FILM REVIEW OF ''MEN IN BLACK" (1998)

The idea for “Men In Black” (**1/2 OUT OF ****), the latest alien opus about cracking down on extraterrestrials hiding out on earth, has a galaxy of surreal comic potential. If you’re looking for a moderately entertaining, mega-budgeted, far-sided farce that vapor locks just shy of “Ghostbusters,” then “Men In Black” is your ticket. Even if this uneven outer limits comedy doesn’t beam you up, its alleged million-dollar-per-minute special effects that infest the plot with a spawn of dorky aliens should impress you. Despite its abundant sight-gags and eye-popping aliens, “Men In Black” frizzles because it relies on the familiar oxidize the earth plot. “Men-In-Black” is a great looking movie hampered by a lame plot. The film is based on Lowell Cunningham’s obscure but sensational Marvel comic from the early 1990s. The story sounds like “Dragnet” meets “Ghostbusters.” The subversive but inventive Ed Solomon script struggles to keep a deadpan lid on its diabolical lunacy so that its gags will appear twice as funny. Basically, it’s the old idea of getting more mileage out of a joke by telling it as if you weren’t aware of the humor. The irreverent humor in “Men In Black” is so dry and sporadic that it sometimes fails to enthrall. You know that you’re watching a comedy, and you even laugh at what you see. After all, you know that these guys are straining to be hilarious. But they’re not funny enough all of the time to make you forget that they’re struggling so hard to make you laugh. Writer Ed Solomon wastes too much time integrating Will Smith’s character into the action and not enough time incorporating Linda Fiorentino’s character. The story never generates any suspense, just a lot of pastel slime. The ending is outrageously implausible even by this wacky elastic standards of this fantasy. Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith impersonate a couple of laced-strait Federal agents who work for a ultra-hush, hush agency known only as INS Division 6. Headquartered out of sight in Manhattan, INS 6 licenses, monitors, and polices all alien activity on Earth. According to the movie, about fifteen-hundred aliens reside on the planet in a state of apolitical harmony. Any alien critter that goes AWOL gets busted by these INS 6 dudes. When we first meet J, played by Smith, he is a New York cop whose been close-encountered. INS 6 recruits him because he nearly caught the alien. (If Will Smith doesn’t watch out, he is going to be type-cast as the John Wayne of alien butt kickers.) INS 6 chief Zed (Rip Torn) teams J with veteran alien buster K (Tommy Lee Jones). Even if you can tolerate the long expository build up, the story suffers again because these characters never develop the camaraderie of the “Ghostbusters.” After a UFO crashes into his pick-up truck, a creepy redneck farmer named Edgar (Vincent D’Onofrio) goes gunning for the aliens. They’re a bunch of murderously mutant cockroaches. They zap Edgar instead and take control of his body. (This scene recalls the Stephen King episode in the 1982 movie “Creepshow.”) Edgar stumbles through the rest of the movie like a zombie. He’s on a weird quest to kill two Arkillian aliens disguised as human and pinch a trinket hanging around a cat’s neck that contains the galaxy. When he gets it, the Arkillian threat to atomize the planet unless our heroes can recover the bauble. What we don’t learn about the aliens, the filmmakers are happy to show us. There are aliens galore in “Men In Black.” They resemble mutants sprung island of Dr. Suess. None of them are particularly threatening, but some are ugly and squid-like. The scene where J (Smith) assists a mother alien in birth is pretty funny, but it doesn’t match the impact of the Billy Crystal calf delivery in “City Slickers.” Juveniles will drool over the flashy gadgets. One device called a “neuralizer” resembles a tire gauge crossed with a pin-light. Our heroes use it to erase the short term memory of any spectators that they encounter in the line of duty. Remember, we’re not supposed to know that the aliens walk among us. Our heroes don their cool looking Ray Bans to dampen the effect on them. The Ray Bans are already available in stores, but you’ll probably have to wait for the chrome plated guns. Judging from its opening weekend haul of $50 million plus dollars, “Men In Black” should at least inspire a sequel as well as merchandising out the universe. There’s a cartoon series already in the works. Director Barry Sonnenfeld pulls out all stops. The hokey dragon-fly in the opening scene sets the smart aleck tone for the movie. One of the best scenes is the jewelry store confrontation which the moviemakers have already given up in the previews of “Men In Black.” The witty use of tabloid newspaper to tell the real truth is ironic, and the real story behind the New York’s World Fair is a hoot! Sonnenfeld keeps the light weight action moving at light speed. Sometimes the movie zips by so quickly they you have trouble keeping up with it. But “Men In Black” lacks the bizarre finesse of Sonnenfeld’s two “Adams Family” movies. No complaints about the casting. Tom Lee Jones of “The Fugitive” delivers the kind of stoic performance that would put Jack Webb to shame. Jones’s grim-faced, buttoned-down expressions would be the envy of Detective Sergeant Friday. Jones proves himself a master comedian with impeccable timing again and again in “Men In Black.” He never lets the zaniness of the last joke, special effects, or plot-twist get in his way to his next gag. William Smith of “Independence Day” blends his streetwise, ebonic, home boy charm with the sartorial elegance of his character as an interesting contrast to Jones’ tight-lipped stooge. These co-stars work well together, except that their cardboard characters never evolve in the two frantic days covered in the movie. You may remember actor Vincent D’Onofrio for his brilliant performance as a psychotic military recruit in “Full Metal Jacket.” He manages to be vicious, brutal, and stupid as ghoulish Edgar. The villain here mutates into an extremely upset bug whose the size of a dragon. Linda Fiorentino of “Jade” is cast as a sexy medical examiner whose seen one too alien corpses. Veteran character actor Rip Torn lends capable support as their gruff boss Zed. “Men In Black” misfires more often than it hits. The exam scene is as irritable as Edgar’s cockroaches are genuinely disgusting. You exit the movie theatre dazzled by the seamless special effects, but you may find that the dry, off-beat humor as memorable as a flash of light from a neutralizer.

FILM REVIEW OF ''STREETFIGHTER: THE LEGEND OF CHUN-LI" (2009)

This above-average distaff martial arts actioneer about a daughter’s revenge for the murder of her long-suffering father boasts Geoff Boyle’s spectacular cinematography and a sturdy cast, particularly with charismatic Neal McDonough as the dastardly chief villain and Michael Clarke Duncan as his right-hand man. Martial arts fight choreographer Dion Lam of “Exit Wounds” and “The Matrix Reloaded” stages several exceptional hand-to-hand combat scenes involving wire work. As the heroine Kristia Kreuk is convincing here as Chin-Li and handles herself well in the fight sequences. She possesses an expressive countenance,and this gives "Streetfighter: The Legend of Chun-Li" (*** out of ****) its heart and drive. Moreover, as Chin-Li, our heroine changes over the course of the story so that she emerges as a round rather than a flat character. “Exit Wounds” director Andrej Bartkowiak never lets the action stall out during its trim 96 minutes. Of course, the Justin Marks screenplay contains nothing but formula with the usual expository scenes for an origins story. A heroic heroine, ruthless villains, scenic locales, and a by-the-numbers crime empire building plot keep thing warm but rarely sizzling. Ostensibly, “Streetfighter” is a sequel to the Jean Claude Van Damme original.

The movie begins as an origins story with Chun-Li (Kristia Kreuk) talking about her youth in San Francisco. Her international businessman father Xiang (Edmund Chen of “Saigon Eclipse”) wants her to become a concert pianist. Eventually, the family relocates to Hong Kong, and her father teaches her Wushu while she practices the piano. Suddenly, one evening, criminals invade her house, and Xiang battles them until Balrog seizes young Chun-Lie and threatens to kill her. Bison (Neal McDonough of “Walking Tall”) and his men abduct Xiang. Later, Bison appropriates the Shadaloo Empire, the biggest crime syndicate in Asia. He has acquired his power and authority by having his assassin, Vega (Jaime Luis Gomez) decapitated the heads of all the crime lords in Bangkok. Bison has a grand scheme to lower property values in the Bangkok slums, buy up as much as he can, tear it down, and then rebuild it with luxurious housing for the affluent. Bison has no qualms about killing. He abducted Chin-Li’s father years ago and when she comes to Bangkok to straighten things out, Bison murders her father in front of her eyes. Previously, Bison had held Chun-Li's father captive for years and forced against his will to help develop his infamous plan.

Meanwhile, Interpol agent Charlie Nash (Chris Klein of “American Pie”) has pursued the elusive Bison through eleven major cities on four continents and only now comes close to catching him. He teams up with Bangkok Police Detective Maya Sunee (Moon Bloodgood of “Terminator: Salvation”) in the Gang & Homicide Division. While this is going on, Chun Lin is building a reputation as a successful concert pianist when she learns that her mother is ill. Eventually, Chun Li’s mother dies. The mother was an American and her father was Asian. Chun discovers a scroll in ancient Chinese. She looks for help in translating the document which she suspects will have something to do with her life. Our heroine takes the scroll with her and checks it out with her. The old lady observes, “This is not a letter, it is a light shining only upon you.” She advises Chun Li to travel to Bangkok and search for a man named Gen. Before she locates (Robin Shou of “Mortal Combat”) who gives her a brush course in defying gravity while decimating the dastards, Chun-Li lives in the streets, observes the crime-ridden slums first hand, and later interferes with a gang intent on beating up a helpless man. Principally, Gen shows Chun how to control her rage in a fight.

Not only does “Streetfighter: The Legend of Chun-Li” relate the story of our heroine’s humble beginnings, but the film also details the origins of the cruel villain. Son of Irish missionaries, Bison grew up as an orphan and stole fish from people in Thailand. Just to emphasize his evil, Bartkowiak and Marks show how Bison jettisoned his conscience. He does this by removing his infant daughter from his wife’s womb prematurely, killing his wife. This transferred his conscience into his daughter. Again, Bison is a first-rate bastard. Later, Bison’s thugs attack Gen while Chun-Li is away buying groceries and Balrog destroys Gen’s house with a RPG. Bison orders Vega to finish off Chun-Li, but he is surprised when Chun-Li whips Vega in a knock down, drag out fight, leaves the assassin hanging upside down over the side of a building. Chun-Li heads out to deal with Bison. She learns about a secret delivery of White Rose and determines to help Charlie Nash and Detective Sunee get Bison. Bison’s tentacles stretch to the police and Sunee is told to drop the case. Consequently, Charlie and Chun-Li take on Bison. The fight between Bison and Chun-Li is energetic and the outcome is nothing if not impressive.

Indeed, the producers tampered with the video game when they adapted it to the big-screen. For example, they removed the gloves that Balrog wore. Furthermore, they changed Chun-Li from strictly Chinese to Chinese-American. Producer Ashok Amritraj wanted the film “to stand on its own, not just for the gaming audience, but also as a movie.” “Streetfighter: The Legion of Chun-Li” with its formulaic plot doesn’t rank as a great martial arts film, but it is a good, exciting, action-packed saga with a surprise or two to keep you on your toes. As much as I like Jean Claude Van Damme’s “Streetfighter” (1994), “Streetfighter: The Legion of Chun-Li” tops the JCVD movie in every respect.

FILM REVIEW OF ''WHITEOUT'' (2009)

The trailer to the Kate Beckinsale murder-mystery “Whiteout” (** out of ****) makes it look like a remake of the classic horror thriller “The Thing From Another World.” Something crashes in the ice near a scientific research laboratory in Antarctica. A body that apparently fell from the sky is found on the frozen tundra, and a desperate murderer with an ice ax goes on the rampage. The only person standing between this maniac and his next casualty is a female U.S. Marshal who wants to resign and go home now that her stint is almost up. She has a past that is clouded with drama. The story synopsis also appropriates the “30 Days of Night” gimmick. The outpost is about to be plunged into six months of wintry oblivion while our heroes battle the killer. Moreover, a tumultuous storm forces the scientists to evacuate the base. In other words, the filmmakers do an exemplary job of establishing the inhospitable setting which they inform during the opening credits is “the most isolated landmass on Earth.” They put the heroine and her help between an icy rock and a hard place for the climactic showdown.

Unfortunately, “Whiteout” emerges as neither “The Thing” nor “30 Days of Night.” This thoroughly humdrum homicidal hokum lacks a sense of urgency. The gratuitous Beckinsale shower sequence near the beginning as she flaunts her tidy whites should titillate males. No body doubles there. Nothing else in “Swordfish” director Dominic Sena’s frostbitten yarn, however, will titillate anybody. Sophomore scenarists Jon & Erich Hoeber along with “House of Wax” (2005) remake scribes Chad & Carey Hayes serve up nothing but formula from start to finish. Furthermore, they’ve altered the 2001 graphic novel by Greg Rucka and Steve Lieber. Chiefly, they have eliminated the second heroine, a British secret service agent and replaced her with a bland United Nations investigator who may be the killer. A shortage of suspense, the expository-riddled but convoluted storytelling, and lackluster villains sabotage this shoddy saga. You might even call “Whiteout” a variation on the Sean Connery in space move “Outland” (1981) where he played a federal marshal. The plot grinds to a halt too many times. As fetching and credible as Kate Beckinsale was in the “Underworld” thrillers in her skin-tight leather suits, she looks all wrong for this comic book screen adaptation in parka and goggles.

The movie opens with a prologue set in 1957. A Soviet cargo plane—clearly a CGI replica--whips into view, like the evil space cruiser in “Star Wars,” in the first shot. The restless co-pilot wants to kill the three guys in the bay who are guarding a locked safe with a secret cargo. The co-pilot botches the job, and a gunfight erupts inside the fuselage. Everybody catches a slug in the shoot-out, and the cargo plane crashes in the in the Antarctica. Fifty years pass and the plane still hasn't been found. Meanwhile, U.S. Marshal Carrie Stetko (Kate Beckinsale) is serving out the last couple of days in her two-year shift. She holed up at the outpost because of trust issues. Sena intersperses flashbacks of her partner turning rogue on her after they arrest a drug smuggler in Miami. He tries to kill her, but she blasts him. Of course, this is to assure us that she can fire a gun. Now, she is the law at the South Pole. Mostly, Carrie walks a beat and sometimes even contends with a misdemeanor. The last couple of days before everybody heads home, our heroine discovers the corpse of a geologist in the middle of nowhere in 65-below temperatures with half of its head caved in and no trace of how it got where it did. Venerable Dr. John Fury (Tom Skerritt of “M.A.S.H.”) is the head physician and means something more to Carrie than Sena and his scribes ever show us. Again, it looks like a case of role & gender reversal from “Outland.”

Carrie crosses paths with a mysterious U.N. observer Robert Pryce (Gabriel Macht of “The Spirit”) and a happy African-American pilot Delfy (Columbus Short of “Cadillac Records”) flies them all over the stunning, snow-swept terrain. At one point, Carrie and Pryce try to track down where the dead geologist had been working. Robert and Delfy watch as Carrie takes one too many steps and plunges into the snow and lands alongside a buried cargo plane. This familiar discovery plot has been used in many films, such as the 1981 opus “Treasure of the Yankee Zephyr.” They investigate and find several shot-up stiffs. They locate a smashed metal safe and find empty but ominous looking canisters. Meantime, a madman is on the rampage killing people with an ice ax. Of course, he is covered from head to foot in a parka, hood, and boots. The scriptwriters litter the action with obvious red herrings galore. The quartet of writers who wrote this forgettable thriller retread all the usual clichés. The only suspense occurs in the exteriors when people have to attach themselves to a life-line cable to keep from being blown away or lost in the Antarctic blizzards. At one point, our heroine eludes the murderer, but she winds up sacrificing two fingers from frostbite.

Beckinsale gives it her best and she really looks smashing in her undies. Tom Skerritt of "M.A.S.H. plays the kindly base doctor who would not harm a fly. Macht is squandered and given little to do. The CGI work is horribly obvious, but cinematographer Chris Soos does a skillful job of using scenic Quebec and Manitoba masquerade as Antarctica. Somewhere in this predictable whodunit lurked a better movie. Typically, the term ‘whiteout’ is a synonym for poor visibility. “Whiteout” qualifies as a washout.

FILM REVIEW OF ''MY FAIR LADY'' (1964)

Warner Brothers film studios honcho Jack L. Warner paid CBS-TV mogul William S. Paley the sum of $5.5 million to acquire the movie rights to turn "My Fair Lady" into a movie. Moreover, Paley demanded 50 percent of the film's gross once it exceeded $20 million. Incidentally, "My Fair Lady" raked in $72-million during its preliminary theatrical release. Paley stipulated also that the film could not be released until "My Fair Lady" completed its Broadway engagement. According to Warner biographer Bob Thomas, Warner actually produced "My Fair Lady," something that he had rarely done since the 1920s. Initially, Warner had sought Cary Grant for the role of Professor Henry Higgins, but Grant not only turned him down but also threatened to boycott the movie if Rex Harrison did not star in it. Warner approached Peter O'Toole who had recently starred in “Lawrence of Arabia,” but O'Toole's price including profit percentages was astronomical. Warner hired the highly respected “woman’s picture” director George Cukor, who had directed such classics as "The Women" and "Adam's Rib," to helm this 170-minute film. Cukor received $300-thousand for a minimum of 52 weeks, from January 1963 to February 1964.

At the time of its release, "My Fair Lady" (**** out of ****) generated some controversy because the star of the stage version, Julie Andrews, did not receive the Liza Doolittle role. Principally, Warner chose Audrey Hepburn over Julie Andrews because Hepburn was a recognized commodity that would attract audiences to the cinema. Hepburn had made a bundle for Warner Brothers with “A Nun’s Story.” Indeed, Warner anted up one of the biggest pay checks ever for Hepburn, paying her a cool million. For tax purposes, the studio paid the million dollars over a period of seven years. Meanwhile, Warner ignored the fact that Andrews had played Liza Doolittle in 2,281 performances on the London stage and 2, 715 performances on Broadway. Interestingly, Audrey Hepburn did not receive an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. The 1964 Best Actress Oscar went to Julie Andrews for "Mary Poppins." Keep in mind, “Mary Poppins” was Andrews’ film debut. Reportedly, Andrews thanked Warner at the ceremonies for making her Oscar possible. According to Turner Classic Films historian Frank Miller, Rex Harrison wound up reprising his stage role as Professor Henry Higgins for $200-thousand. Harrison didn't sing a line but rather spoke his lyrics as he had done on stage. Harrison also lobbied on behalf of Andrews to get the Liza role. Veteran British character actor Stanley Holloway, the only other actor in the stage presentation, reprised his role and was a hoot as Liza's blue-collar father. Originally, Warner had sought tough guy hoofer James Cagney to play the role. Cagney had retired by then and could not be induced.

"My Fair Lady" wound up costing Warner a whopping $17-million to produce, one of the most expensive movies in Hollywood at the time. 'My Fair Lady" received the 1964 Oscar for Best Picture. The last time that a Warner Brothers movie had been accorded this high honor was in 1943 with "Casablanca" starring Ingrid Bergman and Humphrey Bogart won the statuette. "My Fair Lady" also brought home the Oscars for Best Color Cinematography, Best Color Art Direction, Best Color Costume Design, Best Adapted Musical Score, and Best Sound.

Director George Cukor's "My Fair Lady" is essentially Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe's cinematic musical adaptation of George Bernard Shaw's play "Pygmalion." Shaw derived the idea for his play from Greek mythology. In one of Ovid's narratives, a Cypriot sculptor Pygmalion becomes enamored with a statue of a woman that he had carved out of ivory. Shaw adapted his play in 1938 for a British film that toplined Leslie Howard and Wendy Hiller. Like "My Fair Lady," "Pygmalion" concerned a Victorian phonetician who wagers that he can teach a Cockney flower girl to speak correct English so that he can have her masquerade in high society as a lady. Wendy Hiller played Eliza Doolittle and Howard—best known for "Gone with the Wind"—was cast as Professor Higgins. Hiller and Howard both received Oscar nominations for Best Actor and Best Actress while Shaw actually won an Oscar for his screenplay that he wrote with W.P. Lipscomb and Cecil Lewis. Ian Dalrymple and Anatole de Grunwald also contributed to the screenplay but they never received credit, while Kay Walsh provided some additional dialogue. In 1956, Lerner and Loewe rewrote the play because Shaw's work broke two important musical conventions: the main story lacked a romance and allowed no place for an ensemble.

As in "Pygmalion," "My Fair Lady" has voice coach Professor Henry Higgins (Rex Harrison) challenges his incredulous colleague, Colonel Pickering (Wilfrid Hyde-White), that he can train boisterous Cockney street vendor Eliza Doolittle so she can talk in proper English and fool the lords and ladies at Buckingham Palace into believing that she is a duchess. Pickering not only takes the bet but also provides the funds to dress Eliza to fit the role. For six months Higgins toils day and night working on refining Eliza so that the aristocrats at the biggest social event of the season will believe that she is royalty. Of course, before it is over, both Higgins and Doolittle grow to hate each other but inevitably the hate sweetens into love at fade out. The early scenes between Harrison and Hepburn as they argue with each other at the station are hilarious. There isn't a bad song in the lot.

According to Frank Miller, virtually every cent of the massive production budget of "My Fair Lady" appears on screen. Lerner and Loewe complained when Warner decided to lens the film on the Warner Brothers backlot in Burbank, California. Nevertheless, Warner Brothers went to extreme lengths to recreate the actual British setting. For example, the stones for the cobblestoned Covent Garden streets were manufactured one at a time, rather than the usual practice of making them all for one mold. The sets were painted and retouched by Art director Gene Allen to give some of the edifices the illusion that they had been standing for hundreds of years. He also aged Hepburn's flower-vendor costumes so she wouldn't appear too prosperous. One thing that couldn't be fixed about Hepburn was her voice. Although Hepburn had sung songs in Funny Face” and “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” the “My Fair Lady” songs would prove to be beyond her range. The studio musical experts felt her voice wasn’t good enough. None of the meticulous rehearsals, recordings, and re-recordings passed muster. Ultimately, Warner hired ‘a voice double’ Marni Nixon to dub Hepburn in spite of the actress's extensive preparation for the part. Future Sherlock Holmes actor Jeremy Brett was cast as Freddy Eynsford-Hill. Although Brett had a fine voice, Bill Shirley ended up dubbing him.

Movie reviewers at the time largely loved “My Fair Lady.” The only complaint that surfaced concerned the casting of Audrey Hepburn rather than Julie Andrews. Many critics felt that Hepburn was not credible as a Cockney flower vendor. The final note of interest in this story about this celebrated hit movie is the October 1964 premiere. Jack Warner told his publicity manager Joe Hyams the following about the premiere. “I want this to be a Tiffany operation. Everything you do must be one-hundred percent style and class, money no object. Just remember: it’s a Tiffany product.” Hyams followed Warner’s orders to the letter.

In his book “The Clown Prince of Hollywood, the Antic Life and Times of Jack Warner,” Bob Thomas described an ironic event that occurred at the benefit party afterward that mirrored “My Fair Lady.” Mrs. William S. Paley, the Duchess of Windsor and Mrs. Winston Guest chaired the benefit party and were gearing up for the cream of New York society to attend. Mrs. Paley had arranged for Jack Warner to escort her daughter at the premiere and the ball, but Miss Paley was unable to attend because she had developed a cold. Hyams got back to Warner about this complication. “Now Mrs. Paley is worried about your having someone to sit with at the head table.” Hyams and Warner huddled in the bar at the Sherry Netherland hotel in New York City at the time. Warner spotted a girl in the bar who according to Thomas was “an attractive young woman, who appeared to Hyams to be one of the high-class hookers that were allowed to work the hotel as a convenience for guests.” Warner escorted the hooker to the premiere decked out in a gown that Warner’s designer Ceil Chapman had made and they had styled the girl’s hair, too. The girl could not believe the charade that Warner was requesting her to do, but she attended the events. Again, according to Warner biographer Bob Thomas, “In the midst of the festivities, the girl in the bar arrived, looking like Eliza Doolittle.” Warner introduced her as Lady Cavendish, and everybody at the party, with the exception of Rex Harrison, believed that she was Lady Cavendish. After Warner kissed the girl good night and told Hyams to make sure that the clothes were returned, she turned to Hyams and told him. “What an unbelievable night! And you know something? I had such a good time, I’m not going to charge him.”

In his biography about director George Cukor, Patrick McGilligan classified “My Fair Lady” as the “last great studio movie . . . produced by the last great studio mogul: Jack Warner.”

REVIEW OF ''THUNDERBALL'' (1965)

The fourth James Bond movie, director Terence Young's "Thunderball," (**** out of ****) by far the most ambitious 007 escapade when it came out in 1965, is the only Bond picture that won an Oscar for Best Special Visual Effects. Scenarists Richard Maibaum and John Hopkins brought back the worldwide criminal organization SPECTRE, the Special Executive for Counterespionage, Terror, Revenge, and Extortion, to menace Bond after his previous adventure against Auric Goldfinger, who had cooperated with the Red Chinese. SPECTRE was behind Dr. No in "Dr. No," the villains in "From Russia with Love" as well as here in "Thunderball." Blofeld appeared in close-ups with a white cat in his lap in "FRWL" and here at a criminal organization summit when he kills a traitor. Nevertheless, you don’t get to see his face. You just hear his ominous voice. The Bond producers let Blofeld come out into the open for the next Bond epic "You Only Live Twice."

Like the best 007 movies, "Thunderball" takes advantage of actual events and the main real life event was the loss of two atomic bombs in the early 1960s. Blofeld's number two man, Emilio Largo (Adolfo Celi), hatches a grand scheme to steal two Atomic bombs from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and use them to hold the world for ransom. Bond villains come in three types: those like Blofeld who are criminals and want to make the world powers pay, but they don't want to destroy the world. Those villains, like Stromberg and Drax in later Bond movies "The Spy Who Loved Me" and "Moonraker," who want to destroy the world and recreate civilization in their own image. Finally, there are the independent villains, like Franz Sanchez in "License to Kill," Mr. Big in "Live and Let Die," "Goldfinger," and Max Zorin in "A View to a Kill" who want to corner a market, but who have no designs of world domination. There is also a mention about the real life British train robbery that occurred in England before "Thunderball" was released. The actual train robbery netted the thieves £2.6 million. They committed the robbery on 8 August 1963 at Bridego Railway Bridge, Ledburn near Mentmore in Buckinghamshire, England.

The "Thunderball" pre-credit sequence ranks one of the top five James Bond pre-credit sequences because it contains a surprise and a gimmick. James Bond and a French agent attend a funeral and the casket bears the initials JB, but the initials stand for Jacques Bouvard. Bond knew Bouvard as an assassin who had murdered two of his colleagues. He watches a veiled widow leave and climb into a limousine. She pulls the rear door shut without help from the chauffeur and the vehicle drives off. At a French château, the widow enters a large drawing room to find 007 awaiting her. He rises, expresses his condolences, and then decks the lady with a right cross that sends her flying across a table. "My dear, Colonel Bouvard," Bond informs the man in drag, "I don't think you should have opened that car door yourself." A brief but potent slugfest ensues until Bond chokes Bouvard to death with a fireplace poker. Bouvard's henchmen break down the door seconds before Bond exits. He straps on Bell Aero systems Rocket belt jet-pack and flies off to his Aston-Martin where the French agent is waiting. They shove the jetpack in the trunk. Bond activates the bulletproof shield from the trunk. Never mind that the jetpack and the retractable shield could occupy the same space, then unleashes to stream of water that knocks Bouvard's gun-toting henchmen down.

Bond gets himself into several tight spots in "Thunderball." At the Shrublands clinic, Colonel Lippe (Guy Doleman of "The Ipcress File") catches Bond on the exercise machine and cranks up the speed. Bond is harnessed to it and cannot stop the machine. Later, he exploits his advantage over the nurse and has sex with her to maintain his silence over the incident. Bond is trapped during a fight in a swimming pool with one of Largo's henchmen and Largo lets in the sharks while placing a shutter over the pool. Bond is nicked in the ankle during the Junkanoo parade, and later a Largo henchman almost spears him under Largo's yacht.

Adolf Celi makes a superb villain with his scimitar shaped snout, the black eye patch, and his razor sharp voice. He is despicable from start to finish, especially when he threatens to apply hot and cold torture to Domino with a burning cigarette and ice cubes. He feeds one of henchmen to the sharks when the man fails to deal with 007. Later, after the RAF Vulcan lands in the Bahamas, he refuses to cut the impostor pilot Angelo Palazzi (Paul Stassino of "Escape to Athena") free of the cockpit straps but slashes the man's air hose so that he drowns. Earlier, after the villains killed the real RAF pilot, Palazzi demanded more money because of the plastic surgery that he had to undergo to impersonate the pilot. Clearly, Palazzi's greed motivated Largo in part to kill him, but Largo is just enough of a dastard to have done it anyway to keep from paying Palazzi period.

They plan to crash land an RAF Vulcan at sea, retrieve the bombs, and camouflage the aircraft with sharks swimming around it is inspired itself. While the landing isn't that convincing, it will do, but once the plane is on the ocean floor, it looks cool. The climactic undersea battle off the coast of Miami has been vastly underrated. At the time, this represented the biggest underwater battle in cinema history; indeed, the Bond producers would mimic it in outer space for "Moonraker." Despite the continuity problems in the underwater battle, Young and second unit director Peter Hunt have a blast; even the lobster trying to avoid the fighting is amusing. All the scenes with the sharks are neat. Bond's first two encounters with Largo at the casino and later on Largo's estate where they shoot skeet are first-rate. Young keeps the tone of the film rather serious and the one-liners and puns pay off beautifully. The briefing of the double-00s in London in that cavernous room with the huge wall map is very atmospheric. John Barry's music is tops, especially the underwater music.

“Thunderball” represented the high water mark for the James Bond franchise in the 1960s. By the time that “Thunderball” appeared, everybody else had jumped on the bandwagon to produce espionage thrillers. The parody “Casino Royale” with a host of top names came out in 1967 had nothing to do with the series of films that United Artists was producing and apparently it fooled the fans who thought it was a Sean Connery James Bond picture, which it wasn’t. “You Only Live Twice” followed “Thunderball,” but the box office receipts slackened up. The 007 producers blamed Columbia Pictures’ for releasing “Casino Royale” and believed that that terrible parody may have scared away moviegoers. As far as I am concerned, the Bond pictures did not reach the high water mark until “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service” (1969) where George Lazenby replaced Sean Connery.

FILM REVIEW OF ''HALLOWEEN 2'' (2009)

No, you don’t have to be a degenerate to enjoy director Rob Zombie’s violent remake/sequel of “Halloween 2.” Director Rick Rosenthal’s original “Halloween 2” (1981) qualified as a one-dimensional, no-brainer sequel bloodbath with stabalicious Michael Myers prowling a hospital and killing everybody in sight, not always with a knife. Michael assumed a supernatural omnipotence in “Halloween 2” and he survived virtually everything, even being blinded by Laurie. Nevertheless, “Halloween 2” told us nothing new about Michael other than he derived satisfaction from killing more people in different ways. Writer & director Zombie doesn’t make this mistake with “Halloween 2” (**** out of ****) and it is virtually as brilliant and psychologically insightful as its predecessor. The cinematography and the songs, especially “Nights in White Satin” by the Moody Blues, enhance the atmosphere of this chiller. Zombie’s “Halloween 2” is a surreal saga and a commentary about family values. This remake of “Halloween 2” is far more ambitious, gruesome, and psychological than the original.

Briefly, in the prologue, Zombie flashbacks to 10-year old Michael in the mental asylum conversing with his mother (Sheri Moon Zombie of “House of 1000 Corpses”) about a white horse that she has given him. The first thing we see is a definition of a white horse and that it symbolizes the rage of the protagonist. Meanwhile, the Michael that talks with his mom is the Michael before he retreated behind behind mask. Sure, it is unfortunate Zombie couldn't bring back Daeg Faerch to reprise his role as young Michael. According to Zombie, young Faerch had grown too old to play a 10-year old. Nevertheless, Chase Wright Vanek brings his chilly presence to the role, resembling a murderous munchkin.

Thereafter, Zombie’s “Halloween 2” replicates Rosenthal’s “Halloween 2” as ambulances deliver both Laurie and Annie (Danielle Harris) to Haddonfield Hospital where the emergency room physicians perform miracles on them, especially the hacked up Annie. Meanwhile, Sheriff Brackett (Brad Dourif of “Dune”) orders the coroner to lock up Michael's body until he can examine it. No sooner have the two sleazy attendants loaded Michael and driven off than they slam into a cow on the highway, killing the driver instantly, smashing up his partner, and allowing Michael to escape. At the hospital, Laurie isn’t doing so well. Laurie is frantic about Annie, and she still suffers from the trauma of having emptied a revolver into Michael. Just as she is regaining her grip on reality, Michael comes a-slashing and nobody can keep him out. He chases a hysterical Laurie during a storm around the hospital and corners her in the security guard shack with a fire axe. He chops his way into the shack, but Laurie manages to escape.

Indeed, Laurie escapes by waking up. Dreams, hallucinations, and nightmares pervade “Halloween 2” and you can never be sure when each or all aren’t masquerading as reality. Michael is driven by the image of a giant white horse held on a rope by his dutiful mom Deborah, with himself standing alongside of her as an angelic 10-year adolescent. Family solidarity is important to Michael, and Michael has sworn to reunite the family, even if it means butchering Laurie like a steer. However, Zombie shows us a deeper, psychic linkage between Laurie (Scout Taylor-Compton) and Michael. When Michael (Tyler Mane of “ Troy ”) slaughters a dog and gnaws on its remains, Zombie cross-cuts images of Michael devouring the dog with Laurie eating a pizza. Psychically, Michael and Laurie are on the same wavelength and Laurie winds up at the toilet tossing her stomach because she can taste the dog meat. Without coming out and embroidering it in dialogue, Zombie tells us that it is this deep, psychic connection between Michael and Laurie as blood kin that enables him to track her down.

Life after Halloween has not been a picnic for Laurie. She spends time with her therapist (Margo Kidder of “Superman”), works at an old hippie-style coffee house run by none other than Howard Hesseman of “WKRP in Cincinnati ,” and hangs out with two trippy girlfriends who live life as if it were an endless party. Repeatedly, Laurie has lurid nightmares about Michael’s attacks, but Michael is in fact nowhere nearby. Indeed, he has gone into hiding in the woods, a kind of hibernation until a truckload of pugnacious rednecks test his resiliency and realize their error shortly before he dispatches them in the least merciful way. As in the first “Halloween 2,” Laurie has no clue that she is Michael Myers’ sister and this revelation warps her mind to no end.

The third party in this threesome is Michael’s life-long psychiatrist Dr. Samuel Loomis (Malcolm McDowell of “A Clockwork Orange”) and he is wrestling with his own demons. Remember, Dr. Loomis barely escaped Michael in Zombie’s “Halloween.” Now, he has mutated into a egotist and is touting his book about Michael as he tours the country, signing copies of his tome for his fans. The media latches onto him like the leeches that they are and attributes the blame for Michael's massacres to Loomis. Loomis learns quickly that escape is not possible from either the cynical media or parents of Michael’s victims. Ultimately, Loomis seeks redemption by going back to Haddonfield when Michael comes back for Halloween.

Laurie Strode is the chief protagonist in “Halloween 2” and the film justly belongs to Scout Taylor-Compton as she struggles to survive in the wake of her debacle. She lives now with Annie and her father at their rural house. Not only does “Halloween 2” look different from its predecessor, but also Zombie emphasizes the rural quality of the area. In his remake of “Halloween,” we were trapped along with the principals in what appeared to be a rural suburb. “Halloween 2” takes us back to the woods. Michael spends his time communing with nature and the visions of his mother, the white horse, and himself as an innocent adolescent before he resumes his murderous ways.

Not surprisingly, the violence in “Halloween 2” is gruesome without being sickening. In other words, we only see Michael hack away at his victims with a knife, stomp their faces in, or cut their heads off and usually in ways that make it ugly instead of glorious. We don't see the knife contact flesh when he goes into stabbing mode. Zombie’s favorite tactic is to let Michael strike just as things are calming down and part of this involves sudden movements and things like glass or wood shattered by his fists. There are moments when the violence takes on a traumatic weight that will scare the daylights out of the squeamish while gore hounds may yawn at some of Zombie’s discretions.

“Halloween 2” is both a triumph in style and substance with an ending that suggests Zombie may pull the biggest surprise in the franchise should the saga continue.

FILM REVIEW OF ''MOSQUITO SQUADRON'' (1969)

“633 Squadron” producer Lewis J. Rachmil let “Girl Happy” director Boris Sagal recycle exciting aerial combat footage from “633 Squadron” for his generic World War II thriller “Mosquito Squadron,” (** out of ****) starring David McCallum and Charles Gray. This lackluster epic combines elements of 1964’s “633 Squadron,” principally the plywood built De Havilland Mosquito fighter-bombers, with 1954’s “The Dam Busters,” with a bouncing bomb designed to destroy a top secret German weapons facility. The Germans are developing the V-3 rocket, and British Intelligence has located the site in the French countryside at the Chateau de Charlon. Air Commodore Hufford (Charles Gray of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show”) assigns Squadron Leader Quint Munro (David McCallum of “The Great Escape”) to bomb it with special ordinance. This low-budget melodrama set in England and France has very little to recommend it. Again, 90 percent of the shots of Mosquitoes winging their way over enemy country were appropriated from Walter E. Grauman’s classic “633 Squadron.” The prefabricated screenplay by Donald S. Sanford and Joyce Perry antes up one surprise, but everything else is formula served up without verve by Sagal.

Our British heroes are streaking toward their target, a V-2 rocket launching pad, on the French coast as “Mosquito Squadron” opens, using footage from Michael Anderson’s “Operation: Crossbow.” Incidentally, Anderson directed “The Dam Busters,” too. The British manage to destroy the missile launching ramp, but a flight of Messerschmidts jump them and blow Squadron Leader David 'Scotty' Scott (David Buck of “The Mummy’s Shroud”) out of the air. Quint Munro spots no parachute at the crash site and assumes ‘Scotty’ is kaput. Scotty’s death elevates Quint to Squadron Leader. Worse, our protagonist has lost a friend who was as close to him as a brother. Scotty and Quint grew up together because Quint’s parents died and Scotty’s parents raised him. Quint even handed off one of his former girlfriends, Beth (Suzanne Neve of “Bunny Lake Is Missing”), who wound up marrying Scotty. After a reasonable period of mourning, Beth and Quint take long bicycle rides in the country.

Air Commodore Hufford sends Quint off on a reconnaissance mission to photograph the Chateau de Charlon where the British insist that the Germans are working industriously to make a V-3. V-2 rockets are falling on London and wrecking havoc. Hufford shows Quint some film footage of a bomb that bounces on any terrain, no mean feat. In real life, the bomb was the genuine article and was called a ‘Highball’ and had been designed to use on battlewagons like the Tirpitz. Meanwhile, now that the Germans realize the British are interested in their installation at the Chateau, they drop a canister of film which shows that they have gathered British POWs as hostages against any bombing runs. The revelation that Scotty is among those prisoners comes as a quite a shock to Quint. Security prevents him from telling Beth about it. Initially, nobody wants to give the Germans a propaganda coup by killing their own men. Quint devises a way to kill two birds with one stone. Not only will they destroy the laboratory tucked into an underground facility with the ‘Highball’ bomb, but also they will breach the wall at the Chateau so the French Resistance can storm the Chateau. The closest thing to a villain in “Mosquito Squadron” is a German Lieutenant named Schack (Vladek Sheybal of “From Russia with Love”) who suspects that the Allies prisoners are plotting something when they all turn out for mass on a Sunday, especially when some of them aren’t Catholic. The suspicious Sheybal shows his villainy when shoots a Catholic priest with a machine gun. The POWs overpower their guards and fortify themselves in the chapel as the Mosquitoes appear to bomb the premises.

Quint and his Mosquito Squadron destroy the underground facility, but our hero has to crash his plane. Once on the ground, Quint runs into Scotty, but Scotty cannot remember his own identity, and he sacrifices his life heroically by blowing up a German tank with a bazooka after several others have tried and failed. A wounded Quint makes it back to England and reunites with Beth. As it turns out, Beth never learned that her late husband survived the crash only to die in France as a casualty of a combined British & French Resistance operation. There is a subplot about Beth’s younger brother who has to show the film that the Germans have dropped for the benefit of our heroes. When he threatens to spill the beans about Scotty, the authorities lock him up for the duration.

“Mosquito Squadron” qualifies as a hack attempt to cash in on “633 Squadron,” “Operation Cross-Bow,” and “The Dam Busters.” Boris Sagal made a couple of memorable movies and television shows, but “Mosquito Squadron” isn’t among them. Worse, “Mosquito Squadron” was cranked out by Oakmont Productions which ground out several cheapjack World War II thrillers, including another Sagal saga “The One-Thousand Plane Raid”, “The Last Escape,” “Hell Boats,” and “Submarine X-1.” These movies ranked as half-baked epics with neither a shred of atmosphere nor credibility. Sagal has to stage several shots on a studio set, principally the drive in the country that Quint and Beth take in his red roadster to see Scotty’s bereaved parents has our stars seated in an automobile mock-up with scenery back projected behind them. Sagal generates neither suspense nor sense of urgency. The cast walk through their roles like automatons delivering uninspired dialogue written by Sanford who went on to write the equally lackluster “Midway” and Joyce Perry who wrote teleplays for juvenile television shows like “Land of the Lost.” McCallum gets the best line in the movie when Hufford asks him about the odds of the mission succeeding: “About the same as spitting in an Air Commodore's eye from an express train, sir.” In “Mosquito Squadron,” Suzanne Neve and McCallum never generate any chemistry so it is difficult to believe that they love each other. Mind you, it is always a pleasure to watch David McCallum act, but “Mosquito Squadron” gives him very little to do.