this movie was absolutely ridiculous lmao. had no idea what tone it was going to strike at literally any given moment. big sappy emotional farewell to the Craig era? horror movie version of itself? borderline self-parody that winks so hard at the audience it can't see where the plot is going? take your pick, the next scene could be literally any one of these I kinda think this makes QoS and Spectre look like tonally consistent masterworks by comparison. some bright spots though, by which I mainly mean Ana de Armas - her and Craig are absolute electricity together even if the entire sequence feels airdropped in from another (better) movie
Yeah my opinion of this film has dropped significantly since I saw it. I might even rate Spectre better at this point
I tend to agree with James Bonding that the plot of this is secondary to themes of the film. I am happy with Craig’s contained run of films.
I am definitely a pretty casual fan, I've only seen patches of pre-Craig Bond so forgive me for the uninformed opinion. that being said, I didn't dislike this movie for the nonsensical plot (I pretty much expected that), I disliked it because I thought the script sucked shit. very different things - I can handle a villain plan not making any sense, but when that villain's name is fucking Lucifer Satan and he's treated entirely seriously by the film even when he folds down into the floor like a cartoon baddie, that is where I start to take issue I don't know where I'll land on this vs. Spectre yet. the latter was mostly just boring and unengaging rather than being actively bad. this movie absolutely had higher highs with the Ana de Armas sequence, Felix Leiter and some other good, but also the lows were just so fucking low. I grimaced through every second of the ridiculous henchman doctor guy who seemed to have wandered onto this film from the set of SNL (and jesus he was in a lot of this movie, felt like so much more than the insanely underused Rami Malek)
I mean, you're either down with the absurdly-named villain, trap door mechanisms, and the Ken Adams-esque lair, which are clearly very deliberate callbacks to Bond films of yesteryear, or you're not. And I totally get not-- I love the earlier Craig films for their (slightly) grounded approach, but I also appreciate the arc they've taken in slowly reintroducing the classic tropes of the franchise. Skyfall was my personal sweet spot. It went a little too far and didn't remotely work for me in Spectre, but I enjoyed it here.
Skyfall was borderline perfect for me. I really enjoy Casino and even most of Quantum but Skyfall is one of the best action movies of the decade for me. makes this and Spectre... not exactly following up on its strengths a bummer
I had no idea Rami Malek's character's first name was Lyutsifer - is this stated anywhere in the movie??? I only ever remember him being referred to as 'Safin'. I just looked it up on Wikipedia and that is his listed name, and that is a very silly name, but also getting upset at a silly name in a Bond movie seems, well, kinda silly. The doctor guy was pretty bad, and I think the mistake there was just how heavily featured he was and how much damn screentime he got. Feels like he was in this so much more than so many other really great characters. I know he was pretty plot essential, but I'm surprised they didn't realize how bad his character was on screen and trim him down to the absolute bare minimum. Feels like they purposely beefed his part up for some reason.