His Name Is…

We begin as we always do, with the performance of Roger Moore as James Bond, 007.  All the different aspects of Bond’s character are on display here, although because it’s Mr. Moore as opposed to Sean Connery, the range is not as broad.  It’s great to see him place flowers at Tracy’s grave, although I’d like to have seen a bit more emotion at that moment.  There’s plenty of Mr. Moore’s trademark charm, but it comes off as more organic this time around (due in no small part to the writing and directing).  Mr. Moore’s Bond is much more physical in this film – skiing, ski jumping, climbing a mountain, leading an assault on a shipyard, engaging in an ice hockey fight, and dangling from a helicopter.  And of course, there is a moment of unrepentant brutality as he kicks Locque’s car off the cliff.  Apparently, there was some serious discussion as to whether Mr. Moore’s Bond would do such a thing, that it was more suited to Sean Connery’s Bond.  I think this choice was a good one, as it reminded audiences that Bond wasn’t all just fun and games, and that he still could have an edge.

The film also has the most romantic feel of any of Mr. Moore’s films.  He is protective of Melina, there is obviously an attraction, they assault St. Cyril’s together, they fight to recover the ATAC underwater together, and end up skinny-dipping amidst beautiful undersea ruins over the credits.  It certainly helps that the film has the most beautiful and exotic locations thus far in the series, that they spend a lot of screen time together, that Ms. Bouquet is beautiful, and that there is the subtext of Tracy’s death running through it.  Of all the women Mr. Moore’s Bond has encountered thus far, Melina is the closest  and warmest relationship he’s had.   It truly is a romantic adventure, and yet another reason why I so admire the film.

This was the second Bond film I saw in theatres as a young man, and it’s why I was enamored of Mr. Moore’s portrayal for so many years.  I think this film best exemplifies the character of Bond from the Roger Moore era.  He’s suave, dangerous, smart, romantic, and charming.

Story

Thank God – Richard Maibaum returned to the series after the abomination that was Moonraker. Although the script lacks a unifying theme that we saw in the earlier Bond films, the story itself is excellent.  For starters, it’s realistic and grounded.  No cackling villains out to destroy the world.  It’s just a race between a smuggler and the Brits to recover a vital piece of equipment for the UK’s nuclear submarines – the ATAC system.  Even better, the crisis is triggered by an accident – the British spy ship is on board a fishing vessel, which accidentally gets a WWII mine tangled in its net, and BOOM! (Although we see two of these exact mines in Locque’s warehouse later, making us wonder if it wasn’t planted).

All the story beats follow logically and are the result of character choices.  The characters skulking through the story all have perfectly reasonable motivations, they all behave as their characters would, every scene serves the overall story, and there are no frivolous or pointless sequences that all the previous Moore films suffered from.  Without grand evil schemes at work, the writers were forced to generate plot from character and did so very successfully.  The two previous films that managed to do the same were only The Man With The Golden Gun and On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.

And I can’t leave without mentioning a great turn-of-events in having Blofeld show up in a wheelchair just as Bond is visiting Tracy’s grave….and his subsequent dumping into a smokestack.

Character

The film has plenty of great characters beyond Bond.  For starters, there is the absolutely gorgeous, stunningly beautiful Carole Bouquet as Melina Havelock.  Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, to be sure, and while I cast my vote with Honor Blackman as the voluptuous sexpot of the Bond series thus far, I can’t think of another woman more beautiful than Ms. Bouquet.  Add to this a strong character motivation to avenge her parents’ murder, and that she’s a decent actress, and you have a very successful Bond girl.  Plus, she uses a crossbow! There is also an undeniable chemistry that she has with Mr. Moore that assists the actors and their characters.

Julian Glover plays a grounded, yet ruthless bastard, in the form of Kristatos.  I had forgotten much of the film, so the reveal that he is the primary villain came as a nice surprise.  It’s also great that he’s just a businessman and smuggler, out to sell the ATAC to the Soviets.  He’s a refined man who has taken on Bibi as his protégé – both to feed his ego (in the hope that she’ll win an Olympic medal) and possibly to bed her (only revealed in a throw-away line by Lynn Holly-Johnson near the film’s end).  Unlike the secretly insecure villains Scaramanga and Goldfinger, Kristatos is a confident and masculine enemy – quite worthy to oppose Bond.  It’s a great set-up to learn that he was a smuggler in WWII, and the suggestion of a subtle barbarity of the Greeks is evidenced in how he attempts to kill Bond and Melina by scraping their bodies across the coral.

Now, how can you not love Topol?  The character of Columbo could so easily have gone over the top, but he plays it as he should – a handsome rouge – exactly the type of guy we like seeing Bond work with. The pistachios are a nifty trait, and because of his smuggling background, we totally buy that he and his team pull off the assault on Kristatos’ shipyard.

Emile Locque shouldn’t be all that interesting a character, and yet I really like the silent assassin. I think that has a lot to do with Michael Gothard’s look.  He’s not a well-known actor, but his relentlessness and cool exterior really work.

Lynn-Holly Johnson is just so sweet as the underage girl-with-a-crush on Bond, that you can’t help but love her.  It’s also great to see Bond actually act the gentleman (“Now put your clothes on and I’ll buy you an ice cream”) for a change, rather than the predator.  That he accompanies her to the biathlon because of her pressure, and does so as a friendly older gentleman, plays well.  Erich Kriegler as another in a long-line of stern Eastern Europe and/or Russian assassins does just fine, and it’s always good to see the relationship between General Gogol and Bond advance another step.  Their encounter on St. Cyril is what sets the stage for their future encounters, while simultaneously playing off of their previous ones.

Direction

While the film has a few faults (which I’ll discuss), I want to point out a huge difference between this film and almost all the other Bond movies.  Certainly previous Bond directors have done terrific jobs on their pictures, but John Glen set a new standard with For Your Eyes Only. For those readers who wouldn’t know a well-directed picture from a hack job, here’s a link that might help.

Mr. Glen had previously done second unit direction on Moonraker, The Spy Who Loved Me, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, Superman, and The Wild Geese ( a terrific mercenary adventure starring Richard Burton, Richard Harris, and Roger Moore), and 10 other films.  The second unit director often handles action scenes.  In addition, he was the editor on 20 films including the aforementioned films.  In other words, Mr. Glen was a real filmmaker, and came in to this movie with tremendous experience.  The flow of the picture, the shot design, the action scenes, the dramatic scenes, and how the whole picture just fits together are all outstanding.  The film just holds together as an entire experience in vastly better ways than almost any other previous Bond outing.  That’s not to say that other films weren’t better, just that this one was better directed.   Of course, so much of this is because there was a great script.

If you really want to see what I mean, watch Moonraker and then For Your Eyes Only back-to-back.  Otherwise, I’d like readers to watch the ski chase sequence, how it’s constructed, how every shot gives you the information you need to understand the drama and the danger, and how easy it is to follow what’s happening.  This is particularly noteworthy given the chopped-up geography, editing, and mayhem of contemporary action films, where you can’t follow a darn thing.

Other Bond Coolness (and Stumbles)

The ski chase is the real centerpiece of the film.  The same cameraman from OHMSS returned, and the dynamic and exciting manner in which the scene plays out – from the ski jump right to Bond’s escape, is just masterful.  Great stunt work by the ski team, and the subsequent leap of both skier and motorcycle onto the bobsled run, really sings.  This chase continues to up the ante on Bond action sequences and from here on in, the Bond producers never really look back.

The car chase was also innovative at the time, with a great twist by having the Lotus blow up at the start of the sequence.  The three cars racing down the switchbacks of the Spanish countryside, crossing over each other’s path, with bullets flying, the addition of angles both inside and outside the car (and again, with clear scene geography) makes this a great scene.

The assault on the smuggling hideout and St. Cyril both play really well. The camaraderie amongst Bond, Columbo, and his men works great.  The scenes are exciting, intriguing, and filled with the requisite suspense.  There is also a great underwater sequence as Bond and Melina are attacked by Kristatos’ men and one-man submarine.  Great storytelling, and editing, making the battle in Thunderball look positively amateurish.

While I did buy that Kristatos would be enough of a sadistic bastard to kill Bond and Melina by dragging them among the coral, the hockey player attack on Bond is just ridiculous and harms the film.

There are several callbacks to OHMSS.  This is a love story, though not at the same level.  It takes place in wintry mountains.  Bond is pursued and, frankly, in very serious danger after Kreigler attempts to shoot him.  Bond is outnumbered at the ski jump, just as he was by Blofeld’s minions in OHMSS. Indeed, he wears a blue ski outfit in both films at these critical moments.

Now, about that score.  Bill Conti is, of course, one of our most accomplished composers.  He was very much working on a score reflective of 1981.  When viewed strictly from that perspective, the score is okay.  It’s not great, but it’s okay.  It certainly sounds dated today, and it is almost enough to sink the film in certain places.  John Barry’s best scores are truly timeless.

Conclusion

This was a great film, with a few stumbles and a score that would normally push it to three stars.  Nevertheless, and over the anticipated objections of many readers, John Glen’s superb direction is enough to offset the problems.  For now, I rate the film four stars.  I remind readers, however, that these ratings are not set in stone.   I will certainly revisit all of them, especially as making comparisons within a given category will yield obvious standouts.

To recap all the films:

4 Stars

Goldfinger

On Her Majesty’s Secret Service

The Man With The Golden Gun

For Your Eyes Only

3 Stars

Dr. No

From Russia With Love

2 Stars

Thunderball

Diamonds Are Forever

The Spy Who Loved Me

1 Star

You Only Live Twice

Live and Let Die

Moonraker

James Bond will return in Octopusy.

Looking back at The Karate Kid (1984), which turned twenty-five years old this week, a thought keeps recurring.

Wow. . . Avildsen made it work twice.

John G. Avildsen is, in some ways, a director of little distinction when compared with well-known marquee names like Spielberg, Scorsese, Nolan, and Tarantino. The vast majority of his movies are utterly forgotten by the average filmgoer — indeed, he’s been nominated for Worst Director at The Razzies three times. And yet, like Victor Fleming decades earlier with his twin successes The Wizard of Oz and Gone with the Wind (both 1939 — read a great recent article on Fleming here), Avildsen has twice punched way above his weight, netting himself an Oscar for Best Director and giving birth to some of the most memorable moments in motion picture history.

His first triumph, made on a shoestring budget and a scant few weeks of shooting time, was a little picture called Rocky (1976). He had no money, no stars, no amazing effects, and yet Avildsen used camera, music, and editing to craft scenes of immense power and impact. Has there ever been a film, before or since, that ends on a more rousing wave of uplift? That takes such pains to create identification and empathy with its wide array of characters? That more patiently or expertly builds up to its cataclysmic swell of emotion? That has the guts and sense of timing to fade to black at the exact peak, frustrating our desire to know what happens next even as it leaves us too blissful to care?

Rocky did all of that and much more, and despite its fight scenes now looking like slow-mo hokum compared to the MMA-style mayhem that now rules on TV, it remains the most memorable and effective boxing film ever made. That’s really saying something, given the immense amount of solid competition the genre boasts.

But as other directors began ineptly looting and mimicking Avildsen’s style and innovations, it looked as if everything that made Rocky great would quickly become so cliché as to make a repeat impossible. We all know that sinking feeling when we begin perceiving the clunky wheels of the typical “Hollywood sports plot” turning — that excruciatingly slow crawl towards the utterly predictable final showdown, where the very last seconds of a contest are shamelessly milked until the hero finally hits the last shot/punch/goal/basket. Even the Rocky sequels couldn’t escape these pitfalls, and it would be hard to blame an audience for glumly concluding that Avildsen’s 1976 artistic triumph had spoiled the sports movie for all time.

So who would have guessed that, eight years later, Avildsen would essentially pull off the same trick again? How on earth did he once again make a Rocky-style plot arc work, without the end result becoming a pale pastiche?

He achieved this feat in large part by turning everything we remember from Rocky on its head. Ralph Macchio’s Daniel Larusso is played not as a thickheaded lummox, but as a fast-thinking, bone-skinny teen whose nasal Jersey whine sounds more like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer than Sylvester Stallone. He’s neither a down-and-out fighter with his best years behind him, nor is he looking to “go the limit” to prove something profound to himself. He’s just a kid at the very beginning of his adult life, who for most of the film limits his ambition to simply not getting beat up. Similarly, Elizabeth Shue’s Ali Mills is light years away from Talia Shire’s Adrian Pennino: rich instead of poor, charming rather than an ugly duckling, sociable not shy. And Pat Morita’s unforgettable Mr. Miyagi isn’t washed up or pathetically ambitious like Burgess Meredith’s Mickey Goldmill — he’s the very epitome of contentment and balance and wisdom.

Rocky achieved its verisimilitude with generous dollops of grime, rust, blood and profanity, whereas The Karate Kid is notable for its relative wholesomeness (note how Elizabeth Shue even wears a one-piece swimsuit to the beach instead of the obligatory teen-movie bikini). The music marks yet another telling departure. Rocky’s iconic score, by Bill Conti, was a mix of 1970s funk, heroic brass, and a choir acting as a Greek chorus, all combined into a sonic brew that still ranks as one of the most recognizable and rousing in film history. For The Karate Kid, Conti was once again brought in as the composer. But this time, in between pop songs like Bananarama’s “Cruel Summer,” he chose a light mix of delicate strings, only occasionally allowing them to burst forth into full orchestral splendor. For the training montage, Conti completely eschews Rocky’s reliance on trumpeting brass and instead opts for the lonely skirling of Gheorghe Zamfir’s pan flute, creating a more spiritual and intimate vibe.

Avildsen’s camera, for its part, is probing and observant, often making excellent use of telephoto lenses to highlight what would otherwise be a missed reaction or expression. He achieves true poetry in the training scenes: on the beach among the circling cranes, on the lake amidst glittering golden waters, and even in the fights and strategies that pulse through the climactic tournament. He also warred with the studio when necessary to protect certain crucial scenes, such as the one where a drunken Miyagi reveals his service in WWII to Daniel. That one adds a whole new layer of depth to what was already a touching and authentic relationship, and yet the studio wanted it cut, deeming it superfluous.

On top of all that, the excellent screenplay by Robert Mark Kamen (who distinguished himself more recently by penning the immensely satisfying kidnap flick Taken) consistently leads Avildsen down novel paths. The teen villains of the story (portrayed by, among others, Steve McQueen’s son Chad and Elizabeth Shue’s brother Andrew) are refreshingly human, at times even gaining our sympathy. Unlike the usual faceless, gormless teens in Hollywood fare, this group is delineated exceedingly well, and remain recognizable as individuals even when hiding behind Ray Harryhausen-esque skeleton makeup in a genuinely chilling night scene. Kamen fleshed out his bad guys so well that the Cobra Kais, led outside the dojo by actor William Zabka’s smirking blond-haired bad boy Johnny Lawrence, now have a sizable fan following among Karate Kid aficionados. One admirer even made a clever YouTube re-edit of the final fight so that Johnny wins:

Meanwhile, a band called No More Kings has made a song about the redemption of Johnny called “Sweep the Leg,” with a fun “Karate Kid continuation” music video written and directed by Zabka himself:

In interviews, Zabka has expressed pleasant surprise that The Karate Kid remains so alive in the popular culture, calling it a “sacred film” and noting that there are even Cobra Kai bowling teams out there. It’s enough to convince me that The Karate Kid II should have been all about Miyagi reforming the Cobra Kais, slowly rehabilitating them into good guys.

In so many ways, Avildsen’s 1984 film is courageous in the way it deviates from the instantly recognizable Rocky formula. How strong must the pressure have been on Avildsen to make the easy, safe choices, mimicking his earlier masterpiece in every detail? His resistance to those impulses does him credit, and hence to dismiss The Karate Kid as a mere Rocky clone is to do it an injustice.

But if there is one overriding secret to the success of The Karate Kid, it is the transcendent performance of Pat Morita as Mr. Miyagi. In 1984, most Americans still conceived of the East, at least in cinematic terms, as a mystical wonderland of Kung-Fu magic and swordplay. Hong Kong directors like Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung, John Woo, Tsui Hark, and Ringo Lam were only beginning to create the explosion of masterful, modernized pictures that would eventually change the entire way the world looked at Asians on film. It’s hard to remember how utterly fresh a character like Mr. Miyagi was to 1984 audiences, completely unexposed as they were to the renaissance happening in Hong Kong. Fully fleshed out, with a compelling backstory and potent motivations, he was written as charmingly colloquial and disheveled, a character who could consistently shatter the stereotype of the “magic Asian” to raucously humorous effect.

Almost always in American cinema — to this day — Asian protagonists are depicted as cardboard caricatures at best and laughingstocks at worst. Avildsen rejected the initial front-runner for the part of Miyagi — the great Japanese actor Toshirô Mifune — and instead bet his entire film on the talents of a thoroughly Americanized stand-up comedian, one who in his salad days used to bill himself in comedy clubs as “the Hip Nip.” Comedians have a strangely robust record of shining in good dramatic roles — think Robin Williams, Bill Murray, Jim Carrey, Tom Hanks, Billy Crystal, Steve Martin, et al. — and they often manage to strike a solid balance between laughs and drama. Morita did exactly that in The Karate Kid: affecting just the right Japanese accent, leavening his character’s power and seriousness with just enough comedy, and always figuring out ways to make you laugh with Miyagi instead of at him.

If you haven’t seen The Karate Kid in awhile, you’re in for a treat — Mr. Miyagi was no fluke, he remains one of the most winning characters in the history of cinema. It was the role of a lifetime for Morita, who garnered a well-deserved Oscar nomination (as it happened, he lost that year to Haing S. Ngor in The Killing Fields, who himself became the first Asian to win an acting Oscar). Any number of others would have played Miyagi as either an embarrassing joke or an irremediably grim Samurai grandmaster. But in his every glare, mannerism, and pose, Morita elevates the character into a veritable Gandalf. Look closely at the scene when he bows gravely to a shocked Daniel (who has just discovered that his hated chores were actually important lessons), or when towards the end he smacks his hands together with such orchestra-enhanced thunder that the audience jumps. In those moments The Karate Kid — so often seen as an also-ran and afterthought to Rocky — breaks away from that film’s orbit and soars free all on its own.

So Avildsen pulled it off not once, but twice — I still can’t believe it. And if he never makes another great movie, he can still sit back and rest easy, secure in the knowledge that two of the very best fight pictures ever made have his name on them. That he did both of them on such low budgets should give hope to conservative filmmakers who assume liberal Hollywood will never give them a chance. There is nothing in The Karate Kid that couldn’t be accomplished on a micro-budget — all you would need is the gumption to dream up the script.

But will anyone take on the challenge, as Avildsen did those many years ago? Only time will tell. Until then: wax on, wax off. . . wax on, wax off. . . .