No Time to Die (5/5 Stars)

 

James Bond was never intended to be the adult in the room. The early films are exercises in juvenile wish fulfillment, specifically those of white boys. Imagine being a very important person (agent of a world superpower government) possessed with extraordinary skills and intelligence in exceedingly dangerous (see exciting) situations that will never have to actually deal with any of the repercussions. The cleanup is another department. As a bonus to all of this, as a very important person dealing with the less civilized parts of the world, you are offered exotic women by the local power brokers, and if other situations, the women just naturally flock to you because you are more handsome, wealthier, the plot calls for it, etc. I like the old James Bond movies, in particular I recommend “You Only Live Twice” but I will admit they are a guilty pleasure, you know like pornography.

I bring this up in this review for “No Time to Die” because it is quite extraordinary how grown up the franchise has become. With massive popularity comes responsibility (via criticism) and the James Bond of 2021 is more an elder statesman than a juvenile delinquent. What is even more amazing is that the quality of the movies have not diminished. “No Time to Die” is just as entertaining as “You Only Live Twice.” Indeed, “No Time to Die” retains many of the old James Bond tropes: exotic locales, gorgeous women, a disfigured villain in an island fortress, but the mood and tone are of an entirely different genre. “No Time to Die” is like a great cover version song of an old classic. You know the song, but you had no idea it could work so well in such a completely different way.

This is Daniel Craig’s fifth outing as James Bond. The story picks up right where “Spectre” of several years ago left with the hopeful retirement of James Bond with Lea Seydoux, that gorgeous French woman. This one is directed by Cary Fukunaga (True Detective Season 1, Sin Nombre) who also shares a writing credit with the duo of Neal Purvis and Robert Wade. (Purvis and Wade, IMDB relates, have written the last seven James Bond movies dating back to 1999’s “The World is Not Enough.” They are getting very good at it.) The retirement does not last very long though as Lea Seydoux’s past comes back to haunt her with James as the collateral damage. This movie is two and a half hours long, its locales span continents from Italy, to Cuba, to Sweden, to Japan, the main villain’s plot, and even his identity, comes quite late, yet it never moved slow and I never felt restless. I was in good super competent hands.

In particular, this movie is a course in actions sequences that work. Unlike the digital acrobatics of Marvel blockbusters, the stunts in “No Time to Die” have a down-to-earth visceral feel to them. It looks like that car really crashed and rolled, that the telephone pole fell down on a live set, that the stunt man really did drive that motorcycle up the side of that Italian building (wow!). At one point, in an extended one shot sequence, Daniel Craig shoots and fist-fights his way up a crowded stairwell. Whatever they are doing, it is just so much better than “Shang-Chi”.

A good James Bond movie is a series of fun set pieces, strong men, and beautiful women. The opening car/motorcycle chase with Lea Seydoux through the Italian village is great. So is the spy mission in Havana, Cuba with Ana de Armas as sidekick. Finally the infiltration of a villain’s island fortress with Lashana Lynch. In between there is humor deftly brought to the fore by wisecracking Ben Whishaw as Q and Naomie Harris as Moneypenney and the classic James Bond score providing the punctuation. In the villain department, Christoph Waltz reprises his Spectre mastermind Blofeld now locked away in a maximum security prison while outside a new threat in the form of Rami Malek.

It is the villain subplot that is finally where this movie comes up short. The danger is real enough. The British government was secretly developing a type of airborne weapon that attacks certain genomic sequences. In this way, the government could conceivably release the virus in a room and it would only kill one person, the intended target. Of course, this weapon is stolen and repurposed so that it may attack whole groups of people with similar genomic sequences, maybe an entire race of people. Evil enough, but the movie does not actually go so far as to suggest what group of people the bad guy is interested in killing. The bad guy’s island fortress is located between Russia and Japan and a simulation of the weapon seems to mainly central Europe. Noone in the movie is from Central Europe. Perhaps the franchise felt that to actually pinpoint a target was not necessary given that the members of the audience could all agree that the idea is nefarious supervillain territory regardless of what group is being targeted. Still, the lack of this detail, harms the viewer’s ability to understand the motivation of the villain, which in turn harms the drama. A minor quibble. Otherwise Rami Malek with his creepy delivery and bug eyes are classic Bond villain.

At the end of this movie, you may come to the realization that this really will be Daniel Craig’s last dance and that the franchise will have to turn to a different actor in any new installment. So who should it be? Well, I think whoever it is, they should redo the entire feel of the franchise, taking it perhaps down a few notches from the stripped down, brutish, and semi-seriousness of Daniel Craig. How about Dev Patel and, please, more irresponsible sex. Being responsible is great for a few movies, as a change of pace, but overall, James Bond should be having more fun.

The Lobster (4/5 Stars)

“The Lobster” is such an original movie that to describe it would necessarily require a comprehensive rehashing of the plot. I simply cannot say it is like some other movie you know. But to not rehash the entire movie and only focus on the beginning would also be to sell itself short because one of the more interesting characters (Rachel Weisz) is only introduced halfway through and what happens with her and the main character, i.e. the Lobster (Colin Farrell) is more interesting than what happens in the first half. But for the second part to make any sense, one needs to understand the first part, and I can’t do that without giving it all away. So just take my word for it: Rachel Weisz is great in this movie and I can’t tell you why.

It starts with The Lobster checking into the Hotel on the Seashore next to a Forest away from the City. He has been recently divorced. The Hotel, a creature of the State, will allow him to stay for 45 days to find himself a mate. If he doesn’t they will turn him into an animal. He gets to choose the animal. He chooses Lobster. It isn’t a completely arbitrary choice. As he explains the animal will live a long time and he likes the sea. So it works in a way. And that in a nutshell is how this movie works (more a miracle the more I think about it). It chooses seemingly arbitrary and bizarre rules to follow and then with a totally straight face follows them without flinching. The result is an sincere, engrossing, and surprisingly consistent romantic comedy. And it is a romantic comedy as strange as that may sound when applied to a movie such as this.

No State in the known world would ever force people to find a mate within 45 days before turning them into an animal. And that is likely because no state in the known world deals with the kind of hopelessly anti romantic people that inhabit this movie. Colin Farell along with his new guy friends John C. Reilly and Ben Whishaw do not want to be turned into animals. Neither do the females at the Hotel. But at the same time there seems to be an unwritten rule that couples need to have a unique trait in common. Ben Whishaw has a limp. John C. Reilly has a lisp. There is this really hot girl who eventually gets turned into a pony because she can’t find anyone else who has great hair.

The Hotel has seminars and mixers in which relationships are promoted in the least appetizing way possible. There is a rule against masturbating in the hotel and the maids, as part of their job desciption, are to dry hump the guests (but not to climax) in order to stimulate them to find mates amongst the other guests. As Colin Farrell understatedly intones, “Awful, just awful.”

If this is a satire on something I don’t know what that could possibly be and honestly I do not really care. I don’t want to think there is an agenda behind this movie. If there were it would be a stupid way to push it because nothing in here has anything to do with reality. The only way it works is by its own rules all by itself. And encapsulated as such, it sets its rules out clearly follows them steadfastly and exploits them for humorous and romantic effect.

To make matters more interesting, the outcasts of this mandatory romantic society are a guerilla band of loners who carry out terrorist missions targeted to break up the couples at the retreat. The guests at the hotel are given tranquilizer guns and every once in a while bussed to the woods where they can earn an extra day for each loner they capture. There is a heartless woman guest (played by Aggeliki Papoulia) that is particularly adept at hunting other human beings. She is at 158 days currently. Hilarity and Tragedy ensues when The Lobster tries to woo her by pretending to be heartless as well.

The movie is filled end to end with interesting details: for example when the loners celebrate they listen to electronic music with headphones. That way even when they are celebrating together they dance alone. And in the city, a person shopping alone can be stopped by the police and asked for their marriage certificate. The movie was directed by Yorgos Lathimos and also co-written by him. He is obviously a type of insane.

Anchoring the movie is Colin Farrell who has turned into a special actor. I remember him quite well as someone I would point out as rather bad (or at least miscast). He was doing these great epic roles (Alexandar, The New World, Miami Vice) and doing them, frankly, not so well. But then he had a career turnaround in “In Bruges,” in which he played a down and out suicidal loser who, quite importantly, had the same accent as his very own Irish brogue. It was a revelation. His true calling was not as blockbuster hero. It was as a loser and he has excelled in that role ever since. His turn in “True Detective: Season 2,” “Seven Psychopaths,” and most importantly this movie prove that he is at his best playing broken men. Colin Farrell brings a pathos and honest humor to this character that seems entirely tuned to him. This is his best role and I would argue an Oscar nomination for it.

Rachel Weisz, as we all know and I hope I have written about before, is great and a very big movie girlfriend of mine. I wish I could tell you what she does in this movie without giving away the last half of the movie except to say, like everything she does, it is perfect. (I never got to rave about her comedic performance in “The Brothers Bloom” but for fucks sake wasn’t that revelatory). She’s worthy of a great romantic gesture. I’ve said too much already.

John C. Reilly rises to the occasion again as a welcome competent face in a movie totally out there with no money backing it. I’m reminded a little bit of his work in “Cedar Rapids.” He is a great team player. Also there is Lea Seydoux playing against type as queen of the loners given she is currently one of the sexiest women in movies (Blue is the Warmest Color, Mission Impossible). Then there is Ben Whishaw who is also very good. Everybody in this movie, amazingly, is very good at playing people who do not resemble humans in a world that does not resemble reality. It’s great acting drawn from great directing and writing by Yorgos Lathimos who, as I related before, is probably insane. Anyway I vote for an Oscar Nomination for Best Original Screenplay, the key word being Original. Want a cold breath of fresh air in your movie going experience. Go see “The Lobster.”