Plot Summary – James Bond is enjoying a tranquil life in Jamaica after leaving active service. However, his peace is short-lived as his old CIA friend, Felix Leiter, shows up and asks for help. The mission to rescue a kidnapped scientist turns out to be far more treacherous than expected, leading Bond on the trail of a mysterious villain who’s armed with a dangerous new technology.

★★★ 

Watched on 13 Oct 2021

I’ve thought a lot about this film since I watched it. Usually, I’m able to review something an hour or two after I’ve watched it but I really wanted to collect my thoughts and coherently say what I thought of this film. I’m really glad I rewatched Casino Royale, Skyfall and Spectre for this cause it certainly rewards the audience for having knowledge of the events of these movies and gives it more meaning. You might feel a little confused if you haven’t watched any Craig films prior to this. Cary Joji Fukunaga helms this film brilliantly, the direction is beautiful and the way scenes are framed are usually very compelling. Linus Sandgren (of La La Land fame) shot the film and my god is the cinematography beautiful in this film. So many scenes are worthy to be framed and just hung on a wall at an art gallery. The color palette and lighting were reminiscent of the gorgeous look of Skyfall and at times managed to even supersede the work of Roger Deakins in that film. Hans Zimmer hits it out of the park as usual giving us one of the most iconic scores in a Bond film. Billie Eilish’s theme for the film is a masterpiece and the Craig era must be noted for giving us the perfect Bond song after Bond song. All the performances were great, Lea Seydoux’s being the standout for me. As many positives as I do have for this film, I have many complaints as well. The writing was poor for me. I was surprised to read that the likes of Phoebe Waller-Bridge were involved in this because it did not have the wit and snappiness of her writing. It was paced so weirdly and there’s a huge chunk in the middle of the film that feels unnecessary and forced. For the second film in a row, I felt like not enough substance was given for the Bond-Swann relationship for me to be invested or even believe what I was seeing on screen. The film breaks the “show-don’t-tell” rule and tells us that they had this great relationship but never shows it to us. The chemistry wasn’t there for me which made the film’s ending, while dramatic, a little hard to digest. I also felt Rami Malek’s Safin was a really weak villain. One thing that I had been impressed by Craig’s Bond era was that the villains were not these world-dominating caricatures but complex characters who had a personal connection to Bond. In sharp contrast to this, Safin felt like a Bond villain of old, with his nonsensical plan and weird justifications. The film really wants us to believe that these two characters are similar but we never really see why this character does the things they do. We are yet again told. I really liked the side characters like Q and Moneypenny but I wish they had more to do in the film. In the end, it was an enjoyable watch, but I really felt the gruelling 160-minute runtime. A fitting end to the Craig era but not very impressive when seen objectively as a film.