New James Bond Gets a Title, All-Star Cast

It's a pretty good time to be a movie geek. After getting new trailers for Jurassic World and Star Wars: The Force Awakens, we received news that the 24th James Bond film has a title, Spectre, and will feature Christoph Waltz, Monica Bellucci, Lea Seydoux, Andrew Scott and Drax the Destroyer himself, Dave Bautista. Skyfall director Sam Mendes will return alongside Daniel Craig, who steps into 007's signature tuxedo for the fourth time in the anticipated film. Other returning Bond cast members include Ralph Fiennes as M, Naomie Harris as Miss Moneypenny and Ben Whishaw as Q.

The title and the octopus-shaped bullet hole in the logo allude to SPECTRE, the terrorist organization Sean Connery and oft-forgotten 007 George Lazenby battled in the 1960s and early '70s. Although the criminal organization was seemingly reimagined as the group called Quantum in Craig's Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace, we might see the entity emerge as an entirely new threat in the fourth film in this rebooted timeline. In any event, the fact that much of the Skyfall crew is coming back for this installment bodes very well. Also, is anyone else ridiculously pumped about the idea of seeing Christoph freakin' Waltz as a Bond villain?!

Spectre hits theaters Nov. 6, 2015. For more on this story, head over to IGN.

James Bond Will Return in ‘To Have and To Gold’

Hey guys. I’m not having the best week for a variety of reasons, but this video from Funny or Die cheered me up quite a bit. Check out the lost James Bond film To Have and To Gold, which was written directed and starring Gil Edmundberry.

Lost Bond Film with Chris Kattan from Chris Kattan

(He’s still better than George Lazenby.)

James Bond Returns to Theaters in 2012

It seems as though updating The Wort Report on a basis that resembles anything close to consistent is impossible with my new work schedule, so I’d like to extend my sincerest apologies for the lack of activity this month. Between international travel and a lot more day-to-day responsibilities at the office, my focus has been elsewhere over the past few weeks as I’ve barely had time to relax (let alone blog).

But anyway, speaking of dashing, charismatic world travelers, it has been confirmed that the next installment of the rebooted James Bond franchise will be hitting theaters in 2012. In a press conference held on Nov. 3—the same date Sean Connery was announced as the first James Bond—filmmakers revealed that the new film, Skyfall, would team series star Daniel Craig with director Sam Mendes and a cast that includes Bérénice Marlohe, Naomie Harris, Dame Judi Dench, Javier Bardem, Ben Whishaw, Ralph Fiennes and Albert Finney. Bardem (No Country for Old Men) will naturally play the film’s villain.

As noted on the official 007 Twitter page, producers Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Brocolli said Skyfall has “some emotional context,” to which Mendes added that the film “is its own story” and “doesn’t connect with the last two movies,” Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace.

The official synopsis reads, “Bond's loyalty to M is tested as her past comes back to haunt her. As MI6 comes under attack, 007 must track down and destroy the threat, no matter how personal the cost.”

Honestly, the synopsis is too vague to be all that exciting, but I’m pumped that the Bond franchise is finally moving forward once again. For updates on the production, follow @007 on Twitter.

GoldenEye Gets Shaken, Stirred on the Wii

There’s a lot of exciting news coming out of the Electronic Entertainment Expo this year, and perhaps one of the most talked-about announcements—shockingly—came from the Nintendo camp. After years of speculation and rumors, we finally learned that Nintendo will be releasing an updated version of landmark console first-person shooter GoldenEye 007 for the Wii, which is slated for release this holiday season. GoldenEye with motion controls? Sounds promising.

There are plenty of reasons why this GoldenEye remake is a big deal. As avid Nintendo 64 aficionados are already aware, the 1997 title based on the 1995 James Bond film of the same name was one of the first games based on a movie that actually honored the source material. Moreover, GoldenEye was one of the first shooters developed specifically for a console audience, revolutionizing local multiplayer gaming in the process. Sure, the single-player campaign was solid in its own right—following the plot of the movie while providing a variety of mission objectives depending on the difficulty level—but its rich, balanced multiplayer modes kept gamers coming back for years. Hell, I’m sure there are some gaming circles that still fire up GoldenEye for marathon sessions 13 years later, even though the graphics and controls haven’t exactly aged well compared to contemporary shooters like Modern Warfare 2.

Some gamers might have been content with a simple graphical upgrade of the Nintendo 64 classic, but developers are evidently rebuilding GoldenEye from the ground up. Kotaku reports that although the original title was developed by Rare—the development house behind such phenomenal titles as Donkey Kong Country and Perfect Dark—the remake is being handled by Eurocom and Activision, who are crafting a game inspired by the original without recreating it completely. In addition, even though Pierce Brosnan played Bond in the GoldenEye film, present-day 007 Daniel Craig is slipping into the character’s trademark tuxedo this time around. Weird.

The game will support four-player split-screen multiplayer in addition to eight-player online modes. I’m not quite sure GoldenEye will have the same charm if you can’t talk trash to the guy on the couch next to you after sending him flying with a proximity mine, but since online play is so popular these days, it’s a key addition.

As excited as I am about a GoldenEye remake, I urge my fellow fanboys to remain cautious. This isn’t really the GoldenEye we know, and this could just be yet another attempt to cash in on the name. As fans can surely recall, a title called GoldenEye: Rogue Agent was released by Electronic Arts in 2004, and it was pretty awful. I would almost rather have seen Activision develop an all-new Bond title that builds on what worked in GoldenEye as opposed to remaking it. After all, I thought Activision and Treyarch’s Quantum of Solace—which used the Call of Duty engine—was pretty damn good, all things considered. If GoldenEye isn’t going to be a faithful remake of the original with revamped graphics and control, why bother calling it GoldenEye save for the obvious monetary reasons? Or did I already answer my own question?

Nevertheless, the Wii GoldenEye is a first-day purchase for me and I can’t wait to dive into its multiplayer modes. But I will say this: If you play as Oddjob, we are no longer friends.

Watch the trailer below (via G4).

Quantum of Solace: A Wort Report Review

Taking place immediately following 2006’s critically-acclaimed James Bond franchise reboot Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace is a relentlessly fast-paced action film that never truly allows its characters—or members of the audience—to stop for a moment to catch their breath. Having said that, it’s a worthy sequel and one of the better Bond films overall.

Already silencing his most vocal critics with his last outing as 007, Daniel Craig returns to prove that he is, undoubtedly, the best Bond since Sean Connery. He may be the least-refined Bond on film, but Craig’s version of the character bears the closest resemblance to creator Ian Fleming’s “blunt instrument” of the British Secret Service. As in the Fleming novels, Bond makes mistakes in the line of duty, and sometimes has difficulty keeping his assignments from becoming personal. In the original series of 20 films, however, that dynamic became lost as the character too-often devolved into a cartoonish, smirking self-parody. This Bond is brutal, cold-blooded, pissed off and flawed.

And he screws up pretty often in Quantum of Solace, just ask M (Judi Dench), who constantly finds herself berating Bond for leaving a trail of human wreckage as he searches for those at the helm of Quantum, a mysterious worldwide criminal organization. Driven by anger over the death of his lover Vesper Lynd (Eva Green) in the previous film, Bond’s mission leads him to Dominic Greene (Mathieu Amalric), chairman of the ecological organization Greene Planet and prominent member of Quantum. His evil plan—because all Bond villains must have evil plans—is to stage a coup coup d’état in Bolivia and gain control of its water supply. It’s more subtle than nuking Fort Knox or building a diamond-powered orbital space laser, but it works.

Bond is aided this time around by the lovely Camille Montes (Olga Kurylenko)—who, like Bond, is fueled by a personal vendetta—as well as a few other allies both old and new. Unfortunately, because Quantum of Solace is such an action-packed film, we never get as much time with these characters as we’d probably like. Jeffrey Wright once again turns in a slick performance as CIA agent Felix Leiter, and Dench’s M is just as commanding as she’s always been. However, with such an exhausting number of chase sequences and slugfests in Quantum of Solace, there simply isn’t any opportunity for introspection. Perhaps there will be time for all of that in the sequel.

This modern Bond may lack the charm, gadgets and one-liners that once defined the character, but none of those superficial trappings are missed in Craig’s grittier portrayal. Quantum of Solace may be a little too over-loaded with action for its own good, but it’s sure to leave audiences both shaken and stirred.

Quantum of Solace (2008)
Director: Marc Forster
Writer(s): Paul Haggis, Neal Purvis and Robert Wade
Starring: Daniel Craig, Olga Kurylenko, Mathieu Amalric, Judi Dench, Giancarlo Giannini, Gemma Arterton, Jeffrey Wright
Release Date: November 14, 2008
Rated: PG-13
Official Site: 007.com

Bond’s Best Game Since GoldenEye

Released in 1997, Rare’s GoldenEye 007 for the Nintendo 64 was a revolutionary title. Not only did it prove that first-person shooters really could work on consoles, but it also showed that a licensed game based on a movie—in this case, the 1995 James Bond film GoldenEye—could transcend expectations and become one of the best games ever released.

For the Bond franchise, that success has been a hard act to follow. After the release of GoldenEye, the license shifted to Electronic Arts, who released movie-based and original Bond titles, all of which were met with mixed reviews. The latest Bond game, Quantum of Solace, is published by Activision and, thanks to its use of the acclaimed Call of Duty 4 game engine, it’s easily the best Bond game since GoldenEye. However, its all-too-brief campaign mode coupled with “been there, done that” multiplayer makes it strictly a weekend rental.

The game is based on both the Quantum of Solace film and its predecessor, Casino Royale, with Daniel Craig providing the voice of his film counterpart along with Eva Green, Judi Dench, Mads Mikkelsen, Olga Kurylenko and Mathieu Amalric. While it spans two films, don’t expect to spend more than five hours on the single-player game. Even for a movie-based game, players should get far more in a solo experience for a $60 game.

It plays and controls very similarly to Call of Duty 4—also published by Activision—and this is a very good thing. Players familiar with Call of Duty’s run-and-gun gameplay should feel very comfortable slipping into Bond’s tuxedo, and the game’s newly integrated cover system is welcome during its more intense firefights. There are some quieter moments where Bond has to be stealthy and avoid detection, but a majority of the game is heavy on the gunplay. It won’t take you all that long, but you will have fun playing through Quantum of Solace.

Like just about every game released over the past few years, Quantum of Solace breaks up the action with quick-time events and Simon Says-esque “hacking” sequences. Most gamers have no doubt tired with these by now, but developers keep insisting that we want interactive cutscenes and “follow the flashing lights” puzzles, yet developers keep forcing them on us. They don’t hurt the game in any sense, but they add absolutely nothing. Gamers like puzzles, but not when they’re this easy.

And easy is a great way to describe Quantum of Solace as a whole. On the default difficulty setting, most gamers will hardly break a sweat as most levels boil down to “find some cover, wait for enemies to reload and shoot them in the face.” Also, the enemy AI is a bit dull, as the bad guys are usually content with either finding terrible hiding places next to explosive gas canisters or running headlong into Bond as if to say “Daniel Craig! I loved you in Layer Cake!” before getting a few rounds in the chest. For a real challenge, most dedicated gamers will probably find themselves upping the difficulty level almost immediately.

Aside from some minor character animation issues and the fact that most of the game’s enemies seem to shop at the same “evil henchman” clothing store, Quantum of Solace is a beautiful game, recreating locales from both films while retaining a visually distinct Bond flavor. If you’ve played Call of Duty 4, you know the level of detail to expect. Graphically, this game doesn’t disappoint in the slightest.

Aside from the single-player campaign, the multiplayer is reasonably good, although it does little to improve on anything that’s been done before in previous first-person shooters. There are plenty of fun gameplay modes—including Golden Gun and Bond Versus, which pits one player, as Bond, against six members of the Organization—but it’s essentially Call of Duty 4 with a new coat of paint. If you’ve never experienced that game’s online multiplayer then there’s certainly nothing wrong with Quantum of Solace and it plays extremely well. However, if you’re expecting something groundbreaking you won’t find it here.

And in this crowded fall 2008 release season, a title really does need to break new ground to compete with the big dogs like Fable II, Gears of War 2 and LittleBigPlanet. If you’re a Bond fan, there’s no reason why you won’t enjoy Quantum of Solace, but it’s hard to recommend a purchase for anyone else. However, it’s definitely a game worth playing. Bond hasn’t been this good in over a decade and, hopefully, we’ll be seeing him again on consoles real soon.

Publisher: Activision
Developer: Treyarch (PlayStation 3, Xbox 360)
Rating: T
Release Date: November 4, 2008 (US)

Images courtesy of Activision