No Spoilers

There are two ways in which I could watch James Bond. Either I am a secret agent who will critique the accuracy of the spy world with expertise, or I am not a secret agent and I will critique the spy world without expertise. The paradox here is that if I am a secret agent, I will not divulge this and in fact tell you I am not a secret agent, and appear to critique without expertise. The point of this opening paragraph? To say I’m not a secret agent.

I have never really bothered with Bond before. I’ve seen most of Skyfall in parts, and watched Judi Dench die for some reason, but otherwise it’s just never had a good time to jump in, and honestly NTTD may not be the best time for a new bond fan to jump in, but it’s literally the only thing on in the cinema this week so who cares.

The general story is one I’m sure I’ve heard somewhere before. Opening couple of scenes are flashbacks, one with a girl who sees her mum shot by a bad guy with a mask, the second has Mr Bond in Italy with a woman he likes, before they are found by Spectre, the bad guys. He accuses her of betraying him. We then go five years later where Bond is hidden away retired, however when a mysterious and deadly weapon goes missing, he has to hunt it down before the villain can cause major damage. Alongside his usual alphabetti spaghetti friends and a brand new double-0, James Bond will try to save the world with the suave and panache of this film series.

So I don’t really know where to start with this as I simply don’t know Bond that well, but I guess I will tell you that I enjoyed it. On the whole, the film remained serious, but with that tinge of camp charm that is so often included. You get your “shaken not stirred”, “Bond, James Bond” plethora of moments in amongst a serious attempt at a spy thriller and the occasional use of a kill line is more tolerable than the standard constant Marvel dross.

For Daniel Craig, it was a fitting swansong. This loner starts to show his feelings and his hope and it’s a solid outing. It will certainly be odd to see who the next 007 will be as he is the only one my generation have grown up with. He has that serious suave that you know and are endeared towards and his successor will have a tough time trying to match Craig’s levels.

For every great hero there should be a great villain. Does Rami Malek’s Siffan provide a worthy adversary? No, he was boring. A generic eastern European mumbling accent and a scarred face to boot, Malek is really let down by a fairly shoddy script and doesn’t offer anything of interest either. A big name after Bohemian Rhapsody, maybe his best work is the indie-stuff and he should stick to that as with this role he has nothing. As well as being poorly acted, the character doesn’t bring much to the table either, with the reasons for his intentions never really explained. He wants to kill people just because. If the script had provided more reason for his character to act as he does, the emotional climaxes would have meant something and would have made a bit more sense than just slightly forced plot points, although if I knew more about Bond, maybe the main moments would have meant more to me.

While there is a fairly standard formula, it is stirred, if not shaken. The last act has a few un-Bond-ly turns in it which were a genuine surprise. The addition of the new double 0 was a welcome change, and was well acted by Lashana Lynch. It will be interesting to see if she continues to play a significant role in the future.

At two hours and forty minutes, this is certainly one long film. It generally went rather quickly. At times, it felt slow, but I didn’t find myself bored. That said, it could have certainly streamlined twenty minutes as some scenes tended to feel somewhat repeated, with some American characters not particularly adding much. The moment Rami showed up, the whole thing seemed to slow down as well, when in reality we could have done with less droning from him. Still, on the whole these are minor complaints.

Summary

Craig’s final outing as Bond provides a solid, if not spectacular swansong. He enjoys a well crafted film, although it provides very little revolutionary ideas for film making. The potential impact of a strong last act is mitigated by an overly long run time, and an incredibly dull villain, but this doesn’t take away from a decent movie. [Grade: B-]