For It Is Man's Number: james bond

Showing posts with label james bond. Show all posts

Friday, 14 January 2022

No Time To Die (2021)

I have to admit to being a bit Bond-fatigued by the time No Time To Die was released. It was a culmination of various factors. I was greatly disappointed by Spectre. I was as fed up as most people were by the seemingly constant whinging from Daniel Craig in between every instalment in the franchise. And, of course, the global pandemic meant that the release date was pushed back for quite some time. I decided that I would remain hopeful, but be prepared for disappointment.

Disappointment was certainly not forthcoming.

No Time To Die is immediately up there with the very best of the Bond films, vying for a top spot alongside On Her Majesty’s Secret Service and a couple of other superior 007 adventures, and it allows Craig to end his tenure on a real high note. It’s a film that gets so much right that it almost makes up for the stumbling steps that got us to this point.

The plot is simple. Bond is retired, he wants to get on with his life with Madeleine (Léa Seydoux). Retirement is interrupted by the pesky Blofeld (Christoph Waltz) being a sneaky schemer once again, and Bond eventually ends up looking to return to his old role when he learns of a deadly bioweapon that can be used to target not just individuals, but entire races. Bond being involved doesn’t make everyone happy. There’s a new agent using the 007 tag (Lashana Lynch) and M is under a lot of stress with the situation. Blofeld, still imprisoned, may actually welcome the chance to see Bond once more, especially as they both seem to have a common enemy, Lyutsifer Safin (Rami Malek).

Directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga, who also helped on the screenplay with Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, and Phoebe Waller-Bridge, this is a near-perfect Bond film that packs enough into every main sequence to distract you from the aspects that aren’t present. You don’t get Bond the womaniser, you don’t get a whole load of gadgets, and you don’t get gunfights and explosions without a lot of consideration and attempts at diplomatic diversions by those giving the orders.

You do get just enough of everything though. There are glamorous women around Bond. There are a couple of decent gadgets used in the midst of the action. And it’s interesting to think that, for all the growth of the character we have seen over the last couple of decades, Bond is shown as essentially the same blunt tool used when needed. The world may have moved on, but new and different problems can be solved with the same old solution.

Craig does well once again in the main role, all blue-eyed piercing stares and pouting. Waltz is underused once again, but also once again superb in his limited amount of screentime. Seydoux does well with what she's given, and she is able to play her part with some ambiguity as others try to figure out whether or not they can trust her. Lynch is a badass, and quickly shows why she was assigned the 007 number, so I wouldn't be averse to a spin-off with her character in it (or seeing her have a similarly strong presence in whatever we get next in the series). I also wouldn't be averse to seeing another main role for Ana de Armas, playing an agent named Paloma in a fantastic set-piece that takes place in Cuba. Ralph Fiennes, Naomie Harris, Ben Whishaw, and Rory Kinnear are as good as ever in the respective roles of M, Moneypenny, Q, and Tanner. But what of the main villains? Dali Benssalah is a good henchman, and has a memorable look thanks to his character having one electronic eye alongside one normal eye, and David Dencik is enjoyably cowardly and selfish as the scientist who has created a scarily effective weapon. Malek is really the only weak link, sadly as Safin, a character who isn't written well played in a way that is far too quiet and lacking any real sense of showmanship (which all of the best Bond villains have). Can Malek do anything other than the soft-spoken and kind of awkward character he has made his specialty over the last few years? I'm not seeing anything to prove otherwise, and I don't think he was the best person to put in this role.

Transplant a better villain into this and you could have had the greatest Bond film of all time. As it is, well, it remains a strong contender. Fukunaga directs like someone who simply knows how to run a well-oiled machine, from the sound design to the sets, from the wardrobe to the lighting, and on and on. It's also well worth mentioning the music by Hans Zimmer, providing a score that pieces together various motifs while always complementing the visuals (as any great score should). The stuntwork is superb, the pacing means that the hefty 163-minute runtime goes by briskly enough, and there's at least one moment that feels like one of the most unexpected and iconic moments in modern action cinema.

By the time the end credits roll . . . you may very well be slightly shaken.

9/10

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Friday, 30 October 2015

Is Spectre a Bond film that completely misunderstands Bond?

Unfortunately, what has set me back to the keyboard is a movie that has disappointed me. Well, not just disappointed me. Perhaps saying that it angered me would be closer to the truth. You see, many have decided to come out again in favour of James Bond, and many are heaping some great praise upon Spectre. And I, for the life of me, can't see how this is possible. From the perspective of a Bond fan, Spectre is a bad movie. It is, in my eyes, the worst instalment in the entire official series. And I've endured The Man With The Golden Gun.

For anyone interested, I have previously written about Bond movies here (Connery, with a hint of Lazenby), here (Moore), here (Dalton), here (Brosnan), here (Craig), and here (a couple of interesting movies that are never really considered "canon"). And I reviewed Skyfall here. I'm not linking to those reviews and articles to claim to be any kind of expert. I simply think that if you browse through those and share any of my taste then the following may be a bit easier to stomach. Otherwise, feel free to think of me as someone talking out of his posterior.

Now, although this won't be a full, standard movie review, I'd like to try to pinpoint a few aspects of Spectre that make it such a bad Bond movie. Let me try to highlight everything in, hmmmmmmm, 7 main points.

1) That opening. The opening sequence of Spectre has some great moments. In fact, up until a building collapses and Bond (Daniel Craig, once again totally at ease in the role) has to get to ground level, I was very happy. But then it simply reprises the opening minutes of Casino Royale. We've seen Bond do this before, keeping pace with a target through a busy, exotic locale. We've seen him do many things before, of course, but the familiarity of his drinking, his seduction of women and his one-liners are part of the appeal. Watching repetitive scenes, as opposed to repeated character traits, isn't the same thing. Then we have some great helicopter stunt work. Seriously . . . kudos to all involved. But was I the only person noticing one or two moments of green screen that were all-too-obvious? The 21st century equivalent of Roger Moore's stunt double taking up most of the screentime in his latter outings? The visuals were decidedly so-so, and a bit irritating in their incessant reminder of the events from the previous movies that have SHAPED our hero (don't you know), but I could have accepted them if they'd been accompanied by a decent song. Oh no. The worst Bond movie in the Bond-verse also has the worst Bond song. I don't think Sam Smith should ever be allowed to write jingles for breakfast cereals after his godawful slice of drabness put forward here.

2) The ladies. Bond has always been about the Bond girls as well as the man himself. And there was much talk about Monica Bellucci being a leading Bond girl. She is *gasp* 50. I love Monica Bellucci, and was looking forward to seeing her role in the movie. If anyone had told me that she was in it for about all of five minutes then the poor treatment she receives at the hands of the scriptwriters might have been easier to stomach. The other main Bond girl here is played by Lea Seydoux, who easily fares better than Bellucci. Sadly, the makers of the movie use her as a way to show a Bond developing a heart and feelings. You know, like he did in Casino Royale . . . . . . . . before events changed him into the figure we knew he had to become.

3) This is not a Mission: Impossible movie, but nobody told the writers that. Okay, Q (Ben Whishaw) is a younger man here than he ever was in the older movies, but we don't need an unnecessary scene putting him in some danger out in the field. We can watch Simon Pegg try to keep up with Tom Cruise for that kind of fish-out-of-water fun in an action spy franchise. And I know that the new M (Ralph Fiennes, who looks more and more like Leonard Rossiter with every performance he gives) has seen action in the field, but that doesn't make me want to watch him join in the battle either.

4) Stunt set-pieces are for the stunts and the gadgets. This is pretty much why every Bond movie exists. So it's weird to see a car chase occur in which Bond spends a large amount of the time speaking on the phone to Moneypenny (Naomie Harris). Or a fight sequence in which Bond faces off against a physically superior opponent (Dave Bautista) for no reason whatsoever. Seriously, you're supposed to think that there's always a reason for Bond and co. to be in physical danger, but the last 30-40 minutes contradict that, as it contradicts so many things.

5) Bond, as he is displayed onscreen, isn't the introspective type (bar occasional moments of brilliance, such as THAT final scene in On Her Majesty's Secret Service). Whether by choice or necessity, he acts and he moves on. Sometimes the consequences aren't as good as expected, but the alternatives are often a hell of a lot worse. Not here, however. Oh no. This is a thoughtful Bond. A Bond who looks as if he wants a bit of a holiday. Which isn't what you really want from your number one international secret agent.

6) The villain(s). A good Bond movie can be made or broken by the villain. Christoph Waltz is on hand here, another reason to rejoice. Until you realise that he's given a character who is completely mishandled. The big speeches never feel powerful enough, the threat only gets specific in a strange, and ill-fitting, torture sequence, and his development from the start of the movie to the end is as laughable as it is predictable.

7) Can I fit my problems into only seven main points? Oh, oh, I think I can. The biggest problem with Spectre is one that almost occured in Skyfall. Director Sam Mendes and co. seem unable to decide on just what to do with their lead character. One minute they're tearing down his established world, allowing him to rise again from the ashes like some kind of 00-phoenix. The next they're trying to shoehorn in familiar elements that they either want to reinvent for the modern era or they're adding unwanted touches from other movies that were themselves influenced by Bond (the shadow of Christopher Nolan seems to be a problem here, yet again).

Bond CAN be serious (Licence To Kill remains one of the best in the series, and it's also one of the darkest). He CAN be silly (look at most of those Moore outings). He can be an entertaining mixture of the two (as has been the case with most of the Brosnan and Craig films). But he always has to ultimately be Bond, and everything else should stem from that. Don't try to make a movie that you then use to shape James Bond. Let James Bond shape the movie that you're making.