Simon's Movie Reviews

Historical movies are often controversial because they tend to play fast and loose with the facts in order to prioritize spectacle for the sake of reaching mass audiences. I should know a lot more about the history behind Michael Mann’s The Last of the Mohicans (1992) since it features the historical figure General Louis-Joseph de Montcalm, a key figure in the history of Quebec City which I consider to be my home town. I don’t know if he is accurately portrayed, but the movie itself is an old-fashioned historical epic with romance, action and drama. Maybe I’ll read up on the history later. The movie itself is based on a novel that was published in 1826 by American author James Fennimore Cooper. I read the book a few years ago, but mostly because there was a free version online and I was curious to read a novel that dealt with that period of history. It was definitely not a page-turner, which is something Mann and co-writer Christopher Crowe must have had in mind when they were ...

The James Bond series is without a doubt one of my favourite movie franchises. These movies are two hours of pure fun filled with globetrotting adventures, impossible spy gadgets, femmes fatales and over-the-top villains. You always know what you are going to get with a Bond movie and that has been working well for audiences for decades. Yet after decades the continuity was getting very muddled in a 2006 the guardians of the Bond franchises released Casino Royale , which boldly restarted the franchise at zero with not just a brand new Bond, but also a Bond on his first mission. A risky undertaking, but as with most Bond missions it was a success. I had first discovered James Bond with Goldeneye , Pierce Brosnan’s first outing as the world famous spy, and then dove into the franchise by watching every movie starring Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, George Lazenby and of course Sean Connery who launched the series in the first place. It is an interesting franchise in that it reflects ...