I have very little desire to go back and watch it. I quite enjoyed it when watching it first time but on reflection I'm really quite critical of it. The film dragged and there was one too many fight scenes for me. And I didn't think much of the music either.* The villain? Completely forgot about him to be honest. The storyline? I couldn't have cared less about the relationship between Bond and Madeleine as there was next to no emotion/connection between them.
It's a real shame that Danny Boyle couldn't have directed it as originally planned. I'm certain we would have got something a lot more energetic, concise and memorable.
*I'm getting a bit tired of Zimmer's synth led, mood driven sustained note music too. In fairness to Zimmer, Nolan's films are just perfect for him and I think the work both did on Dunkirk was astounding but having seen No Time To Die and Dune recently I thought very little of the scores and thought they were just intrusive in all honesty. Let's get back to John Williams type orchestral, melodic extravagance!
SPOILER ALERT 🚨
The villain, my god. I don’t even understand what his motivation was, he got what he wanted as far as I can see (i.e revenge for his family’s death by taking out all of Spectre), so what’s the purpose beyond that and him ending up on that island base where Bond ends up? There’s next to no chemistry/suspense between Bond and (I literally can’t even remember the villains name, Rami Maleks character) and I find the scenes they have together quite dull.
The thing with Madeline, like you say - no interest and how they try make out she had the same emotional connection to Bond as Vesper did is beyond me. Vesper (Eva Green) was incredible in Casino Royale imo and Madeline gets nowhere close to that. Maybe it’s her character being poorly written but she seemed more of a ‘damsel in distress’ type character than someone of real substance.
There plenty of other Bond movies I’d flip on to before No Time to Die in the future (even watched Tomorrow Never Dies the other night with Pierce Brosnan and even that is a better Bond movie imo).
Incredibly average on a second watch.
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