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Bit of both, old man. He doesn't get enough screen time, and there is never a reason given for him to want to use Heracles in the fashion that he does.
Not to mention Malek's performance, which in keeping with the rest of the film, is a huge contradiction. Understated and hammy at the same time.
Brilliant review. Couldn't agree more.
I'll post a detailed one later this weekend actually.
You are right that on a surface level he "appears" cliched, yet there is much more depth to him than meets the eye...
The dialogue is also very astutely written in the London scene...I think this element has gone unspoken. Safin's menace is conveyed in very subtle ways at times...
There was a Bond featurette promo with the costume designer that was pertinent to Malek's character called "The Adjectives of Safin" and these were "scary", "serene", "innocent" or "aggressive". These descriptions were exactly what we wanted Safin to be..." and this is Safin defined. It is the multiple facets of his character "...faces of my past return..."
I think when the film is introduced to the home market and the special features are added, actor commentaries and so forth it will reveal even more depth behind the Safin construct.
One last thing is there is a remix out there of the "No Time to Die" theme that is worth listening to if you have not heard it...just for something extra now that NTTD has hit. It has orchestral dimensions and was used in a trailer called "Secrets", it is truly amazing.
The Matera track by Zimmer is pure classical Bond as well and will be remembered...
[
The scale of this piece is a nice musical denouement after watching the film as it only adds to the ending in my opinion...
SPOILERS AHEAD! ALL OF THEM!
I've come to the conclusion that my major gripes with the film have nothing to do with him dying. In fact, these are my main issues with it, and only post Cuba:
1) Bond's dialogue and relationship with M: the mutual respect is gone, when M scolds Bond for speaking to him like that, I wanted to sold Bond. "My god you're thirsty", and the desk size joke... James Bond does not speak like that to M, that's not the nature of their relationship, and Mallory was not on par with the character they've presented in SF;
2) Bond's dialogue and mannerisms with Blofeld: You call that good acting? If Daniel Craig's acting is almost flawless in the film, in this scene its pathetical, the way he talks and moves, the way he makes a tantrum with Tanner, with whom btw he has definitely lost the dynamic he had in SF and SP;
3) Bond's dialogue and banter with Q: I found it jarring, to say the least, because of the lack of intelligent humour. I mean, "fairly strong? what does that mean", means what, exactly? No double entendre there, not there, not anywhere. And the way Craig delivers that line. You really call that good acting?;
4) Bond and Madeline's relationship. Not buying it, again. Bond and Vesper had it, through a montage, like they did for Bond and Tracy. And they had their own, beautiful music theme, composed by Arnold. Bond and Maddie just piggyback a 1969 film to compensate for lack of own development. In my book, that's just poor;
5) Most of the sartorial elements and fashion choices of this film were appalling. From corduroy suits with button up shirts, to tie pins on tab collared shirts, to the faux patine Omega (which doesn't hold a candle to the PO and the 300 from SP on the nato strap), to the Henley with raincoat ensemble, ... I could go on, but bare in mind this is all IMHO;
6) Bond being a dad. Was it really necessary to confer weight to it all by the way of this? I mean, storming the villain's lair and confronting him whilst his daughter is beside the villain, who btw, has to be made dangerous (because he surely doesn't look like it) by strolling around with the child through his garden of death...I mean poisonous garden;
7) They had to go with nanobots and then make it confusing by calling it poison and mixing it up with a family of Spectre's chemical poisoners. Despite the logic you might find in that factory/laboratory, that's damn right ill writing and confusing. I rather have SF's plot holes than this sort of shenanigan;
8) The pacing is good. Sure. But I'd rather they'd spent more time in Jamaica, which was underused. I mean, once we were able to spend awhile with Bond inspecting a room for bugs, and ordering figs and black coffee for breakfast, but now it's all just: show them where he's at, show him who's he with, and let's go, snippity snap;
9) Forceful unexplained stuff like the V8. Totally unnecessary. Throwing the kitchen sink. Hey, the last time I've heard MGW use that phrase was for DAD. Now I know better;
10) The easy dispatch of the entirety of SP and Blofeld. Now, SP is even more flawed because I'll never rewatch it and feel like that organization was indeed a true threat, nor was that ridiculous man, Blofeld. The treatment they gave this material was, frankly, appalling, in both films;
11) The villain, again, was as weak as they come. I've now totally cemented my opinion that Rami Males works because of its overall look, and not because he's a very talented thespian. The guy has a unique look and demeanour and that works for him. Many actors are like that. Many celebrated actors are like that. He just lacks the gravitas many of the others have. And I was a big supporter of him for the role;
12) The soundtrack is a big paint by numbers thingamajig with old themes from old Bonds glued together with some, granted, spectacular orchestrations which I did like. The thing is, I now see that some themes belong to some eras and actors. And that the best thing is to get creatives to conjure beautiful new themes, like Vesper's theme, for newer entries.
13) The song. Don't get me wrong. It's miles away, and better than TWOTW, but it's still a big depressive melody that fits the film's sadness instead of the film's epicness. But then again, the only songs I truly like from the Craig era are YKMN and SF, and I'm thinking the same for the films, which brings me to this:
14) I like CR and SF; the others may have good scenes, brilliant scenes even, like the first hour of NTTD, or the balcony hotel scenes in QOS, or the meeting with Mathis on his vila, or some others, but the ones who truly work for me as films were CR and SF. Why? Because they had careful planned and executed productions, with enthusiastic filmmakers from the beginning to the end;
15) Also, Fukunaga's direction is very cool, and so is Sandgren's cinematography, but it sometimes looked to plastic and sunset scrambled, if you catch my drift, and that took me off the film often. I'm sorry, but the king here is still Deakins, IMO. Although, I'd love to see another Fukunaga directed film, but not written by him. No children drama, please. This is not a Spielberg production, even if it seemed like it in NTTD sometimes.
16) And I have to say this, despite not being my major gripe with the film. Mythology matters. Bond never dying is part of the mythos. People praise the cinema Bond and scold purists who love the novels more, like myself. So why don't the same people understand that the cinema mythology, not the novel's, was built around the perception that Bond is immortal, the mythic cinematic character I mean, from film to film. But hey, I don't care much, because "James Bond will return". So, as I said, this is not a major issue for me. Bigger than this was simply the fact that I left the cinema deflated from the sense of fun I was granted by the first hour of the film. Why build the fun like that, to destroy it all with the rest? A bit sadist, IMO. But then again, the latest tendency in series and films is to be sadist and kill the main hero and make the audience want to be voyeurs of said death. It's the historical equivalent of people cheering to watch a public hanging, or going to the roman circus: panne et vino, bred and wine. Functional sadism. And I, frankly don't like that because:
17) James Bond was created by a man who had to make terms with his own recent marriage. And had to have escapism and fun. It was also created after the war, and a sense of fun was deeply needed. It evolved through the 60s cinematic medium, because the 60's were also an after war decade, a decade of liberation and sexual revolution.
James Bond is a son of that, an old school imperialistic government tool that is also a bon vivant and a connoisseur of the best things life has to offer. He's physically able, but mostly very intelligent and resourceful, and his cinematic version often does things with style and panache. I'm sorry, but the Craig era had little of that. Granted, some of my favourite scenes have to do with exactly that: The Rolls Royce scene from SP, the caviar scene from CR, the Lucia scene from SP, ...
18) Bigger point being, a Bond film is supposed to make me happy, thrilled, it's supposed to make me get out of the cinema and want to rewatch it to feel those same emotions. It's supposed to make me face life with a growing sense of strength and resilience. It's not supposed to be depressive and gloom and make me feel like, not only did so many of the people I know have suffered and died in the last couple of years, but so did James Bond, my hero, and not because of his literal death in the film, but because the killed what's best in him, slowly, by perversely wanting to subvert a formula, a character, and use the source material for easter eggs which they imagine will please the fans.
19) They are now alienated in this state of business/mind, and will not change it. DAD was profoundly criticised for what it was, and it felt tired. I'm afraid only a fraction of fans will be truly critical of NTTD, the world and general audiences will embrace it for the good film it is. And Barbara will rejoice with her take on things and reinforce the need to make it a novela, a soap opera, a drama. Even when the novels were a drama, that was aptly deconstructed by the author to make the character win, surpass the tragedy that begun it, so they would give us a sense of victory. In the most extreme cases, FRWL comes to mind, he left it open, not only for himself, but for the readers, who would rush to buy the next book to see how Bond had survived. It was always a cliffhanger.
20) And this is what I have to say about a film that cemented my views on the Craig tenure, which I liked, and corresponded to the best years of my life, but that, in the end, was not for me. Not as much as the first 4 Connery films were, or OHMSS, or TLD, or GE and TND. I take from it brilliant scenes which were a true callback and return to form, eventually ruined by the sadistic wish to subvert the inheritance. IMO, they've only nailed that dynamic with CR and SF, both of which I mostly like, a lot.
21) Daniel Craig brought talent and quality to these productions. I'll always thank him for that. He brought acclaim and saved the series. I like him. That will never change, but:
22) I have no faith on the future of the series being truly good. And that's not due to EON in particular. It's due to this grim new world, puritanical, sadistic, filled with angry little men (good quote, actually), and ashamed of its past, not cirurgically as it should be, but as a whole.
23) Finally, how I think the series should continue, and how I believe they won't:
23.1) Hire new writers from the get go. Good ones. Someone who can write a novel and a script and can understand the organics of it;
23.2) Go back to a more familiar depiction of Bond. Find a good thespian that also has the look. How hard can that be? They make it sound as if it's truly impossible;
23.3) Clean slate with it all. Get rid of Kleinman, of P&W, after all, if they got rid of production designers and costume designers and composers that they once called family, why not these?
23.4) Stop with the melodrama. Consider a bombastic theme tune, stylish and clever writing, and please do keep some of the more exotic elements you brought back to this tenure. Yes, komodo dragons and all. I loved those.
23.4) And please, please don't subvert the original material even more. Don't change the character to please agendas. James Bond is a caucasian male. There are plenty of other original characters waiting to be thought up.
Anyway, my two cents on it all. No need to get upset if you find yourself on the other end of the circle, diametrically opposed to all of this. It's fair game. We're all fans in a different way.
The truth is, all of Craig's tenure had quality in spades. More so that almost anything in, say, DAD. So we were blessed, even if they disappointed us with some big bold, sometimes cringeworthy choices.
I'm not mad. I'm just ready to move on. Like Craig said in the documentary: It's ok.
It's ok. Let's move on.
Univex out
And to think that I truly love the first hour of it. Really. What a disappointment.
Still, all probably better than what's to come, if the world doesn't get on its own two feet and tries to balance things out instead of living between two beats trying to outcome each other. We live now in extremis. We need someone to balance things. We actually need...James Bond ;)
Thank you, @CraigMooreOHMSS and @bondsum. I knew we would be aligned in our views.
Loss happens to James Bond, we feel for him, with him, and bounce back with him (OHMSS, CR). Loss doesn't have to happen to the fans of James Bond, IMO.
I never feel sad when I watch OHMSS. I think, he'll bounce back, he'll get his revenge, he'll survive. And I learn from that.
Having him
And having him be striped of his personality (through all those scenes I mentioned) is also one of the factors that made me gloom, no the actual
Exactly! Very well said.
And at the same time, they deprive us from seeing him actual eat, order a good wine, ...
We do see him eat briefly or at least chewing lol after he leaves the club and finds out his defender won't start.
For me she just felt that would've been just inappropriate in that moment, while working.
It's a conclusion to that arc, so it made sense to take Craig's James Bond to the point where he is close to having the things that he could've had with Vesper, but at the end of the day, even with just a hint of it, he still couldn't have it, and he ended up dying. I find it quite poetic.
I read all of it the same way.
I am all in on Paloma taking up the mantle as a spin-off series if that is what they want to do depending on if the MGM acquisition goes ahead in all honesty, or any other directions Eon may be thinking of taking things. She has screen-sizzle, plus having a Latin Cuban American-00 is intriguing on multiple levels...
For OHMSS, how is the promise for revenge “uplifting”?
Vindication is always uplifting.
Now read that with Dalton's voice ;)
You hit the nail on the head with the M and Blofeld scenes, on first viewing they washed over me but upon second viewing they really stood out for all the wrong reasons
The M scene was similar to an original draft in Spectre ("you should think twice before being alone in a room with me M") I cringed, whoever wrote that doesn't understand the Bond/M dynamic that was perfectly set up in Skyfall. Bond acted like a petulant teenager.
The Blofeld scene felt like utter fan service, not in the sense it was to please us but in a way to shut us up. As if to say "yeah we'll give you the YOLT novel, not as a crescendo as intended but to make our plot stronger." If they were going to use it like that I wish they hadn't have touched it, his death was so insignificant. I don't think the direction was great on the scene either, Daniel should have played it more stoic in my opinion. The cutaway to Q and the other cutaway to Tanner and Nomi killed a lot of the tension in the scene if I'm honest
I did like the mirrored reflections in that scene though
The good stuff first. Daniel Craig was as excellent as ever. I thought he was slightly stilted in some scenes (I’ll explain further down), but on the whole it was another great performance. Seemed to combine the self assured, classic style Bond we saw in SP with the vulnerable human Bond of his first two, which builds nicely off SP’s ending, and I really liked how they bought his arc to a close. The way they echoed Skyfall with the family theme was a nice touch. It really felt like this is what we’d always been building to from the start. They bought all his previous films together in a way Spectre tried to do, but couldn’t quite manage.
I generally enjoyed the rest of the cast too. Wishaw is just perfect as Q, and I’m praying he gets to do a Dench and stay on across the next reboot. Harris seemed more natural as Moneypenny, and Fiennes was decent enough as always, although I can’t say I’ll really miss them in the same way I do Dench, and will Wishaw if he’s not in the next one. Ana De Armas was fun in her small role. And I really liked Lea Seydoux in this one. Bond and Madeline’s relationship was much better developed this time, and I liked how they drew attention to her daddy issues and the parallels between Bond and White. It was there in SP, but I remember the “I love you” in that film going down poorly, so I think making it more explicit this time was a wise choice. It was great seeing Wright back too, slipping into the role as naturally as ever. I thought he and Craig seemed to have a more natural chemistry this time too, because the plot gave them a bit more room to breathe (there wasn’t time for anything like that bar scene in CR/QoS, we were too busy hurtling through the mission). The Russian scientist was a fun colourful character too, but he seemed a bit out of place to me. And I thought the casting of Hugh Dennis as one of the scientists was very distracting.
Malek was... To be honest, I’ve been struggling to decide how I felt about Saffin, but right now I’m veering towards disappointed. Quite a bland villain really, who felt too similar in some ways to Silva and Blofeld (creepy deformed European psycho villain). I loved his horror movie style intro, but imo he never really lived up to that promise. And while they did a good job of tying him into the story thematically, I thought his scheme was a mess. I didn’t understand his motivation at all. But then maybe that was the point? The generic villain doesn’t matter, Bond and Madeline do? Even the way he executed Saffin seemed so unceremonious that I think it had to be intentional (as if to signify, “I don’t care about you, you’re not what this is about”). But then, there is still a scheme there. It just ends up feeling like an afterthought. So, I’m not sure that subversion works. And I expected better from Malek’s performance to be honest. He was fine, but very generic. Definitely not a top tier villain. Just goes to show that having an Academy Award winner to promote the film really isn’t everything. I thought they wasted the garden of death too. And why did he just let Mathilde go in the end? I sort of liked how he piggybacked off Blofeld’s scheme. Used SP as a jumping off point to a fresh new story. But did anyone else think Blofeld’s death felt sort of underplayed? Thanks to the retcon, we spent three films building up to Spectre. Then this new baddy just offs them all easily. I liked the creepiness of the birthday party (I enjoyed how this one leaned into horror at times in general; more experimentation like that please), and I’m glad we didn’t just get YOLT. But I’m not sure I liked how they concluded the Spectre story.
Overall I thought it was a pretty shoddy plot, and it felt strangely sci-fi at times for a Craig film, but still too self concious to properly lean into it. We get an island base, but it’s muted and dark, and rather than a doomsday countdown, some ships are just coming to... pick the virus up? I was lost to be honest.
Which brings me nicely onto the bad stuff. Some of the action (the PTS, the long take sequence on the stairs) was brilliant. But that landrover chase was poor, and the other shootouts were just okay. I’m not as big a fan of the MI films as most, but when you look at them, and John Wick and Fury Road and all those other great action films we’ve had in the last few years, I can’t help but think Bond is lagging behind when it comes to action sequences. The last time a Bond film really impressed me in that department was CR. I still prefer this series to MI, because I think literally everything except the action is better. But still, they are action films at the end of the day. They should be doing better.
I also thought some of the dialogue felt off. Fuganaka and Waller Bridge’s additions seemed to inject a lot more life into the film. More extras, more natural and free flowing dialogue, more colourful characters than the Mendes films. But there were some bits that should be funny (e.g. “I’ve had three weeks training” “well this will go brilliantly”) that just seemed to be played wrong to me (that bit should’ve been more sarcastic). It felt like they were trying a bit too hard to make it feel natural and fun at times, to the point that it felt kind of forced, and didn’t suit Craig’s Bond. Visually I couldn’t decide if I liked it or not either. Some stunning shots, but is it me or did it look a bit video gamey at times? And I thought the score was a mixed bag too. Started off great, and I probably preferred it to Newman’s efforts, but still fairly bland for most of the film. And so relentlessly dark that it jarred with some of the lighter scenes. And the titles were piss poor imo. Way too derivative of OHMSS (and what seemed like a DN nod too with the dots, for some reason?). I defended Kleinman’s return but at this point I think he’s clearly out of ideas. He needs to go.
Which brings me onto the worst bit, for me. The nods to the past. Okay, the OHMSS nods sort of worked, because they flipped that on its head and subverted it with the ending. But why the DN nod? Why do we have Dalton’s V8? The series can’t just coast on the legacy of the first 25 years forever. The nods in Skyfall were fun, because it was the 50th, but please. We need some new icons. It’s weird that an era that’s taken so many risks has become so wedded to basking in past glories. I can just about accept it for this one, because the Craig era’s whole thing has been reimagining the mythos. So, I guess the nods made sense in that context. But the next era really, really needs to be more forward thinking. The DB5 is almost 60 years old now. Over half a century. If he keeps driving that relic for much longer, what’s going to be left to bring back for the 100th anniversary? Make some new icons.
Finally the gunbarrel. What is there to say about that at this point. I understand how just doing it properly might seem boring to a director, and why putting your own spin on it might seem like an enticing prospect. But at the end of the day, it’s just a cool bit of iconography to get the blood pumping, and none of the experiments with it except CR have worked. I know it’s only a small thing, but to me, that just makes it all the more frustrating that they keep messing it up.
Overall, a very flawed film. But I feel weird slagging it off so much, because I did actually enjoy it very much. The character stuff was so well done, and the ending so emotional, that I enjoyed it despite its flaws. As a film, I wouldn’t call it great. Narratively it’s a mess, and I had way too many fanboy niggles. But I thought it handled the character stuff well, and as an emotional experience, I loved it. The two biggest risks (Mathilde, the ending) are bound to be divisive, but they paid off big time for me. My main worry about Craig doing a fifth was that it’d feel anti climatic. If we’d got a standard Bond film, then I’m not sure it would’ve been worth the wait, or his return. They may as well have gone all in and started the next era, if they wanted to do Bond on a mission. Instead they went for something much more unconventional, and while the thought of those twists would have mortified me twenty years ago, it built so naturally off the previous Craig films that I thought it felt like a natural end to his arc.
Not sure where it’d rank for me, but on the whole I enjoyed it, and I will really miss Daniel Craig.
Probably the most accurate review i have read thus far! I havent done a detailed review yet, (just said I was disappointed), waiting to see it a second time, but when I do it will probably mirror this! I only disagree about the titles, which i really loved.
Am glad you said about the action sequences. I thought they were seriously lacking in thrills The pts had the best parts, but a lot if that we had seen in the trailers, the fight scenes in particular were very poor, considering Craigs era had superb ones.