Director Scott Spiegel
Starring Alexandra Staden, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Raymond Cruz
Rated MA
Score 6/6
When her surrogate father who owns the casino she works in gets murdered, Modesty Blaise takes on those that killed him and are now at the casino to rob it. It turns out she is more than just a modest worker.
Alright, Wonder Woman is the wonder woman has become the most successful female led, directed superhero movie judging by how things are going now.
Okay, before we get to far into things I’d like to make something perfectly clear all superhero movies are comic book movies but not all comic book movies are superhero movies. Now give you My Name is Modesty, which is adapted from a British comic strip created by author Peter O’Donnell and illustrator Jim Holdaway in 1963. Along with the comic strip there was a 1966 movie directed by Joseph Losey, a failed one hour television pilot in 1982, released in 2004 My Name is Modesty was direct to video and directed by Scott Spiegel and from 1965 there where eleven novels and two short story collections.
For those of you who might be wondering yes, I will be getting to the 1966 version in another review.
This was released a full four years before the rise of the MCU, isn’t that cool? A full four years before origin stories where a thing. I was immediately struck by how the opening credits seemed a similar feel to an action from either the 70’s or 80’s. It’s probably been about 10 years since I last watched this movie and there is a marked difference between My Name is Modesty and any movie that has been released as a part of the MCU. This doesn’t hold you by the hand and take the time acclimatise you to the main character of the movie it throws you off of the deep and expects you to swim. It is not till about half way through the movie before you are given a solid idea as who Modesty Blaise is and how she got to where she is and even then, the filmmakers did not lose sight of the current moment in the movie. In fact, her origin story helped drive the plot forward.
Every so often when I read articles about comic book movies and female characters in comic book movies and how people want a character who is charming, intelligent, calm under pressure, sexy, well written … etc … etc. Well that is Modesty Blaise courtesy of Alexandra Staden’s performance. Of course, this whole endeavour would have been nothing if it was not due to the capable hands of Nikolaj Coster-Waldau and to cap things off an intelligent ending. And all of this was done with an overall running time of 75 minutes.