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Doctor Who  Warriors of the Deep   There’s an oft-voiced suggestion that, if only it had the benefit of a better class of production, Warriors of the Deep would be acclaimed as a classic. I think we all know this is phooey, but at the same time, it’s undeniable that a better class of production couldn’t have harmed its reputation any. It might still have had paper-thin characters and a desperately uninventive plot (“linear”, as Pennant Roberts put it) along with an entirely perfunctory reintroduction of old monsters, but it could also have claimed some zip, some verve and some drama. The Doctor: How do

Torn Curtain (1965)   Torn Curtain boasts a scene, about forty minutes in, that is every bit as proficient and startling as the Psycho shower scene. Unfortunately, in contrast to Psycho, the rest of the movie is a dog: a bog-standard Cold War spy affair, complete with miscast leads, a frequently flagrant disregard for verisimilitude and a rote and at times entirely inappropriate score. In the latter department, it seems studio interference led to Hitchcock rejecting Bernard Herrmann’s contribution and thus their falling out. He had also lost his regular cinematographer and editor. No sooner had Hitch reinvented himself for a new generation, first Marnie and

One by One (2014)   This first came on my radar last year, loosely labelled as “the film that got Rik Mayall killed” (although he managed to shoot another first). And more particularly, noting its importance as a portent of current times. I didn’t bite until now, as I didn’t think it sounded much cop. And… It is certainly topical, I’ll give One by One that. Unfortunately, however, it falls into the great yawning trap awaiting all dramatised polemics: being both patronising and preachy. And not very dramatic. It’s very rare that such approaches do work – JFK (1991) is an obvious exception –

Gorky Park (1983)   Michael Apted and workmanlike go hand in hand when it comes to thriller fare (his Bond outing barely registered a pulse). This adaptation of Martin Cruz Smith’s 1981 novel – by Dennis Potter, no less – is duly serviceable but resolutely unremarkable. William Hurt’s militsiya officer Renko investigates three faceless bodies found in the titular park. It was that grisly element that gave Gorky Park a certain cachet when I first saw it as an impressionable youngster. Which was actually not unfair, as it’s by far its most memorable aspect. That and the casting. Hurt is solid, but not really

2010: The Year We Make Contact (1984)   The deal with 2010: The Year We Make Contact, of course, is that it pales into insignificance if sat next to Kubrick’s film. The further deal is that being a unworthy sequel doesn’t make it a bad film. Indeed, I’m always rather impressed by it. With the proviso that, like pretty much all Peter Hyams’ best films (see also Capricorn One, Outland, The Star Chamber) it doesn’t quite come together. And that, most damagingly, it feels like an ’80s SF movie, whereas 2001: A Space Odyssey for all its psychedelia and monkey suits, hasn’t dated at all.

Never Say Never Again (1983)   There are plenty of sub-par Bonds in the official (Eon) franchise, several of them even weaker than this opportunistic remake of Thunderball, but they do still feel like Bond movies. Never Say Never Again, despite – or possibly because he’s part of it – featuring the much-vaunted, title-referencing return of the Sean Connery to the lead role, only ever feels like a cheap imitation. And yet, reputedly, it cost more than the same year’s Rog outing Octopussy. I won’t rehearse all the rights issues involving Kevin McClory, who ran with a remake for an age before getting it into production

Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)   Kubrick’s masterpiece satire of mutually-assured destruction. Or is it? Not the masterpiece bit, because that’s a given. Rather, is all it’s really about the threat of nuclear holocaust? While that’s obviously quite sufficient, all the director’s films are suggested to have, in popular alt-readings, something else going on under the hood, be it exposing the ways of Elite paedophilia (Lolita, Eyes Wide Shut), MKUltra programming (A Clockwork Orange, Full Metal Jacket), transhumanism and the threat of imminent AI overlords (2001: A Space Odyssey), and most of the

Escape from New York (1981)   There’s a refreshingly simplicity to John Carpenter’s nightmare vision of 1997. Society and government don’t represent a global pyramid; they’re messy and erratic, and can go deeply, deeply wrong without connivance, subterfuge, engineered rebellions or recourse to reset. There’s also a sense of playfulness here, of self-conscious cynicism regarding the survival prospects for the US, as voiced by Kurt Russell’s riff on Clint Eastwood anti-heroics in the decidedly not dead form of Snake Plissken. But in contrast to Carpenter’s later Big Trouble in Little China (where Russell is merciless to the legend of John Wayne), Escape from

The Jigsaw Man (1983)   Michael Caine’s ’80s career increasingly looks much more respectable when set against the “really will do any old shit” latter-day approaches of John Travolta, Nicolas Cage, Bruce Willis and John Cusack. In particular, his recourse to Cold War thrillers when all else failed and he was at a loose end for more than five minutes is now surrounded by a rather nostalgic, muggy grey hue. That doesn’t make The Jigsaw Man remotely any good, occupying as it does the bargain bin of even that spy thriller sub-genre, but it does have its incidental pleasures. The prospect of

The Fourth War (1990)   The appeal of John Frankenheimer’s only just Cold War thriller (it’s set in November 1988) is all in the title. Not that the idiosyncratic plot doesn’t have a certain appeal, but it wasn’t a broad one; The Fourth War came out three weeks after a Cold War thriller people wanted to see (The Hunt for Red October) and duly bombed. Roy Scheider’s colonel, a troublemaking Nam vet, finds himself posted to West Germany, overlooking the Czech border, where he instantly begins provoking the Soviets, and most especially his like-for-like in attitude opposite number Jürgen Prochnow. What starts as lobbed

The Hunt for Red October (1990)   I’ve always wondered why The Hunt for Red October became such a big hit (sixth of the year in the US, eleventh worldwide), when it seems to function antithetically to the presumed goal of a tense, claustrophobic submarine thriller. Instead, it’s a highly glossy affair, courtesy of at-peak-cachet director John McTiernan and cinematographer Jan de Bont. Not for them, the gloomy, dank interiors associated with the sub subgenre. Perhaps audiences flocked to it because, with its 1984 setting (the year of Tom Clancy’s novel of the same name), it represented the first opportunity to be

Anna (2019)   I’m sure one could construe pertinent parallels between the various allegations and predilections that have surfaced at various points relating to Luc Besson, both over the years and very recently, and the subject matter of his movies. For example, a layered confessional or artistic “atonement” in the form of (often ingenue) women rising up against their abusers/employers. In the case of Anna, however, I just suspect he saw Atomic Blonde and got jealous. I’ll have me some of that, though Luc. Only, while he brought more than sufficient action to the table, he omitted two vital ingredients: strong lead casting

Funeral in Berlin (1966)   A serviceable follow-up to The Ipcress File, but conclusive evidence that it wasn’t Michael Caine’s insolent performance as Harry Palmer alone – “You really work on the insubordinate bit, don’t you?” – that made it special. With Sydney J Furie conspicuously absent (Harry Salzman very much did not ask him to return), the directorial reins were passed to reliable go-to-Guy Hamilton (Goldfinger). While Otto Heller returns as cinematographer, painting a suitably drab, austere Berlin, Bond editor Peter Hunt is absent, and so is the indelible score (Konrad Efers replaces John Barry). Gone too are the pep and verve.

Red Sparrow (2018)   The biggest talking point in the wake of Red Sparrow’s release isn’t the movie itself. Rather, it’s whether or not J-Law is a bona fide box office draw. The answer is fairly mundane: about as much as any other big-name star outside of a franchise vehicle is. Which isn’t very much. Peg her alongside Dwayne Johnson, Vin Diesel, Tom Cruise and, on the lower end of the scale, the eternally-struggling-for-an-audience-when-not-Thor Chris Hemsworth. The movie itself, then? While it replicates the stride and demeanour of a traditional Cold War spy yarn with assuredness (as in, it’s a conscious throwback), Red

Atomic Blonde (2017)   Well, I can certainly see why Focus Features opted to change the title from The Coldest City (the name of the graphic novel from which this is adapted). The Coldest City evokes a noirish, dour, subdued tone, a movie of slow-burn intrigue in the vein of John Le Carré. Atomic Blonde, to paraphrase its introductory text, is not that movie. As such, there’s something of a mismatch here, of the kind of Cold War tale it has its roots in, and the furious, pop-soaked action spectacle director David Leitch is intent on turning it into. In the main, his choices succeed,

The Abyss (1989)   (Special Edition) By the time The Abyss was released in late summer ’89, I was a card-carrying James Cameron fanboy (not a term that was in such common use then, thankfully). Such devotion would only truly fade once True Lies revealed the stark, unadulterated truth of his filmmaking foibles. Consequently, I was an ardent Abyss apologist, railing at suggestions of its flaws. I loved the action, found the love story affecting, and admired the general conceit. So, when the Special Edition arrived in 1993, with its Day the Earth Stood Still-invoking global tsunami reinserted, I was more than happy to embrace it as

Bridge of Spies (2015)   I’ve grown rather used to solid rather than spectacular Steven Spielberg fare of late, the consequence of a consummate craftsman who can never quite resist the urge to impress base sentiment on material that needs less, not more, of his predilections. As such, Bridge of Spies is a near miss, frequently gripping and engrossing but resistant to a chillier, more distanced approach that might have benefited its fact-based, Cold War setting. The director’s last unqualified successes came with back-to-back 2002 pictures Minority Report and Catch Me If You Can. Since then he has made several movies (notably the also fact-based Munich and Lincoln)

The Russia House (1990)   The Russia House was greeted with public and critical indifference when it arrived in 1990. It isn’t too difficult to see why. Topical movies often fail to catch a wave that has already been well surfed by the news media. Why would anyone go out to watch a fiction version too (see also the numerous War on Terror themed films of the past decade plus)? Particularly when it’s packaged in a thriller that doesn’t really thrill (and the intrigue is mild at best) and a romance that entirely fizzles. Fred Schepsi’s adaptation of John Le Carré’s

WarGames (1983)   It isn’t easy to imminent nuclear Armageddon fun. By the sound of it, WarGames wouldn’t have become the fifth biggest movie (in the US) of 1983 if original director Martin Brest had not been fired from his more serious take on the tale of a computer geek who accidentally hacks into NORAD and nearly starts WWIII. The premise is deliriously hi-concept, but Brest appeared to have something in mind that was closer to the tone Alan J Pakula’s ’70s conspiracy pictures. When reliable pair of hands John Badham stepped into the breach it became something else. WarGames retained its essentials –

Ice Station Zebra (1968)   The fourth big screen adaptation of an Alistair MacLean novel, Ice Station Zebra was released in the same year as the more successful Where Eagles Dare. 1968 represents probably the high-water mark for interpretations of the author’s work, although The Guns of Navarone remains the biggest hit. As with most movie versions of MacLean novels (or, let’s face it, movie versions of anybody’s novels) fans of the book find much to gripe about; the latter half diverges greatly from the page. Those who complain about the languid pace are onto something too. To be sure, there’s an array of valid

The Whistle Blower (1987)   The appearance of Michael Caine’s name in a film’s billing has never been an indication of quality. He’s always been known for somewhat arbitrary tastes, and it’s only really since his second Oscar that there has been an upswing from the fifty-fifty chance that he’d appear in something decent. Much of that is down to Christopher Nolan, who positions him in each new film as a lucky charm. Appreciation of the actor was probably at a low point for much of the ’80s. He received (justified) plaudits for Educating Rita and Hannah and Her Sisters (and his first Oscar

From Russia with Love (1963)   The second Bond film cements the success of the first, and with Terence Young returning as director, Peter Hunt as editor and Richard Maibaum as writer, you’d have thought it might have been plain sailing. There were production and script problems from the off, however, and Hunt’s freehand in the editing suite did much to hide the joins. Indeed, there’s little evidence of the concerns on screen; the finished film standards head and shoulders above Dr. No in terms of quality and, outside of its status within the Bond canon, as a high quality spy thriller in its own right.

The Ipcress File (1965)   It’s ironic that Harry Palmer is seen as the down-at-heel, scruffy sibling of James Bond (from then Bond co-producer Harry Saltzman) – the anti-Bond as Variety put it. Because, in The Ipcress File at least, the drab London scenery and non-descript interiors may offer none of the opulence that comes with grand sets and villainous lairs, but it’s visually more stylish than any Bond movie (legendary Bond designer Ken Adam was nevertheless on hand to offer verisimilitude – he won the BAFTA over the also-nominated Goldfinger and “Cubby wouldn’t talk to me for the rest of the day”). Michael Caine’s career-making

For Your Eyes Only (1981)   You can’t fault Cubby Broccoli’s decision to tighten the purse strings following the enormous expense of Moonraker. That film paid off, but it wouldn’t make economic sense to make a habit of such profligacy. Nor were Michael G. Wilson and John Glen wrong in feeling that the series should put a brake on the fantasy; the science fiction trappings of that entry were pushing it even for a series renowned for excess in plotting and spectacle. But neither of these decisions needed to result in the stodgy, joyless affair that is For Your Eyes Only. Diamonds are