That was easy. Campbell for his holier-than-thou attitude in playing the "savior" with GE, dropping out for not wanting to be "tied down" (or whatever bull$#!+ excuse was used) which doomed the rest of Brosnan's run to erratic one-shot directors-for-hire, then coming back for CR'06 to boost his flagging career and stoke his ego as the "returning Hero" before finally quitting again for the same snotty non-reasons. And Mendes just because he's a pompous ass with delusions of grandeur.
Favorite Bond Movie: The Living Daylights, Licence To Kill, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, From Russia With Love, Tomorrow Never Dies & For Your Eyes Only.
Favorite Movies: American Mary, Deadlier Than The Male, Dracula, Saved, The Big Sleep, The French Connection, Under The Sand
I also think it's really silly how much praise both Campbell and Mendes got for their Bond films, the Craig films of course but I think GoldenEye is very overrated as well.
To me Roger Spottiswoode was probably the least bad director, TND is packed with Bondian clichés which makes the film stale, but technically speaking it was pretty well made and fast moving.
I voted for Mendes and Forster. Both whack jobs, drowned in their BS pretentiousness. But a special honor for Campbell as lousy director: there's sloppiness to his story-telling. He made a mess of the CR adaptation, and GoldenEye has two major faults: (1) the Trevelyan/Janus/Ouromov alliance wasn't smooth, and that was the crux of the plot. Ouromov kills Trevelyan in the pre-credits, or was it all staged to make Bond think he's dead? Why even do that if their intention was to kill Bond? Why didn't Trevelyan just shoot Bond when he pointed a gun at him early in the scene? Also, was it even necessary for Trevelyan to shoot all those Russian soldiers to convince Bond? Then again, was the Janus scheme discussed and arranged between Trevelyan and Ouromov in those few seconds when Ouromov captured him? The whole thing is just sloppy. (2) The BMW Z3 was introduced with all sorts of weapons but they're never used. As Chekhov said, when you introduce a gun in the story, you better show it go off. This is a basic dramatic principle that dictates every element in the story fits together, and when it's not necessary it ought to be removed. Obviously, this was a product placement requirement, but Campbell should've known better and took the time to work it into the story, showing the car in action.
I was tempted to pick Forster for his obvious flouncy arthouse bull$#!+ of QoS, but in the end I stuck with Campbell because I despise the smug, self-righteous, over-serious melodrama that GE dipped its toe into under his watch, then plunged straight into the deep end with his return for CR'06. Specifically, GE's agonizingly drawn-out introduction of the two supporting characters I was supposedly meant be enthralled by but actually LOATHED from start-to-finish (the obnoxious Boris and shrill Natalya), along with the later scene of Bond brooding all by himself on the Cuban beach with Natalya bugging him about how he can be so cold and denouncing Bond's way that keeps him alive but really only keeps him alone and blah blah blah.
And CR was worse in even its "smaller" scenes. The worst of which IMO was the Bahamas beach scene where a swarm of little kids are happily chasing after that chick riding her horse (Note: her name of "Solange" is NEVER spoken once onscreen*), ending with a lingering shot of that little black boy smiling. Now, I suppose that was meant to be Campbell's (or Purvis/Wade's, or Haggis', who knows?) "subtle" attempt to evoke the carefree innocence of childhood, or something. But to me, it was just so.... fruity. I don't know exactly why, but it really creeped me out. And that's without the Craggy Swimsuit Catalogue posing (ugh).
Another offender was the wishy-washy handing of LeChiffre's blond moll (again, her name of "Valenka" isn't spoken onscreen either*), who in her first scene is just eye-candy as she climbs onto their fancy boat after her sunset swim. Then she's the terrified, screaming victim who the Eeeevil African Joseph Kony stand-in threatens to cut the hand off of if her boyfriend doesn't win their money back. And finally, she's the silently glowering villainess who callously poisons our hero Craggy's drink even though he (unwittingly) did her a solid by killing Not-Kony and his goon the night before. Shesh, make up your mind, Mr. Campbell. Do we oggle her, pity her, or hate her? As her death scene (along with the rest of LeChiffe's entourage of nobodies) by Mr. White takes place offscreen, I'm pretty certain we do notmourn her.
And I still don't know exactly how Craggy came to the realization in the post-Casino Victory Dinner scene that Mathis was supposedly the traitor who gave away his knowing about LeChiffre's "tell" just before he rushes out to rescue Vesper from being "kidnapped" during her bogus call from "Mathis" (which he doesn't, because Craggy's slow). It just doesn't make sense on any level, whether you've read the book or not. (I did, and it still didn't help.)
It was as if the production team took to heart the oft-repeated criticism that John Glen was a "bad" director because of his reputation for favoring action sequences over character and plot development (that apparently didn't endear him to Timothy Dalton by the time of LTK), so hiring an actualModernDirector to overplay the dramatics was their "take that!" to the whiners. All while conveniently forgetting that Cubby hired Glen precisely because he did exactly what he was told, was easier to manage than rehiring Peter Hunt would've been on FYEO as it was initially suggested (how much more awesome would THAT have been!), and would stick around for the long haul of the 1980s in order to keep their machine running smoothly. Sure, Glen may not have been the most inspired or imaginative director compared to any of the Old Guard (Young, Hamilton, Gilbert, Hunt), but he was solid and reliable, which is what they needed at the time. Yet, the instant EON gets said Modern Director onboard, he proceeds to make himself so "valuable" the first time out that he decides he's too good to stick around and leaves them to flail about for a decade before he returns to "work his magic" once more before pulling the same $#!+.
I guess that's why they were so eager to put everything on hold for the Esteemed Mister Mendes to clear his schedule, as his work on Skyfarce was soooo "acclaimed" and "faultless" that they don't dare risk another critical failure with a one-timer like Forster to taint their precious Craggy's legacy (as they so ineptly let Brosnan's run lose momentum with the last three one-timers). And since Campbell himself will probably be too old to return just to break in yet another New Bond, I guess that makes Sam Mendes the "new" Martin Campbell. And that's whey they're both still my choices for the Directors I dislike the most.
* - I'm well aware that the earlier movies were also guilty of this oversight, as You Only Live Twice never names the final Bond girl "Kissy" onscreen either. But given that Big-Budget Epic's visual eye-candy of Ken Adam's Volcano Set for Ninjas to attack and blow the hell out of with rocket guns and explosions while Super-Cool Sean Connery's Classic-Coke Bond effortlessly beats the crap out of every bad guy in his path to atone for his bogus Japanese Fisherman-disguise, I can forgive such lapses. But when CR'06 paints itself as more "Serious" and "Deep", its falling into the same lapses of omission with less colorful distractions to cover it up reveals it to be even more glaringly inept. And no, CR's tacked-on action scenes of Construction-Site-Parkour!-Parkour!, Miami Airport Runway Chase, and Sinking Venice House don't help because their transparent function as padding only calls more attention to the $#!+ty writing, which actually makes it worse.
Barry Niven wrote:
And CR was worse in even its "smaller" scenes. The worst of which IMO was the Bahamas beach scene where a swarm of little kids are happily chasing after that chick riding her horse (Note: her name of "Solange" is NEVER spoken once onscreen*), ending with a lingering shot of that little black boy smiling. Now, I suppose that was meant to be Campbell's (or Purvis/Wade's, or Haggis', who knows?) "subtle" attempt to evoke the carefree innocence of childhood, or something. But to me, it was just so.... fruity. I don't know exactly why, but it really creeped me out. And that's without the Craggy Swimsuit Catalogue posing (ugh).
This is the feeling I get in all of the Craig films, a kind of creepiness and "fruity" essence that Eon and the directors of late are jamming into the films. In another thread, I mentioned the rape scene near the end of QOS (General Medrano attacking a woman). It was fleeting while explosions were taking place in Greene's HQ, but still it was suggestive enough. I remember my wife and her friends just cringing at that scene. Putting "edge" into the Bond movies is one thing; to make them unpleasant and creepy is a whole other issue. It just reeks of desperation to have "artistic" credibility but in the end just pure tastelessness. That takes us to the realm of kitsch. Campbell, Forster, Mendes--to me, they're all kitschy directors.
If only there were an option to pick 3 Directors to dislike instead of only 2, Forster definitely would've made the cut for the completely FRUITY QoS.
I've already covered most of the transgressions committed on that cinematic abomination elsewhere , so I'll just add one more I was amazed to have not mentioned before: Those title FONTS [font=Bradley Hand ITC]for[/font] [font=fantasy]each[/font] [font=Lucida Sans Unicode]location[/font]. Dear GOD, those fonts were so pretentious I wanted to hurl my cell phone at the movie screen each time they showed up (and would have if I didn't need it so badly for everyday stuff).
