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Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: The Real Deal (2018)
Every show makes you cry at one episode
Every show makes you cry at one episode, this episode makes me cry with joy three times. Colson facing his fear, Jemma's vows, and the rings. There is something so touching about this episode. I think this would have been an amazing final episode.
No Time to Die (2021)
A film with too many styles
In 2020, many studios saw covid-19 as a severe threat to their upcoming films box office success and made the choice to shelve their films for a later date. Filmmakers had regrettably already started their marketing campaigns before the films were delayed. "No Time to Die" the latest outing in the James Bond Franchise fell victim to premature trailer release. MGM, the studio behind James Bond after 2002, was put in a tough place; they had to hype up a movie a whole year later. Facing a difficult choice the studio decided to release new cuts of trailers in 2021, and spoiled the beginning of a very front loaded film. The art of how much of the film to show in a trailer is a difficult line, but "No time to Die" missed entirely. When I watched the film I was excited for what would happen next as by the 30 minute mark almost every moment from the trailers had happened meaning the whole next 2 hours and 3 minutes had to be great. I was severely disappointed with the next 2 hours of my life. Instead of a gem of a film featuring real stakes as this is the lasting outing of Daniel Craig Jame Bond, instead I watched a film trying to straddle too many genres and missing the thematic tone of the amazing "Casino Royale".
In "No Time to Die", James Bond has actually retired from MI6 living his life on an island near Cuba after falling out with Madeleine, the last movie's Bond Girl, over a painfully obvious misunderstanding. We are reintroduced to Felix, James Bond's friend and occasional ally from the CIA, who hopes to use James' skills to help capture a missing MI6 scientist who seems to be working for Spectre. Spectre are the big bad of the franchise, a group of highly organized criminals controlling the world from the shadows. James initially refuses until he runs into 007. After his retirement 007 has moved on to its next steward, a highly skilled black woman named Nomi, who shows she is worthy of the designation across the movie. Nomi tells Bond of the missing scientist and not to interfere. Promptly James joins the CIA and we meet the best character in the film Paloma, a "new" recruit from the CIA.
Paloma is set up to be the Bond Girl of the movie, and after some light flirting James and Paloma go on their mission. Ana de Armas and Daniel Craig the actors of Palom and James have wonderful chemistry and play off each other well. I wish the whole film had just been them, but instead we start the downward spiral that is "No Time to Die".
During the mission a bio weapon is released by the missing scientist, which Spectre believed would kill James Bond. Who would be at the party for plot reasons? The bio weapon kills off the entirety of Spectre who are gathered to celebrate their leader's birthday despite him still being in MI6 custody. Interestingly the bio weapon doesn't harm anyone who is not in Spectre. We find out that the scientist that has been working for Spectre has been playing two sides and been working for MI6 the whole time.
Nope, because that would make this film interesting. Instead we are introduced to a new bad who is using the MI6 scientist to get revenge on the people who killed his family. This is an interesting character motivation, especially speaking that it would be the grey area James Bond operates in. Is the murder of killers okay? What should the ramifications be, but instead he becomes a super villain bent on destroying the world after he killed off the leader of Spectre with the bio weapon by implanting it on James Bond with help from last movie's Bond Girl. At this point we have run the course of the action movie portion of the plot at the 30 minute mark, and killed off 2 decades of plot without as much as slow mo shot. Without a moment to appreciate what happens James chases down the only lead he has, Madeline, and get to watch a romantic movie featuring: a bastard child who we dismiss and only care about in the finale, childhood trauma which is never actually discussed between the James and Madeline instead is just a scene of flashbacks that the audience needs to connect together, and a heartfelt monologue by Daniel where he doesn't say anything of substance. This set breaks the clear tone of Casino Royale where the romance felt earned, and the actions felt human. Instead setting a robotic tone going through the actions of a movie for the rest of the runtime with its lackluster action and unclear character motivations.
This film fell victim to two clear problems, bad writing and delays. The camera work, location, and set design were stunning, even if the director increased the brightness a little too much in the day scenes. This film was shot and produced as if it was going to be a billion dollar movie and it shows. The car gatling gun scene in the opening 10 minutes will go down as one of the best action scenes for years to come and the way the theme creeps into certain scenes made you really feel what was supposed to be impactful even if the writing landed flat. The theme song Billie Eilish wrote and sang fits in nicely with other Bond songs, though it is not nearly as good as Skyfall by Adele. The acting was decent with Ana de Armas being a clear stand out from the rest. This could have been the best Bond film, but it tried to over deliver and missed. I am sorry to see Daniel Craig go as I still think there is another movie in his portrayal as Bond, but I look forward to seeing how MGM goes forward especially with the potential of being bought out by Amazon.