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Please be aware that there may be spoilers in this thread, so if the film is delayed in your neck of the woods please, please AVOIOD THIS THREAD.
Enjoy the film and try not to spam it up. ;)
I can do this 'possible spoilers' one but don't know if I dare read the other one. I'm currently balancing that line of wanting to consume every reaction but not ruin it! 😅
We're trying to basically put everything in that thread into spoiler tags, but the reality is the biggest plot points of the film can probably be deciphered implicitly by the non-spoiler tagged things that vaguely allude to them. I really, REALLY encourage you to go into this film blind.
Don't go in. A mod of all people quoted a spoiler tagged post and gave a response that explicitly reveals something major.
Not a review, but saw the username and just wanted to say welcome back to @RC7! It's been a long time, and finally here we are.
Craig's Bond has evolved over each film and done things never before in the franchise. This is no different. The tone of this is interestingly enough Craig's most serious and most silly. I would argue that this film shows the man 'underneath the skin' more than any others. Craig brings you on an emotional roller coaster which began in Casino. The directing is on point (no surprise). The characters from Specre are much better written. There are plot twists I never saw coming. EON did a good job keeping a lid on things. Obviously some choices will be divisive, but I think it's safe to say that overall this film is a diamond.
I wrote my comments on your review in another thread, but for anyone still in doubt about this film they should read this one first. Forget the latest teeny geeky spotty YouTuber review. This one holds far more weight.
Blimey, what a review!!
It's been a long time since I was so swept up in a film, and I don't just say that as a Bond fan.
My opinion of cinema has been somewhat negative in recent years and I keep saying that I want something to come along that makes me FEEL something. NTTD gave me that.
Although I did have to tell off three other cinema-goers on the way out. They were standing in the lobby of the cinema loudly talking about the film's ending. I politely told them there may be people around who've not seen the film. That was more amusing than anything else though.
I could go on forever and create an essay about the things I enjoyed about this film, but for now, I'll focus on some things I wasn't crazy about. While I personally really enjoyed his performance, I would've liked more of Rami Malek, and I think the script needed to flesh him out a bit more, for us to really understand what his goals were, and why they'd gone to such an extreme by the third-act. I wasn't a huge fan of how Ernst Stavro Blofeld was handled. I appreciate them bringing him back, but I felt like it was more to bookend his character within the era than anything else. Also, while I really enjoyed how it seemed to bring all of his title sequences together in one, I do think this film has the weakest title sequence in terms of its appearance.
But apart from those quite small things really, I was fully impressed by everything this film achieves.
I'm agreed about Malek. Some or dare I say most reviews aren't impressed with him but its the screentime and not the performance which does the disservice. Given he made a brief appearance in London perhaps he could have lingered and menaced a bit more or had an action scene around there.
I wasn't blown away by the title sequence too. Nor Billie Eilish's title song I'm afraid to say. It all seemed a bit plodding killing the pace of the graphics onscreen. A complete contrast to the Skyfall theme song and credits which collectively just screamed epic.
As someone whose biggest and only major criticism is the title song/sequence, I feel kind of bad for Kleinman after hearing about how he had been developing the sequence before the song was done, and had been working on something at about twice the speed up to that point. I'm sure he never actually finished that sequence as he would've shifted his focus to the one we got, but in an alternate world I'd have loved to see what it might've looked like.
The good:
Daniel Craig: Great effort, portraying all kinds of emotions. This is the most multilayered version of Bond we have ever seen. But that’s not necessarily a good thing (more about this in my conclusion). As a swansong it’s perfect, but it comes at cost: not having time to develop other characters.
Paloma: One of the highlights, she steals the show away from all other than Craig, but sadly her part was very small. Great chemistry between her and Bond. IMO. I hope to see her back as the half-drunk agent!
Use of locations/cinematography: probably the best visually pleasing Bond movie in a long time. No QoS shakycam, no intense doubling of locations like SF and no cringeworthy colorgrading like in SP. The use of IMAX cameras certainly helped.
The Zimmer score: Hans Zimmer is a true master, and it did not disappoint. Best Bond score since CR. There are so many highlights. What I especially like is the various uses of the theme song throughout the movie. We haven’t had that since CR. I am on the fence though about him reusing John Barry cues, that only Bond fans will recognize. The song used in the end titles was fitting, though.
The bad:
The villain, Safin: Another weak and underdeveloped one. How hard is it to create the new Zorin, Goldfinger, Drax or Trevelyan? They had almost three hours, and not even his motivations were clearly explained!
Madeleine: For two movies now I haven’t seen anything that would justify Bond being in love with her. He just is for reasons never really explained or shown. That would be okay if I sensed some form of chemistry, but it just isn’t there. Maybe because they spent so much screentime together in two movies either arguing or mistrusting each other.
The action setpieces: The three big setpieces work fine. But they are much too short. The only two times I heard cheering from the audience were during the donut-scene and when the landrovers came flying during the Norway-chase. There should have been more like that in a 163 minute movie.
Conclusion:
I have never tried having the producers and director of a Bond movie toy with my emotions before. No Time to Die is not the Bond-movie I wanted, but somehow it’s the Bond-movie I needed to conclude the reign of Daniel Craigs battered, bruised and tormented Bond. Can we now move on, please? Some may disagree, but I think the world would surely embrace the more escapist and fun Bond-movies with more emphasis on creating memorable villains, crazy gadgets and so forth. We had our TMWTGG/OHMSS, now bring us TSWLM. Bring us glamourous Bond, not a guy we pity. They also really need to cater to a younger audience, IMO. All my pupils (aged 11-16) couldn’t care less about Bond. As one of them told me today: “No, I’m not going to see it, but my dad and grandad are going.”
Ah that makes a lot of sense. It really did seem like the title track was struggling to keep up with what was occurring on screen.
I know it's a fine line between creating something new and the directors vision but it didn't feel very bondian to me. I'm sure some will love the title sequence but just doesn't work for me. A massive shame as I love the song.
I'm underwhelmed. To put it simply, I didn't like it. And I really wanted to like it. But I didn't.
The first 40m of the film are impressive, but then it goes south without any chance for remission.
Well, that was that.
Moreover, I believe the universe we once loved, the Bond style of films died with it. Long gone is the womaniser, stylish secret agent. I don't believe he's coming back.
What a melodrama of epic proportions. And I didn't feel for it. Not once. For the first time, I left the cinema and a Bond film feeling...nothing.
Sure there are brilliantly executed scenes, and the direction is very good, despite most of it looking cartoonish, but although I was loving the first part of the film, it all fell fast and hard.
I'm sure there are parts of it I'll praise, given time. But for now, I just deflated.
Underwhelmed and deflated.
It's interesting how much quality DC's tenure has. And yet, it doesn't get to my heart. Not really. I can't explain it more than this. I liked his tenure. They were the best years of my life. I really like Mr. Craig. And I've been always a strong EON supporter in every way.
But...I don't like what they've done to Bond. Not in this film. And not just the ending.
Now, I would've paid good money to watch those Bond and Felix Cuban adventures, but hey, they don't go for that. We have to watch soap operas of epic proportions every single g damn time.
Review-Rant over.
Univex out
As a massive fan of Kleinman (I still contend that GE and CR are the two best title sequences in the series), I'm not opposed to this. At this point he's been the guy, Quantum aside, doing this for as long as Binder had and he got to create some wonderful art for eight films. Honestly as someone who would like a clean slate with the seventh Bond and beyond, I think several of these longstanding creative figures in the series might do with at least bringing a partner on board for some new perspectives.
That being said, if Fukunaga isn't brought back as a director (not even necessarily for the next film) EON will be missing a huge opportunity, and Phoebe Waller-Bridge can contribute to every script as far as I'm concerned. Does her style lend itself to writing an entire Bond film solo? I'm not sure, but she's one of the best script polishers working today and arguably THE comedy writer.
1. Casino Royale
2. GoldenEye
3. Skyfall
4. Tomorrow Never Dies
5. Spectre
6. Die Another Day
7. The World is Not Enough
The top 3 are all wonderful imo. I really like the way Skyfall’s feels like an abstracted version of the film rather than just themed imagery. Sometimes some of the imagery doesn’t totally mesh, but it’s all really beautiful. GoldenEye is basically the idealized version of the classic Bond theme opening — it’s the idealized version of what I remember the Binder ones as. And Casino Royale’s is just so thematically perfect and there tons of fresh concepts.