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Showing posts from September, 2021

Review - Skyfall (2012) and Spectre (2015)

        Hey guys, Chuck here. Well, we've got two more James Bond  movies to cover before the release of No Time to Die, so let's dive on into them. Skyfall , released in 2012 , and Spectre , released in 2015, were both directed by Sam Mendes, and both star the likes of Daniel Craig as Bond, Ben Whishaw as Q, Rory Kinnear as Bill Tanner, and Naomie Harris and Ralph Fiennes. Skyfall also marks the last time we have Judi Dench in the series as M, but we'll get to that in a moment.          So, Skyfall opens with Bond, along with a new field agent named Eve, going after an assassin named Patrice, who has killed fellow MI6 agent Ronson and stolen a data drive containing the list of every NATO agent embedded in terrorist cells around the globe. While Bond chases Patrice onto a train, Eve gets ahead of them and gets into a sniping position. Unfortunately, she doesn't have a clean shot, and is ordered to shoot anyway despite the risk of Bond taking the bullet instead of Patric

Review - Casino Royale (2006) & Quantum of Solace (2008)

        Hey guys, Chuck here. Well, as we here in the United States are a week and a half from the release of No Time to Die,  it's time for me to dive into the Daniel Craig era of the James Bond  series with Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace . Directed respectively by Martin Campbell (director of GoldenEye ) and Marc Forster, these two films are paired together for this review mainly because Quantum of Solace serves as a direct sequel to Casino Royale . This marks the first time that this sort of thing has happened in the Bond series. So, let's start with Casino Royale .            Casino Royale opens with Bond, still a rookie MI6 agent, going after a corrupt MI6 section chief named Dryden, as well as his contact, and kills them both, earning his 007 number is the process. Yeah, I should mention that Casino Royale is essentially a reboot of the Bond series due to the lackluster critical and audience response to Die Another Day , which was Pierce Brosnan's last outing as

Review - GoldenEye (1995)

        Hey guys, Chuck here. Well, after the release of The Man with the Golden Gun,  Roger Moore continued on as James Bond for five more films: The Spy Who Loved Me, Moonraker, For Your Eyes Only, Octopussy, and A View to a Kill . Shortly after that, Timothy Dalton took on the Bond role for two movies: The Living Daylights and License to Kill . Now, while Dalton was set to take on the role for a third time, a barrage of legal and financial issues led to endless delays, and the future of the James Bond  series uncertain. Until, in 1994, a teaser trailer was released in theaters, announcing a new Bond film with a new actor as James Bond: Pierce Brosnan. And the name of that film was GoldenEye .                GoldenEye opens with Bond infiltrating a Soviet weapons facility in Arkhangelsk, and meets up with fellow MI6 agent Alec Trevelyan aka 006. The two head to destroy a massive weapons cache, but Alec is apprehended, and apparently killed, by the facility's leader Colonel Our

Review - The Man with the Golden Gun (1974)

        Hey guys, Chuck here. Well, as we inch closer and closer to the release of No Time to Die , it's time I talked about my personal favorite James Bond  film of the Roger Moore era: The Man with the Golden Gun .            So, the movie focuses on James Bond as he has apparently entered into the cross hairs of Francisco Scaramanga, a lethal assassin who uses golden bullets, lives on a private island near Thailand, and has three nipples. Because of this, M takes Bond off of a mission involving a major energy crisis, and allows him to go after Scaramanga before Scaramanga can kill him. Bond then heads to Beirut, where he meets a local belly dancer who was a former flame of Agent 002, who was also killed by Scaramanga, and the dancer kept the bullet as a decorative charm in her belly button. Bond gets it, and has to fight off some goons in an infamous scene where the camera crew can be seen in a reflection in a mirror.            Bond takes the bullet to be analyzed by Q, who sen

Review - Thunderball (1965)

       Hey guys, Chuck here. Well, as we get closer to the release of No Time to Die , it's time for me to take a look at my favorite Sean Connery era James Bond  film: Thunderball .              So the movie starts with James Bond at the funeral of Colonel Bouvar, who Bond realized faked his death, and Bond confronts the man, kills him, and makes his escape. After the main title sequence, with the theme song for the movie being performed by Tom Jones,  we meet Emilio Largo, who is the number two guy in the criminal organization known as SPECTRE, attend a meeting with the other big shots within SPECTRE. Here, Largo details a plan to steal a pair of atomic bombs and hold NATO hostage. Largo's plan apparently involves switching a French Air Force pilot named Francois Derval with a surgically altered imposter named Angelo Palazzi.           Bond, meanwhile, is called back to MI6, where M informs him and all of the other 00's of the situation, and assigns them to various locati

Review - Goldfinger (1964)

         Hey guys, Chuck here. Well, we're just a couple weeks away from the release of No Time to Die , the twenty-fifth entry of the James Bond  film series. Now, since there are so many of these movies, I don't have time to review every single one of them. So, instead, I'm going to give my thoughts on some of my favorite James Bond films from over the years. I do intend to review the all four films of the series that Daniel Craig has been in, as No Time to Die  will mark his fifth and final outing as 007. So, with that in mind, let's dive into a beloved classic Bond  film: Goldfinger.           So, the movie focuses on James Bond, played by Sean Connery, as he is informed of a potential link between a series of crimes and seemingly-legitimate jeweler Auric Goldfinger. Bond sneaks into Goldfinger's hotel room in Miami, where he meets and hooks up with Jill Masterson, who helps Goldfinger cheat at cards. After an evening together ends with Bond getting knocked out

Review - The Animatrix (2003)

          Hey guys, Chuck here. Well, the first official trailer is out for The Matrix Resurrections , and I can't begin to describe how excited I am for this movie. Well, right now I feel like discussing something related to The Matrix , but since I've already reviewed the three live-action movies, I think that I'm going to give my thoughts on The Animatrix . An anthology project released in 2003, The Animatrix consists of a series of anime shorts set in the world of The Matrix . There are quite a number of shorts in the collection, and I'd like to discuss theme here today. So, let's take a look at The Animatrix .          The first short is called " Final Flight of the Osiris ," which starts off with two people, Thaddeus and Jue, in a dojo simulation sparring with katanas, cutting off pieces of each other's clothing a little bit at a time. Unfortunately, the simulation is ended by a proximity alarm, and Thaddeus and his crew on the Osiris  run afoul

Review - Zack Snyder's Justice League (2021)

        Hey guys, Chuck here. Well, this review has been overdue, but definitely worth the wait. Zack Snyder's Justice League,  also known as "the Snyder Cut," is the 2021 released extended director's cut of the 2017 DC Comics' film Justice League , which stars Ben Affleck, Henry Cavill, Gal Gadot, Ezra Miller, Ray Fisher, and Jason Momoa, along with the likes of Ciaran Hinds, Jeremy Irons, Peter Guinness, Ray Porter, Amber Heard, Diane Lane, Amy Adams, J.K. Simmons, Willem Dafoe, Billy Crudup, Kiersey Clemons, and Connie Nielsen.           Now, I'm not going to break down the entire plot of the movie, due to the fact that I already did that when I reviewed the theatrical cut of the film last year. But, here's a quick summary: after the death of Superman, Bruce Wayne and Diana Prince assemble a team of individuals with superpowers to defend the Earth from invaders from the planet Apokolips. The team eventually resurrects Superman, who helps them save the w

Review - Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021)

        Hey guys, Chuck here. Well, I just got home from seeing the latest Marvel Studios film Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings , and I definitely have a lot of thoughts on this film, so let's talk about it.        The movie focuses on Shang-Chi, who is an ordinary man living in San Francisco, when his past ultimately catches up to him when a group of assassins from the clan known as the Ten Rings show up, and Shang-Chi ends up fighting them on a bus. After heading to Macau and reuniting with his sister, Xialing, the two siblings ultimately reunite with their father, Wenwu aka the Mandarin, who has a plan to rescue his deceased wife, who he believes is trapped by her people in the mythical land of Ta Lo. And, that's all I'm going to say about the plot, because this is definitely one that needs to be seen first hand.          Okay, I have to say that I definitely enjoyed the cast of the movie. Simu Liu was excellent as Shang-Chi, as was Awkwafina as his best friend