Never Say Never Again - Where to Begin?

Never Say Never Again stars Sean Connery, 12 years after he appeared in Diamonds Are Forever and vowed to never play James Bond again. The film was released by an independent studio - not the one that released all previous Bond movies - as a result of a legal battle over film rights to one Ian Flemming novel. Thus, in 1983, we had two competing 007 movies. I had never seen this one, but it is in every way superior to Roger Moore's Octopussy, also released in 1983.

As the plot of this film is essentially the same as every James Bond movie made before Casino Royale, I am not going to recap it in any detail. Rather, I will be letting the movie tell itself.

The movie opens with SPECTRE stealing some nuclear warheads from the US Navy. The leader of SPECTRE, Blofeld, is played by Oscar-winner Max Von Sydow.

And you know what? He doesn't have to open his eyes when he talks. He's number one! SPECTRE uses this US Navy goober - who also played Superman's rival for Lana Lang in Superman III - to steal the nukes.

Don't get too attached. He's going to be murdered shortly after this.

Fifty-two at the time of filming, Sean Connery's 007 is re-enlisted to help the British retrieve those nuclear warheads! M's first order for 007? Checking into a health spa to get back in shape.

Naturally, there's a shootout there. Bond tracks down a lead and meets an attractive young woman in Jamiaca. Unfortunately, she works for SPECTRE. Bond is unaware, so they sleep together and then go scuba diving because they're in the tropics! She tries to kill him with sharks ...

... who are no match for closing doors! Bond is rescued by a helpful female agent. "Now that you're here, I hope we're going to have some gratuitous sex and violence." They promptly sleep together.

Bond then meets Domino (Kim Basinger) who is dating Maximillian Largo, a millionaire who is heading up the nuke-theft operation.

She is also the sister of the Navy goober. It's complicated. Bond uses her to find out where Largo will be and meets him there that night. (At this point, Bond and Domino have not slept together.) Instead, Largo challenges Bond to a game that he invented. It's like if Atari made a video game version of Risk. "The game is called domination. I designed it myself. The problem is that I've never found a worthy adversary."

Naturally, Bond wins. Instead of the $250,000 that had been at stake, 007 chooses as his prize a dance with Domino. Largo - not at all a crazy, evil sociopath - is nonplussed. Meanwhile, the SPECTRE lady is still trying to kill Bond. She ends up killing the first 007 lover from the film then chases Bond around a scenic town.

He survives the chase and the two have a climatic showdown in which Bond kills her.

If you're counting at home, both women Bond has slept with in the movie are now dead. So ... not the best survival rate.

Bond returns to Largo's estate and kisses Domino in front of him to "get a rise out of him." Indeed he does. Largo does what we'd all do in that situation. He ties her up and auctions her off to the highest bidder among a group of generic Arab men.

We've all been there. Love is a nasty game. And to be fair, he did tell her earlier in the movie if she ever left him, he'd kill her.  Bond manages to escape and rescues her. They sleep together but SPOILERS she doesn't die! The survival rate among Bond's lovers has now climbed to 33%, which I think we can all agree is very strong.

Bond and the US Navy track down Largo and the nuclear weapons, which are for some reason underground in a cave.

The Navy and Bond take the cave, but Largo escapes in a helicopter. So Felix, who in this movie actually helps Bond and isn't just a character to give the audience exposition, flies with Bond. Using 1980s jet packs.

Come on. Even at 52 years old, Bond is having a blast.

Bond chases Largo under the water. For some reason the US Navy - tasked with defending our country by using water warfare - does not follow. Luckily, and inexplicably, Domino is there. And she shoots Largo with a harpoon just in time to save Bond's life.

Even she seems surprised to be there.

Mission accomplished, Bond celebrates with Domino back at the hotel. Mr. Bean surprises Bond, who tosses him in the pool.

Mean old 007! Mr. Bean is only there to ask if you'll come back and work in her majesty's service again. "Never," he says, as the movie's title track comes on. "Never. Never. Never say never again." And Bond, 20 years into puns and all manner of sexual references, for the first time ever, looks at the camera and winks.

Whew. What a ride.

This movie was fun and didn't take itself too seriously. It was a pleasure to see Sean Connery back in the role he brought to life, and, as difficult as the plot was to follow in some parts, the story was no more crazy than any other Bond movie before it. I'm going to go ahead and give this movie 4 Patrick Swayze abs.

Extra abs

• Sean Connery was 52 years old in this movie and is still shirtless in, I'd wager, 30% of the scenes. Dude got it.
• Irvin Kirshner directed this. He also directed Empire Strikes Back, so you'll never hear me speak ill of him.
• I still can't get over the ending of this movie. BOND WINKS AT THE CAMERA. That's probably the best way for Connery to, finally, say good-bye to the role.

Beverly Hills Cop - Where everything is by the book until it's not.

Beverly Hills Cop wasn't Eddie Murphy's first movie. It wasn't even his first action/cop/buddy movie. It certainly isn't his funniest movie, but it's probably my favorite. The film doesn't have many holes: the supporting cast (led by Judge Reinhold) is superb, the villain is irredeemably evil in that perfect 1980s way, Murphy's character is funny and always right without being smug or condescending. Even the theme song is great and probably one of the best of any movie ever. And unlike 48 Hrs., when the characters find themselves in conflict, there's never any doubt that they respect and want to help each other. It's not awkward or stuck in its time, even 30 years later.

Axel Foley is a Detroit police officer who has a tendency to play by his own rules. (Most 1980s movie police officers did this. In fact I can't think of a single 1980s cop movie where the cop played by the actual rules. Even RoboCop, who isn't even a man, played by his own rules to bring down the corruption in the Detroit Police Department. But I digress.) After his old friend is murdered outside Foley's apartment, Foley takes time off and drives to Beverly Hills, where Mikey had been working and had stolen some counterfeit bonds.



Foley immediately gets in trouble after visiting Victor Maitland, for whom Mikey had worked. After asking a few questions, Maitland has him literally thrown from the building - through the window on the first floor, too. The Beverly Hills PD pick him up on charges of disturbing the peace. "Disturbing the peace? I got thrown out a window! What's the charge for being thrown out of a moving car? Jaywalking?"

The BHPD tell him to leave Maitland alone. "In Beverly Hills we go strictly by the book." So we know nothing will go by the book. Two cops, Sgt. Taggert and Det. Billy Rosewood (Reinhold), are charged with following Foley and making sure he stays out of trouble. Foley manages to elude them (he orders them room service from his hotel and while they are being served, stuffs a few bananas in the tailpipe) and continue his investigation with the help of a mutual friend, Jenny, in pure 80s womanhood.

Taggert and Rosewood, very much in trouble for losing Foley the previous night, try again the following night. Foley takes the direct route and rides with them to a "bar I know," which turns out to be a strip club. Foley senses something bad is about to go down and enlists the help of Taggert and Rosewood to capture the two would-be thieves. He even tries to give them full credit for the arrest, endearing himself to both of them and their boss, but they come clean because they play by the book, not their own rules. (At least not yet.)

Foley finds out that Maitland is smuggling drugs - among other things - and bribing US Customs officials to get his stuff into the country. Unfortunately, he and Jenny are captured in the warehouse. Rosewood saves Foley and follows Rosewood, who has kidnapped Jenny, to his home. Taggert meets him there and they break onto the grounds. A nice series of gun battles erupt until Lt. Bogoman shows up to shoot Maitland and save Foley's life.

The Chief of Police shows up and Bogoman invents a story to protect Foley. Taggert and Rosewood follow his lead, and pretty soon, the book is out the window. Everyone lives happily ever after! At least until the sequels. (And apparently they're making a fourth one now ... yikes.)

Beverly Hills Cop is just a fun, buddy-cop film, in stark contrast to 48 Hrs. In this one, while the good guys don't always get along, they at least know they want the same thing. They treat each other with respect, sprinkled with healthy, good-natured ribbing. Everyone on the BHPD is likeable and not just a stereotype or one-note character. Moreover, you absolutely believe that Foley would be able to convince these people he's known for only a few days to trust him enough to break the rules to bring down a villain they don't really know much about. It's fun, it has some good action scenes, and Murphy is eminently enjoyable. This one gets a strong Ab rating:

Extra abs

• While Foley first gets to Beverly Hills and walks around town, there are 2 dudes wearing leather jump suits very similar to the one Murphy wore in his stand-up movie, Delirious. Foley laughs at them.

• That's a pretty graphic murder of Mikey. It's a long shot from down the hall, as the henchman holds him down and shoots him in the back of the head. It's striking in that it is so different from the tone of the rest of the movie, making the killing all the more shocking. I think it helps make Foley's determination to solve the case and bring his killer to justice easier to understand.
• Hey look! It's Breaking Bad's Mike again! This time he's bad, but he meets the same fate as his character in 48 Hrs.

• $235/night for the hotel? And it's one of the cheaper hotels in town? Remind me not to go there.
• "Foul-mouthed? F*** you!"
• This movie is everything I love about the 8os. That hair, the poofy, pushed up jacket sleeves and shoulder pads. And the soundtrack is awesome.

License to Kill - where a license isn't really necessary

License to Kill (1989) is an amazing movie in that it exists. Timothy Dalton’s second and last turn as James Bond, the film opens with the interruption of the wedding for Felix, Bond’s CIA buddy. The pair arrive late to the wedding having captured – midair – a drug lord (Franz Sanchez, played by Robert Davi) who, naturally, breaks out, tortures Felix with a shark and kills his new bride just hours after the ceremony. This isn’t your father’s Bond. The usually calm 007 spends the movie vengefully tracking down those responsible and, even with his license revoked, kills liberally throughout.

License to Kill combines many of the best parts of James Bond with the 1980s and does so much more successfully than the last two Roger Moore films, Octopussy and A View to a Kill. Those fantastic Bond motifs include: needlessly elaborate villainous plots (here: drug deals involving televangelist Professor Joe Butcher), cheesy fake blood, sharks as weapons, a villain named Killifer, a girl working for the villain whom Bond turns, and an impossibly expansive, secret villain compound where Bond is initially a guest but is soon placed into overly-complicated scenarios to escape from (spoiler: he escapes).

The film is also darker than anything Sean Connery or Roger Moore did, certainly influenced by other 80s action movies that trafficked in moody, brooding heroes and cruel, maniacal antagonists. Bond even has a male sidekick for once when one of Felix’s CIA buddies insists on helping him track down the drug kingpin. Dalton uses fewer puns and one-liners than previous Bonds, but really, was he going to say “He really put his best foot forward!” after his friend loses a leg to a shark?

The performances are precisely what you’d expect from a Bond movie. Dalton is confident in the role, even if he lacks some of the charm that Connery originally brought to the character. Davi and Benicio Del Toro are manic, deranged, and menacing as the drug lords, and the Bond girls, Pam Bouvier and Lupe Lamora, make for strong, gun-toting female companions, even if their characters are a little underdeveloped. (Shocking for a Bond movie, I know.)

License to Kill is a fun movie, but by no means a great movie. While it’s darker than all other Bond movies (before the Daniel Craig trilogy, at least), the film lacks any real nuance and seems to relish finding horrible, gruesome ways for people to die for no reason other than shock value. The action scenes are crazy, of course, and there’s plenty of gunplay and explosions to keep everyone happy. The plot, while more comprehensible than some silly Bond plots before it, still relies on villains doing stupid things and being unable to just shoot Bond in the head when given the chance. But if you went to a Bond movie in 1989 expecting something else, you clearly hadn’t seen the previous 15 movies.

For some reason, the film killed the Bond franchise for six years and marked the end of Dalton’s brief, two-movie run as 007. Goofy and over-the-top at times, License to Kill is still a good James Bond movie, and Dalton made for a good, if unique, James Bond.

License to Kill: 4 of Patrick Swayze’s 6 abs

Extra abs

-       There are actually black people in this movie who aren’t waiters or bellhops, another welcome departure from previous Bond movies.

-       Bond does it all in this one: he flies, he drives, he runs, he swims, he kills, he womanizes, and he wins.

-       Sanchez learns that one of his cronies has been stealing from him. Instead of shooting him, he throws him in one of his ships decompression chambers, turns up the pressure, then cuts the vent. The guy’s head expands and explodes. Science!

-       There are a few good one-liners. Bond, after his license is revoked and asked to turn in his pistol: “A farewell to arms, then.” Even his jokes are based on melancholy, bleak 20^th-century literature.

-       Other possible one-liners for Felix losing a leg:

o   “He always wanted to take a bite out of crime.”

o   “He was never afraid to go out on a limb.”

o   “Have any legs? Go fish.”

-       This was the last movie in which Desmond Llewelyn played Q. I’m sure he’s building exploding watches for Jesus in Heaven as we speak.

Top Gun - where the danger zone is everywhere

Top Gun is that rare movie where things that shouldn’t work actually make the movie better. The acting is incredibly over the top, the plot makes little sense, the villains are faceless and ambiguous (we never actually know where the MIGs are from), and series of implausible events (and timely exposition) pop up out of nowhere to move the plot forward and the characters wherever they need to end up. And yet, I can’t help loving this movie.

I admit a lot of it is probably nostalgia. I can’t count the number of times I saw this movie growing up back when I didn’t really care about huge plot holes or that characters’ motivations turned on a dime. It’s the quintessential 80s blockbuster: an incredible soundtrack (“something something DANGER ZONE!” as Archer would say); a moody protagonist fighting demons (think Lethal Weapon with far fewer suicidal tendencies); an unsurprising lack of minorities; one-note, underdeveloped antagonists (seriously – you can’t even see their eyes!); a shouting authority figure who reluctantly accepts the foolishness of the movie’s lead (Beverly Hills Cop, Lethal Weapon again); and a final battle scene where we think the protagonist’s demons will overwhelm him, only to see him triumph over evil once and for all (every Rocky sequel). Cliché, cheesy, and oh so enjoyable.

Maverick (Tom Cruise) is a hot shot Navy pilot serving in the Middle East with his partner, Goose (Anthony Edwards), who has an encounter with a mysterious enemy “MIG” aircraft before being sent to Top Gun, flight school for the best of the best. There they will train with other pilots for the title of Top Gun, a very prestigious award whose winner will be immortalized on a plague almost no one will see. Maverick also has daddy issues; his father died in a mysterious incident a few years back, and the official story is it was all his fault. This comes up a few times, so you would be correct in assuming this hang over the movie until the last possible minute, when the plot requires that he find out the truth.

At Top Gun, Maverick falls for his female instructor, a specialist in MIGs, and battles his main rival Ice Man (Val Kilmer – he’s everywhere!) both in the air and on the volleyball court. You remember this volleyball scene: three shirtless men sweating and hugging a lot and trying to include Anthony Edwards, who unfortunately didn’t the shirtless memo. The fun is short lived as Maverick and Goose go down in a training exercise in which Goose somehow dies. Maverick is devastated and basically drops out of Top Gun. He meets with the head guy (and also first Top Gun winner!), who tells him that he both has enough credits to graduate (sure) and that he was there – the accident was not his father’s fault and he in fact died heroically. It’s unclear why no one can know about this, but I assume it’s so we can see a moody, hilariously depressed Tom Cruise bumble around for a few scenes.

Coincidentally, there is a MIG attack during graduation, and the only hope are the new graduates. Ice Man, newly crowned Top Gun, takes the lead and Maverick is called in as back up, should the other planes need it. Naturally, they do. Ice Man doesn’t trust Maverick, but when it’s clear the MIGs outnumber the good guys, the Navy sends in a single backup jet (Maverick’s) and he of course saves the day. They return to the carrier to much rejoicing, and Ice Man and Maverick hug. “You can be my wingman any day!” Maverick also throws his father’s dog tags, which he’s worn around his neck and on his shoulders, into the ocean because SYMBOLISM!

This is a Michael Bay movie, so subtlety is prohibited. There’s also amble machismo, little diversity, and only two women in the movie. But sometimes, you just feel the need. The need for speed. This is a brainless, thoroughly enjoyable escape. The flight scenes are done remarkably well, and I remember hearing years ago they borrowed actual Navy jets (and had to promise not to crash any.) It’s amazing what a difference using real equipment makes in a movie; in the age of CGI, over-the-top effects, this movie is a nice throwback to the days of real stunts with real machines. Even if the acting and story are hard to believe, the action sequences are very enjoyable. This movie succeeds because of the cheese, not in spite of it, and it holds up remarkably well as a piece of 1980s, cold war action.

Top Gun: 4 of Patrick Swayze’s 6 abs