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I don’t blame the actors in the case of Waltz and Malek. I blame the writing, and some of the general ideas. EON I don’t think put much thought into humanizing them. When they did, it was with material that was long cliché.
Rami was cool and somewhat scary at the same time in THE LITTLE THINGS without an accent. I don't like fake accents anyway. Wiseman did a tremendous job without faking a foreign accent he probably wouldn't have been able to pull off well anyway. And I never once question Dr No's partially Oriental ancestry.
Shailene Woodley's accent was so abysmal in that film that she veers into sounding Jamaican in a few scenes. It's hilariously bad.
Indeed it was. Abysmal. Adam Driver should’ve learned from all the criticism in the Ridley Scott film. And to add to that, Michael Mann said they distorted the audio files in post to make the accents sound more legit.
I didn't know that last tidbit but that's even worse! This film was never going to be akin to a blockbuster hit so why he didn't opt to cast even semi-recognizable Italian actors is beyond me. I thought the film was okay overall but it didn't floor me the way I had hoped it would after such a lengthy gap between that and his previous film, Blackhat. Probably one of his weaker outputs, I'm sad to admit.
I felt the same. And my expectations were through the proverbial roof, seeing that I’m a big Ferrari fan. And a Mann fan as well.
Agreed.
The story and writing are key for me. If they get that right, then with a good director and actor the rest should follow. Obviously, that doesn't always happen.
Cary and Rami are both competent enough to know what they're doing.
Blofeld should have been the main villain of the movie.
I mean, had Malek leaned into that a bit more perhaps we could have had something more interesting (not in a campy sort of way, more along the lines of how gleeful Silva comes across in SF, or how a villain like Kananga in LALD or Sanchez in LTK become more unhinged by the finales of their films). That or they should have told him to drop the accent, change the character’s first name, and leaned into the sympathetic/‘fallen angel’ angle a bit more. His performance is a bit bland at times as it is, and it’s the same with Waltz as Blofeld (I’m personally glad he wasn’t the main villain or became the main one by the end - I think it would have been all wrong in the film we got).
So, in accordance to the thread, we can sumise that, moving forwards, they’ll need better written stories and main antagonists. And that the protagonist must remain faithful to its original ethos, the best he can, whilst dropping the “non relevant” conundrum that has plagued the last instalments as much as the “personal angle/vendetta” one. And no more scooby gang. And a return to espionage, whatever that is nowadays.
I thought the scene where he was apparently going mad in his prison cell and his voice at the birthday party bash were quite good. That said, I agree that there was little point in bringing the iconic Blofeld character back unless they were going to do more with him and have him appear in more than one film as the main villain. The Craig era was certainly a wasted opportunity in this sense.
Speaking of better names, EON needs to take a break from code names. The only time it’s worked was with Eve Moneypenny. Certainly, DON’T do it with Blofeld. It also meant nothing with Silva. EON shouldn’t talk down to their audience, particularly from a writing standpoint.
It seemed like they had a colour theme going for a while there with the villain's names - Mr White, Dominic Greene, Silva, maybe even The Pale King. That all seemed to have been dropped by the time of NTTD, however.
Please make the Bond films more suspensefull and less predictable. CR was probably the last film with surprising character developments.
Bringing back Blofeld for one or two scenes only for him to be killed off seems pointless.
There are lines in the film that make me feel uneasy.
After Blofeld has been killed, M and Bond meet so he can go after this unknown force, to which M says, whoever is behind this is going to be very powerful and very dangerous.
Neither of which is ever really shown. Yes Safin has an island and people move out of his way when he walks past, but this is hardly enough to make MI6 to quake in their boots surely?
On paper, the story may look better, but on screen the threat that Safin possess is nothing. Confusing maybe.
If a movie is as good as its villain, then NTTD isn't really that good I'm afraid.
They should course correct away from NTTD, not away from CR, and that’s where Bond should go after Daniel Craig, IMHO.
Maybe EON was building up to GOLDFINGER, before the Blofeld and Spectre rights came back, lol.
I hope not as they got that villain right on the first attempt. Conversely, there was an argument to be made that Blofeld hadn't been entirely successfully realised in most of the Bond films so he was ripe for revisiting and reimagining. It's just a pity they rather made a hash of doing so in the Craig era.
Yeah. That's pretty much it.
Yeah, Malek's hype was the problem, because we were expecting an extraordinary villain and we got a petulant villain or throws tantrums.
It's been pointed out to me before that all Bond villains don't have to have a big personality like Goldfinger or Blofeld from OHMSS. That's a fair point, but they should be interesting. In the lead up to NTTD there was a great deal of speculation that Safin would turn out to be Dr. No -- not sure how that would have worked -- but Safin was no Dr. No. What worked for Joseph Wiseman did not work for Malek. Maybe Oscar stardom got in the way of the producers. Who knows? But casting a villain is secondary to casting Bond. Get either of those two casting decisions wrong and you have a lesser Bond film.
Going forward will the producers feel the need to pair the new Bond with another big name Oscar winning villain? Or will they find a compelling lesser known actor who won't make you wish another Oscar winner had been cast? And please, none of the usual suspects showing up in the F&F series as bad guys or tough guys.
As well as the great points people have made above, I’ve sort of missed them having “day jobs”, fronts for their schemes, in the last few. I know that’s not a necessity, my favourite villain is Sanchez, but I do think that archetype generally works best, and we haven’t seen it for a while. Big business type up to no good. It’s just a natural fit for the sort of high class undercover work that Bond does, and it makes the private armies and secret lairs feel slightly more plausible compared to a Blofeld type. I’d love a Musk/Bezos type baddy next time, satirise the billionaire age like TND did with Murdoch.
I miss that sort of element too, on top of Bond running into allies he has an established past with, mysterious women he clearly has a history with (working relationship or otherwise), stuff like that.
Yes, genuinely creepy without need of props ....