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No Time To Die (James Bond #25)


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22 minutes ago, Naïve Old Fart said:

CASINO ROYALE and SKYFALL seem to be the gold standard for Craig-era Bond. I wonder how NO TIME TO DIE measures up, to these?

So far, I've read no review that compares NTTD to any Craig Bond, either favourably, or unfavourably.

I`m not a big fan of Skyfall - it kind of falls appart in its last third. Casino Royale is great, one of the best in the series IMO.

 

I saw some reviews linked at Rottentomatoes saying that No Time to Die is "certainly better than Quantum and Spectre" but not comparing it to Casino or Skyfall. Also some reviews saying it is the best of the Craig movies and some others saying the last hour of the movie is not very good. 

Let's see, I already bought tikets to see it tomorrow at Imax (first time in a theater since Invisible Man, 2 years ago).

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Just came back from this. It was OK, although more "by the numbers" as opposed to some of the earlier Craig ones (the camp factor of yesteryear was popping up more often here). Didn't have quite the same visual identity and character. In fact, I may rank it last of the Craig films. Fun to watch action sequences in Norway, though.

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1 hour ago, Sweeping Strings said:

From The Guardian's review -

'Craig’s final film as the diva of British intelligence is an epic barnstormer, with the script from Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, with Phoebe Waller-Bridge delivering pathos, action, drama, camp comedy (Bond will call M “darling” in moments of tetchiness), heartbreak, macabre horror, and outrageously silly old-fashioned action in a movie which calls to mind the world of Dr No on his island.'

Sounds like pretty much everything you'd want from a Bond movie, and indeed from movies in general. 

 

That sounds great indeed. I hope Indiana Jones 5 can deliver the same, we're long overdue for a great Indy sequel.

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Other reviews I've read made it seem like this one is just as downbeat and depressing as the other Craigs that I've disliked so much.  Being over 2.5 hours long makes this one pretty easy for me to skip.  I'll watch For Your Eyes Only or Living Daylights instead and wait and see what the Broccolis come up with next time.

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18 hours ago, Disco Stu said:

Other reviews I've read made it seem like this one is just as downbeat and depressing as the other Craigs that I've disliked so much.  Being over 2.5 hours long makes this one pretty easy for me to skip.  I'll watch For Your Eyes Only or Living Daylights instead and wait and see what the Broccolis come up with next time.


And yet there are also ones that say 'much of this film is very funny indeed' and that 'Bond hasn't had this many groansome one-liners and exasperated glances in decades'. 

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I like all of the Craig Bonds so far. And I am really looking forward to this one.

Yes, as an action movie Quantum had its flaws, but still it was a great sequel story to Casino Royale.

This is and will probably ever be my favourite Bond series.

 

But before Craig I was one of the few who liked the Moore Bonds most.

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48 minutes ago, Jurassic Shark said:

What flaws are you referring to? I can't remember much of the movie.

After those beautifully choreographed and edited action sequences in Casino in Quantum such sequences were cut to pieces, filled with unnecessary shots of distracting details, so that you hardly recognized what actually was going on, at least when you were sitting in the cinema.

Like this:

 

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35 minutes ago, GerateWohl said:

After those beautifully choreographed and edited action sequences in Casino in Quantum

 

Some of those sequences, especially the opening, looks too choreographed (and preposterous).

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Agreed, but it still manages to look like it's been edited by a five-year-old child, wearing a blindfold, and boxing gloves.

 

 

 

1 hour ago, Jurassic Shark said:

What flaws are you referring to? I can't remember much of the movie.

Isn't that the biggest flaw of all; that you can't remember a Bond - a fucking Bond -  movie?!

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I vividly remember watching QoS with my brother (at home thankfully), getting to the end, and both of us realising that neither of us had a clue about what had just happened. It doesn't so much have a  'oh that's a rubbish story' sense (although that may be true), but that we genuinely had no idea what was going on for almost all the film.

 

19 hours ago, MedigoScan said:

If Last Crusade is considered to be not great, then I dont want to live on this planet anymore.

 

Even if it existed, why would such consensus bother you? 

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2 hours ago, Sweeping Strings said:


And yet there are also ones that say 'much of this film is very funny indeed' and that 'Bond hasn't had this many groansome one-liners and exasperated glances in decades'. 

 

I've seen that too!  I don't wanna harp on about it and get in the way of people excited for the film, but Craig and the tone of the movies of the last 15 years (15 years, Christ) have just never been to my taste so I was leaning towards skipping his last one in the cinema anyway.  I'll wait for it to hit streaming and watch it over two nights next year or whenever.

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QOS is one of the worst edited films I've ever seen. Just the combination of Bourne-esque shakycam paired with that hyper-cutting style doesn't work for me. It's borderline incomprehensible during the action scenes.

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One of the worst tendencies of the 2000s: the Bourne-style shaky cameras. It worked (mostly) well on the Bourne series but for other action movies it was just terrible.

 

I don't know how directors/editors came to the conclusion that the best way to film an action scene is by making the viewer feeling nauseated with some many cuts and shakycams. How the hell I'm gonna tell what is happening and who is winning te fight if I can't understand anything?

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Watched it, and it's just another Bond movie. Nothing embarassingly bad about it, but tonally it was all over the place and there's absolutely no justification for that running time.

 

All in all, a pretty standard, not really memorable affair

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9 hours ago, Edmilson said:

One of the worst tendencies of the 2000s: the Bourne-style shaky cameras. It worked (mostly) well on the Bourne series but for other action movies it was just terrible.

 

I don't know how directors/editors came to the conclusion that the best way to film an action scene is by making the viewer feeling nauseated with some many cuts and shakycams. How the hell I'm gonna tell what is happening and who is winning te fight if I can't understand anything?

 

The best use of shaky cam and total disorientation? The pre credits of Quantum of Solace. 

 

The worst? The rest of the damn movie.

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38 minutes ago, GerateWohl said:

But QoS contains one actually great action scene (even though it is still splintered). This one:

 

That was a remarkably good scene. I appreciate the Craig Bond era for having reasonably realistic action scenes where Bond and adversary actually look like they got in a fight after it's all over and done with.

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There's enjoyable stuff in it, for sure. But there are some (to me) VERY odd story decisions that didn't and still don't sit right with me at all. 

Fuller review in the NTTD spoilery thread. 

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10 hours ago, GerateWohl said:

But QoS contains one actually great action scene (even though it is still splintered). This one:

 

That's exactly what I mean. I absolutely saw and enjoyed the purpose in keeping the car chase in the opening as disjointed as it was. It totally pays off when he opens the trunk. But then it got to this scene and I thought "The greatest fight scene in the history of Bond and maybe even cinema is happening right now... AND I'M MISSING IT!"

 

I remember liking so many parts of QoS. Craig is never not great. It's the emotional aftermath to Casino Royale that we never got in Diamonds are Forever (and totally got in Fleming's You Only Live Twice). But it's got a dumb overall plot and a terrible ending (not counting the coda with M).

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To be honest, the only Craig Bond movie I actually like is Casino Royale. The other movies that followed it ranged from just okay to mediocre. Skyfall is the second best, but although Deakins' cinematography is top notch, the script is pretty bad.

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The 18 month release delay has undoubtedly helped the initial box-office. Wonder if NTTD can sustain it (EON will certainly be hoping so, if that break-even figure of 900 million is anything to go by). 

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Is it true that the movie needs to earn 900m worldwide just to break even? Because with the pandemic they won't even get close to that. If they're lucky they might approach QoS Box office (590m).

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Due to the secretive nature of Hollywood accounting, it is not clear which film is the most expensive film ever made. Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides officially holds the record, with a budget of $378.5 million.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensive_films

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10 hours ago, Disco Stu said:

I want Bond to continue as a healthy series even if they've lost me

 

This makes no sense to me. Are you hoping they might win you back one day?

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The one thing I will say I enjoyed a lot from the Craig movies are the fight scenes. Vastly improved from previous entries. I recently watched a couple of Pierce Brosnan fight scenes again, and while he is my favorite Bond, the fight scenes did not age well. He couldn't do on screen fights. The movies cleverly made us accept it because they didn't take the subject matter that seriously. Similarly, I also quite enjoyed those silly Roger Moore movies, and he also sucked at fighting on screen. 

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Its numbers at the North American Box Office were a little disappointing:

 

https://www.forbes.com/sites/scottmendelson/2021/10/10/box-office-no-time-to-die-starring-daniel-craig-as-james-bond-opens-with-soft-56m-domestic-debut-but-tops-300m-worldwide/?sh=6d45f2192c0b

 

But at least it's performing decently worldwide.

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On 10/10/2021 at 12:39 AM, Mephariel said:

The one thing I will say I enjoyed a lot from the Craig movies are the fight scenes. Vastly improved from previous entries. I recently watched a couple of Pierce Brosnan fight scenes again, and while he is my favorite Bond, the fight scenes did not age well. He couldn't do on screen fights. The movies cleverly made us accept it because they didn't take the subject matter that seriously. 

No, no, no. No more foreplay.

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On 29/09/2021 at 11:13 AM, MedigoScan said:

If Last Crusade is considered to be not great, then I dont want to live on this planet anymore.

It is not great. It never was.

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