Tonight's marathon is the beginning of a three week venture into the comparing and contrasting of spy movies from the late 20th century to the early 21st. We begin as early as 1990 and moving forward with seeing the evolution of some of the most iconic spy genres and films ever made. We have on our menu for this evening:
Mission Impossible 1996, True Lies 1994, Goldeneye 1995, and Tomorrow Never Dies 1997
This is a strong beginning that's gonna lead to bigger and better marathons for this particular genre. The 90's was a lot different in their portrayal of spy films compared to the one's that are made today. That has a lot to deal with the idea that terrorism was viewed as somewhat of a cartoon-ish joke before the events of September 11th, then it became more of a serious tone. Spy films are now darker, grittier, more violent, and has villains that you can actually see when turning on the news. Times have changed and so has the whole realm of making spy films. The first movie of the night is Mission Impossible. This is Tom Cruise's first entry into the spy genre, and the beginning of what would become the biggest franchise of his acting career. Mission Impossible is about an American agent named Ethan Hunt, who comes under false suspicion of disloyalty. He must discover and expose the traitor spy without his organizations help. Mission Impossible is a slick, well directed, and exciting first entry into a franchise that gets progressively better, with the exception of the second film. The best one in my humble opinion is the third one.
The next installment in the marathon is James Cameron's True Lies starring Arnold Schwarzeneggar, Jamie Lee Curtis, and knockout supporting roles from Tom Arnold, Bill Paxton, and Tia Carrere. This was Cameron's final film before he set out to make the global box office phenomenons, Titanic and Avatar. The plot of True Lies is also spy oriented. The plot is about a secret agent named Harry Tasker who travels the globe hunting terrorists, but ultimately has his life turned upside down when he suspects that his wife might be having an affair with a used car salesman. True Lies is one of the greatest action movies ever made because it balances action, romance, and comedy so perfectly. Not to mention has knockout performances from Arnold Schwarzeneggar, Tom Arnold, Jamie Lee Curtis and Bill Paxton. This was also the last R rated film that James Cameron made in his career.
The next film after this is Goldeneye, the seventeenth spy adventure film in the popular James Bond series, and the first one to star Pierce Brosnan. Of all the Pierce Brosnan films made, this one was hands down the best, with each film afterwards experiencing a slow downhill. In this film, James Bond teams up with a lone survivor of a destroyed Russian research center to stop the hijacking of a nuclear space weapon by a fellow agent, who was believed to be dead. Of the four Pierce Brosnan films, this one developed the character the most and showed him in his appropriate nature.
The last one is a by the numbers, yet fun installment. Tomorrow Never Dies deals with James Bond on a mission to stop a media moguls evil plan to start a war between China and the UK in order to obtain tomorrows news today. In retrospect, the first two James Bond films are better than the other two.
This is a strong start to a promising month of some epic spy and heist films.
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