No Time to Die (Cary Joji Fukunaga, 2021)

 

Daniel Craig reaches the end of his innings in Bond #25, now visibly creaking under the weight of the baggage dumped on him during the previous episodes. The last film's baddie is still alive and likewise his deceased lover from the first part of the reboot still haunts him. A new villain is therefore called for and eventually materialises in a pretty off-the-shelf form with a diabolical scheme involving spreading targeted assassin nanobots across the world. The rest is an overlong series of action sequences where keeping track of the kill count soon proves impossible and superfluous. The fact that Craig's weariness with it all no longer seems like acting and the occasional references in the dialogue and soundtrack to the back catalogue of the character just about retain enough tolerance to see it through to the bitter end of the character.

Except 'Bond' will return because of $s. But it would be so nice if he didn't.

5/10

Spider-Man: No Way Home (Jon Watts, 2021)

 

So, MCU#27 and yet another instalment in the Spider-Man saga. You sit back, armed with the knowledge that as there is, for once, an actor settled in the role for a protracted run and therefore no immediate need for another tiresome webslinger reboot with the obligatory origin round, at least you expect the backstory of one more out of the hero's endless cavalcade of villains with a bee in their bonnet against him and humanity.

And then...it confounds this expectation in quite a novel way. My spidey sense didn't warn me of that at all. It goes for playing with the multiverse conceit to bring all three live-action Spider-Men together into the same world, as well as their principal antagonists. Having created this mess through having talked Doctor Strange into casting a spell to make the whole world forget his real identity and then meddling with the spell after getting cold feet, Tom Holland's current incarnation of the hero sets about trying to rectify it all with the aid of the Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield versions. The comic interplay between the trio, as they alternately compare their lots and bicker, actually gives the film a point, alongside easy but welcome shots at 'fake news'. Of course, it must end in the usual loud showdown between the trio and those of their nemeses who've reverted back to type, but it's so much more fun getting there than on most of these outings. Just re-breaking the fourth wall and interdimensional boundaries can't be relied on next time around, though.

6/10