The Birds, The Peacemaker, The world is not enough

At one point there are some commando guys hijacking a train. When I first saw them, I couldn't help but think, "Hey! It's counter-strike guys!" There is one point where George Clooney's character goes kind of berserk. At the time I couldn't help but think it was really over the top and rather un-professional for a seasoned solider to go so nuts. Later I realized his friend, who had a daughter, had just been killed so he felt responsible and was out for vengeance.

This movie also looks at the challenges women face when dealing with military men (and in general). At one point Nicole Kidman's character is talking to a Russian who asks to talk to the man in charge. She responds, "I am the man in charge," and although you can't hear what the Russian is saying, you can tell he doesn't think very much of a women being in charge. There's also the difficulty of dealing with the deaths of people under your command. That would be hard for any new leader to deal with, man or woman, and it comes up quite a bit in other military movies, such as U-571.

The plot basically involves the theft of a nuclear warhead by a corrupt Russian general who is in it for the money, and the Serbian-Croatians who buy it and attempt to use it to blow up the U.N. Building in New York. The motivations of each are explored, and neither are big taken over the world types. It's all about simple things: greed and vengence. I don't think the scenario presented is entirely outside the realm of possibility. The probability of an attempted terrorist attack like the one depicted in this movie is orders of magnitude more probable than a ICBM attack by a "rouge" state (unless it's the U.S. attacking). Where the terrorist guys got all the money to pay for the nuke was never explained though.

Terrorist (or freedom fighter) motivation is a strange thing. I'm going to separate the terrorist from the freedom fighter in this way: a terrorist will kill themselves for their cause, where a freedom fighter has a specific goal in mind (like getting the Nazi's out of France) and would rather be farming. A book someone lent me briefly discussed the origin of assassin's as a 11th century cult in Iran, which reminded me that terrorism is an ever-present problem, and that sometimes it only takes one guy promising paradise to get people to kill themselves and others. On the other hand, I can see how one might desire vengence in the biggest possible way if you've lived in war-like conditions your entire life and your family was gunned down in the street by a sniper.

Watching James Bond movies requires a certain suspension of disbelief to make it entertaining. This often isn't too hard for me, because monkey brains love spaceship rumbles. Unfortunately, a high tolerance for bad acting is often required as well. Especially where bond girls are concerned. Sophie Marceau was good enough, but Denise Richards sucked. She was so wooden and forced. It was painful to watch.

The only redeeming feature of this movie was the BMW Z8. And it got cut in half! Sad days! Well, ok, there was some good action and stuff. Standard Bond fare I suppose.

The Birds was interesting. I was frustrated by the fact that they never tried to explain why the birds were going nuts. It was left up to the viewer to decide, if they chose to do so. In a way this works, since the movie just focuses on the reactions of the characters and doesn't stray from that. It keeps it simple and clean. I guess this would have been a pretty scary movie back when it was made, but of course it's pretty mundane by today's standards.

The one thing that really annoyed me about this film was the sounds the birds made. The noise didn't seem real. They were just annoying for the most part. In some cases you could see where the birds had been super imposed on the shot, especially in the flocking scenes. That made it look quite fake in some cases. I believe they used real live birds for the most part. They always look good in the close ups. According to IMDB, they fed the seagulls grain and whisky, because that was the only way they could get them to stand around so much. I couldn't help but think that if this movie had been made today, most of the birds would be CGI. The other slightly distracting thing was some of the scene changes. The characters stare off into the distance, and the scene fades out. It reminded me of scene changes in a play.

Next on the list, Psycho!