That collective howl of anguish you hear is actually millions of seething anime fans who are demanding a public beheading of all who were involved in ruining their childhood fantasies by completely eviscerating Akira Toriyama’s worldwide manga phenomenon, Dragonball. Dragonball Evolution as directed with extreme blandness by James Wong and scripted with no sense of purpose by Ben Ramsey is a live-action film adaptation that fails to be anything more than a passing diversion for young toddlers.

Anyone with even a sliver of knowledge of Toriyama’s seminal manga is going to be infuriated at how insipid and completely juvenile the narrative has become. To be fair, the source material was never going to be compared to Shakespeare or even something closer to home such as the magnificent work coming out of Studio Ghibli (think 2D Pixar) but at least it offered its fans exciting martial arts combat and a cast of colourful eccentric characters.

In the hands of James Wong both these series assets have gone missing with martial arts routines that really accentuate the fact that no one has any clue what they are doing and characters that are flatter than a pancake in terms of personality. Right from the start the filmmakers stumble out of the gate with the greatly miscast Justin Chatwin playing our hero Goku, a teenage orphan that is raised by his grandfather Gohan (Randall Duk Kim) on their secluded estate. Let’s be straight up and frank here the decision to cast a Caucasian lead as Goku might rub many the wrong way but the problem is not really race but the fact that Chatwin has almost no charisma and is entirely wooden even during the fight sequences. Chatwin’s only bursts of raw emotion come from emo-baby tears and an altogether vein-popping visage of rage that looks more like he’s passing wind. It doesn’t help that the script glosses over his back-story, only giving the audience just enough motivation to propel him forward and though his character hits rough patches we’re never convinced of his emotional struggle as he returns to his cheery self a mere five minutes later.

As presented here, Goku, while still a teenager, is already an accomplished martial artist yet constantly endures bullying at school for being an outsider. Embarrassed and frustrated by his tormentors he dare not fight back due to Gohan’s strict conditions that he should never show his true power. Of course, like any other normal teenager, Goku has a secret crush on Chi Chi, a lovely though completely forgettable lass played by Jamie Chung who also harbors hidden feelings for him.

Just as his school life begins to take a turn for the positive Goku’s world is turned upside down when Gohan is murdered by Piccolo (James Marsters), an evil being who has managed to escape after thousands of years of imprisonment. Piccolo seeks revenge on the world and embarks on a quest to find the seven mystical dragonballs (think glowing orbs) that will grant him ultimate power. Goku deduces what is going on and vows to find the dragonballs before his nemesis with the intention on using them to grant “one perfect wish” and stop Piccolo and his nefarious scheme.

For the main antagonist, Piccolo is not at all menacing as Marsters lurches into a dry drooling delivery. It might have been more effective, albeit wholly cliché, if he just laughed maniacally as it would show some degree of rage. Instead he glares menacingly behind the laughable green makeup that wouldn’t scare a gnat.

In fact, Piccolo is largely wasted content to spend most of the movie firmly entrenched in his flying blimp-like ship waxing poetic about how he’s longed to unleash hell upon the world. All the grunt work is left to his henchwoman, Mai (Eriko Tamura) who at least presents a buxom figure in spandex and gets to mix it up in some of the martial arts sequences.

Along the way Goku hitches up with a spunky inventor named Bulma (Emmy Rossum), Yamcha (Joon Park) a roguish con artist and last but not least Master Roshi (Chow Yun-Fat) a wise sage in the mold of Obi-Wan, except totally perverted and with a penchant for wearing loud Hawaiian shirts. Just writing those last few words is enough to make me laugh trying to picture Chow Yun-Fat as Master Roshi facing off against Darth Vader but enough of that fanboy moment.

Emmy Rossum’s career has certainly taken a turn for the worse here especially after her breakthrough in the movie musical Phantom of the Opera. Her Bulma is just not compelling and most of her dialogue consists of dreaded Star Trek technobabble that tries to sound scientific but ends up being hokey. For what it’s worth, Rossum certainly has Bulma’s look down pat as well as her cocky attitude but that one-dimensional trait isn’t enough to make audiences empathize with her.

About the only thespian that seems to be having a good time is Chow Yun-Fat who decides to throw caution to the wind and revert back to his manic film persona not seen since his early 1980s Hong Kong comedies. While the rest of the cast attempts to play it straight Chow Yun-Fat makes the easy realization that the material is inherently campy thus making the conscious decision to let it all hang out. This is the sign of a veteran actor who is not at all embarrassed at making a giant fool of himself and he injects needed verve and energy whenever he’s on screen. It’s too bad that his character is criminally underused.

For a lean movie that’s less than one and a half hours, Dragonball Evolution to its credit, is never bone-crushingly dull but there’s little coherency as scenes lurch forward without rhyme or reason. Small kids who are watching for the action will not notice but for everyone else the screenplay makes little or no sense with no concept of spatial relation or time passed. Fans of the manga will undoubtedly know that it takes Goku and friends a very long time to track down each successive dragonball but here they all basically fall right into his lap. Scenes are constructed that boggle the mind and stretch believability to ridiculous levels. At one point Goku, Bulma and Master Roshi fall into a giant pit created by Yamcha to blackmail errant travelers into giving him money to save them. After a bit of needless arguing Bulma suddenly realizes using her tracking device that there’s a dragonball nearby. Coincidence or just brainless writing? I’ll leave that for you to decide.

Further along in the story Goku finds himself across a giant crater filled with molten lava with a dragonball located on the other side. He devises a “brilliant” plan of throwing evil mud-like villains into the lava and then proceeding to play hopscotch as he jumps from body to body until he arrives at his goal. The scene reminded me of the end of Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith and I wondered at the complete incongruity of anyone surviving the immense heat as they stood next to boiling lava not to mention the fact that those bodies Goku employs to jump on never burn in the least. What works in an anime or manga just looks totally phony on the silver screen.

In fact with no sense of passage of time it certainly feels as if Goku discovers nearly every dragonball in less than twenty minutes giving his quest an altogether empty and listless feel.

Kids might get a kick watching their heroes come to life but this production screams low-budget from the less than exciting visual effects to the laughable Paper Mache rocks and sparse set design the movie resembles a Disney family channel special. Actually, this is not a bad comparison as the film is so sanitized and squeaky clean that it feels like High School Musical with martial arts. Who knows, maybe if Goku and Master Roshi broke out into song and dance it might have made the film more engaging.

Director James Wong has shown he could write some tense and chilling science fiction fare before by penning many episodes of the X-Files and Millennium but his film directing skills are pure vanilla lacking any sort of stylistic flair. This was apparent even in his earlier films such as Final Destination or The One but he hits a dubious new low with Dragonball Evolution with ridiculously inappropriate static camera work that just does not make use of a film’s expanded canvas. Action scenes are choppily edited to hide the fact that none of the actors looks vaguely proficient in martial arts and even the final showdown that we anticipate is woefully flat and altogether anticlimactic.

Most of these young actors as well as Chow Yun-Fat will escape from this ordeal with their careers intact but it’s James Wong who will find his directorial career on the rocks with this slothful rambling disaster that manages the double whammy of insulting diehard Dragonball fans and the general public. You have been warned.

* out of ****

2009, USA/Hong Kong, 85 Minutes, PG
Directed by James Wong
Screenplay by Ben Ramsey
Based on the manga by Akira Toriyama
Produced by Stephen Chow
Executive Producer Tim Van Rellim
Original Music by Brian Tyler
Cinematography by Robert McLachlan
Film Editing by Matt Friedman, Chris G. Willingham

Goku: Justin Chatwin
Master Roshi: Chow Yun-Fat Chow
Bulma: Emmy Rossum
Chi Chi: Jamie Chung
Lord Piccolo: James Marsters
Yamcha: Joon Park
Mai: Eriko Tamura
Grandpa Gohan: Randall Duk Kim
Sifu Norris: Ernie Hudson
Carey Fuller: Texas Battle
Seki: Megumi Seki
Oozaru: Ian Whyte
Agundes: Richard Blake
Moreno: Jon Valera

© 2009 The Galactic Pillow

Glorious special effects cannot save Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen from being an almost completely incomprehensible debacle saddled with a plot that meanders for almost an hour too long filled with ridiculous new characters and groan worthy humour aimed at the lowest common denominator. As someone who liked the original film this sequel certainly delivers with more robot on robot bashing but the lack of any characterization and awfully stilted dialogue is a major disappointment. Fans of Michael Bay’s exuberant action might be satiated but there’s just way too much emphasis on adrenalin that it becomes mind-numbing with oddball moments that usually feature scrotums that inevitably plunge the production straight into the scrap heap.

Set approximately two years after the original film nearly all of the major characters, human and robots included, are back for the sequel. The heroic Autobots led by their leader Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen) are joined by a few new compatriots such as Sideswipe, Jolt and two twins named Skids and Mudflap (Reno Wilson). There’s also the first female Autobot Arcee (Grey DeLisle) who is actually made up of three separate transforming motorcycles. For the past few years the Autobots have joined forces with parts of the US military to form the super secret NEST organization that is pledged to hunt down the remaining Decepticons who are spread out and hidden across the globe.

Meanwhile our lovable geeky hero Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) is preparing his own rite of passage by leaving his girlfriend Mikaela Banes (Megan Fox) and his parents behind to go off to college. However, in an accidental move he touches the remaining shard of the allspark that he kept from the previous movie as cryptic information starts downloading into his brain in a torrent of unintelligible symbols and images.

While all this is going on the evil Decepticons under their interim leader Starscream (Charles Adler) are licking their wounds and preparing their next move which occurs when their communications expert Soundwave (Frank Welker) hacks into a US military satellite and discovers the location of their deceased commander Megatron (Hugo Weaving). Retrieving his body they reanimate him as he reports in to their supreme commander, The Fallen (Tony Todd) back on Cybertron who tells him that in order for them to prevail that the last remaining Prime aka Optimus must be terminated. Once this is done then they can activate their super weapon which will destroy the Sun thus blasting Earth to oblivion.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen works like a standard potboiler Hollywood sequel to a hit film meaning it’s blessed with a largely increased budget and a license to jack up the action to stratospheric levels. In this sense director Michael Bay is clearly in his element ramming scene upon scene of wanton destruction as he blows up every object imaginable. Bay has always been defined as being an architect for testosterone filled sequences and two in particular stand out here the first being a wonderfully shot battle in a forest as Optimus Prime takes on a horde of Decepticons while whooping ass and of course the climactic battle royale amidst the famed Pyramids at Giza that probably cost more than the total GDP of a small country.

One of the biggest gripes with the original was that as glorious as the CG was, Bay’s reliance on tight angles and close ups did nothing but obscure the action and turn it into an indecipherable jumble of metal parts flailing away with no rhyme or reason. This time around it’s a bit easier to discern who is fighting who but Bay still relies on split second cuts that make it tough to tell what is transpiring especially when any transformer goes toe to toe in an all out fist fight. With the ridiculously detailed special effects it would have been nice to just have a few good multi-second shots of the various robots to give the audience a better understanding of who is who but alas that is not to be.

Action fans will not be disappointed as the film feels as if it is wall-to-wall mayhem but strangely this is completely off-putting as there’s just too much here. As wonderful as the climax is by the time it gets there most of the audience is going to be too stupefied to care as all the robot bashing becomes a complete blur. It also doesn’t help at all that there’s just no emotional attachment to the bulk of these robots as the film has mismanaged the time spent building them up.

With an expanded cast this sequel feels enormously undercooked and woefully inadequate even though it runs two and half hours. All the new characters are barely given enough screentime to make any sort of poignant impact and thus function as nothing more than pretty mannequins to add to the scenery. Worse still, those who do manage to get more time are downright risible must notably the Autobot twins Skids and Mudflap who have clearly been compared to that infamous CG monstrosity Jar Jar Binks from the Star Wars prequels. With their faux-ghetto speech, gold capped teeth and nauseating personality it’s a wonder Black action groups aren’t more up in arms with this ridiculous stereotyping. Whenever they are on screen you end up praying some Decepticon would just materialize and vaporize their mechanical ass to oblivion.

As the first female robot on either side Arcee is a utter waste of celluloid and it is supremely obvious Michael Bay has no clue how to use her or even worse, just doesn’t care for the character in the least. Why should a robot have gender is probably a damn good question but if you are going to have a Decepticon with giant bouncing testicles there’s no reason to think that there aren’t going to be any females either. Then again, like most pressing issues here the number one tactic to answering these questions is merely to ignore that it even exists. It doesn’t mean that the movie should take a twenty minute sidebar to espouse upon gender issues as they pertain to robots but a line or two is all you really need. After all, Mikaela is your lead female character who already rides motorcycles yet she never gets to ride or talk to the only female Autobot seems like a no-brainer creative decision that never materializes.

Alas the entire script is rife with problems such as this and feels every bit as fragmented as it sounds with missed opportunities and a general lack of polish. A good sequel inevitably manages to take existing characters and provide situations which can show growth but here everything takes a back seat to the robotic carnage. All the human characters are incredibly underwritten even our two leads Sam and Mikaela who spend the bulk of the movie basically running their ass off from location to location with a few mere pauses to stare longingly into each others’ eyes and are further saddled with the oldest moronic romantic cliché in the history of cinema of not being able to say, “I love you,” to one another. The original movie by comparison is a thunderous work of art in terms of characterization. Part of the appeal there was to watch lovable loser Sam manage to hook up with the gorgeous girl while juggling the fact that he was being drawn into an intergalactic robot war. This time around he’s already gotten the girl and the screenwriter’s have not managed a suitable emotional replacement instead relying on ridiculous sitcom antics that seem to be ripped from teen romance movies where the girl catches a glimpse of her lover in the act of being kissed by another hot babe and immediately thinks the worse of him.

Shia LaBeouf’s considerable talents are almost completely wasted here as he’s given nothing to work with except shouting and staring wide-eyed at the green screen battles going on around him. His co-star Megan Fox is still smoking hot but seems more like a walking Barbie doll this time around as she preens and poses with her impeccable makeup. Faring even worse are Josh Duhamel and Tyrese Gibson as Major Lennox and USAF Master Sergeant Epps who really only get procedural moments of dialogue and spend the movie in unending shots of them aiming their machine guns or looking perplexed.

Add to this an awful misuse of banal wit that usually results from either brain-dead characters like Sam’s ditzy mother who gets high on weed or ridiculous scenes of any sort of humping. Yes, that’s right; we get not one but two scenes of animal on animal action as well as a tiny shrimp of a Decepticon who speaks like a wannabe gangster doing the nasty on Mikaela’s leg. Of course there are the two Jar Jar Binks clones but there’s also the returning comic relief from the original film in Agent Simmons (John Turturro) who at least has decided to throw caution to the wind and ham it up to the nines. With all these kooky characters the film decides to still go full out overkill and adds Sam’s conspiracy-theorist roommate Leo Spitz (Ramon Rodriguez) who spends the majority of the movie screaming like a little girl or reduced to waddling around with no pants asking for toiler paper. Really, this is like every bad sitcom reject rolled into one honking mess of a film.

Fans of the film, Michael bay obviously included, will probably blanch and use the “You don’t get the gist of the movie” argument but they are sorely misinformed. It’s not that detractors of the film don’t understand it but that they truly “get it” well enough. As a big Hollywood action spectacle featuring an enormous budget the movie is pure non-stop visceral thrills with each sequence becoming more and more elaborate. No one is questioning the film’s technical merits as it’s evident that much care went into making a visual feast but boy is the screenplay ragged and filled with non-stop banalities that function to kill whatever pace is set with the adrenalin action segments.

The audience doesn’t care one hoot whether or not any of these characters, be it man or machine, dies or gets injured in the least and making matters worse is that the film lacks a monstrous and scheming villain. Even though Megatron is back he’s reduced to simple groveling and in another ode to Star Wars is revealed to be The Fallen’s apprentice. Oh please give us a break. Megatron might not have had enough dialogue in the original film but when he finally awoke there was no doubt he was numero uno honcho there with enough snarling anger that could kill Autobots just with aggressive staring. To see him as a simple lackey this time around and getting his ass handed to him by Optimus even though it was the other way around in the first film’s climactic fight just devalues his character. In his place, The Fallen is generic badguy #512 with a ridiculously overwrought super weapon that is nullified with a few shots yet for all his menace he doesn’t do much more than wax on about how he’s been waiting patiently for revenge over thousands of years.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is one of those movies that might work well on Blu-ray or DVD solely based on the fact that the audience can just ram the fast forward button to watch all the gnarly special effects work. It’s too bad actually since there’s so much material here that if honed and packaged differently could make a rip-roaring action film as well as make these characters compelling. I previously reviewed Star Trek by the same team of Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman and while that was nearly pitch perfect in bringing the successful elements of the TV series into the new millennia Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen feels as if it was written on the fly as they were filming. There’s really no other reason that one can think of as the script does no favors to everyone involved.

There are rumours that Michael bay wants a break before the next installment or indeed doesn’t want to handle it anymore but regardless of his decision I sincerely hope Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman sit down and take a long look at all the problems embedded in this sequel and attempt to correct them. If all we’re going to get is a third film with even bigger explosions you might as well just go bang your head against the wall in order to simulate the headache you received watching the second installment.

*1/2 out of ****

2009, USA, 150 Minutes, PG-13, Dreamworks/Paramount
Directed by Michael Bay
Screenplay by Ehren Kruger, Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman
Produced by Ian Bryce, Tom DeSanto, Lorenzo di Bonaventura, Don Murphy
Executive Producer Michael Bay, Brian Goldner, Steven Spielberg, Mark Vahradian
Original Music by Steve Jablonsky
Cinematography by Ben Seresin

Sam Witwicky: Shia LaBeouf
Mikaela Banes: Megan Fox
Major Lennox: Josh Duhamel
USAF Master Sergeant Epps: Tyrese Gibson
Agent Simmons: John Turturro
Leo Spitz: Ramon Rodriguez
Ron Witwicky: Kevin Dunn
Judy Witwicky: Julie White
Alice: Isabel Lucas
Galloway: John Benjamin Hickey
Professor Colan: Rainn Wilson
Optimus Prime (voice): Peter Cullen
Jetfire (voice): Mark Ryan
Mudflap (voice): Reno Wilson
Ironhide (voice): Jess Harnell
Ratchet (voice): Robert Foxworth
Sideswipe (voice): André Sogliuzzo
Arcee (voice): Grey DeLisle
Megatron (voice): Hugo Weaving
Fallen (voice): Tony Todd
Starscream (voice): Charles Adler
Soundwave / Devastator: Frank Welker

© 2009 The Galactic Pillow

Comic book films are all the rage these days and with new benchmarks in artistry and psychological depth being reached by The Dark Knight and to a lesser extent Iron Man the genre is growing and maturing at an unprecedented rate. The bulk of these movies are indeed based on existing comic book series so there’s a built in audience with a large enough appetite to which these films can tap into. Then there’s the odd exception such as Will Smith’s newest vehicle, Hancock, that invents a new superhero and attempts to spin an origin tale unlike any other.

At first glace the setup is actually quite refreshing. Will Smith plays the title character, John Hancock, who does not come from any existing hero archetype. He’s not the shining example of justice ala Superman nor has the brooding psyche of Batman. Instead, he’s a deadbeat drunkard outfitted in disheveled clothes replete with less than exemplary hygiene. When crisis erupt he has a nonchalant attitude that borders on complete disinterest. While he does finally “get off his ass” and take out the perpetrators his antics result in more damage than the criminals themselves leading to protests by ordinary citizens demanding his arrest.

Though his actions are motivated by doing good deeds he has no tact whatsoever as he constantly gets into situations where his impulses get the better of him over common sense. There’s a montage sequence where Hancock is shown some of his past deeds of justice going awry such as when he tries to save a whale by throwing it back into the ocean. Unfortunately, the soaring mammal comes back down right on top of a luxury yacht. Then there’s another instance when he puts out a fire but then stops to get some ice cream as a reward totally oblivious that he’s butt naked below the waist while kids stand aghast at his ass cheeks.

Enter Ray Embrey a down of his luck public relations consultant played with appropriate gusto by Jason Bateman. After being saved by Hancock, Ray takes it upon himself to help improve his image. In his eyes, Hancock is merely misunderstood and with a bit of schooling can turn things around and become a shining hero for the world at large.

This setup works remarkably well for the film’s first act as we’re treated to a much different take on existing superhero mores. Will Smith, almost always likeable in past roles, does his best to make Hancock into a malcontented man who is literally attempting to piece his life back together since he has no memory of his past save for a ticket stub to the movie Frankenstein. The movie clicks early on as we’re sucked into Hancock’s initial struggle over his own importance to society as he slowly comes into the realization of his potential worth. This first act has moments of broad comedy that punctuate the more serious aspects of Hancock’s self-assessment though most jokes have already been seen from the movie trailer. Still, with the exception of one poor taste head-up-the-ass joke, they work to showcase Hancock’s dour personality.

Then, the movie jumps the shark and with it the whole endeavor literally collapses under its own weight. What starts out as a rather nifty play on our super hero expectations suddenly morphs into a strange combination of sappy melodrama punctuated with fits of brain deadening exposition.

It is not often that you can feel a movie slipping away but it's succinctly visible here as the movie changes gears, not in a gradual manner but by literally doing a 180. Without spoiling the big twist that is introduced the film adds story elements from out of thin air that delve deep into Hancock’s nebulous past. Before he was just a hero with amnesia, after he’s suddenly much much more as his history literally sprawls out over the millennia. As bad a metaphor as it is, this is akin to the film giving you drops of information about him suddenly becoming a raging torrent of water and it all comes out in a blink of an eye.

This would not seem too debilitating as the twists and turns of the story reveal a serious attempt at building a comic book mythos but the execution is just painfully hackneyed. Characters who at first seemed to be window dressing suddenly gain prominence including a villain who has got to be the lamest desperado ever committed to film. Batman has the Joker. Superman has Lex Luthor. Hancock has a failed bank robber with a hook for a hand. Battle of intellectual or physical titans this is not.

Making matters worse is Hancock’s back-story that has numerous holes in logic. These are actual story problems that arise through dialogue that make you wonder if anyone pointed out the contradictions during a screenplay meeting session. The entire second half of the film is a complete tonal shift from the first giving the film a Frankenstein atmosphere where the filmmakers have cobbled together disparate story elements together in a strange concoction. Characters go through what seem to be dense descriptions literally explaining their motivations but leave out the most important elements as to their justification.

Action sequences spring up for no apparent reason and are buttressed with overblown effects that aren’t even caused by our protagonists. Take the huge fight that takes place while huge tornados rip through downtown Los Angeles. We’re never given an inkling if they were just freaks of nature that occurred during a fist fight or rather the creation born from one of the participants. There’s no rhyme or reason other than trying to make it look cool.

For a film with a massive production budget the actual effects are sloppy and unconvincing. Flying sequences are less than impressive and the green screen work seems slapdash at best. It’s a wonder that they couldn’t at least equal the work in recent films such as Superman Returns or anything from the Matrix. I almost fell off my seat thinking I was watching the Greatest American Hero.

Once Hancock makes the change from sardonic boozer to reformed superhero in tight black leather the movie loses whatever originality it had managed to portray. Will Smith is not given much to show off his considerable acting chops and as such settles into your typical heroic stereotype once he’s set on the noble path while poor Charlize Theron is pigeonholed into a ludicrous role that could have been pulled off by any other actress. You’d never guess that these two thespians were previously nominated for (and one won) an Academy Award.

The movie ends with a thousand questions still unanswered which leaves one thinking an inevitable sequel is on the way. Judging from the way this movie managed to turn a high concept setup into a haphazard incoherent mess it’s definitely not something to look forward to.

*1/2 out of ****

2008, USA, 92 Minutes, PG-13, Columbia
Directed by Peter Berg
Writing credits Vincent Ngo, Vince Gilligan
Produced by Akiva Goldsman, James Lassiter, Michael Mann, Will Smith
Executive Producer: Ian Bryce, Jonathan Mostow, Richard Saperstein
Co-producer: Allegra Clegg
Associate Producer: Eric Heffron, Michelle McGonagle, Tracey Nyberg
Original Music by John Powell
Cinematography by Tobias A. Schliessler

John Hancock: Will Smith
Mary Embrey: Charlize Theron
Ray Embrey: Jason Bateman
Aaron Embrey: Jae Head
Kenneth 'Red' Parker Jr.: Eddie Marsan
Man Mountain: David Mattey
Matrix: Maetrix Fitten
Mike: Thomas Lennon
Jeremy: Johnny Galecki
Hottie: Hayley Marie Norman

© 2009 The Galactic Pillow

Sweeping panoramic vistas and haunting imagery cannot save this altogether pedantic historical drama that never manages to incite much emotion except for bone crushing monotony. Based on Genghis Khan, one of history’s grandest conquerors, the film by Russian director Sergei Bodrov never manages to move out of first gear and relies on some incredible leaps in time and suspect scene construction that never presents more than a wafer thin insight into the early years of the man who would go on to cut a path of conquest through much of Asia.

The subject matter certainly seems rife with myriad possibilities as it is always fascinating to see how events shaped these great historical figures and the film does present a largely fresh angle by focusing on how young Temudjin managed to unite Mongolia under his banner. Other films on the same subject matter have largely focused on his great military victories that built the Mongol Empire from the Sea of Japan to the Caspian Sea.

The movie opens as a young nine-year-old Temudjin accompanies his father to choose his bride. Against his father’s wishes he chooses Borte, or more to the point she chooses him and so Temudjin gives her a polished wishbone and promises to return in five years to claim her. However, on the way home his father is poisoned by a rival tribe and dies causing his followers to rebel flocking to a former charge named Targutai who usurps the Khan title. Knowing that Temudjin will be a threat he informs everyone that in keeping with tradition he will kill him once he reaches a certain age.

The film depicts Temudjin’s formative years as being incredibly harrowing as the young boy constantly has to fend for himself against both nature and those who want him dead. I am not too familiar with Genghis Khan’s childhood so I can’t easily tell if what the movie shows as following history but it seemed to me that what is on display here would make any Hollywood screenwriter weary. This stems for the fact that the film feels like some bastardized version of Groundhog Day staring Bill Murray who plays a simple weatherman who detests reporting on Groundhog Day yet somehow is forced to relive it over and over again, caught in some temporal loop.

Young Temudjin would be so lucky. Unfortunately, for him things are much dire. After escaping from Targutai he gets captured by him again and locked up. However, he manages to escape and spends some time being free before being captured once again whereby he later escapes only to fall prey to capture yet again. Now, I’m not an expert in Genghis Khan’s early life but as a film this simple structure of escaping and being caught keeps repeating over and over again until the viewer cannot help but wonder just how this figure managed to unite Mongolia since he spends more than half the film as a slave.

This is the film’s biggest faux pas. Although it’s refreshing to watch young Temudjin grow up, director and writer Sergei Bodrov rarely provides insight as to how he learned military strategy or political acumen that enabled him to rise above all the other Mongol warlords. For such a brutal warrior the film constantly has trouble showcasing him as having any sort of emotional response. As played by Japanese actor Tadanobu Asano, the adult version of Temudjin seems incredibly relaxed, laid back and carrying a heavy air of honour and regal grace. His spirit is completely at ease with an almost Zen-like peacefulness even when he finds himself rotting in a Tangut prison cell, his skin parched and peeling off in flakes. This sort of detached personality seems at odds with his military endeavors that are extremely ignored. The only way the audience can tell that he is a master strategist is because his opponents inform us in lines of dialogue that basically give praise to him.

For a figure universally admired as a capable warrior and leader but also vehemently despised as a genocidal mass murderer that caused much destruction around the world it is very tough to match this view with Asano’s depiction of the honourable warrior. It’s as if the filmmakers have decided to put on rose-coloured glasses and elevate his stature past the point of believability into an almost Jesus-like figure.

Little is actually known about ancient Mongolian history as most of it was passed through oral traditions. In terms of written accounts there’s precious few so there seems to be a lot of leeway that director Bodrov can use to fill in gaps but he does so with some suspect sequences that play up the spiritual world that borders on science fiction mysticism. Locked in a wooden slave contraption around his neck that also binds his hands young Temudjin makes his way to a sacred stone temple and prays to the God Tengri to give him strength to persevere. After a few shots of a striking gray wolf Bodrov cuts back to Temudjin who is suddenly free of the slave device. Did God intervene? Did the wolf bite it off? We’ll never know but this sort of blatant divine intervention should not belong in a historical movie.

This concept of the divine also shows up at the climax as two opposing Mongol armies clash yet Temudjin wins precisely because the Gods help him. It also pops up during a key moment when Temudjin returns to the sacred stone temple to tell the God Tengri the beginnings of his famous Yassa, the Mongolian code of law that he creates to govern and unify his people. All these scenes are not properly set up and merely appear as separate instances with no background. Watching Temudjin recite his code of conduct to the Gods comes off as incredibly unconvincing since the movie had never previously shown us enough evidence to lead him to these conclusions. Even Borte is involved in these divine maneuverings as she somehow knows that a monk has died in the middle of the desert and magically finds his body in the vast wasteland. Maybe she’s in tune with The Force?

Some of the events that the film makes great pains to highlight would cause any contemporary man, or woman, to feel a rush of uneasiness and downright disgust. Most of these revolve around Temudjin’s wife Borte who routinely undergoes humiliating bouts of sleeping with other men. Now, the film does present reasons for each instance but most telling is Temudjin’s complete nonchalant reaction to these discoveries. In short, he doesn’t care one bit that his first two children are not his – one fathered from the Merkit tribe, which killed his dad and the other from a wealthy Tangut merchant who saved Borte in the desert. Temudjin is a paragon of virtue here and takes both kids under his wing without a moment’s hesitation even though his followers deride him behind his back.

The film spends an inordinate amount of time showcasing Temudjin’s complete devotion to Borte yet lags in his relationship to other key figures such as his blood brother Jamukha. When Borte is captured by the Merkits, Temudjin has no choice but to go to Jamukha and ask for help. At first Jamukha is unconvinced even chastising his friend for forcing a war over a woman yet he eventually relents. They eventually manage to defeat the Merkits and save Borte but Temudjin leaves silently in the night taking some of Jamukha’s finest warriors with him. An infuriated Jamukha rides to Temudjin and demands to know why he has done this whereupon Temudjin calmly states that any Mongol has the right to choose his leader. Sun Honglei as Jamukha is a breath of fresh air taking a one-dimensional role and giving it much needed oomph with bone cracking snarls, guttural singing and piercing stares that the audience expects from Genghis Khan not his rival.

This causes a split between the two and sets up their rivalry for leadership of Mongolia but the film never delves further into this angle which might had added some needed spark to the proceedings instead shunting it aside until the slapdash final battle where the two face off against one another.

This final battle relies heavily on CG to enhance the size of armies and add weather effects but it is incredibly obvious and intrusive especially when the clouds suddenly darken and lightning descends onto the battlefield. Not to mention, it looks as if the entire population of Mongolia has shown up as the armies stretch for miles. I can understand ending the movie on a rousing note but for a film that rarely showed more than two or three people on screen at the same time it’s completely jarring.

Bodrov’s editing is also very blunt and though most can easily understand what is happening the time lapses between scenes escalates until it becomes a detriment to the narrative. After escaping from the Tangut prison with the help of his wife the two embark on a sex scene that is not at all needed followed by the reunited family frolicking amongst a field of grass. Borte knows that Temudjin is going to leave and he does and then suddenly we cut to the future final battle between Temudjin and Jamukha without ever showing the audience how an escaped slave managed to cobble together a fully armored fighting force.

The movie’s only two saving graces are an incredibly poignant score by Tuomas Kantelinen and the aforementioned stunning scenery. Filmed mostly in China in the province of Inner Mongolia the gloriously bleak landscapes become another character by themselves and do more to show the harsh existence of ancient Mongol life than the machinations of the narrative. Watching the barren arid landscape, rock-strewn ground and brutal winter condition drives home the astounding fact that such a hardy people rose up to follow Genghis Khan on a drive for global hegemony even though their homeland is almost unlivable.

Sadly, the film does not present a compelling picture of the great warrior, reducing him to a mere passive observer instead of steely willed leader. Without attempting to explain and show how he rose to prominence it turns the movie into one that basically comes down to fate and destiny that chose him for this monumental task. Even worse, whatever military strategy is on display is completely suspect. Instead of utilizing his famed horse archers the film instead replaces them with cavalry that wield two swords that basically cut a path through the opposing army by galloping straight ahead with their outstretched arms killing everyone who doesn’t have the brains to just avoid them.

Do yourself a favor if you really want to know history – go and read historical texts or the numerous books written on Genghis Khan. Even though this is a multinational production it falls prey to too many inconsistencies and Hollywood styled platitudes.

** out of ****

2008, Kazakhstan, 126 minutes, R, Picturehouse Entertainment
Directed by Sergei Bodrov
Screenplay by Arif Aliyev & Sergei Bodrov
Produced by Sergei Bodrov, Anton Melnik, Sergei Selyanov
Executive Producer: Bob Berney, Bulat Galimgereyev, Alec Schulmann
Original Music by Tuomas Kantelinen
Cinematography by Rogier Stoffers & Sergey Trofimov
Film Editing by Valdís Óskarsdóttir & Zach Staenberg

Temudjin: Tadanobu Asano
Jamukha: Honglei Sun
Börte: Khulan Chuluun
Oelun - Temudjin's Mother: Aliya
Esugei - Temudjin's Father: Ba Sen
Targutai: Amadu Mamadakov
Merchant with Golden Ring: Ying Bai
Dai-Sechen: He Qi
Monk: Ben Hon Sun
Boorchu: Ji Ri Mu Tu

© 2009 The Galactic Pillow

In my previous blog about food I touched upon the one accidental restaurant that my wife and I always seem to end up going to. This time around I’m going to focus on my wife’s favourite fast food restaurant which, we found completely be chance. These are always the best finds and though they often turn out being unpalatable there is a chance that you will find something refreshing.

Growing up in Toronto, Canada, I’ve been exposed to many fast food restaurants, all of which are western chains such as your usual suspects like McDonalds, Burger King, Taco Bell and KFC. I don’t think there are many people around the world who would never have heard about any of these. Then you have those franchises that are a step up like Swiss Chalet, TGIF, and Pizza Hut. All of them have their own advantages depending on your current culinary mood. I sincerely doubt that those professional food critics will not find something to their liking in all these joints. Then again, not knowing any professional food critics, maybe they go out of their way to avoid these establishments.

So what about franchises that are not Western in nature? Even though Toronto is the most culturally diverse city in the world (yes, I know technically Miami has a higher ethnic population but the bulk of those are Latinos whereas Toronto is amazingly split into many different groups), there aren’t too many big food franchises based here that specialize and originally come from other parts of the world.

So why this preamble on non-western food chains? Well, that’s because my wife’s favourite fast food restaurant originates from Japan and it so happens to have taken root here in Toronto. Yes, that’s like someone from China saying their favourite joint was McDonalds. I shiver at the thought. Like so often happens, we were one day driving home and spotted a new restaurant that had opened. It wasn’t so much the look of the restaurant that made us excited but rather the name that gave it away.

The store in question is called, Ajisen Ramen, originally from Kumamoto, Japan and its speciality is ramen. Yup, simple ramen.

For the uninitiated, ramen is basically noodles and soup, the base of which is usually meat-based. To this is added a variety of toppings such as pork, beef, seaweed, green onions, cabbage, or corn. Ramen originally came from China although through the years the Japanese have refined and modified the recipes into many different permutations. If one goes to Japan you can find ramen stores just about anywhere including crowded locations such as subway terminals where you see business men and women eating bowls while standing up – they are obviously pressed for time. Ramen is featured prominently in Japanese animation (anime) and is treated as fast food. Turn on your local broadcast of Naruto for instance and you can always see the title character longing for his favourite noodle dish.

Now my wife loves going to Japan for what reason I don’t know – might be the shopping? Anyhow, she’s always loved ramen so imagine our excitement when we realized a new ramen store was opening up right here in our home city. Of course, we had to try it a.s.a.p.

With over 120 stores, Ajisen Ramen has quickly expanded to include tons of locations in mainland China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, Phillipines and Malaysia. It even has stores in Australia and the United States. I must admit I have not tried any of these other locations but by chance my wife and I managed to find one, in all places, in Changi International Airport Terminal 3 in Singapore. Unfortunately, I was not feeling too well that day and could not order anything but luckily my wife had no such impediments and merrily ordered a steaming hot bowl of ramen.

Ajisen Ramen’s big draw is its soup which is not clear but a milky white. I remember our first time there thinking, “What type of soup is this??” as I had never seen ramen cooked in broth that resembled this. Sure, I have had miso based soup before but even that has a different texture. Imagine my surprise when I tasted the soup and found it tasted very rich, a bit salty but satisfyingly smooth. The salt level is above average which probably makes people think it comes from a powder but after tasting it more than a hundred times I don’t think this is the case.

According to the literature, the soup gets its unique look and taste by boiling pork bones until the broth turns white. One can only imagine what sort of minerals and nutrients are added by the bones dissolving in this process yet one can’t deny it definitely makes for a tasty broth.

The noodles themselves are not what you usually expect as they are not udon or soba but rather have a texture more resembling spaghetti. This gives the noodles an unexpected firmness that compliments the soup very well. I am not a lover of mushy noodles and I can’t stand it when I overcook instant noodles in a pot or go to an Italian restaurant only to find my linguine is as limp as a wet towel. The closest description I can think of is “Al Dante” in that the noodles are firm but neither too hard nor too soft.

Nearly all the ramen choices come with either a half-egg boiled in soya sauce or a healthy helping of bean sprouts. When the store initially opened they used cabbage but they changed it to bean sprouts after a while probably due to customer feedback. I didn’t mind the cabbage but bean sprouts are fine for me as well although there are times when I think too many sprouts alter and dilute the taste of the soup base. Depending on my mood this is not such a big deal unless I get too many sprouts but all I have to do is deposit them on a side plate anyhow.

Though the soup and the noodles are the most important in ramen one shouldn’t forget the toppings as plain soup and noodles can get a bit mundane. Ajisen Ramen has quite a large variety of noodle choices that will satisfy a wide range of palettes ranging from different meats like chicken, beef and lamb to seafood like scallops and shrimp to completely vegetarian. Usually, these toppings are placed right on top of your noodles and soup unless you order something like the chicken teriyaki which comes on a separate plate.


--------Ajisen Ramen's Pork Ramen---------

My personal favourite is the Beef Teppanyaki Noodles ($7.95 CAD) that adds grilled peppered beef on top of the soup. I just find that the subtle taste of the beef teppanyaki soaks into the soup below slightly altering but accentuating the flavour. My wife’s dish of choice is probably the pork ramen ($7.95 CAD) which adds extremely thinly sliced pieces of pork that have their edges grilled, not too hard, but enough to see them blacken, to the soup. These thinly sliced pieces of pork almost literally melt in your mouth as they are extremely tender.

That’s not all my wife likes though. She likes things HOT – not temperature hot although that’s a must for ramen, but hot as in chilli. First, it must be said that lukewarm ramen is a huge turn off and any store which doesn’t properly heat their soup base is just looking to drive customers away. Thankfully, Ajisen Ramen has piping hot soup which works well especially when the Canadian winter arrives and temperatures plunge well below zero Celsius.

So to the pork ramen, my wife always orders a side dish of spicy pork. You can get spicy pork as well in Ajisen Spicy Pork Ramen ($7.50 CAD) but this dish doesn’t include the thin pork instead substituting it with rounded thicker slices of pork where you can see a layer of fat. This is also appetizing although the texture is much meatier than the thin slices. Now my wife can eat hot food and so can I although my own level of chilli tolerance is much lower. I remember clearly that during my first visit to Ajisen Ramen I ordered the Spicy Pork Ramen thinking that it would not be hot and boy was I in for a shock. To my complete surprise it is incredibly pungent and biting. This is way beyond Tabasco sauce and tastes much fiercer than raw Jalapeno peppers. In short, be prepared and don’t order it if you are adverse to eating spicy foods.

Ajisen Ramen offers four levels of hotness (50, 100, 150, 200) indicated by number from lowest being mild to highest being almost hellish. 50 and 100 I can handle but 150 and 200 is scorching but my wife doesn’t blink an eye. If this is your first time there you can ask the server to give this to you in a separate bowl which makes things much easier as you can pick and choose how much to add to your ramen at any given point in time. If not, they will add it straight into your ramen which drastically increases its potency.

Also included in the menu are some appetizers that range from dumpling gyoza to cucumber and crab meat salads. Most of these are your standard fare and make a good compliment to your bowl of ramen. There is sushi on the menu but these are not your typical sushi rolls with raw fish but rather different concoctions that center more on seaweed and cucumber. Don’t expect raw fish or sashimi here.

You can also change the soup if you want as they offer a miso broth instead. I am not a fan of miso broth in general so although I tried it I much prefer the original soup base.

If ramen is not your thing the restaurant also serves rice dishes although I have never tried any of them. From what I could see these include your standard Japanese-style curry dishes as well as beef and chicken staples. Then again, if you don’t like ramen why would you go to a store that specializes in ramen in the first place?

Finally, as for beverages, you can order your usual soft drinks and ice tea but the Yonge Street Ajisen Ramen location offers Chinese Bubble Tea for a discount if you order it with your meal.

In terms of a bill, depending on what you order, lunch or dinner for two which includes just two bowls of ramen will set you back around $14-16 without tax. Add an appetizer and two soft drinks and you’re looking at around $25 which is not a bad deal considering the quantity is quite big as the ramen bowls are rather large.

In terms of decor, both Toronto locations feature shocking pink chairs and giant Japanese style handpainted wall murals. Each location also has an assortment of ramen bowls on display on wall shelves. It’s a comfortable atmosphere although you can’t say that this is fine dining. This is, afterall, a fast food restaurant where you expect customers to finish their ramen in around 30 minutes. Just be warned that the location at Warden and Steeles is not very large and is usually packed during lunch hours so getting a seat might take a while if you go during those hours. The second location at Yonge and Finch is much more spacious although parking is usually on the main street.

Ajisen Ramen might be known as a fast food chain in vast parts of Asia but it still goes down well and the rather odd combination of Al Dante noodles and pork bone broth works wonders giving the ramen its own unique taste while providing customers a satisfying meal. I know after this review my wife will probably ask me to go back a.s.a.p. and I for one don’t mind one bit.

***1/2 out of ****

Two Toronto Locations:

5229 Yonge St.
Just North of North York Center
416.223.0618

7010 Warden Ave., Unit 23
NW corner of Warden Ave. & Steeles
905.470.6318

Note: Whoever designed the ventilation system in the Yonge store needs to have his head examined as I constantly find cold air blasting down on me while sitting in the booth – not bad unless it’s the middle of winter!

Much like a certain suave secret agent, Quantum of Solace’s technical merits are impeccable with enormous attention focused on sumptuous location shooting, exquisite costumes and jaw dropping action sequences. Unfortunately, this recipe is missing one key ingredient – namely a coherent and riveting plot. After the enormously successful reboot of the James Bond franchise in Martin Campbell’s Casino Royale both expectations and hype were sky-high for its sequel Quantum of Solace.

Quantum is the first true follow-up to a previous Bond movie continuing the storyline left hanging at the end of Casino Royale but unlike its predecessor which managed to be both insightful and entertaining, the new movie feels rushed with too much emphasis on outright kinetic action and an ill-advised move to excessive shaky-cam and rapid editing that does more harm than good completely draining tension and torpedoing any attempt to construct simple spatial relation.

Bond is back and he’s pissed. This much is obvious. After being betrayed by his former lover, Vesper Lynn, in the previous movie Bond embarks on a worldwide hunt for revenge with as much subtlety as a barreling bulldozer. In fact, the film begins literally minutes after the end of Casino Royale with the customary pre-title action sequence this time featuring a car chase through some beautiful Italian scenery. Of course, it also features an action genre staple where the villains can’t shoot the broadside of a barn even when armed with a repertoire of machine guns.

Soon after, Bond begins his worldwide journey by attempting to track down the elusive Quantum organization (visions of SPECTRE anyone?) that seems to have moles in nearly every government agency on the planet. This leads Bond to Bolivia where the plot finally kicks in as antagonist and Quantum member extraordinaire Dominic Greene (Mathieu Amalric) is revealed to be in the process of regime change and seeks to become the countries’ chief provider of fresh water at an obviously bloated price.

Much has been said about Daniel Craig as the new James Bond and while he basically reinvigorated the role from scratch in his first outing giving the character a wonderful melding of untamed brutality coupled with surprisingly thoughtful insecurities this time he turns in an incredibly one-dimensional robotic performance. It’s as if both Craig and director Marc Forster have decided to just hone in on his violent rage and ignore everything else. While this works for an unthinking killing machine it creates an odd dichotomy for the audience as they are basically rooting for an unfeeling lout to clobber his way to the goal regardless of ramification. Craig’s Bond is still as raw as sashimi and has no tact whatsoever making his actions akin to a common thug. This is not Pierce Brosnan or Roger Moore who attempted more stealthy infiltrations or when that failed, employed their ample charisma to cajole or seduce needed targets.

While Craig’s manic energy is initially refreshing it quickly devolves into an odd joke or two as M chastises her agent for killing first and asking questions later but after the umpteenth time it occurs it veers into outright farce. We get that Bond is hell-bent on revenge but certainly the basic fundamentals of interrogating the suspect first to obtain relevant information still applies. It doesn’t make much sense for Bond to go on a killing spree and then conveniently find clues that the victim has left behind that lead him in the correct direction.

While Casino Royale had a much tougher job of reintroducing a new Bond and a refreshingly multilayered take on the series the sequel seems content to be nothing more than your rote action spectacle. Gone are the intricate character studies or internal conflicts replaced with a series of increasingly incongruous stunts. In fact, the first third of the film is so chock full of successive action routines that it becomes increasingly mind numbing. Craig certainly has the gravitas and the physicality down pat but having him run around like a loose cannon without rhyme or reason is not enough to keep the audience involved.

I can’t remember a previous Bond movie that concentrated this much on outright action and it even prompted my wife to remark, “There’s a lot of action so I guess the plot hasn’t started yet.” Just look at the first act and follow along with the action bouncing ball here – you get a car chase opening; a truly awful and uninspired opening theme song along with one of the most visually stunted opening credit sequences; an extended chase featuring Bond and a MI6 mole that starts amidst the sewers and manages to traverse rooftops and even the Siena horse running race; Bond arriving in Haiti whereby he gets into a brutal fistfight with the person he should interrogate; finally going to a nearby pier and meeting Bond girl Camille (Olga Kurylenko) whereby the duo get involved in a long speedboat action spectacle. All this in the first 30 minutes before Bond flies to Austria and has the entire evil scheme exposed to him in a perfunctory theatrical performance at the stunning Bregenzer festival within the Seebühne theatre that sits on a lake. Real life detectives and secret agents would be so lucky to have the entire nefarious scheme plainly told to them without an ounce of sleuthing.

Make no mistake, even if you love exciting sequences this is excessive and glosses over the fact that when the true narrative thrust appears it’s so underdeveloped and ignored that it basically makes little sense. While it is refreshing to see a villain whose scheme is not an overtly megalomaniacal one based on taking over the world or deploying some sort of super powered weapon like a space laser, Quantum’s machinations to basically monopolize Bolivia’s water supply are about as exciting as Craig’s taciturn visage throughout the movie. The film makes a rather unconvincing attempt at displaying world geopolitics in motion vis a vis the CIA knowing about Quantum’s regime change tactic but it’s never expanded upon except to show morally upstanding American agent Felix Leiter (Jeffrey Wright) warn Bond of his own countries’ greed.

Screenwriters Paul Haggis, Neal Purvis and Robert Wade do attempt some salient juxtapositions such as the one between new girl, Camille (Olga Kurylenko) and Bond himself both of which are motivated by a strong sense of vengeance for past deeds. The issue however, is in its execution as expository screentime is as sparse as water in a desert. Though Kurylenko makes a fetching partner, the film makes the error of introducing her and then proceeding to split the duo apart for a huge section of the film as Bond goes off on his own tangent. Along the way he meets the requisite second girl, this time a British consulate aide named Strawberry Fields (Gemma Arterton) who seems thrown into the mix for no discernable reason but to give Bond a chance to bed someone. I must admit that the particular sequence in question is one of the most awkwardly dim-witted romantic teases I’ve ever seen and boils down to Bond saying, “I can’t find any stationary,” while giving Agent Fields a teasing glance. 30 seconds later while the duo are in bed she’s already lamenting that she was too weak to resist his overture. Now, why didn’t I use that excuse back in high school? Who would have thought that the lack of paper would act like a babe magnet? If only I had a time machine…

Of course, we all know the formula and what happens to Bond’s secondary girls and in a homage to previous films Quantum doesn’t disappoint except for the fact that the reveal comes off as stilted and leaves no impression whatsoever. Without ruining the scene just compare it to its more famous counterpart and you’ll be left with the impression that the screenwriters threw it in as nothing more than a token wink.

Being a direct sequel the movie also is heavily reliant on knowledge from the previous film. In short, those who never saw Casino Royale are going to feel incredibly lost amongst the various plot threads that openly link back to Craig’s Bond debut. While one can attempt to watch outright action there’s just no way that someone will get engaged with Bond’s revenge motive without an understanding of what got him to this position in the first place. Not to mention, other Casino Royale elements are included such as the character of René Mathis (Giancarlo Giannini) whom Bond contacts as a last resort while on the run from MI6. Without knowing his connection to Bond most viewers will likely scratch their heads wondering just who this person is and why he’s important to the redemption undertones.

The best Bond movies feature a convincing villain who matches wits mano a mano with our hero. This time around Dominic Greene’s Mathieu Amalric is nothing more than a weaselly corporate suit more at ease with political machinations than physical violence. Not since Jonathan Pryce’s media mogul turn in Tomorrow Never Dies has a Bond villain been this non-threatening. That is not to say Greene is phoning in his performance as there’s nothing wrong with a paper pusher but without a significant heavy as a sidekick or bodyguard at his side watching Greene flail away with a hatchet in a vain attempt to kill Bond is like watching an ant facing off against the sole of your steel toe boot. Not to mention, due to Bond’s bull in a China shop mentality he never manages to dig deeper into Quantum to discover just what exactly the fate of the free world is up against. I suppose that will be left for the inevitable sequel.

Director Marc Forster was an odd choice to helm this movie but his past work on truly dramatic films such as Monster’s Ball or Stranger Than Fiction that coaxed intimately restrained yet poignant performances out of Halle Berry and even the usually manic Will Farrell bode well for Quantum as most expected him to focus on character drama. Yet, he has done the polar opposite and turned his attention to action leaving his stylistic background on the editing floor. The result can tactfully be called an incoherent jumble with a high degree of rapid cuts and machine gun edits that basically shred any action sequence into millisecond shots that carry no significance. Even a basic car chase that opens the film is rendered impossible to follow as Forster never bothers to slow his editing down to give the audience a better idea of the location. Each car involved begins to resemble the other every so often intercut with a close up of Craig’s sweaty face as he attempts to weave his way through the traffic. Wider establishing shots are woefully underused instead replaced by countless tight shots of henchmen aimlessly shooting rounds or wheels spinning on the concrete.

Some of the action indeed also makes little sense such as the spectacular hotel in the middle of the desert that blows up in sequence as each room detonates as if on a timer even though a violent fire is suppose to be raging in the entire structure or the plane chase through deserted canyons that does nothing but further emphasize how bad a shot Bond villains truly are. Of note to producers, please keep excessive CG out of a movie as much as possible or use some nifty stunt teams as watching atrociously formatted green screen work in a movie that is suppose to highlight realism seem hypocritical.

Perhaps Quantum’s biggest faux pas is that it just does not feel at all like a James Bond movie. Replace Daniel Craig with Jason Statham and you’d barely notice. It’s commendable that the filmmakers are trying to shy away from Bond stereotypes such as an excessive use of gadgets, location shoots that make you want to run out and book your next vacation, or Bond bedding a hundred women but by stripping all of these aesthetics away the audience is left with a movie that could feature Jean Claude Van Damme or Steven Seagal albeit with a bigger budget. What exactly are the producers trying to say to the public when one of their major selling points boils down to Bond girl Camille being the first woman that Bond does not seduce? Is that such a big deal in this day and age? There’s nothing wrong with a true partnership amongst equals but Camille is no cold-blooded killer differing to Bond for advice during tough situations. Olga Kurylenko certainly exudes enough sexual energy and poutiness to melt an iceberg and makes a good companion for Bond but her lack of overall screentime and presence that does not affect the overall plot make one yearn for a better narrative that could better integrate her character into the proceedings.

Taken as nothing more than a standard action ensemble, Quantum of Solace might pass the mustard but coming after the vaunted Casino Royale this is a massive step backwards. Bond fans shouldn’t fret as this is not on the level of Timothy Dalton’s disastrous License to Kill but they should at least be concerned with the overall direction of the franchise if the producers veer the formula into being nothing more than a mainstream action blockbuster. Lacking any sort of dry wit or marked sense of exuberance this Bond is incredibly stale and lifeless. Although it has a short 106 minute running time it certainly feels as if three monotonous hours of ill-conceived action that is suppose to excite has instead taken a jack hammer to your brain leaving you less than content and most wanting to make a bee line to your local pharmacist for a large dose of aspirin.

** out of ****

2008, USA/UK, 106 Minutes, PG-13, MGM
Directed by Marc Forster
Screenplay by Paul Haggis, Neal Purvis, Robert Wade
Produced by Barbara Broccoli & Michael G. Wilson
Executive producer: Callum McDougall & Anthony Waye
Original Music by David Arnold
Cinematography by Roberto Schaefer
Film Editing by Matt Chesse & Richard Pearson

James Bond: Daniel Craig
Camille: Olga Kurylenko
Dominic Greene: Mathieu Amalric
M: Judi Dench
René Mathis: Giancarlo Giannini
Strawberry Fields: Gemma Arterton
Felix Leiter: Jeffrey Wright
Gregg Beam: David Harbour
Mr. White: Jesper Christensen
Elvis: Anatole Taubman
Bill Tanner: Rory Kinnear
Foreign Secretary: Tim Pigott-Smith
General Medrano: Joaquín Cosio
Colonel of Police: Fernando Guillén Cuervo
Lieutenant Orso: Jesús Ochoa
Gemma: Lucrezia Lante della Rovere
Henry Mitchell: Glenn Foster
Guy Haines: Paul Ritter

© 2009 The Galactic Pillow