vindana

disclaimer - no matter how much this movie disappointed the franchise fans, i still believe Daniel Craig is the best Bond ever.

now the movie, a B grade Bourne,compared to the super spy trilogy. Bourne's action sequences were superior clearer and more effective. where in the QOS the movie toned a nice pace throughout, but the clean fighting between Bond and enemies were somewhat similar to Hulk's adventures in Ang Lee's direction.

it is little bit sad that the contemporary Bond continue to deviate from the original series personality. This Bond mind you blows you away with his charisma,charm and toughness like the predecessors never did. But that could sum up as the only good thing about QOS. That is Daniel Craig's enormous appeal carries the movie, where people forget the conventional Bond and enjoy the (bourne again) James carry out his missions in style of a new generation.

the story, anti climax ending lacked a punch. And the girls were fresh but limited to erotic engagements which Bond is an expert of. The bad guys have become unauthentic and monotonous. Marc Foster has done good work in his previous efforts but this may seem a totally different ballpark for him to score freely. with Craig's arrival Casino Royale turned out to be a pleasant surprise. QOS has given fans too much to worry about, the next Bond outing will have a lot to catch up if fans are to find some Solace.

Fairy tales have their roots in very old, very deep human fears. Guillermo Del Toro mercilessly teases out those fears in his ambitious, glorious and harrowing adult fairy tale Pan's Labyrinth. It is rich, both in metaphorical terms and in literal ones. Del Toro's imagery is so vivid and concrete that it's likely to change the color of your sleep. The movie's meanings emerge from its visuals instead of being driven by them. Del Toro has mastered the delicate, difficult feat of using pure sensation to make us think. Pan's Labyrinth is a film of breathtaking emotional, thematic and visual depth. It brilliantly melds the disparate realms of fairy tale and brutal 20th century history into a most affecting film. While Pan's Labyrinth has many fairy tale elements, don't think for one moment that it is a movie for kids. It's a magical, frightening and heartbreaking movie for adults who want to take the journey deep into the reality that outgrows fantasy. Writer/director Guillermo Del Toro fills the movie with themes of growing up, facing the ugliness around you, making decisions about what you stand for and will to do for right and justice. Also, he brilliantly mixes the two stories, showing the audience how these very adult themes and situations are playing out on a child's level. Ofelia the affectionate protagonist is a fatherless Spanish girl whose mother marries a captain in General Isimo Francisco Franco's army, around 1944. When Ofelia and her pregnant mothers' car stops on the journey to the mountain camp where Capt. Vidal is leading a campaign against rebels, the girl slips away. She follows an odd insect on the way to the outpost. Ofelia discovers an ancient pagan idol, awakening what seems to be a fairy. At the outpost itself the fairy leads the girl to a maze that stands behind the main building. This labyrinth, we're told, predates Christianity. And deep in its heart lives a satyr who tells Ofelia that she's the lost princess of the fairy realm, and gives her three tasks to accomplish before she can return home. The insect/fairy from the forest returns to Ofelia while her mother is sleeping. The girl follows the tiny creature to an ancient labyrinth. She descends a spiral of stone steps and meets the Faun. From hence forward, Ofelia lives in two worlds. Both of them contain monsters. Unlike many conventional Hollywood filmmakers, Del Toro doesn't underestimate an audience's ability to witness the reality of war and the avenue it provides to the most brutal of men. This is the start of something both magical and deadly serious. The coldness of Ofelia's stepfather is revealed the instant she greets him at the camp. His cruelty deepens as the story moves forward. Ofelia doesn't see the worst of the captain's wickedness, but she knows he and the camp are symptoms of a world gone mad. Being a little girl, though, she has few options. Little Ofelia is called upon to do brave things and make tough choices. Del Toro's genius in casting can be reflected with the actor Sergi Lopez, who brought an evil charm and frightening reality to Captain Vidal, while Del Toros' writing has given his character enough flesh to be recognized as a human being. Vidal isn't being the prototype villain here just to fill the story like most current Hollywood movies. He isn't being evil for the sake of being evil. He is idealistic about his cause and a true believer in his action. Which he thinks is right regardless of the contradictory view of the audience. He is a foster child of a fascist system, a heartless monster whose blind obedience to an inhumane ideology which, allows him to indulge many of his worst impulses to the maximum. Ivana Baquero delivers a stunning performance as young girl facing horrible realities of a cruel environment but with full of optimism that she is meant for a different better life. According to her it's not wishful thinking. While watching Baquero's age defying performance, it's almost unbelievable the capacity of a child her age to generate such power and realism into a character that basically carries a whole movie. Ophelia is as much of a believer like her evil counterpart. Her beliefs are deeply rooted into fairies and she follows the satyr sans his creepy outlook. The fact that she makes mistakes, as everyone does, makes her all the more appealing. But unlike Vidal, she isn't a conformist even as a child. She isn't blindly obedient to the satyr and at the end doing exact opposite of what she is told, shows the path for her salvation. This dear child earns movie watchers' love and admiration. Ivana Baquero endows Ofelia with the vulnerability, intelligence and spunk the character needs. She's wonderfully effective and the camera embraces her. Comparing to Del Toro's previous work, Pan's Labyrinth can be viewed as a sequel to "The Devils Backbone", which happened to be his best outing on previous efforts. His storyline returns to Spanish civil war. The action takes place in a cruelly regimented and socially isolated world. In The Devil's Backbone Del Toro wove his ghost story very tightly into the Spanish civil war setting where in Pan's Labyrinth the fairy tale echoes and reflects the happenings going on during the same period with experiences related to Captain Vidal. The stories aren't separate and in fact they're totally complementary. Pan's Labyrinth is another rare movie experience that works equally well on intellectual and emotional levels. It is a movie that will challenge the view in some ways and will reinforce your own beliefs in other ways. This film drives the viewer to rethink his/her own perspective of a happy ending. At the end it can't be said, Pan's Labyrinth is without hope of goodwill for the humans involved in the story. But with the skill of Del Toro, it is shown that their journey to at least a partial victory is possible but not without sacrifice.

My personal favorite of the brilliant tripod, Alfonso Cuaron succeeded in making Children of Men, the most realistic science fiction, futuristic piece of cinema created in modern times. Cuaron was on top of his game while creating this extremely believable near future dystopia. Personally I was fascinated with Cuaron's previous work, such as Great Expectations, a Little Princess, Y tu Mama Tambien and his biggest challenge to date, Harry Potter and Prisoner of Azkaban. Needless to say, I was an eagerly awaiting viewer of Cuarons' next project; because I was convinced it will be an experience which gives the pleasure of seeing a true artist at top of his game. Just as I presumed, I was richly rewarded with the spellbinding Children of Men. Cuaron just like the rest of his Mexican brethren has the ability to write good screenplays and he succeeded on a 1992 novel by P.D. James set in 2027 in battle-battered England. The only country left to soldier on in the face of massive terrorism, immigrant invasion and global infertility. The story is simple. It is 2027 and women have become unable to bare children and the world has not seen a new born for the past 18 years. On the brink of extinction of humanity, the world has turned into chaos. Without new offspring to replenish the ranks of humanity, riots and mass immigration become the focal problems of a government hell bent on restoring some semblance of order by any means necessary. In the middle of all that, an ex liberal activist named Theo now working as a bureaucrat, must somehow guide the only pregnant woman to be discovered to an organization run by scientists named the Human Project. The revival of the world lies with the baby to be born to an African immigrant. As the movie suggests throughout its run, a lot can be said for the hope of humanity in a child. In Children of Men, Cuaron does something the Hollywood filmmakers continuously fail to achieve in modern day. He fills 24 frames with passion and intellect every second of the movie. Children of Men is a rare motion picture experience that grab you tight, pop your eyes, provoke you mind and lift your spirits. From the moment the movie starts, Cuaron has brought a dazzling dystopian thriller to life. Namely because his vision of a world none to far away is never as cold and futuristic as to suspend belief. Every detail reeks of misery and suffering boiling just beneath the surface and every camera shot evokes a world so like our own. It has the power to take your breath away. Cuaron has crafted an explosion of storytelling that is equal parts adrenaline and intellect. Even if you view this movie from several different angles, political, scientific, social, or even realistic, the result would be the same. That result being, Alfonso Cauron has succeeded in making the most important film of this young century. Children of Men richly rewards and deepens our understanding. Cuaron, invoking shattered landscapes from Beirut to Baghdad, is dedicated to locating shards of humanity among the ruins. But in the small details that measure what our planet has lost, is it possible to capture the terrible absence of a world without children? Cuaron does it. No movie in the last year is more redolent of sorrowful beauty and exhilarating action. You don't just watch the scene (shot with a hand-held camera) in which Theo (protagonist, Kee (pregnant African Immigrant) and other passengers jammed in a car, are attacked from all sides. You live inside it, ducking each fresh, ferocious assault. The technique disappears to envelop you in the moment. That's Cuaron's magic, and it's exhilarating. But Cuaron has a gift only the greatest filmmakers share, he makes you believe. I can only hope that we, "flesh 'n' blood" characters can manage to avoid such a bleakly dystopian future. The film has one of the best stories associated with a movie in the past 20 years. Plus the soundtrack is wonderful. In a generation where the movie industry is all about sequels, monster movie stars and crappy story lines, this movie is a breath of fresh air among stale bread. This is the ultimate pro-life statement. The climax portrays the kind of reverence for life that we all should have. The movie shows what the future will be, if we continue down the road we are going. It does that with the same kind of insight and shock value of George Orwell's1984. The cinematography, the pacing, the characters all combined to create a mostly recognizable and somewhat believable (although entirely pessimistic) setting in the not too distant future. The world depicted in the movie was based on familiar images ripped from today's headlines and projected forward to their most bleak and hopeless outcomes. The themes of uncontrolled terrorism and mistrust of illegal aliens feel kind of tacked on but do give us a setting for the story that we can place ourselves in. Director of photography Emmanuel Lubezki, a weaver of visual miracles, and Cuaron do a fantastic job of keeping the viewer at the center of the action throughout the story. Even the main character's anti-hero portrayal helps keep the movie emotionally and intellectually grounded. The visualization is amazing. The script is amazing. The actors and actresses are amazing. The action is tense, and the drama is enthralling. In my personal opinion, the "Children of Men" contains some of the most electrifying sequences you will ever see in cinematic history. The true horror of the film: the dystopian future of the movie is very much rooted in our present.