A Classic Bond

Rating: 6/10 (20 November 2015)

The highly anticipated and the costliest Bond film bringing the collaboration of Sam and Craig one more time is something all Bond fans were cross fingered about and I'd say it has just about delivered.
The film starts with an almost 5 minutes long continuous shot, a la Emmanuel Lubezki from Alejandro films, the careful and tedious work was super attractive as it was intended, but it is never repeated in the whole film, not even for 2-3 minutes, for requirements constraint obviously, leaving the audience asking for more. The action in Mexico is one of the most realistically shot helicopter scenes ever, as Sam likes them. But it still with all the grounded take has an element of Bond to it, the last second save and et al.
The title credits was a disappointment, I could hardly pin point any inventiveness in terms of design and graphics, except periodically wrapping the characters with the slithering muscular tentacles of Octopus, like sea creature. This might be one of the worst such sequences in a long time, some films from the early time line of Bond era have clearly made far better ones with lesser technology.
On the streets of Rome, where the devil organization is at a meet, the structure goes awry with Bond's presence being recognized by the head himself, leading to the highly talked about chase of DB10 and Jaguar C-X75. The chase is slower than the chases we have seen in other Craig Bonds, whether its Casino Royale or Quantum of Solace (QoS had some one of the best edge of the seat car chases), nevertheless the state-of- art cars, with few twitches in the Aston Martin to make it technologically smarter, renders a fairly enjoyable piece. Action shifts from country to country ensuring the contrasting change in the atmospheric feel and the mood of the whole from time to time. But even with the strong palette of colors they offer, Hoyte van Hoytema, the cinematographer has grossly underused them, with such striking works in his kitty this was clearly a disappointment, or may be the standards set by Roger Deakins was just too high with the last film. The scenes are strictly just above average shots, making at least no noticeable unique efforts of getting remarked. Though some of them like the Rome lit up in the dark with the orange sodium lamps reflecting on the stone paved roads is beautiful and so is the train scene giving a rich bronze classic royal feel throughout. The sequences towards the end with a gentle blue-tangy combination might be faintly reminiscent of the Nolan Batmans, though I won't emphasize them too much.
Newman who has also given music to Mendes 23rd film, isn't as powerful here. Most of the scenes are painfully quiet. One can listen to the Shanghai sequence music in Skyfall (Shanghai Drive) in a loop for many days together but there's no such identifiable tone here, just the occasional arresting escalation used very commonly in the current crop of action films which comes as a surprise from a 12 time Academy award nominee.
The script is definitely better than what the loop-holed driven Skyfall offered but some of the scenes are unnecessarily over long and could have been harmlessly been edited for the sake of fitter and faster tempo. The film ends up becoming more of an action drama than an action thriller which it usually is, for its slow conversations and a little inclination towards emotions. Towards the end, the story isn't as much about stopping a villain from his megalomaniac plans but the villain cheekily playing games with Bond, another reminder of The Dark Knight.
The action choreography isn't as punching, raw and high voltage as it has been with all Craig films (in fact even too bland on certain occasions). They are slow and may be more powerful with Dave Bautista being involved and all. The film makes a good use of occasional humour, whether it's the banter between Moneypenny and Bond or the tame Bond tease on Q, lighting up the atmosphere even in the supposed tight situations. In all, the film lacks the tension and thrill which makes Bond a Bond, but that also doesn't seem to be the motive of Mendes who seemingly aims for a classic Bond trying to include all the little elements leaving the film in a blithe ending.