Where to find it: Amazon Prime Video
Length: a marathon 163 minutes
Synopsis: James Bond does improbable things in exotic locales
Recommendation rating: 3/5
What I like about it: it can be pretty cool, Bond interacting with a more Millenial MI6
What I don’t like about it: tonal inconsistency, credulity-stretching CGI action
Review:
It’s a Bond movie alright! The problem is it has no idea which kind of Bond movie it wants to be. It opens very dark and stylish and seems like another Skyfall, then goes full Brosnan with laughable action and gadgets in the next scene. After that comes the obligatory overlong credit sequence / theme tune showcase, one of the images here was particularly memorable – Bond is walking through the desert among a ruined statue, calling to mind Shelley’s Ozymandius, and as the sand shifts it reveals that the statue is Brittania and the desert sand is falling through an hourglass. But then just as I’m starting to think this might actually be a good one, the first scene out of the opening titles is a joking scene set in a bio-warfare lab and featuring British comedy perennial Hugh Dennis. Like this, the tone of the film bounces up and down throughout, never quite meshing into what I’m sure they hoped it would be – a tribute to all that is 007, all at once: the cheesy one-liners and risible names (Lyutsifer Safin *eye roll*), the gadgets and action, the more-recent emotional drama and considered themes. It ends up as the worst of all worlds and falls flat on all of its themes, its incomprehensible plot and yeah-that’ll-do acting. Still, it’s a diverting blockbuster if you have nearly 3 hours going begging.
Content notes (may contain spoilers): murder, WMDs, violence and peril