Licence To Kill

Rating: 7/10 (21 November 2015)

The now working Sam Mendes line of 007 British spy movies prove that it's not just the womanizing charmer that holds the movie up to it's standards , but it's a combination of various subtleties that gives us , the viewers the pleasure of watching this assassin with a license to kill do what he is best at. Now like other reviews on metacritic giving the movie a 60 and on is something I am really sad to see because this movie is nowhere close to the lash it is receiving from a few of the critics. At worst , this is a fun blockbuster which has improved and built a lot on Skyfall's foundation , but at the same time leaving a trail of missed opportunity by the end of the 2 hour 30 minute runtime .
1)Story: - Well unfortunately, this movie came a moths after "Mission Impossible : Rouge Nation " which led me into a déjà –vu feel while watching it. The plot of the movie has mainly 3 sub-plots revolving around each other. While movies like Golden-Eye and Casino-Royale have done handled multiple sub-plots perfectly, it felt like the story chose to highlight more of the unnecessary details. Some might shrug and ignore my said problem, but unfortunately this mistake puts a heavy toll on the actors and their characters being represented on screen. There was this feeling I had, more than once during the viewing where all sub plots felt like they were converging , but they ultimately fell apart. The movie though having pretty good pacing, felt like the ending was rushed and edited to make sure the already 2 and half hour long movie does not go longer. Ultimately, the plot here is creepily similar to Rouge Nation, and other spy movies making it more generic than usual , which is extremely disappointing considering the detour the franchise took from it's comfort zone to make skyfall, the purely narrative based opera. Also unlike other movies this does not deny the existence of the previous entries in the franchise.
2)Casting and performances :- Being extremely honest about my opinion here, this movie has a superb casting choice , with Daniel Craig reprising his role as 007 , bond girl Lea , Monica Balluci , Ralph Fiennes , Dave Bustista , and my most anticipated cast member of this project Christoph Waltz. Ever since the cast had been announced I have been really excited to see Landa from Inglorious Basterds take up the super evil villain in this movie. Now do not confuse my statement about casting choice with their work in the movie. As stated previously about the plot , the characters fall really short of their expectations making it feel like it is a real waste of talent. The plot does not make good use of the characters as most of them feel disposable. While Daniel Craig and Lea hold up with their best performances, they stand to leave an impact as they are put on screen for the entire run time. While the movie's main villain Christoph Waltz literally feels like a tacked on character put into the movie as an afterthought holding up less than quarter of the movie. What made Skyfall a great movie was the psychological warfare between Bond and Silva , and also Javier Bardem's impeccable performance , which is something Sam Mendes didn't comprehend well while writing the script for this movie. Fortunately, unlike the other movies where Bond runs the single man show, this one provides slightly more screen time to the other mi6 agents like m and q. But on an overall the cast has been ultimately struck by the poor plot and the highly flawed script.
3)Direction: - All the bad experiences I had with this movie have been successfully overshadowed by the direction department. All the way from the brilliantly directed first action scene, to the end , this movie holds up as one of the most beautifully directed and superbly shot James Bond movies till date. While many people had problems with the grey overtone of Skyfall , this movie has taken quite a departure by giving a yellow , tanned look and feel to it. The movie is beauty in every frame. Wide shots look splendid, close ups have really good focus , most importantly , the lighting. The lighting Sam Mendes has gone with adds much depth to the frame shot and presented thus making the cinematography just out of the world. One of the notable scenes in the movie is when you see Christoph Waltz the first time. The yellow overtone of the lighting behind him gave me creepy chills. Sam Mendes has not left a single hole in his job as a director and used the best and maximum of the production money to provide a visceral action movie experience. All action scenes were beautifully choreographed and executed. I was absolutely sold on the design choices Sam Mendes made while filming this.
On an overall , the presence of masterful direction and a brilliant cast makes it much more sad for me to say this movie didn't deliver on all the levels and hype it built. The in-coherent plot and non cohesive plot devices made it much harder to stay in tune with what was happening. Not like this will affect my liking for this movie in any way but the huge similarities this movie shares with Rouge Nation made the story cliché at many times. Ultimately though this movie was underdeveloped and misused it's cast , Sam Mendes's mastery behind the camera , the movies location , cinematography ad superb action makes this a brilliant time pass movie for all movie goers. But a big question this movie raises is do Bond movies need to be story driven like Skyfall , action oriented as Spectre or can there exist a movie with both in the future ?