Archive
GOLDENEYE – Éric Serra
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Six years after Timothy Dalton vacated the role, in the wake of the comparative commercial flop of License to Kill, and after several years of protracted contract negotiations, legal disagreements and financial disputes at MGM, and stalled screenplay ideas, James Bond returned with a new face, a new style, and a new sound in 1995 with GoldenEye. Having been previously thwarted by the fact that he was contracted to play Remington Steele on American television in the 1980s, the producers finally cast Irish actor Pierce Brosnan as their preferred 007, and the main supporting cast was rounded out by Sean Bean, Izabella Scorupco, Famke Janssen, and Judi Dench as M, the new head of MI6. New Zealander Martin Campbell was hired as director, and the screenplay was credited to Jeffrey Caine and Bruce Feirstein, based on a story by Michael France. Read more…
LUCY – Éric Serra
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Lucy is a high-concept sci-fi action movie directed by Luc Besson and starring Scarlet Johansson in the eponymous role as a young woman who is tricked into being a mule for a Korean crime syndicate, carrying a highly valuable synthetic super-drug called CPH4 that can increase the user’s brain function capacity, and which has been sewn into a pouch in her abdomen. When the pouch begins to leak and the drug begins to enter Lucy’s bloodstream, she begins to manifest increasingly developed levels of consciousness and physical prowess: absorbing information instantaneously, telekinesis, mental time travel, and imperviousness to pain. So begins a race against time as Lucy tries to understand and control her new abilities, while simultaneously avoiding the drug lord’s private army, who have been charged with capturing Lucy and returning the drug to its intended recipient. The film also stars Morgan Freeman, Amr Waked and Choi-Min Sik, and has an original score by French composer Éric Serra. Read more…
THE MESSENGER: THE STORY OF JOAN OF ARC – Éric Serra
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Beyond The Three Musketeers and Les Misérables, Joan of Arc’s tale is one of the few genuinely French legends to become common knowledge outside its homeland. The story of Joan of Arc has been often told in the cinema, notably by Ingrid Bergman, but never with as much passion or gusto as in Luc Besson’s new adaptation. With young starlet Milla Jovovich in the lead role and able support from a bevy of international stars including Dustin Hoffman, Faye Dunaway and John Malkovich, The Messenger is every bit an epic. Going down an unlikely route for his music, Besson again turned to his friend and long-time collaborator Éric Serra. This was his one bad move. Serra, whose musical roots are in the pop and rock fields, does not have the symphonic knowledge to be able to properly put together a score like this, and his lack of experience has sadly left him floundering out of his depth. Read more…
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