That's right, I said it.
I don't watch movies with the small angry Scientology man on principal.
I will continue to watch a giant tank blast through brick walls and go on a chase through St. Petersburg thank you.
Anyway, the superior spy movies are the Bourne movies. You get serious dumb guy energy from Matt Damon, every fight is choreographed to a level only seen in Chinese made Kung Fu movies, the character Bourne, refuses to kill unless there's no other option. Best part is, the CIA is the bad guy. I can watch Bourne movies on repeat and dream about the european "WEEEEWOOOOOOO WEEEEEEWOOOOOO" sirens every night.
Another person in this thread suggested the Bourne franchise. I'll have to check it out.
In a few days I may have a new hot take to post here.
I honestly really love those movies and it drives my wife nuts.
I don't want to steer you in a certain direction but its a cool flip on typical spy movies. He's considered property by the CIA, created as a weapon but experiencing amnesia. He has to figure out who he is while being hunted by the most powerful intelligence agency in the world. The only thing keeping him alive is the instincts instilled in him from the training that makes him such a valuable target. He's not trying to do double agent things, he's simply trying to find out who he is and why the CIA is after him, which makes the morality fairly clear cut.
The pacing of the movies is quick, extremely little dialogue so you don't need to think very much if you've had a long day. The fighting is fluid and impactful. I wouldn't call them kino by any stretch but they're amazing entertainment you don't have to feel guilty about enjoying.
hell yeah. i celebrate the entire bourne collection, including the jeremy renner spin off. there's something so elegant about how threatened the calculating NatSec puppetmasters are by one of their own tightly-wound, manufactured and monomaniacal enforcers rediscovering a lost humanity... and like, not even trying to Fight the Power, but just survive quietly outside their control.
i really enjoyed Legacy, the linkages with private sector pharmaceuticals, the predatory nature of the army in recruiting the intellectually disabled Kitsom and then later being inducted into the program after a TBI in iraq, all those little details that show how deeply connected and evil it all is. i hope they make more of them.
I haven't seen the renner spinoff but I'll give it a shot. I love my big dumb damon boy but I can try a movie staring a guy with a face who looks like a 5 hour old baby still reeling from being pushed out a far too small canal.
I need to rewatch the bourne movies again. I have a terrible memory for movie details, which is a blessing and a curse. I can't talk about movies or books in great detail but rewatching it still feels novel because I don't remember any of it. I have a talent for predicting what will happen in movies extremely early but that never works with movies I've seen oddly enough. I've seen the prestige probably 3 times and in my most recent watch, I remembered every scene as I watched it but did not remember the ending.
In terms of writing and acting absolutely yes, but it's ruined by the shaky cam, and it was the reason that every other movie for the next 10 years did the same shitty shaky cam.
I think the Bourne movies are also responsible for other big-budget action movies moving towards being more "gritty" and "realistic" too.
I like many of the changes, especially the improved car chase scenes and fight choreography, but I think the Bond movies especially take themselves too seriously.
Along with Austin Powers, Bourne's influence left us with the anti-cheesy Bond movies we have today. I would have rather had a campy Bond movie starring Idris Elba saying "Pussy Galore" and getting into gadget hijinks. They could still let Daniel Craig be silly to close out his run as Bond too, I think he feels the same way as me about the Bond films being too serious.
Eh, disagree. I hate shaky cam as much as the next guy, but that's because they're used to hide garbage choreography (like Liam Neeson's lack of physical prowess in Taken). In Bourne it's a conscious and educated decision that works within the movies.
first Mission is good but the whole ass series? nah. The Living Daylights is superior to most the later impossibles
i will say I've probably only seen a handful of the James Bonds
but I agree. I think the MI movies are real fun, even if i think TC is a little weirdo.
also I just want to fuck Henry Cavill with a mustache...
I actually don't like any of the Craig movies because they are trying to make something dumb and silly into something serious, and they don't do a great job at deconstructing it either because they are too preoccupied with still being Bond movies. The only good aspect is that they have fewer Cold War vibes. Kingsman was a better Bond movie than the Craig movies, fight me.
Casino Royale in particular I just don't understand why it is that well regarded, it is just a bad movie. Tbf Quantum of Solace is even worse but Casino Royale is really well regarded which confuses me. The plot makes no sense, especially its structure which is just all over the place. It's like a mish mash of a bunch of disconnected nonsense and mostly boring too.
The old Bonds are horribly problematic but at least they're more "sincere" for the most part.
Haven't seen Casino Royale, but I have seen the clip where they play Poker. It's the funniest shit: Bond wins not by successfully bluffing, but by magically having the best hand. This is not how Poker works!!!!111
I don't know how to play poker so these scenes were just incomprehensible for me. To their credit they were at least well directed enough that even then I could sort of figure out "ok so this is bad, this is good" etc.
Fuck my Internet acted up and now I have replied to you like 10 times lol
I enjoyed how you could tell all story making decisions were made by men through the singular act of James Bond immediately sleeping with a sex worker after she'd just revealed she'd been trafficked as a kid.
definitely Skyfall-
Spectre had the first time a Bond girl was older than Bond which is actually kinda cool but insane it took so long
I actually don't like any of the Craig movies because they are trying to make something dumb and silly into something serious, and they don't do a great job at deconstructing it either because they are too preoccupied with still being Bond movies. The only good aspect is that they have fewer Cold War vibes. Kingsman was a better Bond movie than the Craig movies, fight me.
Casino Royale in particular I just don't understand why it is that well regarded, it is just a bad movie. Tbf Quantum of Solace is even worse but Casino Royale is really well regarded which confuses me. The plot makes no sense, especially its structure which is just all over the place. It's like a mish mash of a bunch of disconnected nonsense and mostly boring too.
The old Bonds are horribly problematic but at least they're more "sincere" for the most part.
I liked the first movie, but all the others just had too many ridiculous scenes, esp with cars.
You just can't take that bike scene where Tom Cruise just decides to stand on the road while the motorcycle is moving, or the part where both agents play chicken, but then jump off their motorcycles and hug in mid air, then throw themselves off a cliff, still hugging.
The first one is a genuine homage to old-school spy thriller genre, that's why it feels different.
The 2nd one was so John Woo, it out-John Woo'd John Woo.
I would say that the theme of the entire franchise is pure excess. It turns everything up to 11 and then overclocks it, and that just makes for a wonderful experience. The "out-JohnWoo-ing John Woo" is a perfect example of that, but really they all do the same sort of thing.
It's definitely not to everyone's taste, but it knows exactly what it's trying to do and delivers on it masterfully.
The only other franchise that comes close to that level of Pure Dumb Fun is Fast and Furious, but by necessity the vast majority of action scenes are vehicle based, whereas MI has more of a mix.
Don't get me wrong, I actually enjoyed the over-the-top installments from the 3rd onwards, but the 2nd was just too bizarre. I enjoyed the scene in the bunker, where tied up mook was wearing Hunt's mask, and the antagonist only realized it when he noticed his bandaged finger, I thought this was inventive and smart writing, but the rest of the movie was just too fucking much.
James Bond is boring and lame, so yeah, I guess. Low bar though. The fuck is wrong with Tom Cruise though? I think he makes such good deepfake material both because there's plenty of footage to work with, but also just because he's such a fucking weirdo that lots of weird movements and behaviors can be explained away by it being him.
