The five-film arc of Daniel Craig’s stint as Agent 007 comes to a close in the emotionally satisfying, if overstuffed, finale No Time to Die. The movie, the release of which became as dramatic as its plot due to the COVID-19 pandemic, has storytelling stakes and an emotional weight like no Bond film that’s come before it. It also has approximately 1,438 moving parts and, at a whopping 163 minutes, suffers from a bloat which threatens to, but thankfully never succeeds in, sabotaging its best elements.
Read more…
When the original Blade Runner was released in the summer of 1982, it did respectable business at the box office. It wasn’t a smash like Star Wars, but it wasn’t a complete disaster, either. Mostly, it left a lot of people (critics and general moviegoers alike) scratching their heads. This slow paced, philosophical movie was sold as an action/adventure. The production design was meticulous, with dazzling special effects that still look great 35 years later. As critics began praising the movie after repeated viewings, Blade Runner also found a sizable cult following through home video release (a relatively new phenomenon itself at the time).
Director Denis Villeneuve, a filmmaker who has listed Blade Runner as a major influence on his own work, is imagining this intoxicating world anew in the sequel, Blade Runner 2049. The question is, since its predecessor’s vision is now the rule rather than the exception, will it have the same impact as the original?
Read more...
