Now what would a Bond
movie be without plent of over the top action scenes. These are the
moneymakers. Literally where the action happens. I’ve picked out a few of the
most action dense scenes to discuss.
The first big action scene is a sky diving scene, naturally.
Basically, Bond is pushed out of plane without a parachute (by our good buddy
Jaws), so he has to wrestle the chute off of the henchman who jumped out of the
plane before him. It starts out with Bond chasing the anonymous mustachioed henchman
through the air, tackling him, and then stealing his parachute and kicking him
away (after which he has the courtesy to acknowledge that he has been beaten
and bothers Bond no more). Jaws re-enters the scene to finish what he started,
and now Jaws is chasing Bond in a nice reversal. Just as Jaws catches up and is
about to take a chomp out of Bond’s leg, James deploys his parachute and escapes.
Jaws’ s rip cord breaks off in his hand, but luckily the circus is in town so
he is available for future assassination attempts.
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| Somewhere over Southern California |
Next up, during a tour of an
astronaut training facility, Bond is offered a chance to ride in the centrifuge
(standard part of the tour). As soon as the ride begins, all of the
(relatively) responsible people are called out of the room and Drax’s pet
henchman Chang (who apparently just got back from Judo practice
and didn’t have time to change) takes over the controls. Tension builds as he
slowly cranks up the G’s. With the safety button disconnected, Bond struggles
both to stop the machine and keep consciousness. As the G’s pass 13 (“most
people pass out at seven”) Bond remembers his wrist launcher gadget, and shoots
the controls to stop the centrifuge. Goodhead rushed in to pull a haggard Bond
out of the machine, and he doesn’t even get back at her for saying that S70 year olds can take
3 G’sS (a 50 year olds can 13!).
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| Will his face ever recover? |
The
first of our two boat chases takes place in the canals of Venice. Bond flees from some machine gun toting goons in a speed boat using nothing but his wits,
his uncanny ability not to get shot, and a souped-up motor-gondola. I vote for
this being the most ridiculous scene in the movie, with such antics as two
people making out so hard that they don’t notice their gondola being split in
half, a pigeon double take, and Bond escaping by turning his gondola into a
hover crafts and cruising around the Piazza San Marco. A classic scene
to say the least.
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| Hovercrafts are always cool |
Later Bond is strolling around
Venice after some breaking and entering. All of a sudden, Chang is back and he
just came from Kendo practice (the guy has a full schedule and it doesn’t
include changing clothes). Chang attacks Bond with a practice sword (couldn’t
get a real sword I guess?), but Bond absconds to the nearby glass shop (who
didn’t see that coming). Bond finds a
convenient rapier and proceeds to establish the superiority of European
swordsmanship (assuming the Asian dude’s sword is made of wood), and also destroying
everything in the glass shop (Bond does try to spare one piece, but the
henchman just has no respect for hand-blown glass). Disarmed, Chang flees into
a clock tower, jumps out of hiding and tries to choke Bond with a chain, and
gets thrown out of the St. Mark’s clock face into a piano for his
troubles. Bond honors his worthy adversary with the touching eulogy “Play it
again Sam” (it works better if you assume his full name was Sam Chang).
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| Way to bring a stick to a sword fight |
One
trans-Atlantic flight later (on the Concord naturally) and Bond is running
into Goodhead in Rio de Janeiro. Specifically on Sugar Loaf Mountain.
They decend in the cable car (thankfully empty of annoying tourists) while
talking shop about the spy biz, and are completely unsurprised when Jaws
manhandles the the machinery (he bites through a cable!) and the car comes to a
sudden halt. They immediately Die Hard out of the top of the car and James want
to zip line down the cable on a chain (I would low ball that distance as being
at least 1500 feet horizontal). To save
them the trouble, Jaws overhands his way along the cable to the other car, and pudgy
accomplice henchman runs the cars out to meet in the middle. Bond and Goodnight
are able to overpower Jaws, and push him into the car, locking the hatch (lock
only to be used for emergencies, such as 7’2”, metal toothed assassins), and
Bond gets his wish of ziplining away. The henchman who was sent on this mission
for his tech savvy and not his physique, starts up the cable cars again in an
attempt to ram the zip liners. Team spy drop from the cable in the nick of time and execute a
flawless tuck and roll on the ground. Suck-henchman completely fails to stop
the cable car and it crashes through the building, killing him instantly. Jaws
is pulled from the wreckage by Dolly, and Hollywoods greatest couple is born.
Bond and Goodnight are then captured by more henchman who are disguised as
incredibly on the ball paramedics (interupting some choice make outs). Bond
escapes after a truly superb tantem guard-seduction, but Goodnight is left
behind (nobody is really worried about it though).
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| He just man-jumps it |
Boat
chase numero dos (I’m American and assume everyone south of our border speaks
Spanish) takes place on the Amazon River. After the failure last time the bad
guys of Drax Industries are bringing their A-game, with three boats, three
henchman per boat, boat mounted mortars, and Jaws on a boat for good measure. Too
bad for them that James upped the ante as well with a boat packing all the
special spy options. James’s boat has mines, torpedoes, a bulletproof screen,
and a hang-glider. James gets every pennies worth (which is saying a lot for
how overpriced options generally are), using the mines to blow up one
boat, the torpedo for the second, and escaping with the hang-glider as his boat
crashes over the wildly misplace Iguaza Falls. Jaws unfailingly breaks
the steering wheel off his boat and drives over the falls (the man is a
wrecking machine).
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| The third set of mines always get 'em |
This
next sequence is probably my favorite action scene in all of Bond-dom. I mean,
it’s a friggin’ space laser battle! A squad of gung-ho space marines battle a
group of space suited Drax flunkies, in friggin’ space, with friggin’ lasers.
It’s like the Thunderball speargun fight, but on crack. A scene with soldiers
in EVA suits shooting each other with jet pack mounted laser guns basically stimulates all of my stupendous receptors. It is an intense battle
with people being launched screaming into space left and right (in space people
can hear you scream). The marines manage to break into the space station and
with their completely unrestrained laser fire, manage to completely destroy the
delicate structure. Set destruction abounds, and all the Draxites are killed.
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| Space Marines must be the secret sixth military branch |
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