Reviews

This might possibly be the worst film ever made. And trust me, I don't mean in a good way, like The Room or Plan 9 from Outer Space or some such, I mean, it is amateurish in almost every way imaginable.

Poor script, dreadful dialogue, slack pacing, lamentable acting, terrible lighting, ropey camerawork, dodgy art-direction, bad audio, appallingly inept storyline, virtually non-existent technical research, muddled narrative, and utterly atrocious directing.

Whomever it was that made this film, please, just stop. I mean really, please don't try to make anything else. Ever. And that especially goes for the writer of this pile of garbage. In fact, if you are the writer of this abysmal claptrap, never try to even put together a shopping list - let alone a screenplay - because in something of an amazing feat as far as writing is concerned, you manage to suck at it, as well as blow, at the same time.

Recall if you will, an hilarious scene from 1987's Throw Momma from the Train movie, where the character Mrs Hazeltine, played by Annie Ross, is in a creative writing class. The scene where she reads an excerpt from an appallingly amateurish action story, which she is working on despite having literally no knowledge of the subject at hand. Allow me to remind you of its comedy genius...

Mrs. Hazeltine: "Dive! Dive!" yelled the Captain through the thing! So the man who makes it dive pressed a button, or a something, and it dove. And, the enemy was foiled again. "Looks like we foiled them again," said Dave. "Yeah," said the Captain. "We foiled those again. Didn't we, Dave." "Yeah," said Dave. The End.

Now, imagine her writing a story about an air accident investigation and without any professional editing, this being made into a TV series, and I'm pretty sure what you'd end up with is 'Departure'.

Yes, it really is that excruciatingly awful in exactly the same way, although ironically, this means you might still enjoy it so long as you are prepared to watch it from the standpoint of it being that unintentionally hilarious comedy. A bit like watching The Room, perhaps. Having said that, the writers of Departure - whom I will name and shame here: Stephanie Tracey; John Krizanc; Malcolm MacRury; Vince Shiao; Ellen Vanstone - do in comparison make Tommy Wiseau's screenwriting effort look like the work of Tennesse Williams which Tommy so wanted it to be.

Now I won't bore you with my aviation or writing credentials, let's just say I know about these particular subjects very well and have worked professionally in both fields. So you can probably imagine why I thought Departure might be worth a look when I saw the subject material. Now don't get me wrong here, I would neither expect, nor want, a dramatisation of such a tale to be completely factually accurate, because obviously that would be very drawn out, dry and boring as a piece of TV drama. So I expected, and was willing to forgive, a good deal of creative licence and a considerably truncated version of real-world investigative processes for the sake of making something exciting and watchable. What I didn't expect however, was a screenplay with dialogue which was so childishly awful - and this is regardless of its factual ineptitude and ignorance - as to come across like it was written by someone actually writing a spoof of someone who has no clue about how to write a screenplay.

So what of the acting, production etc? Well, whilst it is true that it can sometimes be difficult for an actor to gauge how good or bad something they are involved is whilst they are on the set, especially these days where so much can be fixed up or enhanced in post, they surely must have had a clue. Much like if one had read the script for The Room, or even Mrs Hazeltine's aforementioned work of fiction, I find it completely beyond the realms of credibility that anyone involved in this travesty, either in front of or behind the camera, could have been unaware of the Christmas-like turkey they were preparing to cook up upon having read the script for Departure.

As if the overall dreadfulness of the story wasn't enough of a clue as to perhaps make a swift 'get me out of here' phone call to one's agent before agreeing to the role, you'd think a bit of a read-through of the dialogue would have done the trick. Some of the dialogue is so insufferably terrible that you can kind of understand why the actors are, for the most part, really phoning in those performances in an attempt to get through shooting as soon as possible and put it all behind them, all whilst hoping that it isn't too much of a nail in their coffin to have Departure on their resume.

Yes, it really is that bad. But ironically, if you like great drama and admire good writing, yet appreciate why watching The Room is such good fun, you might actually want to watch Departure. I can guarantee it will give you a good laugh, because even if your knowledge of air accident investigations is limited to having half-watched one of those air crash documentaries, you're like a gold-plated expert in the field compared to the writers of this pile of garbage.

No one would have believed in the last weeks of 2019, that the BBC would release a production of the classic HG Wells novel as appalling as this. Yet in that very time, came the great disillusionment.

Yup, this one is a stinker. It's not just bad, it's an insult on virtually every level possible. There are production, character, editing and scripting decisions going on here which are so clumsy, ill-advised, bereft of sensibility for the original work, and just plain wrong, that it is difficult to imagine these artistic faux pas even making it past a preliminary suggestion stage, let alone numerous scripting and production meetings without someone having the nerve to just open their trap at least once and simply say: 'but, this is awful, can't we just film the book as it is?'

To save you the trouble of having to endure this utter rubbish, on the off-chance you might be thinking: 'surely it cannot be that bad, I'll give it a try', I'll point out the main travesties and why you should not even come near this steaming pile of garbage for any other reason than perhaps to use as a screenwriting tutorial on how not to do it. You can thank me later for saving you from sacrificing three hours of your life that you will never get back by having actually watched this load of embarrassing cack. So, here goes...

First up, you've got the bogus attempt to make you think it is an authentic adaptation, by setting it - visually at least - in approximately the same time period as the original book. But the illusion doesn't last long I assure you, as you pretty much instantaneously witness 21st Century politically-correct sensibilities clumsily tacked onto a story which is set in 1897. This in itself is bad enough as a concept, but when it is done in such a staggeringly inept, historically anachronistic way, it is just embarrassing to watch it unfold.

Not content with this, the script then adds an extra-marital affair to the storyline for no readily discernible reason in terms of improving the tale. If they'd had the intelligence to perhaps contrast the shock of infidelity on period sensibilities as an alien concept, with the shock of an alien invasion, then as an idea it might have just possibly had some merit conceptually for a dramatic device, but nope, it's just thrown in there to try and make it a bit 'modern' and 'racy'.

Worse still, scripting efforts at making the female lead into a 'strong modern woman' (TM) or at least cookie cutter version of one, end up making her male partner come across as one of the most simpering wet blankets that has ever been committed to film. This to the extent that any notion such a progressive firebrand vixen would find such a man worth having a romantic crack at in the face of the obstacles the time period would throw at her, stretches credibility to breaking point as it collapses under the weight of its own failed internal logic.

But this is just for starters as far as cack production, adaptation and editorial decisions go. We are treated to a series of intrusive flashes-forward to a misery-laden post-invasion Earth, where strong female lead struggles to bring up her Victorian designer urchin (TM) offspring. A child who is so well-scrubbed that he looks like he's auditioning for a RADA production of Oliver! All he needs to do is launch into a Lionel Bart-esque song perhaps entitled: Cor Blimey, it's tough being invaded by Martians' or some such and it's West End here we come.

It is at this point we quickly realise we are being robbed of even the remotest chance at suspending our disbelief and going with the story as it unfolds chronologically, as the story behind this adaptation is quite literally telegraphed to us courtesy of an appalling chronology mash-up editorial decision. But whilst this offers no dramatic purpose whatsoever, in fairness, it does at least serve to give us fair warning that HG Wells' classic has not merely been butchered with a PC agenda, but also pretty much trashed in terms of how it plays out too.

Not content to mess about with so many of the elements of the classic sci-fi novel already, the trend continues as we get a bloody awful side story of a confrontation with the aliens who have disembarked from their craft, revealing themselves to be rejects from the Klandathu homeworld of the bugs in the screen adaptation of Heinlein's Starship Troopers. At least in the Starship Troopers movie, choosing to make the aliens look like that was okay because their design was not contingent on them believably being able to operate spaceships and attack vehicles, yet in this production, despite the Martians apparently not having the appendages necessary to be able to perform such delicate feats as constructing spacecraft, launching and landing them successfully, then mounting a land-based invasion, they nevertheless appear to have pulled it off for some inexplicable reason. Frankly, this takes us so far into bad b-movie territory rather than an adaptation of what is literally one of the first and indeed finest sci-fi novels ever written, that it makes Independence Day look like Lawrence of Arabia.

As we know, in the original novel, there is very little concerning the creatures themselves other than to mention their difficulties in coping with Earth's gravity and atmosphere, most of it is wisely left by Wells, to one's imagination, but no, the screenwriters of this travesty think they can do better. It's really quite something to witness a production by a bunch of collectively amateurish buffoons who have the temerity to suppose they can improve on Mr Wells' classic by messing about with pretty much everything which make it the classic it is. You would have thought they'd realise there is a rather obvious reason why people are still reading the original novel after well over hundred years of having been in print; that's because it is good; it doesn't need a collection of talentless fools to re-write it.

So, is there anything good about this production at all? Well, some of the effects and CGI matting into live footage is pretty good. Some of the costume design is nice and the locations are not bad. Sadly, all of that is not enough window dressing to save what is just a very ill-advised venture. Mr Wells deserves much better than this, and so do we.

The 50th anniversary is a landmark which the promotional hype for Skyfall has not shied away from, and so expectations are high. But are they sky high, or bound to fall?

A third outing for Daniel Craig has undoubtedly meant he is now comfortable with his double-oh role, which is good because these are big shoes to fill even for a veteran. No concerns there then, but there are also new avenues being explored in terms of production and casting, and this is the real concern for Bond fans, the vast majority of whom have embraced Craig, but are aware that Bond is a franchise which has to continually reinvent itself. The most successful Bond movies are often a careful mix of tradition and innovation, and it is this more than anything which determines whether we get a classic Bond movie, or merely another one of the set of 23 Bond films. So which is it?

Skyfall kicks off with a lengthy chase sequence which, for a movie going generation who come with attention deficit syndrome fitted as standard, lights the fuse at the pre-requisite mach 1. The inclusion of a Land Rover in the chase helps to stamp that 'Brit' label on proceedings. Clad in metallic grey, echoing not only the DB5 but also Daniel Craig's similarly classic grey Tom Ford suit, with its sixties-esque tailoring a nod to Connery, thus we can see from the off that this is a thoughtful production.

After the establishing opening sequence, we swiftly determine this is one of the more grounded Bond movie plots; no underwater secret Caribbean base, no super-laser threatening the planet. Nope, this time it is a simpler tale, of revenge and redemption, albeit one which takes in a few exotic locations. Having been wounded in the opening sequence, upon his return to London, Bond addresses being older and the need to stay in trim. Ghosts from his own and M's past emerge. These manifest for M in the guise of a former operative who seeks revenge, and for Bond in his childhood, hinted at during a psychological profile test to determine whether he is still fit for duty. Thus the stage is set for a subtly-nuanced showdown.

The villain of the piece is played by a very sinister and disturbing Javier Bardem, who slowly emerges as a credible threat in the modern landscape by having embraced technology, again here we see the theme of old and new which echoes the challenges the Bond franchise itself faces. The point of old and new merging is further driven home with the introduction of a new, younger Q, in the shape of Ben Wishaw. It's no small task to replace the virtually irreplaceable Desmond Llewelyn, but thankfully this is a good try, also succeeding in hammering a nail in the god-awful appearance of John Cleese as a substitute for Q.

The simpler approach to a plot might not please those who prefer seeing Roger Moore do battle aboard a fleet of Space Shuttles to prevent a megalomaniac taking over the world. But Skyfall's more emotive plot brought a gritty, believable aspect to matters suitable for a modern audience who want to see him at least have a bit of a stab at living in the present. It won't be everyone's cup of Vodka Martini, but I'd like to see more of this kind of thing. I daresay the journey Bond takes with M being a metaphor for the journey the Bond franchise is taking into a more modern world of cinematic exposition might have sailed over a few people's heads, but they can at least take a quantum of solace from the fact that there is still plenty of debris to be found sailing over their heads in Skyfall too, as an explosive finale sees Bond and M confront and defeat MI6's nemesis.

Along the way there are numerous nods to previous Bond films too, the DB5 shows off its features, the Walther PPK is a plot device, there is a hint at Roger Moore's run across the alligators in Live and Let Die and many more such salutes to previous movies.

CAUTION: SPOILER ALERT!!

Still here? Okay then, Dame Judy Dench's M dies at the end of the film, having sustained a gunshot wound.

What?! I hear you say? Bond fails in his mission to protect M?! Well, nope, actually he doesn't; with a mere two months left to serve in the role as head of MI6 before she is to be forced to retire owing to the perceived intelligence failure which drives the plot, she acts as the bait to capture the villain, successfully avenging agents who have been killed and finishing off the villain, also going out fighting and winning, rather than retiring to boring obscurity, which would be the real death of her. Needless to say Bond is suitably upset at the demise of the mother figure whom M represents for him since he is an orphan, leaving him once more alone, but this sadness wonderfully echoes the chilling end of On Her Majesty Secret Service, which as any Bond fan knows, is certainly a contender for the best Bond film of all.

As the titles roll, we see the familiar 'James Bond will return' message, and we can only hope that when he does, it will be with this kind of thoughtful scripting and direction. If you want to see massive fights with hordes of boiler-suit clad henchmen driving Mini-Mokes around underground secret bases as Bond makes smutty one liners to bikini-clad bimbos, then this won't be the Bond movie for you. But if you want to see a great and thoughtful modern spin on Bond, here it is.