A cryptic message from Bond’s past sends him on a trail to uncover a sinister organisation. While M battles political forces to keep the secret service alive, Bond peels back the layers of deceit to reveal the terrible truth behind SPECTRE.

Along with the return of Daniel Craig as James Bond, Spectre would also see the return of director Sam Mendes who would expand his study of the character of James Bond, while also broadening the world in which he acted in. Once again Mendes would bring the same operatic elegance he had to Skyfall in Spectre, and Spectre was an utterly gorgeous film to look upon. Where Skyfall had a punchy and polished noir quality to its visuals, Spectre instead offered up a starker, stripped-down style, and presented audiences with an even grander and bigger canvas on which Bond was able to operate in. Mendes also gave Spectre this essential retro-cool Bond feeling about it, with its setting and design feeling very much inspired by the Bond films of the Sean Connery era and the design and artistry of the great Ken Adam. Spectre also had a feeling of grand opulence about it, which was reinforced by the megalomaniacal size and scale of the crime syndicate that gave the film its name, and this really made an impression on audiences.

While it was of such considerable scale and size, Spectre also happened to be in my mind the most intimate of all of the Craig Bond films to date. In his narrative and plotting, Mendes again went back into Bond’s past and used the baggage of the secret agent’s youth to draw out a narrative of him duelling with a very dangerous and very personal villain. Spectre was also very much in keeping with the sequel narrative that Mendes was working to with its storytelling literally succeding the events of Skyfall and tieing in together the events of all of the previous Craig films to craft a single narrative thread for Bond to follow.

Daniel Craig would return in his fourth appearance as super-spy James Bond in Spectre, and whereas Skyfall was about him re-connecting back to his old self as Bond, Spectre was very much about him going into the internal mind of Bond and discovering the reasons and motivations for why he acts the way he does. While Craig has continued to deliver one of the sharpest and coolest portrayals ever of the dapper and debonair 007, Spectre gave him considerable room to explore the humanity of James Bond, along with what it would truly mean for Bond to actually fall in love and truly devote himself to one single woman. Added to this was also a sense of a hunter’s single-mindedness as he pursued SPECTRE around the globe and you had a very interesting take for James Bond this time around.

As a viewing experience, Spectre also felt more like a team film, rather than just the lone acting Bond pursuing this evil organization and its mastermind across the globe. A newly minted and sternly worded M (Ralph Fiennes), the talented and quick thinking Moneypenny (Naomi Harris), the technologically minded Q (Ben Whishaw) and the ever-dependable Tanner (Rory Kinnear), all played key roles in Spectre. And it was very fun to see Bond act as part of a group to stop SPECTRE in its tracks, especially in the third act, and this really gave the film a new and different kind of energy. Bond’s supporting team were also not mere spectators that popped up for a scene or two, but each had a key part to play within the film’s narrative and this certainly kept things interesting.

Bond would also get his fill with two thoroughly gorgeous women in Spectre, including Monica Bellucci as the sexy Lucia Sciarra and Léa Seydoux as Madeleine Swann, a beautiful and soulful woman who would finally steal away his heart. Both Belluci and Seydoux made for great Bond Girls and each of them had their own part to play in the narrative and added to the story’s impact. Bellucci, as she is prone to do, was effortless in her portrayal of the femme fatale vixen, while Seydoux was a capable new woman in Bond’s life who was on an equal footing with him. She would also give this old war dog a chance to properly explore the idea of a greater love than just the bliss of a single night’s passion. Seydoux’s Swann was also of key importance to the film’s third act, and her time spent with Bond in Tangier and the Sahara lent to some of the film’s most stunning imagery and emotionally intense moments.

Spectre had a terrific sense of history about it as it took from the past of the character and brought it back into the modern era and none was this more so clear than with the film’s chief antagonist. Stepping out of the shadows to bring the chaos down on James Bond was none other than two-time Academy Award winner Christoph Waltz as Franz Oberhauser, later revealed to be the megalomaniacal Ernst Stavro Blofeld, James Bond’s ultimate nemesis and Waltz truly made the part his own. Written as a brotherly figure to Bond, with a dangerous grudge to bear against him, Waltz gave Blofeld a calculating, sadistic intelligence that made him out as a special kind of villain for Bond to contend with, one who partook in great enjoyment in tormenting Bond, and who was more than happy to cause as much chaos as possible as long as it made Bond suffer.

Not only was Spectre a story of immense scale in the narrative, characters and location, but also in its action and Mendes certainly put Daniel Craig through the grinder with this one. His intention was to start off big, and the film’s opening chase and helicopter fight through Mexico City on a packed out ‘Day of the Dead’ was an incredibly epic spectacle to witness. From this opening, Mendes and his team expanded on this idea of big action which included an intense car chase through the darkened streets of Rome; Bond smashing through the Alps in a Britten-Norman BN-2 Islander; an intense mano-a-mano fight scene on a moving train between Bond and Dave Bautista’s Mr. Hinks, a brooding, brute of a killer sent to dispatch 007; the destruction of SPECTRE’s Sahara desert compound, which included the biggest ever explosion committed to celluloid, and a final confrontation between Bond and Blofeld in an explosive London showdown. If you were an action junkie you absolutely loved what was on offer here and I have to say that it was the film’s Mexican aerial helicopter fight that got my blood pumping the most.

For audiences and Bond fans, Spectre felt like a different experience altogether, and watching it back again you can feel that Mendes was working to explore new territory with the character, while also trying to reinterpret the historical Bond in a brand new light. Mendes was also working towards a film that was nothing short of the word ‘blockbuster’, and Spectre was a film of immense scale and size and audiences were in for a grand experience worthy of the world’s greatest super spy. While the film does have its faults, I feel like it was a very ambitious attempt by Mendes to search for new ground in the Bond franchise, along with bringing the Craig movies as a whole together as a franchise, and which will now be brought full circle in the forthcoming No Time To Die. While initially many people saw the film as Craig’s final chapter, now we can look upon it as the set up to his final act as James Bond, and acting as an intermediary narrative that sets up the things to come in No Time To Die.

Spectre is a colossal event sized movie and you certainly feel the epicness that Sam Mendes was searching for when bringing it to the big screen. It’s big, lavish and packed full of a mix of retro-cool and modern excellence, and is an important chapter to witness as we now head into Daniel Craig’s final turn as James Bond.

No Time To Die will arrive in cinemas on October 7.

The post The Bond Countdown – ‘Spectre’ appeared first on SpicyPulp.

An ex-MI6 agent steals a hard drive with top-secret information to carry out a vendetta on Bond’s overseer, M. Bond must face his past in a bid to try and save M.

Stepping into the director’s chair this time was revered dramatic director and Academy Award winner Sam Mendes, and he brought a thoroughly new and distinct vision to the character of James Bond in Skyfall. Mixing both operatic elegance and racy film noir together resulted in the astonishing Skyfall. And Mendes really new what he was doing with this project. Placing emphasis on character, narrative and scale, Skyfall felt like a truly modern Bond experience and a lavish one at that. Every frame of this film was gorgeous to look upon, and Mendes gave the film an elegance and sexiness that was distinctively its own and not inspired by the past. But it was his focus on the character of James Bond, and the forces that drive him, along with the relationship to his boss and mentor M (Judi Dench) where this film really made its mark.

Audiences had grown to accept Bond as an icon, and for many years and many Bond films, the emphasis was on the past inspiring the present for plenty of retro throwback cool. Here in Skyfall, Mendes and his team worked to place the emphasis on the modern and make James Bond stand out on his own on a technologically interwoven planet and where new threats arose more from lone actors rather than nation-states. Giving Skyfall a tech edge, and finding a new place for Bond within it made the character that much cooler, and Mendes was also able to give the film its own iconic status. From its opening moments, this film gripped audiences, and its pace was well-thought-out with each event feeding into the next for a well-balanced and purposeful narrative. Skyfall was Bond made contemporary and with its added sense of operatic scale and dramatic depth, audiences were in for an intense ride.

Skyfall also gave Bond star Daniel Craig new avenues to explore as the tuxedo-clad superspy. And he looked damn cool while doing it. Beaten, broken down and renouncing his 00 status, it was only when tragedy hit close to home that Bond returned to put things right and we were seeing a new shade to Bond’s character as that of a hunter who was on the prowl. Craig again brought out his tough elegance in the part and whether it was racing a motorcycle through the streets of Istanbul or prowling the smoke-filled halls of a Macau casino, Craig would display effortless cool as the debonair 007. In my own mind, Skyfall was a perfect portrait of James Bond as a character, being equal parts devil-may-care and dashing, and this was truly Ian Fleming’s character remade for a brand new age with Bond reinvented for a modern era.

Of incredible importance to the success of Skyfall was the presence of Academy Award winner Javier Bardem as the film’s lead villain Raoul Silva. A dangerous and unhinged cyber-terrorist, Silva also happens to have once been an MI6 operative under M’s control, but whose own actions turned him into a rogue asset that had to be terminated. Swearing revenge, he turned his attention to destroying M and everything around her. And with Silva we had a terrific villain for Bond to face down. Silva was a perfect opponent for Bond, and was very much Bond’s equal and a man who could go to war with him on a level footing, which until Skyfall we had not seen Craig’s Bond have to contend with. With his sickly blond hair and stark eyes, Bardem’s Silva was a completely distinctive character and the infamous first meeting between Silva and Bond created an uneasy tension, which was only amplified by Bardem’s sadistic creep factor. Bardem’s Silva was a definite highlight of the film and the Bond villain that we’d long awaited for and wanted to see.

A central tenant to the impact of Skyfall was the presence of Judi Dench’s M, Bond’s long-time superior and mentor, and who had a vital part to play in the film’s narrative as the target of Silva’s deranged plan for revenge. Skyfall is also the most intense of Bond and M’s relationship, especially when explored through the film’s third act when Bond and M seek refuge in Bond’s childhood estate home in Scotland, and where the layers of his past, and the impact of this past on his character, is revealed. As always Dench is once again superb in her role as M, and there is an almost understated love between Bond and M, which is explored here as we come to see M as a somewhat ‘mother figure’ to Bond. This subtext in the film, which had not been explored in previous Bond films gave the narrative so much further depth and made Skyfall’s third act and emotionally wraught ending that much more powerful.

As an experience, Skyfall definitely added some serious sex appeal to its setting, and of all of Bond’s recent appearances courtesy of Daniel Craig, Skyfall certainly ranks as the most scintillating and sexy. Bringing the sex appeal to this instalment was the glamourous, elegant and sexy Bérénice Marlohe as the scintilationg and salacious Sévérine. A classic femme fatale in both attitude and action, Sévérine was an eningmatic presence within Skyfall and elevated the Bond girl troupe to a new level. Dangerous and alluring, she was a vixen temptress who weaved her way around Bond and you couldn’t help but be drawn into Marlohe’s performance as Sévérine. Added to the sex appeal of Skyfall was also the presence of Naomie Harris as Eve, a new MI6 field operative who is later revealed to be Eve Moneypenny, and Harris added her own level of tension to Eve’s interactions with Bond. There was a terrific flirty back and forth between Bond and Eve, courtesy of Craig and Harris, and this added sexual tension between these two characters certainly made their interactions very interesting to watch.

If there was one central part of production that aided unequivocally to the success of Skyfall then it was far and away the visual eye of legendary cinematographer Roger Deakins. Regarded as the greatest cinematographer of all time, Deakins brought his lavish visual touch to Skyfall and shot one hell of a gorgeous movie. Painting scene after scene with his terrific understanding of light and shadow, Deakins captured the modern operatic quality that Mendes was searching for here in Skyfall and the imagery before our eyes was beautiful to look upon. Key standout scenes from the film included Bond’s fight with an elusive hitman in a neon-lit Shanghai, his meeting with Sévérine in the smokey elegance of a Macau casino and the film’s penultimate firefight on the burning Scottish highlands of Bond’s past. All of it was captured in the perfectly rendered high-dynamic-range detail of Deakins lens, and his touch was the key in elevating this film to a new standard for both the Bond film and modern cinema in general.

In terms of the cinematic experience, Skyfall is the complete and total James Bond package. Narrative, character, action, location and production all came together in this monumental movie, and audiences were truly given the ultimate modern Bond incarnation with this story. Skyfall is a perfect Bond film and it makes for a very compelling and rewarding watch for audiences who are looking for a bit of supercharged adventure.

No Time To Die will arrive in cinemas on October 7.

The post The Bond Countdown – ‘Skyfall’ appeared first on SpicyPulp.

James Bond descends into mystery as he tries to stop a mysterious organisation from eliminating a country’s most valuable resource.

Picking up the directorial reigns from Martin Campbell would be director Marc Forster, a filmmaker who was more known for his dramatic depth, but who seriously supercharged the action in this one. Where Campbell’s Casino Royale was a classic romantic spy film, Forster put his emphasis on the action and on a wounded 007 who was very much out for blood. Quantum of Solace moves forward at an explosive pace and of all of Craig’s Bond films, it’s the most action-packed and is a rather brutal watch with this slightly unhinged secret agent going straight forward to get his revenge. But what’s interesting is that even with all its high-end action, Forster still brings his dramatic lens to bare and in Quantum of Solace we’re seeing the cost of what it means to be James Bond, and how much of a heavy toll it can be to bare.

Forster’s direction also plays a serious part in moving the James Bond narrative forward and aligning it more to the classic structure of the Bond films. While Casino Royale was about becoming James Bond, Quantum of Solace is about what it means to be James Bond and that means inhabiting a dangerous new world that goes above rudimentary terrorist acts. While only briefing mentioned in Casino Royale, audiences come into contact with the mysterious and dangerous new organization of Quantum, who are bent on global domination and establishing their new world order. It’s fantastic to see Craig’s Bond begin to operate against much larger forces, while also having to go it alone and rely on his skills and instincts to get the job done. As an audience member, it’s great to see this classic Bond narrative structure made contemporary and Forster does a fine job with this.

After his exceptional work on Casino Royale, Daniel Craig again returns to the big screen as James Bond and this time the stakes get cranked up for cinema’s greatest super spy. Reeling from his betrayal at the hands of Vesper Lynd, Craig’s Bond is on the hunt and willing to get down and dirty when it comes to dismantling a dangerous and secretive new threat. Quantum of Solace is Bond with the choke chain taken off and Craig goes for the jugular. It’s a very direct performance from Craig, and while Bond does treat himself to a few treats, such as a tryst with the scintillating MI6 officer Strawberry Fields (Gemma Arterton), Bond is all business. While Bond does crack plenty of heads this time, Forster’s direction also helps pull out a very damaged performance from Craig and Quantum of Solace is very much about why James Bond does what he does and how this man justifies his profession and existence.

Stepping up as a new Bond girl is Olga Kurylenko as the salacious and headstrong Camille Montes, a Bolivian agent who comes into Bond’s world and whose own quest for revenge gets mixed in with his mission. Kurylenko’s Camille stands out amongst other Bond girls as she can go head-to-head with the debonair super-spy and can match his advanced combat skills and action. While she never becomes especially close to Bond, and there are no outward romantic feelings between the two of them, she essentially offers the audience a mirror image by which we can view Bond as both are suffering and consumed by a need for revenge. It’s Camille who opens Bond up to what he may become, asking him to reflect on this before it’s too late. Kurylenko cuts a great figure as the fearless Camille and her presence in Quantum of Solace helps to modernize Bond and give him a different type of woman to play off.

Quantum of Solace is also an important film for the emphasis that it places on the relationship between Craig’s Bond and Judi Dench’s M. While there was some interaction between the two of them in Casino Royale, this takes on deeper significance within Quantum of Solace and we begin to see the complex dynamics at work here. While they bicker back and forth between one another, and Bond’s straight and often to the point methods rile up M, it’s very clear that she trusts Bond completely and this film helps to illustrate this as the sharks begin to encircle them both. Both Craig and Dench are two of Britain’s most capable and respected performers and it’s fantastic to see them at work in a closer manner and it helps to establish a deeper level of trust and respect between the two characters.

Stylistically, Quantum of Solace is very much a throwback to the classic Sean Connery era Bond films and especially the design style of the great Ken Adam. While director Marc Foster is telling a modern story and making the classic Bond tropes contemporary, the film’s sense of style and design recalls the fantastic elements of classic Bond films like From Russia With Love and Thunderball. From its art deco and retro-future architectural design to a focus on classic vehicles and a throwback style in relation to the film’s costuming, Quantum of Solace is packed out with retro-cool. In addition to this classic design ethos, another incredibly important addition to the film was the pairing of Daniel Craig with noted menswear designer Tom Ford, who re-crafted Bond’s look for a new age with an ultra-masculine flair that signalled his dominance as a daring debonair man of action.

Of all of Craig’s turns as Bond, Quantum of Solace is certainly the most action-heavy and the intensity doesn’t let up for a moment. Craig ran the gauntlet here and the film kicks off with a bang with its explosive and adrenaline charging car chase that kicked up plenty of gravel and elevated the audiences heart rate. What followed was an onslaught of action, with Craig jumping from a daring rooftop gun battle to a brutal bone-breaking knife fight, followed by a jet boat collision coarse in Haiti with Kurylenko’s Camille. But it was the film’s epic aerial chase scene over the Bolivian desert that was the film’s show-stopping piece and this was a piece of action cinema that was epically shot and cranked up the volume with the spectacle it delivered.

Quantum of Solace was a great next stage in Daniel Craig’s career as James Bond. It’s the first time where he starts to mature as the character and introduces him into a more Bond-esque world. The action’s intense, the narrative’s crisp and the visual palette is packed together with a terrific mixture of both retro flair and contemporary style and it is an important step in Bond’s new mission for this new generation of cinemagoers.

No Time To Die will arrive in cinemas on October 7.

The post The Bond Countdown – ‘Quantum of Solace’ appeared first on SpicyPulp.

For Craig, life as Bond began back in 2006 with the release of Casino Royale, which attempted to re-set the Bond character and present his origin story, and how this tough, but yet untested secret agent would become the man every guy wants to be and every woman wants to be with. We’re going right back to the beginning with Casino Royale as we countdown to the release of No Time To Die, and Casino Royale is a great place to start.

After earning 00 status and a licence to kill, Secret Agent James Bond (Daniel Craig) sets out on his first mission as 007. Bond must defeat a private banker funding terrorists in a high stakes game of poker at Casino Royale, Montenegro.

Starting right back at the beginning, New Zealand director Martin Campbell was once again selected to re-introduce audiences to Bond, just like he had done with Pierce Brosnan with Goldeneye, and he started Casino Royale off with a bang! Adapting the first of Ian Fleming’s spy novels, Casino Royale is an incredibly faithful adaptation to the original source novel and keeps much of the plotting and characterization of both Bond and the first Bond girl, Vesper Lynn, although updating it for a modern setting and tieing in elements of contemporary terrorism and money laundering into the plot. Casino Royale also hits audiences hard, and this is felt in the very first scene. Its action scenes are in-your-face and contain some gut-punching moments which reinforce the idea that Craig’s Bond is a new Bond, a tougher Bond, a more capable Bond. Campbell’s direction of Casino Royale reinterprets the landscape of just what a Bond film is, and the audience’s reaction to this film is something altogether completely different.

Buttoning up the tux and stepping into the gun barrel this time is Daniel Craig as secret agent 007 James Bond, and the actor completely makes this character his own. Recalling the devil-may-care flavour of Sean Connery, while also offering up an aggressive and concentrated performance, you buy into Craig performance as Bond here. Craig invests in Bond’s history as a Navy man and a former Special Forces Operator who is now taking on the new challenge of service to Queen and Country within MI6. With his unique charismatic cool and tough guy capability, Craig was effortlessly able to hold the attention of his audience. He’s a peak alpha male, with the coolest cars, the best suits, one hell of a physique, the ability to charm any woman he meets, and to jump into any sort of action at ease. And this made for the most entertaining of viewing experiences.

But stepping aside from his action and heroics, Craig’s Bond is a complex man, who is juggling an intense and dangerous morality and who is having to reconcile with the ugly world in which he operates in. Craig’s performance feeds into the character here and there was a real honesty and integrity that he brought to Bond’s characterization in Casino Royale. Throughout the film, we’re seeing James Bond become James Bond and it’s not until Casino Royale’s ending and the final iconic scene that this man finally becomes the legend. It’s in this final scene where Craig asserts his command over the role and puts his stamp on the character. No one truly does it better as Bond than Craig and audiences couldn’t help but be charmed and inspired by his performance.

Standing next to Craig’s Bond in Casino Royale is the gorgeous Eva Green as Vesper Lynd, the very first Bond girl and the one to steal his cold heart. As Vesper Green shapes the very definition of the Bond girl persona with her performance. Glamourous, confident, intelligent, beautiful, alluring and the first woman who can match Bond and go toe-to-toe with him, Vesper gives Casino Royale it’s character drama and as the interaction of these two eventually grows to that a loving affair, the stage is set for some very big twists that many viewers did not see coming. Like Craig, Green is on top of her game here as Vesper and she helps to bring audiences into the narrative of Casino Royale, while also giving them a unique frame to view Bond in. While there is an amazing romance that is shared between the two of them, Green’s Vesper is also able to recognise the self-destructive character of Bond, along with giving us a reaction to the constant violence that informs the character. In terms of Bond Girls, Green re-characterizes her character here and sets the scene for what audiences should expect from future Bond Girls with Craig’s career as Bond.

Alongside Vesper, another key character to the Bond universe is re-introduced in Casino Royale in the form of the ever-dependable M who is once again played by Dame Judi Dench. Returning to the character after overseeing Pierce Brosnan’s turn as 007, Dench once again provides an interesting foil to Craig’s Bond as M, this time around as an authority figure who is trying to rein in an overly aggressive employee. While there is a respect held between the two of them, here in Casino Royale we see Craig’s Bond testing M and seeing just what he can get away with in terms of operational procedure, while M is far more observant and widely focused than Bond is aware of. But of course she knows he’ll get the job done. Casino Royale is the first chapter of a more intensive relationship between M and Bond and it shapes the canvas for what is to come.

Casino Royale had a big job in re-igniting the flame behind James Bond and this film is all action! From its brutal opening beat down where Bond gains his 00 license, to the film’s showcase of the art of parkour, it’s explosive Miami airport showdown, fights scenes in staircases, Bond’s disturbing torture at the hands of Le Chiffre to the penultimate Venice chase, Casino Royale delivers with the blockbuster spectacle. The action in Casino Royale revolutionizes the Bond franchise and pushes it into a fresh new direction and those who were witness to it couldn’t help but be enthralled by it. Of all of its blockbuster action sequences, its parkour chase scene in Madagascar is definitely the most thrilling and is the first time that we get to see Craig’s Bond let loose. It’s an intensely shot scene that gets your heart rate going and the high-flying energy of this scene is what brands Craig’s Bond as a tougher more extreme character.

Going hand-in-hand with its action scenes, Casino Royale also invests heavily into the glitz and elegance of James Bond’s world and Campbell brings plenty of debonair flair to the big screen here. From locations that stretch from the sun-kissed tropical beaches of the Bahamas to the courtly elegance of Montenegro, Casino Royale pulls back to Ian Fleming’s long-hand and the gentlemanly life that he led, and which would, of course, inspire the world of Bond. And even though it’s heavy on the action, Casino Royale is a very romantic affair and builds on the intimate and passionate relationship that grows between Bond and Vesper. This film is a love story and along with giving Bond plenty of time for romance, it also helps to shape his character and showcase an operative who isn’t as closed off as he first appears, and who for the first time in his life is starting to shed his armour.

Casino Royale set the standard for what James Bond could be for a new generation and Daniel Craig delivered an exceptional performance as the world’s greatest super spy. With Casino Royale, we got the first chapter in a bold new reinvention of the franchise that has become a stalwart of modern blockbuster cinema and audiences sure were pumped to see more of Bond to come.

No Time To Die will arrive in cinemas on October 7.

Image: Sony Pictures

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