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“A lot of people here worked on five pictures with me, and I know there’s a lot of things said about what I think about these films or all of those, whatever. I’ve loved every single second of these movies, and especially this one because I’ve gotten up every morning and I’ve had the chance to work with you guys. And that has been one of the greatest honours of my life”
Daniel Craig about his 007's experience
PLOT
"James Bond has left active service. His peace is short-lived when Felix Leiter, an old friend from the CIA, turns up asking for help, leading Bond onto the trail of a mysterious villain armed with dangerous new technology" or "A generic plot and a nice swan song"
SCRIPT
This is the weakest aspect of this movie. I like how they decided to close Craig's Bond arch but it would've worked better if the villain was good and some sequences didn't feel rushed. But it's the villain who ruins everything. He isn't compelling or sympathetic and he isn't, in any way, connected to 007. Sure, he gives a bit of depth to Madeleine but it's not enough. Blofeld is underused and I don't like his demise, like Felix's. The new 007 seems like an improvement but it feels too politically correct.
The fact that the plot revolves around a virus created in a lab seems a way to profit on Covid.
Overall I think that this movie has been a missed opportunity to make a masterpiece.
Script: 6/10
ACTING
All the actors deliver a good performance, especially Daniel Craig, who leaves his character on a high note. I liked the humanity he has been able to bring to the character. He's probably one of the best Bond.
I liked a lot Ana de Armas and her character. Unfortunately she got only 5 minutes to shine. The actor who plays the scientist is funny enough.
The worst actor among the cast is probably Lea Seydoux, who feels out of place. She's not able to convey emotions the right way and she's a bit wooden in my opinion. Rami Malek is ok but he's not able to do much because his character is shitty.
Acting: 7/10
PHOTOGRAPHY
This is not on the same level as Skyfall but it still retains a similar level of quality. Lights and Colours are used masterfully and there're amazing shots. This franchise has evolved into one of the best looking one.
Photography: 7/10
EDITING
Without it most of the action scenes would be irrelevant. This is one of the best shooted 007's movies. There are a lot of awesome sequences. The best one, in my opinion, is the car chase in Italy and the opening scene after the credits. The camera is used in pretty ingenious ways, even though sometimes it's a bit repetitive and stale. Overall it's pretty good.
Editing: 7/10
SPECIAL EFFECTS
They are cool and realistic. Sometimes they're bad because the director decided to rely too much on them in some passages but overall they're good. Not the best I've ever seen but they satisfy me.
Special Effects: 7/10
SOUNDTRACK
Probably one of the best Bond's soundtracks. Hans Zimmer gives another great performance and, finally, join this franchise. He's able to readapt the classic theme for different situations and to reimagine it in new settings. It's charming, sensual, exciting and epic. I think that the action scenes are highly improved by it and elevate this movie, a lot. Bond got his perfect score, finally.
Billie Eilish's song is acceptable.
Soundtrack: 9/10
COSTUMES
Usual clothing which is present in the previous iterations. The villain's mask could've been iconic but it didn't serve any purpose in the movie. I liked Paloma's dress and some versions of 007's clothing.
Costumes: 6/10
CONCLUSION
Script: 6/10
Acting: 7/10
Photography: 7/10
Editing: 7/10
Special Effects: 7/10
Soundtrack: 9/10
Costumes: 6/10
AVERAGE: 7
A nice send off for Daniel Craig's Bond. Check it out because it's beautiful and entertaining.
Director: Cary Joji Fukunaga
Screenplay: Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, Cary Joji Fukunaga, Phoebe Waller-Bridge
Cast: Daniel Craig, Rami Malek, Léa Seydoux, Lashana Lynch, Ben Whishaw, Naomie Harris, Jeffrey Wright, Christoph Waltz, Ralph Fiennes
Soundtrack: Hans Zimmer
Cinematography: Linus Sandgren
Running Time: 163 minutes
Budget: $270 million
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3.5/5
Action/Thriller
James Bond (Daniel Craig) is called back into action, as a new bioweapon looms over the world of espionage, with potentially international consequences.
It’s been a long wait for No Time To Die, and I think that that works for better and worse. While it’s great to see a high-budget action blockbuster in a packed cinema once again, the film itself is unfortunately underwhelming. Disclaimer: I’m not really a Bond fan so factors like franchise traditions and fun references/homages largely don’t apply to me. And No Time To Die is chock-full of them, which meant that I wasn’t able to relate to the same state of enjoyment and glee that I imagine many loyal acolytes would’ve been indulging in. While the film is only a decent action flick for me, I do think that it serves as a bold and emotionally satisfying farewell to Craig’s Bond, and even I could appreciate the bittersweet conclusion that the end of the film adopts. No Time To Die is no Skyfall or Casino Royale but I can confidently say (and reassure) that it’s better than Spectre, and successful in being an enjoyable yet predictable action romp.
Setting aside uneven pacing and questionable narrative decisions aplenty, No Time To Die does open explosively, setting itself up to be a much better film than we eventually get. The relationship between Bond and Madeleine Swann (Léa Seydoux) is further explored, and a crucial event personal to him from Craig’s first outing is even significantly addressed, ultimately suggesting a more mature take on what the franchise can be. This is followed by that action sequence that we’ve all seen a million glimpses of through the main trailer, since before lockdown, which is executed very well. It’s always fun to see these kinds of sequences, where an action hero gets caught off guard and has to quickly adapt to the situation, showcasing their tactical prowess. He’s been in retirement for a time but it’s evident that Bond’s still got it. Everything in the picturesque Italian town looks gorgeous and serves nicely as the setting of the equilibrium for our main character, before the sudden and violent disruption, to reference Todorov’s Narrative Theory. The visuals here brilliantly contrast the stark and isolated icy terrain where I forgot to mention the actual opening scene takes place in. Here, we get some backstory and context for Rami Malek’s villain, Safin, and this dark sequence honestly establishes him as a menacing and intimidating antagonist for Bond. Until he isn’t. That’s because, he only gets about 10 minutes of screentime, across the whole 2 hours 45 minutes, which makes it very strange that he becomes one of the most boring and lacklustre Bond villains, in the franchise’s longest film ever. After a while, Safin’s motivations become strained and his evil plans unclear, and the character ends up feeling like a wasted opportunity. However, the bioweapon that he plans to use brings a genuinely interesting aspect to the film that does reach a bit of a stretch in parts but mostly works well as a plot device, especially towards the end.
Swedish cinematographer Linus Sandgren makes the film possess the perfect degree of vibrancy and look pretty immaculate, and I can appreciate that No Time To Die succeeds in this technical aspect more than the common blockbuster. I did really like Billie Eilish’s title track, that was simply oozing of the exact stylish spy noir energy that a Bond theme song should bring, to accompany the film and establish the tone. Hans Zimmer doesn’t particularly add much here to the franchise’s already iconic music that had laid the groundwork before him, but he still delivers a fittingly epic score, with ‘Matera’ and ‘Final Ascent’ packing much grandeur and beauty in the strings, while the vibrant ‘Cuba Chase’ and the thrilling ‘Message From an Old Friend’ brought a lot of life to the action sequences, in their own respective ways. I was talking to my friend about No Time To Die and he referenced the film’s nice touch of blending Eilish’s main motif into Hans Zimmer’s music in the score, which was a cool and subtle way to further integrate it. In that same conversation, he explained an idea he had for a certain character that I personally think they should’ve gone along with too, bringing me to my next points of discussion: our protagonists, and the supporting cast.
This particular character in question is Bond’s successor to the 007 title, Nomi (Lashana Lynch). Craig and Lynch share a fun back and forth, due to the latter having effectively replaced him, but also the conflict arisen because of their contrasting professional methods and ethics. Bond is the esteemed playboy who ‘can’t help’ but get the job done looking classy, while Nomi isn’t bothered with style and is straight to the point. Obviously, she’s presented as the better and more realistic agent but her character kind of begins and ends there. While not spending much time shifting the focus to secondary characters is forgivable for the movie as a Bond film, I feel that it unfairly detracts actual importance and necessity for her other than making it cool for our main protagonist to be fighting alongside somebody else in action sequences, and to provide some comic relief and jocose banter between them. My friend’s idea was that Bond should’ve had some kind of realisation that he was outgrowing this violent and relentless life, and then figuratively passed on the mantle to Nomi, in a moment of tipping his hat to her skill, professionalism, and worthiness of taking over as 007. Lynch can definitely bring charisma to the table, and it’s a shame that she felt underused by the end. However, she was great in action sequences, and nowhere near as lame as Malek’s villain. What No Time To Die has taught me is that once you’ve seen the trailer for a Bond film, you more or less know the entirety of the depth to each of the secondary protagonists’ characterisation and development, for better or worse, since the same goes for Naomie Harris’ Moneypenny, Ben Whishaw’s Q, and Ralph Fiennes’ M. They’re all fun to have in the film but don’t leave a significant mark. I did really enjoy to see Jeffrey Wright as Bond’s close friend Felix Leiter, an actor that I’ve admired for his subtle, and unfortunately underappreciated, stage presence, ever since I saw him interestingly enough play a character in The Last of Us Part II. Side note: I think he’s going to be a fantastic Commissioner Gordon in Matt Reeves’ The Batman (currently slated for March 2022).
Without going into spoiler-filled detail, the action is no John Wick, or even Mission Impossible: Fallout, in terms of choreography but it’s mostly solid and occasionally impressive. A gunfight in Cuba was well-done, where our protagonists had to use the environment a lot, for cover and traverse, and a gorgeous colour palette made everything in the scene look great. A later section in a forest was entertaining, as Bond had to rely on things like traps and think on the go to survive. Towards the end, the action weakens in inverse proportion to the convolution increasing, as everything becomes a bit uninspired but there are some good moments. I think that that last part is an accurate way to describe the whole film actually; it’s a decent action thriller with some memorable sections. As for some open criticisms I have: No Time To Die definitely suffers from middle-act slog, and when it tries to tie in with Craig’s other films in terms of linking Spectre to everything, the narrative really loses me. I also found the script disappointingly average, since I’d heard Phoebe Waller-Bridge was serving writing duties, and it felt pretty watered-down. The film is also undoubtedly way too long, and I think that at least 20 minutes should have been chopped off, to contribute to a likely more effective urgent and kinetic pace.
While I’m not really part of the Bond fanbase, I would hazard a guess that No Time To Die’s ending will be divisive. Occasionally, the type of route that the climax adopts can feel cheap in blockbusters, which often like to utilise ‘shock factor’ but I loved the ending, and what it represents for the character. James Bond learned something. Over the course of 15 years, Craig’s iteration displayed genuine maturity and I liked that. If this was to be the end of the franchise, the film’s ending would do it great service overall. However, it’s nearly guaranteed to not be so I’d like to give my thoughts on the question we’re all asking right now: in today’s climate and modern ideologies, should 007 as a franchise die? Long story short, I don’t think it needs to but only if there’s change. They can’t keep recycling the same tropes and ‘traditions’, with the same demographic of white, stereotypically attractive male in his 30s as the star. It’s not about creating controversy by ‘being woke’, it’s about applying to the expansive following that the internationally popular franchise has today, by introducing major diversity and representation, otherwise, these films are simply going to cease to be relevant. Bond has such a colossal pedestal that it would be irresponsible for the movies to not engage with and weigh in on our current world. Dr. No was released in 1962 when marginalisation because of race, gender and sex, sexual orientation, religion, and more was still widespread, so why, in today’s time when discrimination is no longer ever regarded as acceptable, is the Bond film series still applying to the conventions of its initial roots? Craig’s run has made significant strides in reducing the atrocious objectification of women that the franchise has long been guilty of, but it’s still not enough. If things don’t change considerably, then I don’t believe that Bond should continue. Directors with the attitude of this film’s Fukunaga, who has openly stated the mistakes and aggrievances of the franchise’s past but evidently believes that it can keep going through acceptance, responsibility and change, should be getting hired moving forward. It’s far from perfect in execution, but No Time To Die does fortunately represent this willingness to grow into something different, and ultimately better.
Now, is Bond’s latest also Craig’s greatest? I would say not but there was some entertaining action, plot contrivances and cheesy one-liners. In other words, it’s a fun blockbuster. I would recommend seeing No Time To Die in a packed cinema, with a gratuitous amount of popcorn, and I think that Bond fans will ultimately be satisfied.
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