FORCE 10 FROM NAVARONE: You Didn’t Give a Motherhunch About Me, Did You?

Force 10 from Navarone (1978) – Directed by Guy Hamilton – Starring Harrison Ford, Robert Shaw, Edward Fox, Franco Nero, Carl Weathers, Barbara Bach, and Richard Kiel.

FORCE 10 FROM NAVARONE is one of the weirder sequels in cinematic history.

Ostensibly, it’s a sequel to THE GUNS OF NAVARONE, but while the story picks up shortly after the events of that movie and reunites the characters of Keith Mallory and John Miller, FORCE 10 was produced 17 years later and Gregory Peck and David Niven have been replaced with Robert Shaw and Edward Fox, actors with very different approaches to the characters than their predecessors. So while FORCE 10 is technically a sequel, functionally it’s entirely its own film.

That’s not wholly a good thing, but it’s not a disastrous thing, either.

FORCE 10 FROM NAVARONE is a perfectly enjoyable action/war movie. All of the actors are good, the story is good, the action is good, and the final scene is fantastic. Ironically, while it’s the least of the four Alistair MacLean-based movies, it’s also the only one where I was immediately ready for a sequel. This is due not just to the ending – which sees our four heroes flush with the success of completely their mission but suddenly confronted with being trapped behind enemy lines – but to the chemistry exhibited between our four main leads: Shaw, Fox, Harrison Ford, and Carl Weathers.

Colonel Barnsby (Ford) and his Force 10 team are due to head into Yugoslavia to blow up a bridge, and he’s none-too-happy to have old times Mallory and Miller forced onto him. Right from the start, FORCE 10 overcomes one of the problems I had with (the otherwise superior) WHERE EAGLES DARE, which is to create some tension between our protagonists. Barnsby and Mallory clash repeatedly, the younger soldier’s fire clashing nicely with the older soldier’s calm. When the Force 10 unit is in the middle of stealing a plane (they steal one of their own planes in order to keep the mission a secret), a Jeep of MPs rolls up and a brawl ensues. Instead of getting involved, Mallory and Miller lean back against their transport truck and don’t get involved until they can be of the most use.

It’s during this brawl that Sergeant Weaver (Weathers) joins up with them, forcing his way out of MP custody and onto the stolen plane. Before they reach their destination the plane is attacked and almost everyone dies. The unit then has to hoof it through Yugoslavia, where they get embroiled with Richard Kiel and blah blah blah war stuff mistaken identity subterfuge penicillin Franco Nero prison break. I’m skipping through this huge middle section because while it’s pretty entertaining, it’s the film’s ending that I want to talk about.

Force 10 was sent into Yugoslavia to blow up a massive bridge but they lack the explosives to do it, so they devise a plan to blow up a nearby dam, believing the escaped water will wash the bridge away and keep the Germans on the other side of the river. Miller is the bombs expert, but it’s Mallory and Barnsby that sneak into the dam and travel all the way to the corridor at the base of the dam to plant the explosives. When they’re deciding on how long to set the fuse, Mallory recognizes they’ve run out of time and the Germans must, at that very minute, already be crossing the bridge.

Barnsby decides to set the fuse for 20 seconds, which is obviously not enough time for them to get out. He asks Mallory if 20 seconds is the right time and in a nice switch from GUNS where Miller forced Mallory to make the hard call, Mallory now tells Barnsby that the call is his. Barnsby balks even though he knows he’s right, wanting the older officer to give him confirmation. Mallory finally does, the fuse is set, and the two men shake hands and walk away. The bomb goes off and …

Poof.

Up on a nearby hill, Miller and Weaver are watching and waiting. When there is no massive explosion, Weaver freaks out, yelling that nothing happened and that after all they’d been through to get to that moment … NOTHING! Behind him, Miller puffs on his pipe, clearly unconcerned.

Back in the tunnel, Mallory and Barnsby dust themselves off. There was an explosion in the tunnel, but no real damage appears to have been caused. They’re furious but while hiding out from three Germans, a crack appears in the corridor’s ceiling and water starts to shoot down. Mallory and Miller pop out of hiding and run past the surprised Germans. Slowly, incrementally, Weaver sees the dam begin to crack and water begin to shoot through and his anger turns to such joy that he nearly dances with Miller on the hill and kisses the Brit twice on the cheek. (My admiration for Weathers continues to grow, and I love how Sergeant Weaver continually forces himself into the narrative.) The dam eventually breaks, Mallory and Barnsby escape, and the bridge is washed out, stopping the German advance.

It’s a wonderfully executed sequence by Guy Hamilton and his crew. There are moments here where a bit of Hamilton’s past comes in to add a bit of cheek to the proceedings (like when Barnsby and Mallory are escaping the dam and they both push the same German solider out of the way to climb up some stairs ahead of him) but for the most part they help, rather than hurt the movie. This last sequence, however, is mostly pure action goodness and it unfolds beautifully. Every shot is the right one and every shot last exactly the right amount of time.

The day is won but as the four men reunite on the hill, it’s the ever-practical Mallory who reminds them that they’re now on the wrong side of the river in an area that’s soon to be swarming with angry Germans. With no hope of reuniting with allies, he tells them it’s going to be a long walk to freedom as the camera is pulling away from them and the credits start rolling. It’s a really great ending, calling in mind films like the original Italian Job and The Thin Red Line in that even though the movie is over, the story (and the war) clearly is not.

FORCE 10 FROM NAVARONE does not have the literary quality of the other MacLean films, as its intentions are clearly designed to be an enjoyable World War II romp, but while it may not reach the heights of GUNS OF NAVARONE, ICE STATION ZEBRA, and WHERE EAGLES DARE, this is still a darn good movie, thanks to the four leads and some fine directing from Guy Hamilton.

TANGLED: Of Charming Rogues, a Broken Family, and Long, Long, Long, Long Blonde Hair

Tangled (2010) – The 50th Walt Disney Animated Feature – Directed by Nathan Greno and Byron Howard – Starring Mandy Moore, Zachary Levi, Donna Murphy, Brad Garrett, Ron Perlman, Jeffrey Tambor, Richard Kiel, M.C. Gainey, Paul F. Tompkins, and Frank Welker.

Yes, yes, yes.

TANGLED is a fantastic movie and a fitting anniversary film for the Walt Disney Animated Classic line. Fittingly and promisingly, TANGLED both embraces Disney’s princess past as well as it brings it into the present, creating in Rapunzel a stolen princess who has simple wants: she doesn’t want to meet Prince Charming and live happily ever after, she just wants to get out of the tower she’s spent her life trapped in and see the outside world. Even when she realizes that she’s the missing princess, she has no desire to be a princess; instead, her reunion with her parents comes almost as an epilogue to the film’s story. That moment – that wonderful moment – of them coming together is about the reunion of a child with her parents; it has nothing to do with their status as King and Queen and her status as a princess.

Disney has done a wonderful job of reworking the idea of the princess story with TANGLED, largely by eliminating all the royal baggage.

This is the story of a drop of sunshine that hits the ground and becomes a magical flower that has the power to heal the sick and injured. Gothel (Donna Murphy) finds the flower and uses its healing powers to keep herself young for centuries. She hides it so no one can ever find it, but when the pregnant Queen gets sick a massive search is undertaken and the flower is found. Because the royals either don’t understand the flower or are greedy, the use the whole dang flower, ruining it so no one else can use it.

Because screw the commoners.

They make the Queen a nice golden flower soup and she drinks it and it saves her and makes her baby magical. Gothel doesn’t want to grow old so she sneaks into the baby Rapunzel’s room and cuts off some of her glowing, healing hair.

The hair dies and Gothel realizes that if the hair ever gets cut it loses its power, so she does the only rational thing a woman can do in her situation – she kidnaps the baby and raises it as her own in her hidden tower that no one can find. Rapunzel (an amazingly good Mandy Moore) grows up a captive in her own home. Gothel indoctrinates Rapunzel with the belief that the outside world is super dangerous and she can’t hack it out there in the real world. Since Gothel has never been a parent or apparently read any stories with parents and teenagers in it, she doesn’t understand this is sure to cause Rapunzel to rebel.

Or, maybe there’s just something about the human condition that can’t stand to be caged.

This desire is symbolized in the film by the yearly release of sky lanterns from the castle, launched on Rapunzel’s birthday by her parents. The lanterns draw ?the young girl’s attention; with her limited view of the world from her tower window, the sky lanterns take on a magical quality. That they are released on her year every single year makes her feel like they’re just for her. Which, of course, they are. In the movie’s present, Rapunzel is about to turn 18 and she wants to be able to leave the tower and view the lanterns just this once.

Gothel won’t allow it. Manipulative and selfish, Gothel is a truly horrifying villain because she is all too real. While she knows how to extract the power of the flower, this isn’t a woman whipping up evil potions or growing to the size of a giant. She’s just a mean person, plying her wickedness on a kidnapped child, and she forbids Rapunzel from leaving – now or ever.

While Gothel is out, a fleeing thief named Flynn Rider (Zachary Levi) ascends the tower’s outer wall and climbs into Rapunzel’s room – where he promptly gets whacked unconscious by a frying pan wielding Rapunzel. Flynn has stolen the princess’ tiara from the castle, he’s ditched his associates the Stabbington Brothers (Ron Perlman) in the chase, and he’s just looking for a place to hide from Maximus.

Maximus is a horse, but he doesn’t talk. Rapunzel has a pet chameleon named Pascal, but he doesn’t talk, either. TANGLED keeps the talking to the humans in the film, even though it does give Maximus and Pascal human qualities. (It actually gives Maximus as many dog qualities as human ones.) TANGLED even pokes a little fun at the traditional Disney films by having birds swirl around Rapunzel when she first leaves her hidden lair.

In many ways, TANGLED is much closer to a DreamWorks or Pixar film than a traditional Disney movie. Unlike the well-meaning but disappointing Princess and the Frog, TANGLED doesn’t mind breaking from tradition. DreamWorks has made busting Disney’s chops a common part of their films, so it’s nice to see Disney has a sense of humor about it. (Most likely, it’s John Lasseter and the Pixar folks who have a sense of humor about it.)

Rapunzel ties up Flynn and forces a deal upon him – she will give him his stolen tiara back if he agrees to take her to the sky lantern festival and bring her back. Flynn is reluctant but he goes along with it, because he’s a thief and he wants that tiara back. When Rapunzel first gets outside the protective zone, she’s ecstatic. Then she’s despondent. Then she’s ecstatic. Then she’s despondent. And on and on. The day’s events are cut down into a comedic sequence that sees Flynn sitting by, clearly wondering what he’s got himself into with this girl.

Rapunzel is a well-rounded characters, full of heart but by no means infallible. She’s about to be 18, but she’s still a little girl because of her mother’s manipulation and sheltering. I was momentarily worried (in part because I’d just watched The Little Mermaid) that when Rapunzel first laid eyes on the handsome (and unconscious) Flynn that this was going to be a love at first sight story.

It’s not.

Rapunzel and Flynn – his real name is Eugene – do end up getting married, but theirs is an earned relationship, which makes it so much more satisfying and emotional over the last third of the film. Eugene does get her to the castle for the sky lantern festival, where Rapunzel sees a painting of the missing child and starts to think it may be her.

So she runs right to her parents.

Except that’s not at all what she does. Rapunzel spends the days singing and dancing and painting with the people of the kingdom. It’s such a thrilling sequence to see this girl cut loose and revel in her freedom, while at the same time hiding Eugene from the palace guard. Earlier, she’d convinced the ruffians in a bar to let Flynn go because she had a dream and convinced them through a sing-a-long to identify with her through all of their shared unrealized dreams. In that sequence the singing and dancing was played for laughs, but this time around it’s played simply for joy and it’s a magnificent experience.

Things turn even more emotional when Eugene takes Rapunzel out of the water to watch the sky lanterns being released. It’s the emotional centerpiece of the film as Rapunzel and Eugene realize that they’re in love with one another. It’s too early for a happy ending, so Gothel and the Stabbington Brothers put their plan into motion, getting the two of them separated: Eugene gets tossed in jail and Rapunzel gets taken back to the tower, but it’s only for a short break. The ruffians from the sing-a-long bust Eugene loose thanks to Maximus alerting them of his predicament and Rapunzel finally realizes that she is the missing princess and rebels against Gothel.

You can see where it goes from there, but just because you see the finish line coming doesn’t mean it’s not an enjoyable ride home.

I love TANGLED. It’s such a fresh, beautiful, truly emotional movie that it speaks to the power of animation. When a critically injured Eugene slices off Rapunzel’s hair to prevent her from saving him and trapping herself with Gothel for eternity, thus consigning himself to death, it’s a honestly heartrending sequence. Rapunzel (her hair now short and brown) tries desperately to save him, singing the song that activates her hair and healing powers, even though she knows it won’t work.

But she does it anyway because that’s what you do when someone you love is dying in your arms. Even though you know it won’t work, you try it because it’s all you have.

And because it’s a fairy tale, it works, and then Rapunzel and Eugene go to the castle, where Rapunzel is reunited with her parents in one of the most stirring animated moments of recent memory. TANGLED is a triumph for Disney, a sign that the old company is perhaps ready for another period of greatness.

MOONRAKER: You Appear with the Tedious Inevitability of an Unwanted Season

Moonraker (1979) – The 11th James Bond Film; The 4th (of 7) Roger Moore Films – Directed by Lewis Gilbert – Starring Roger Moore, Michael Lonsdale, Lois Chiles, Richard Kiel, Desmond Llewelyn, and Bernard Lee.

Have you ever seen a speed skater take one stride off the line and fall down? Because that’s what MOONRAKER is like, as the film gets off to such a truly awful opening that it just makes thinking about the rest of the movie seem a chore.

MOONRAKER opens with the Brits flying a space shuttle on the back of a massive jet. Have you got that visual? A space shuttle on the back of a jet – nothing odd about that, of course, but what comes next isn’t a maneuver (I’m guessing here) that NASA astronauts train to execute. Two bad guys who are hiding out on the shuttle start the beast up and take off. Yeah. That really happens. Let’s say out here in the real world we had cartoonish terrorist organizations. MOONRAKER is the kind of film that henchmen in these groups would go watch just to make fun of Hollywood for not having any idea of how things “really happen.”

While you’re still recovering from that disaster of an action sequence, we drop in on Bond just as he’s starting his foreplay with an airline stewardess. She pulls a gun on him. Some other guy with a parachute shows up. Other Guy falls out of the plane. Bond gets pushed out of the plane by Jaws, who appears from out of nowhere, thus inspiring half of the openings to Monday Night Raw. Bond aims his fall towards the Other Guy and they have a decent tussle during free fall for the chute, but just as Bond gets the chute on, Jaws shows up to try and bite his leg with his shiny metal teeth. Bond pulls his chute to escape and Jaws’ shoot doesn’t open, so he falls … falls … flaps his arms to try and not fall … falls … falls … right onto a circus’ big top tent.

Cut to opening titles.

Which also suck. The Shirley Bassey-sung title track is abysmal (though, admittedly, the bar is set pretty high for Shirley Bassey Bond songs) and the Maurice Binder titles, usually so visually striking and engaging are just sort of blah, even with the seemingly can’t-miss inclusion of the moon in the background. To show how off the film is, the disco-themed version of the title track that gets used over the closing credits is a much superior song, and highlights one of the conundrums with continuing to milk a franchise like Bond: when do you play it classic, when do you make a nod to the conventions of the day, and when do you push forward to new ground?

But hey, we’re past the opening titles now, so let’s sick back, relax and get ready for some hard-hitting espion-

I mean, let’s get ready for heaps and heaps of formula done without much thought or interest.

MOONRAKER is caught in the web of expectations vs. contemporary popularity vs. striking out on new ground, but its biggest crime is that its continually dull. Every time there’s a moment when its gets interesting there’s a moment when it slides backwards into a state of bored malaise.

Bond goes to visit Drax Industries where they make the shuttle and there’s a whole bunch of tired, formulaic bits to get through. Bond flirts with the attractive helicopter pilot. Bond meets Drax, who’s one of these nerdy, understated, megalomaniac villains. Bond meets an attractive female employee of Drax’s named Dr. Goodhead, because 14-year old boys will laugh at that. Drax has an Asian martial arts sidekick because all villains in the ’70s who were anybody had to have an Asian martial arts sidekick. Bond beds the helicopter pilot.

It’s all rather bland and a tremendous disappointment given how good Moore has been in the three Bond movies up to now. Here, though, everything lacks energy and urgency and Bond seduces the Corrine Dufour (the helicopter pilot) and Dr. Goodhead (who’s actually a CIA operative) with all the charm of a bad porn actor. There’s never any question as to whether the women will say yes or not, even though Moore looks like he has bigger eyes on the food cart than the hottie in front of him. The sex doesn’t even come across as business-related. Even though Bond gets something professional out of bedding the two women, he seems less interested in sleeping with them to get the information as he is in bedding them just because, well, why not, right? I’m a man, you’re a woman, we grunt together now.

MOONRAKER finally starts to pick up some steam after Bond leaves the Drax residence. Drax knows about the pilot’s betrayal and sicks his killer dogs on her as she runs through the woods in a vain attempt to escape. Director Lewis Gilbert does a fantastic job with this sequence, giving it an almost dreamy, inevitable quality that works because of the tragedy we know is coming. It’s different from nearly any sequence you’ll find in the Bond franchise and it gives MOONRAKER a bit of uniqueness which is something every film needs. I know the filmmakers probably thought MOONRAKER’s uniqueness would come from all the space stuff – and they’re right that those sequences are what people remember – but it’s this dreamy, sad, hunting sequence that I remember as the film’s highest point.

The action shifts to Venice where we apparently have to have yet another boring boat chase. Honestly, I think half of the boat chase scenes in movie history take place in Bond movies and they’re always the same. They even bring back the “lets have a boat split another boat” bit here. While in Venice, Bond and Goodhead engage in numbingly dull banter. In fact, Bond “undressing” Goodhead’s CIA gadgets is far more interesting than his seduction technique on the female agent.

After Venice it’s off to Brazil, and it’s here you start wondering why this is such a boring movie – all of the elements are here. There’s globe hopping in exotic locations, there’s gorgeous women, an engaging bad guy, a ridiculous threat … again, I think MOONRAKER’s biggest fault is that there’s just no energy here. It’s got so many elements you expect to see that it’s doesn’t give you anything new or fresh and it doesn’t deliver anything tried and true with any kind of passion. It’s the ultimate cookie cutter film. The dull execution is matched by some rather poor pacing; we know the space stuff is coming because it was on the poster, so let’s get to it already. I’ve always liked the Bond movies, even though they didn’t hit my radar until A VIEW TO A KILL, and even though they always seemed derivative of other movies. Like I said during the review of LIVE AND LET DIE, Bond movies are like Bee Gees albums – they combine the resonance of what you expect mixed with whatever’s cool at the moment. Unfortunately for MOONRAKER, this combination isn’t merged, but it’s nearly completely disconnected as we’ve got the pre-space stuff giving us the old and the space stuff giving us the new.

In Brazil, Bond beds his contact because, well, why not, right? He’s there, she’s there, they’ve got time to kill.

When they get to the warehouse, Jaws is back because …

I don’t even care about Jaws. I mean, his deal is he’s an enormous man who bites things with his teeth. Somehow, every time they fight, Bond never thinks, “You know what would work a bit better than a karate chop? A gun!”

I understand that, simply as an opponent, Jaws is the perfect foil for Roger Moore’s Bond: he’s all charm while Jaws is all muscle. It just doesn’t work for me, though. There’s a world’s difference between what works on paper and what works on film.

The best part of the movie takes place in Brazil where a cable car fight takes place. This sequence works because it’s a great visual and it’s the one part of the film where the humor actually works. Bond and Goodhead are taking a cable car down the side of a mountain and Jaws breaks the massively thick cable with his teeth. (That’s not the good part.) Bond and Goodhead escape to the roof of the car and they see Jaws coming up to them on top of another cable car.

“Do you know him?” Goodhead asks.

“Not socially,” Bond drolls. “His name’s Jaws. He kills people.”

Yeah, that’s pretty much all the greatness MOONRAKER contains, actually. Just that little bit, though, shows how conceptually perfect Bond and Jaws are as enemies. It’s a shame the films tend to make Jaws a punch line more often than not. The actual cable car fight is lame because it’s the same Jaws v. Bond fight we’ve seen a handful of times already.

The film dips again until we get to Drax’s Amazon hideaway, where his army of beautiful lady astronauts brings Bond in for a couple more attempts to kill him. It’s a nice visual and perfectly ridiculous in that way that works. As much as I love the Bourne movies (and as much as the Bourne movies are responsible for the Daniel Craig Bond movies), Jason Bourne is never going to walk into a hidden lair deep in the Amazon jungle where he’s confronted by young, gorgeous, scantily clad women who are about to launch into space as part of a villain’s selective breeding project. (If this happened in a Bourne movie, everyone would be throwing around big words like “eugenics” and the villains would all be old Germans working in abandoned factories in Prague and everyone would be headed for Bolivia instead of space.) This is exactly the kind of scene that only a Bond movie can get away with and I fully admit MOONRAKER does it with aplomb. When Bond is brought into a very cool hidden lair that serves as the hub of Drax’s space program, you start to think MOONRAKER is finally going to come together for an explosive finish.

Everyone goes to space and …

Yeah, it’s all so darn dull. They’re in space but there’s no energy to anything that happens. Apparently MOONRAKER has this space angle because of the popularity of Star Wars (and MOONRAKER, in fact, made a ton of money, so good on them) but the space action here is much more Star Trek: The Motion Picture than Star Wars. The final fight sequence is just silly – all laser beams and zero-gravity blahness. Jaws turns into a good guy when he realizes that his physical differences with Drax’s beautiful breeders mean he has no place in the New Drax Order.

The only thing that’s good about the ending is Q’s line about Bond attempting re-entry as the muckity-mucks on Earth watch Bond and Goodhead have sex in space.

MOONRAKER is a long way to go for a smirk, however. Easily the worst of the four Roger Moore films to this point, MOONRAKER isn’t so much awful as it is dull. As good as Michael Lonsdale is as Drax (and he has some really solid lines, including the title of this review), the movie seems to feed of his detached sense of boredom far more than Bond’s lust for life. Even Bond is affected and the result is a movie that just kind of sits there for two hours. More than any Bond movie to date, MOONRAKER is a Bond film designed for teenage boys who know where Daddy keeps the Playboys.

Here’s the dull opening credit sequence. Just because.