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Same. I don’t hate it much. Ranked in the middle of the pack for me - separately the good from the “not-so-good”. I do remember tiring, and even falling asleep, on the 3rd viewing of SP in the theatres. It was just so long.
Hoping to keep the enthusiasm for NTTD, but I am a bit afraid of the length of the movie. It’s a 3.5-hour time commitment with the previews included. Without the novelty and anticipation factors, not sure I can stay as excited.
I feel with an extremely high level of confidence that NTTD is going to be the same as Casino Royale in that this is immediately locked in as one of my favourite films ever made, and is pretty much not going to shift whatsoever (I would say if anything my love for Casino Royale has only increased slightly with time, and so far the same is true of NTTD, which I conservatively had around ~500 on my list the first time through, leapt into my top 50 on second viewing, and sits precisely at #30 after my third).
Bingo. (from my limited understanding; I have not studied that film)
My opinion about Bond movies usually do not budge much from my initial viewing. I mean my overall feelings. I watched Spectre before seeing NTTD and liked it okay. I knew that NTTD would feature Madeleine more and I was glad of that as I thought we did not learn enough about her, see many sides to her, in Spectre. So for me, Spectre was all right and fun at times but my appreciation for it lessened.
With NTTD, I loved it first viewing and was very excited to see it in the theater again. My 3rd time will be this Sunday. I was more relaxed and was able to notice more interesting little bits the 2nd time I saw it. My appreciation is going up; it's solid. And visually, it is stunning and so much better than Spectre. A beautiful Bond film with great action sequences. I do not think my appreciation will slide down much at all during the next year. I rank it very close to Casino Royale.
Safin's nanomachine weapon reminded me of FoxDie from Metal Gear Solid. Hideo Kojima is way ahead of the pack.
Looking forward to the second viewing.
Welcome back! It’s great to see you again and hear your thoughts.
Craig will be missed as bond but his movies took a lot of risks that paid off in my opinion, the movies were less about escapism and more about the harsh realities of the world post 9/11 and I felt it all coming to an end capped an overall pretty great run of films, the only glaring failure in my eyes of Craig’s bond is SP. but that’s for another thread :) this is probably my 2nd favorite of the craig era and in my top 5 or 3 overall.
Oh yea and safin was seriously a waste.
Agreed. Craig's Bond universe has never quite been the same one that I grew up with and love but NTTD is the perfect final chapter for the self contained world of Craig's Bond. As the end titles said "James Bond Will Return" and I look forward to seeing yet another completely new version of 007.
Well said to both. Agreed. Dans Bond, the beginning, middle and end. I don't think he was meant to have a long happy life. Short life expectancy and all that! I can't wait to watch all five in a marathon.
It's a beautifully shot film and I cannot believe CJF managed to balance the tragedy and trauma BONDing with a zaniness on par with Archer. Then again, check out the biker gang episode of True Detective for a similar vibe!
Even my dad - a pretty conservative guy - loved the movie and enjoyed the interplay between Bond and Nomi.
I'm in a pretty conservative (politically and in terms of expectations for a movie) part of Maine, which meant the only thing that hindered my first viewing was a cranky old man in front of me who would shout "BULLS***!" every time
Like a lot of you have said, I should probably wait for the dust to settle before I rank NTTD - I left SP saying it was in my Top 5 on opening night, and that rating changed quickly! Cheers to Daniel, Barb and Michael, PWB, and of course, Cary!
Not for me, I might be too jaded due to my frustration with the ending admittedly, but having seen NTTD three times, I've come away every time thinking Bond wouldn't give it all up for Madeline. They don't feel like they're together long enough for them to truly be in love
Maybe it was the writing, maybe it was the actors chemistry but I never feel any warmth between Bond and Madeline
Sorry for clogging up the review thread, I'll do a full review soon
Yes, that's a good, fun moment, not necessary to the story at all but fitting and appropriate. That's about the time that I really started to warm to Nomi and like her character.
Well, at least this one we can all agree to call a
It's funny reading my own comment there considering how far the film has fallen in my estimation since and continues to on subsequent rewatches.
It did everything for me it should have done: I found the ending very moving and the best part of the film, which is always good. The opening was great too, although I found myself being slightly less gripped than usual throughout it. I honestly missed Mendes for a lot of it: it just didn't have that Bond style/feel which he knew how to do so well, and felt possibly a bit blander as a result. The direction for me was good enough rather than exemplary. Some of it was even a bit confusing: I got a bit lost during the Cuba fight and couldn't work out where everyone was- I think Fukunaga perhaps doesn't lay out the geography of an action scene as well as other directors.
Also action-wise I felt it was a little lacking, with no big stand-out action moments; and no real big Bond moments where Bond does something cool: even Spectre did that better. The Norway chase was a little uninspiring: in order to get rid of the chasing vehicles Bond slams the side of his car into theirs and they flip. And he then does that three or four times, with no variation or invention.
So really the action, post PTS, comes down to some fights, some gun stuff and a bit of a car chase- nothing really new or clever there, which is a shame. And yes, little in the way of Bond cool, whereas I feel like Mendes and Campbell knew to keep a bit more of that. Zimmer's soundtrack doesn't really use the Bond theme in a big way, but that's possibly because Bond doesn't do much that's all that Bond-y, he just shoots and drives. The Cuba scene is just a bit of a fight when I felt like it needed to be a bit bigger and crazier- why not chase Nomi a bit more across town, with possession of Waldo swapping several times between Bond and her?
Nomi was another missed opportunity for me: her opening scenes were great with her being a real challenge to Bond, and then after that she just sort of fades away into the background, eventually being shunted off on a raft and forgotten about. Their relationship is resolved too easily and there's nothing for her to do. Personally I think that perhaps it would have been better to foreground her properly in the Cuba sequence (coming as it does right after her great introduction) and for that to have been her main few scenes in the movie, rather than just have her vaguely featuring in the background throughout the film.
I loved Paloma as much as the next person though: sparky and engaging, she was great; and I loved Bond's amused reaction to her too. The CR version of him would have been annoyed, but it's so nice to see that he's mellowed and enjoying life at this point.
Lynch I think was maybe less good: I just didn't really buy some of her line deliveries. Although that "do you know what time it is" line couldn't have been saved by even the ghost of Sir Sean himself, yuck.
Waldo I think was odd, tonally: a comedy very evil villain just didn't work for me, I couldn't get a handle on whether I should laugh at him or be appalled by him, so when it came to his murder it was a bit odd. And so we also come to Safin: nah. Just not very good. Malek is pretending to be a Bond villain, not being one. Silva is the one to beat here, and he didn't.
But things to like: Felix was brilliantly served, and played. I really felt Bond's loss there and their friendship, excellent stuff.
The MI6 crew were as good as ever. Madeline was redeemed by this film: her and Bond's relationship was real and it was touching, and it was the main story of the film, which was great. But most importantly Bond himself: Daniel Craig ends on possibly his best performance as Bond, which is saying something. He's truly superb in this film, and he's a real person. Seeing him willing to draw a line under his life with Vesper at the beginning was wonderful and that he actually had opened up fully to Madeline, in a way that I probably didn't buy that he did with Vesper in CR. He just felt.. real.
And so when it came to those final moments, with him knowing his life is worthless if he can't be with Madeline or Mathilde, and the enormity of seeing James Bond realise the beauty of fatherhood -and for that not to feel weird or jarring- was just wonderful and for me far more affecting than OHMSS ever was (even though I do enjoy it as much as the next fan). Craig playing that perfectly, and seeing his final end coming in the air far above him- just devastating. Wonderful stuff.
And those final moments with Madeline and Mathilde driving along were so perfectly judged, ending on the hint towards the gunbarrel - brilliant, and the song did bring a tear to the eye at that point.
So all in all for me, not the best of Craig's run, and for parts of it it felt a little lacking in style and just Bondiness where its immediate predecessors didn't, but it did still bring the perfect conclusion to his run and was a brilliant bit of drama. And it perfectly seals Daniel Craig's legacy as being the perfect Bond for modern times. Was he the best Bond ever? Well I wouldn't say that someone was wrong to think that if they stated it out loud.
Good that I didn't watch any trailers beforehand!
Yeah, I was really hoping the Norway chase would be more of what we saw with the bikes and Land Rovers jumping crazily in the air- a fast paced off-road chase would have been thrilling. Have Bond smash through a biker in mid air or even land his car on one or something. But he pretty much stuck to the paths, which was a bit dull.
At least Spectre had him use the disabled plane as a weird skidoo: that's Bond. He improvises crazily and uses things you wouldn't expect to beat his enemies, no matter how wild or improbable, and the audience cheers. But not in NTTD- he just shoots them or bangs his car into them.
Regarding the Norway chase I was expecting them to use the bridge a lot more, spectacular as it is! Trouble with all the action in NTTD is that its all very brief! Just expected more from the clips I'd already seen!
This love between Madeleine and Bond is seemingly supposed to rank as part of Bond's trinity of loves (Vesper, Tracy and Madeleine). I can understand Vesper and Tracy because their respective relationships with Bond was explored and we got to see it cultivated. Also, from a character standpoint these 2 women had qualities we could see why Bond would be drawn to and fall in love with them. Madeleine not so much. If we trace the time line from when Bond and Madeleine first meet, we don't see anything significant happen between the 2 that would suggest either her or Bond fall deeply in love with each other. They're in Austria, then set off to Morocco, then have sex on a train after a fight with Hynx, then end up in Blofeld's lair where Madeleine pulls a Lupe Lamora and out of nowhere declares her love for Bond...whaaaaat??? they head back to London, Bond saves her from being captured and blown up and then Bond decides to quit MI6 and drive off into the sunset to be with her, which is
I just find it interesting that the writers had Bond go through this emotional turmoil over a character they didn't bother to invest in to show how and why Bond loved Madeleine so much that he not only spent the next 5 years coasting through life but became broken by the thought of his overwhelming love for her being shattered that set in motion his eventual death. What's even more strange is Bond and Madeleine spent more time apart and out of each other's lives more than when they were together.
I think the weight the relationship the film forces us to believe is insincere and flaccid, dressed up with emotional bells and whistles to cheaply set up a twist