No Time to Die **Spoilers from post #1449 onward**

Ah here, I didn't like the movie either and I have nitpicks with the story but everyone knows henchmen can't aim for ****.

I've spoken to a few friends who went to see it and 2 said they enjoyed it and the other 2 said it was terrible rubbish/expletives.

One friend who is in his 60's and a huge Bond fan said it was the worst Bond ever and a waste of a tenner.

The 2 people who liked it are younger and wouldnt be as big Bond fans .

Its very divisive.

There is alot more to it than Lea Seydoux I'm afraid.

Well, just back from No Time to Die.... (no time? You took 3 feckin' hours.. grumble..)

It was ....OK.

I'll spare you the nit picks (verisimilitude and Bond have never been friends and thus neither have I) but I do have one big bone to pick with that ending, OK two.

Firstly, never, and I mean never give an actor that has no desire to play a role again a say in the script. It never works out. It didn't with Sigourney Weaver in the Alien franchise and you just knew when Harrison Ford was all smiles during his Force Awakens interviews what was coming. Actors are narcissistic pricks and should be told to shut up and hit their mark and never let anywhere near a screenplay.

The Craig era stormed out of the gate with a home run in Casino Royale, by far my favorite Bond movie because, verisimilitude. The stakes were refreshingly no higher then F'ing over an arms dealers money laundering scheme and it was great.

This would have been a middle of the road Bond movie for me, with it's dumb McGuffin and tiresome end of the world stakes, if it didn't insist on ending with a wet fart. And the reason it's a wet fart of an ending is because, if you're gonna go there, if your gonna play that hand, you had better have a top tier villain to justify that. That's my main bone of contention. Safin is just so unmemorable that he does not in any way shape or form justify that ending.

Now if they had an actual arc for the character of Bond thought out they would never have killed Vesper Lind and would have had her disappear instead with the money in Casino Royale and then subsequently reprise her role instead of the charisma and chemistry free Lea Seydoux (anybody saying that character is reprieved in this is just nuts) and of course had a better villain, then you could have made this film work. Instead you have miserable Craig making narcissistic choices and a wet fart of an ending.

It will probably make a billion dollars though so what do I know.

I think, to be fair, the entire point is that NTTD is more so about Bond and his own personal journey above all else, certainly far more so than it is about the, or indeed any, villian.

It is completely fine to not like that take, or to feel the take was done poorly, but it is what it is. You have the classic locations, the villians, the gadgets, the call-backs, and of course, the women, so in one sense it ticks a lot of boxes some previous Craig movies have not.

But fundementally it is a story about James Bond, the entire narrative is built around 007 as an actual human being, flawed and imperfect, emotional, capable of love as much as hate, rather than a simple stereotype that has typically dominated the titular role.

It's also perhaps an attempt to put that traditional "dinosaur" to bed on the best possible terms, not that Spectre or NTTD are subtle about the characters sell-by-date.

It worked for me personally, and I am a big Bond fan in general and think Craig's Bond has proven to be really up there. Even with the misfires, like Spectre, he carries hard with sheer presence.

Not to say I liked everything about NTTD - it definitely has flaws, but the overall direction and aim of the movie resonated with me. For me, it was a genuinely magnificent Bond movie and I'd almost be content for the franchise to end there.

That was a flipping horrendous watch. Really really didn't like this movie.

Villain had no menace - was more like a pantomime figure than a proper Bond villain. His main henchman was terrible - totally forgettable.

The plot was pretty much nonsensical - the whole family thing was tacked on rubbish and makes absolutely no sense to try pin that to the character of Bond. Trying to soften up a man that's supposed to be a hardened killer doesn't work IMO and even worse than trying to shoehorn in that storyline was using Lea Seydou as the linchpin for it because she's a useless actor. Monotone with no emotion she has to be right up there with some of the worst Bond girls ever.

Bringing a child into Bonds world doesn't really sit right with me either I have to say. If it was going to add something to the series I'm sure writers would've done it a long time ago - with the amount of casual sex Bond has had over the years he must have 10 or 15 kids running around!

The "new" OO7 was quite frankly brutal. She was ineffectual as a field agent and to be honest not believable as any kind of operative. The praise for de Armas is baffling to me for a couple of different reasons - firstly because she's only on screen for a matter of minutes and secondly because like Lashana Lynch she's just not believable as a field agent. The writers had her take out three fully grown men at the same time in hand to hand combat which is ludicrous really. Her appearance was pretty much just a cameo - was she even required? I think myself she could've been written out entirely with little or no difference to the story.

Bond himself should've been dead a few minutes in and also near the end. Like I know a certain amount of suspension of disbelief is required but when someone is within a couple of feet of a bomb or a grenade going off you'd fully expect them to die. Bond is supposed to be a good agent but not immortal!

The running time was mammoth in length and really you could have shaved a half an hour off this film with no issues.

As regards what I enjoyed - the cinematography was beautiful the action set pieces were pretty good and for the most part well executed and the cars were sublime. Especially really nice to see the Vantage back - love that car ever since I first saw it in The Living Daylights!

A guide to the recurring actors in all 25 movies of the James Bond series - https://i.redd.it/xwn9or9waas71.png

I was listening The Filmcast and one their criticisms (a fairly common one) is that despite obviously wanting to do an overarching story, they never actually planned one. One of the guys suggested that if they had they could have given Vesper an "is she really dead" exit and brought her back for this.

I cannot remember anything about Spectre. It was never a film that I said to myself that I would ever revisit.

But for NTTD, is there a continuation from Spectre. Would it make sense to go into NTTD, having rewatched Spectre.

That and when he blew up the baddies bionic eye with the watch, we were obviously supposed to forget that Bond himself was wearing a radio receiver earpiece that should have exploded into his brain too.

I really enjoyed it I have to say.

Yes it is too long, but I wouldn't want to lose too many parts of it.

Maybe not quite as good as casino royale but probably my second favourite Daniel Craig bond film.

8/10

The good

The first big action set piece.

The chemistry with Ana De Armas, enjoyed that whole section

Christoph Waltz

Loshana lynch and the other supporting characters in MI5

Actual deaths

The Bad

Rami Malek I honestly think he is kind of an awful actor, as were the other villains bar waltz

The runtime

Some sections felt a tad computer game like, especially a section on some stairs.

The constant use of we have all the time in the world...was really distracting.