldn’t say that it was the best Bond movie. The poker scenes were notoriously unrealistic and the acting across the board wasn’t really up to snuff, but those aren’t why you’d watch a James Bond movie in the first place. You want to see the womanizing. You want to see the crazy action with car chases, gunfights, and explosions. In that sense, it delivers, but I did find the gadget department to be seriously lacking.

Quantum of Solace is a sequel of sorts to Casino Royale, picking up where the last movie left off. You would think that most of the elements would remain the same, but it seems that the script (and the director) took a totally different direction with Agent 007 in this latest Bond hit. He’s not James Bond anymore. He lets his emotions get the best of him. He actually loves a woman, not just making love to her. He gets dirty and grungy without being all that stylish along the way. He loses his style and he’s just not the suave super spy that we once knew. James Bond is not supposed to be realistic, but that’s where Quantum of Solace takes him. Too bad he sacrifices more than a quantum of cool as a result. He’s… human.