Kaleb Mlsna

This movie feels like it’s a Jack Black film first and a Minecraft film second. While there’s nothing inherently wrong with Jack Black movies, it’s over-the-top silliness, humor and slight tackiness leave the actual Minecraft aspects feeling a bit half-baked.

I don’t care how good the acting is. I can understand race swapping in a work of fiction, I can understand race swapping white to black, but really? Taking a real life, black murderer and making him white for the sake of virtue signaling? If you’re going to adapt real life events, tell the fucking truth.

I can’t believe I’m saying this but: This movie made me cry. A SAW movie made me cry, of all things.

I hate the Disney sequel trilogy as much as the next guy (as long as the next guy has a hatred that spans far away galaxies), but I'm not going to dismiss Disney Star Wars whole hog, because Rogue One exceeded my every expectation and more. Not only is it absolutely gorgeous to watch, the story is interesting, I love Krennic as a villain/lackey, and it ties so well into the Star Wars universe and gives an awesome, sort of behind-the-scenes look at the galaxy. Sure, there is a lot of fanservice in the movie, but the difference between this and episodes 7, 8, and 9 is that the fanservice isn’t critical to the plot; you could remove it all and the film would still make sense, but am I ever so glad they kept it in, because it really does enhance the experience for long-time fans.

(SPOILERS AHEAD) While I do appreciate that Connery looks like he's having a good time, this movie feels less like a last hurrah and more like a dying gasp from one of the greatest Bond actors of all time. Despite his enthusiasm and ever-present charisma, there is a noticeable lack of energy from Connery, and to be blunt, he simply doesn't look the part of Bond any more at that age. As far as the plot goes, you know it, I know it, we all know it's a rehashing of Thunderball. It’s poorly paced, the action scenes are simple and slow at times, and the ending of the film is a giant anticlimax. The underwater battle was one of the biggest highlights of Thunderball, and instead of recreating that, they reduce this scene down to Bond and Largo tussling underwater for a couple minutes, before Largo eventually gets pinned down under the sub carrying the warhead and then Largo dies in a Deus Ex Machina moment where Domino comes out of nowhere and harpoons him just before he can shoot Bond. On the subject of characters, I've already touched on Connery, but he still manages to be one of the better parts of the movie. The same cannot be said of all the other characters. Edward Fox as M does nothing but yell at Bond and ramble about how the 00 program is old-fashioned and should be scrapped, which doesn't lend to him being terribly likeable. The depiction of Q is decent, if a bit unusual with hints of crackpot mad scientist. They do absolutely nothing with Miss Moneypenny besides deliver the punchline to a joke about “free radicals” that completely falls flat; there’s no flirting and no chemistry at all between Moneypenny and Bond, which feels completely uncharacteristic unless it’s Daniel Craig’s Bond. Maximillian Largo is a pathetic excuse for a villain. He's not menacing, he's not cool, he has no way with women, and he acts so dorky and immature in parts of the movie that it's hard for me to believe he is a member of SPECTRE. Speaking of SPECTRE, it's equally hard to believe that they managed to get an actor like Max von Sydow to play the part of Ernst Stavro Blofeld, and they do absolutely nothing with him. All he does is talk for a few minutes and then congratulate Largo. All of the menace and looming sense of dread he brings to Thunderball and From Russia with Love is nowhere to be seen. Fatima Blush is a decent henchman, but I still find myself doubting that she is a competent SPECTRE agent when she had so many chances to kill Bond, and she just doesn’t. There’s seemingly no reason for why she doesn’t just kill him after introducing herself to Bond. Heck, just before she dies, she has Bond at gun point, and even when Bond’s gadget seemingly fails, she still doesn’t shoot him, she just stands there and laughs before eventually being blown up.

(Spoilers Ahead) It started off really, REALLY good. The backstory with Madeleine and Safin was interesting, we got to see a bit of the colder side of Bond, we got some really fun moments with Bond and Felix, we got to see the darker side of MI6 (speaking of which, Nomi was fantastic), and Cyclops and Logan Ash were both memorable henchmen. Definitely a good movie for Daniel Craig to end on. One thing this movie particularly excels at is creating tension. In the previous movie, a bunch of dangerous things happened, but it never really felt like there was much at stake. In this movie however, EVERYTHING was at stake and they made it feel like it. The concept for the biological weapon that targets specific DNA was brilliant and scary, and the fact that it’s eternal and can spread through physical contact made it even scarier. Additionally, Rami Malek’s performance as Safin was so creepy and menacing that he made the perfect villain to compliment this biological WMD. Unfortunately, there are two things I felt like this movie kind of dropped the ball on, the first of which is payoff for the things it sets up. For example, the death of Logan Ash. Everybody knew something was up with Logan, and then when everybody least expected it, he shot Felix and killed him. Naturally, this makes you REALLY hate the guy, so I’m expecting some big, climactic showdown between him and Bond later on, and while we kind of get that in the form of the car chase through the forest, we don’t really get much exchange between Bond and Ash themselves besides when bond flipped his car over. And then in the end, Ash kind of just… dies and there’s no real catharsis. The same kind of goes for Safin as well. The setup for the final fight with Safin was phenomenal. Seeing those blast doors closing again and Bond saying “No” created instant tension and instant stakes. When bond rushes back to go open them again, Safin ends up catching Bond (and everyone else in the theater) by surprise and shooting him. Bond fights back and gets the upper hand, Safin poisons Bond, but then, like with Logan Ash, Safin kind of just dies and there isn’t much catharsis. I think if the fight between Bond and Safin was more long and dragged out, then it would have been great, but as it is, it just feels like one big anticlimax. The final thing that I think the movie missed the mark on was the overall feel of the movie. In the beginning, this movie was pure, action-packed, classic Bond. Towards the end, it kind of turned into a sappy soap opera that happened to have some action in it (I mean, come on, the stereotypical line for every soap opera is always something along the lines of “you’re the father”). Now, I understand that James Bond has had some really emotional moments in the past, but it never really got to the point where you felt like you were watching a whole different movie. I have no problem with Bond being in love with Madeleine, but him having a daughter feels a bit out-of-character for a Bond film. Speaking of out-of-character, this movie actually had the balls to kill James Bond, and for me, that was the final thing that separated this from being a Bond film to a film that happened to have Bond in it. If this were a movie involving any other spy besides James Bond, this review easily could have been 4 stars, but since it is James Bond, I feel like there are too many things here that just don’t work well with how Bond has been built up for the past 58 years. Overall, the movie was still good, but it could have been so much better.