No Time To Die (2021) is utter rubbish. Don’t waste your time on it.
I didn’t think much of Casino Royale (2006), I’ve forgotten everything about Quantum of Solace (2008), couldn’t stand Skyfall (2012), and hated Spectre (2015) mainly because it somehow made boring the considerable talents of his preeminence Herr. Christoph Waltz. I don’t mind Daniel Craig as an actor but he’s nothing special. My main gripe against these silly movies, though, is that they are so in awe of Jason Bourne it’s embarrassing. They are incapable of being Bond and feel the need to ape the zeitgeist.
So, I suppose I came into No Time To Die (2021) with an open mind when I saw it yesterday with the usual alcopop smörgåsbord tucked under my cardigan.
My thoughts:
It’s so annoyingly crap. It dragged on and on and on, and I fell asleep for what I think was 30 minutes. The first hour was actually decent, Ana de Armas’ cameo easily the highlight. She injects so much unpredictable energy into proceedings that she makes the rest of the prosaic elements on display to be of no consequence. And jarringly, it feels like her vignette is from another movie; it stinks of a reshoot and a different writer hired a year after the first cut.
And the villains – all four of them – were a snore, one generic cardboard nonentity after another, with Waltz wasted yet again. A full saggy middle consists of all the players explaining the convolutions of the plot to the audience. And sadly, there is zero chemistry between Bond and the Léa Seydoux character; she’s a thoroughly talented actor but has more of a glacial appeal better suited to French arthouse cinema than a Bond movie. She looks decidedly uninterested throughout proceedings.
Even more vexing, the film has the desperation to resort to appropriating a song from one of the only few Bond movies worthy of a repeat viewing. The action is thrilling, but so what? If that’s what you judge a movie on then I can watch 50 other more captivating motion pictures, from vintage John Woo in his Hong Kong heyday to peak Paul Greengrass.
No Time To Die is tiresome and tedious and relentlessly pointless.
Brace yourself for the next shite adventure.
I wish I’d turned off The Village (2004).
I saw it in the cinema and thought it was brilliant! This is why we don’t go back.
This movie is so terrible that even at the 28-minute stage I was gasping for it to expire. A Council of Elders, ‘evil creatures’ lurking in the woods. It’s the most obvious and worst premise and metaphor ever, and so boring. The twist ending barely bothered me as much as the preceding nonsense leading up to it. I’ve read contemporary reviews lauding the film’s treatment of the Iraq War. Are these critics on drugs?
Speaking of which, I would have bolted from the entire 19th-century scheme like Gump on a combo of Red Bull, Monster, Relentless, and crystal meth.
“Those We Don’t Speak Of”? I’d like to never again speak of this movie.
Pish.
Tokyo flashbacks are the best flashbacks.
‘Tagged’ in one of those ‘memories’ things yesterday on one of our omniscient social media platforms. This snap entered the lexicon a good half a decade ago. How time flies.
The best adventure (thus far) with the holiday lads. Absolute carnage twinned with culture. Tokyo is an extraordinary place to see and experience. In no other country have I felt as if I were on another planet. It’s old and new, a hundred years ahead yet still The Last Samurai (2003). Imagine coming home to Gorgie (Edinburgh semi-ghetto) after this esoteric sojourn.
Japan, I will see you again. But not yet. Not yet. We’re (‘The Unit’) going back, though. And this photo took an hour. I had to sit down afterwards. It’s all about the little details.
P.S. I obscure faces because I know how the world works.
Christian Bale goes FULL-BRANDO in The Fighter (2010).
He’s off the charts in this, he really is. It’s the most self-effacing acting job in years. He defines scumbag ‘junkie’ but by the end you realise the bloke does have a heart and everything he does is for a reason, though he usually fucks it up. It’s a redempton story and one of the best because it’s REAL.
That last fight scene is the damage. It’s drama and technique. And it actually happened.
Let the clips commence!
I’ve heard many times that Chinatown (1974) is the perfect screenplay. Accurate statement.
And the perfect movie. Disturbing, very clever, incredibly paced. Acting off the charts.
It defines ‘slow-burning drama’, and there is a joy in every scene with its peculiarities and what-you-think-are-pointless details. The explosions of violence are exactly that because they rarely happen but when they do they … do. It’s a noir that like the best of noirs becomes more than a PI job, ’30s Los Angeles the personal and the metaphorical. Best scene – J. J. “Jake” Gittes winding up the batty secretary to no end with his seemingly … pointless questions. Nothing in this movie is pointless.
It’s cliché to talk about masterful portraits of ugly capitalism. But this is one of them.
1917 (2019) irritated me beyond belief.
Finally got around to seeing this having missed it on the big screen. Netflix would have to make do as it usually does these days. I suppose movies like this demand the theatre experience, but I’m not waiting a decade for a one-off re-release.
Cinema concerning The Great War is understandably not omniscient as affairs regarding WWII are. The former conflict as seen by contemporary historiography (at least on the Western Front) is more static, more simple, with less of a political and civilian dimension. There are exceptions in cinema – Kubrick’s Paths of Glory (1957), Lawrence of Arabia (1962), The White Ribbon (2009), but there are only a handful ever worth watching again.
I couldn’t stand this movie.
It’s appalling acting from many on display. The main bloke is good but the rest are phoning it in. There are so many annoying cameos from marquee actors who appear merely to boost the star names on the poster.
Bizarrely, it seldom feels like anything is at stake; I wasn’t bothered about any of the developments. One of the bloodiest and destructive conflicts in history is reduced to a bloodless, frankly boring episode which never once feels real or sincere. And as for the ‘one shot’ USP, it’s nothing more than a gimmick. But then a moment happens when it stops being a sequence shot by cutting to black, which negates the so-called perfectionism of the preceding exercise. It’s pointless.
And a lonely French woman makes an appearance, and she proceeds to shelter the protagonist. No cliché unturned.
Stick to Paths of Glory (1957).
Wanderings and ... wonderings. 