Friday 24 December 2021

No Time to Die (2021 Cary Joji Fukunaga)

Neal Purvis and Rob Wade are joined by Fukunaga and - at the invitation of Daniel Craig - Phoebe Waller-Bridge, thus we kept finding ourselves exclaiming 'Phoebe' at such lines as the new 007 'May I cut in?', though of course it's impossible to tell. (Though stuff like 'It blew his mind' is straight out of the Bond cheese machine.) At two and three quarter hours it's way too long, and the spirits sag as soon as we get to the Bond villain lair yawn bit - the whole death garden, stolen from the novel of You Only Live Twice, is entirely superfluous. Thought whole plot about nanobots invading the DNA is all prescient for me (the film should have debuted in April 2020). The plot is really far too complex, though the little girl adds a cool element, the first kid in a Bond film, I think, and a sneaky way to extend the franchise into the future.

It looks fabulous, Linus Sandgren shooting in a very familiar style and colour on 65mm celluloid; Oscar-worthy in my humble opinion. The opening's brilliant, Lea Seydoux a great co-star, Ana de Amas brought in again at Craig's invitation off the back of Knives Out in a great sequence where she claims to have had only three weeks' training. Here we see some of the longer takes in action scenes - a great approach though possibly some CGI here. As such didn't really notice the editing of Tom Cross and Elliot Graham.

Thought the theme song by Billie Eilish curiously underpowered, though the title sequence is a mini work of art. Hans Zimmer responsible for familiar score, with reprise of 'All the Time in the World' signalling death right from the off. An intriguing ending.

Rami Malek, Lashana Lynch, Ralph Feinnes, Ben Whishaw, Naomi Harris, Rory Kinnear, Jeffrey Wright, Billy Magnussen, Christoph Waltz, David Dencik, Dali Bennsalah.






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