“Another classic Thor adventure!”

It’s an early quip from Chris Hemsworth’s hulking supe, an attempt to wrestle an ever-transmogrifying character with something approaching a… catchphrase? Later in this, his fourth solo outing (a Marvel first, incidentally), Hemsworth’s God of Thunder and King Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson) take a couple of cheeky jabs at Natalie Portman’s newly-returned Jane Foster, for her hokey attempts at forging a catchphrase of her own. Talk about potshot calling the kettle black.

It’s indicative of the at-times almost chaotic tonal freefall that besets much of Thor: Love and Thunder. Taika Waititi waded in with 2017’s Ragnarok and injected perhaps the most stoic and sullen of the MCU alum with a flippant 80s punk vibe that, for the most part, worked to great effect. Hemsworth was already establishing himself elsewhere as having the comedy chops to go alongside the rippling physique, and paired with Waititi’s penchant for irreverence, Thor, it seems, was reborn.

Thunder, alas, does not seem to strike twice.

Perhaps most surprising is that, when you scrub off the Waititi silliness (which remains mostly enjoyable in a dismissive, inconsequential sort of fashion), the core bones of Love and Thunder are remarkably similar to 2013’s first Thor sequel, Alan Taylor’s placid and formulaic The Dark World (generally regarded as something of a low ebb amongst early MCU offerings). Thor and friends set out on a galaxy-trotting adventure to stop an embittered super villain from getting his vengeful claws on an apocalyptic McMuffin, all under the umbrella of impending doom for do-gooding love interest Foster.

True, there is a lot of Waititi nonsense/fun (delete as applicable) here. For some, this will make Love and Thunder a more buoyant jaunt, but even ardent fans of the distinctive Kiwi director will likely feel the recurrent undercutting of tension. There’s an overall breeziness and fleeting sensation to much of what transpires here, a little discombobulating when it covers things as heady as parental bereavement and terminal cancer.

Portman’s much-hyped return as Jane Foster, newly imbued with the powers of her godly ex (hammer included) is at least underpinned with some poignancy, but it’s often rather sped through. Christian Bale’s Gorr the God Butcher begins strong, but then gets relatively sidelined to glorified child snatcher for much of the rest of the film. The vast majority of his god-slewing atrocities are completely bypassed. There’s a niggling sense that Waititi wants to get all this heavier, comic-booky stuff out of the way so he can get back to cracking puns and being goofy.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the main man himself. Russel Crowe pops up and injects some genuine laughs into a second reel pitstop to a City of Gods that really, surely should have had something to say about that Thanos chap. But the biggest goofball is supreme ‘himbo’, Thor himself. There’s an undeniable sense that Hemsworth is enjoying himself in this Mk II Odinson, and there’s some gleeful silliness in concepts such as the anthropomorphic jealousy between his iconic two weapons, which offers classic rom-com vibes with a goofy Marvel/Waititi twist. But still, looking at the character over the course of his early Avengers days, the brooding ‘dadbod’ of Endgame, to this almost parodic figure, and you can’t help but wonder if the joke is starting to wear a bit thin.

“There’s an undeniable sense that Hemsworth is enjoying himself in this Mk II Odinson… but you can’t help wonder if the joke is starting to wear a bit thin.”

In fact, that’s true of Waititi’s handling of the franchise as a whole. There’s enough here that works, that is funny, that is entertaining. It generally avoids integrating itself into any wider MCU shenanigans, though this could be partly because post-Endgame, the MCU as a whole seems to be flailing around aimlessly as Kevin Feige stretches himself out to Reed Richards-defying proportions. It saves some heftier emotive thwacks for its third reel. There’s no multi-verse ‘madness’ at play (thank Zeus), and fans of the character will likely appreciate the full circle feeling that the handling of the Thor and Jane relationship evokes here, ABBA-abetted flashback sequences included. A giggle-worthy duo of scene-stealing, screaming giant goats are quintessential Waititi fare, even if they end up being over-applied.

But where Ragnarok felt fresh and invigorating, Thunder feels familiar, trodden. We’ve seen it all before, including elsewhere in the Waititi oeuvre. A late-game beat involving kidnapped Asgardian kids, for instance, feels ripped straight from the finale of his 2019 Oscar-winning JoJo Rabbit. And whilst Ragnarok had Waititi stepping in, sprucing up and having fun with a screenplay not of his penning, Love and Thunder is his output from page to screen.

It’s difficult to dislike Thor: Love and Thunder, it’s just how firmly it lands in the category of being solid but unspectacular. In a world of laden, three-hour slogs (The Batman, anyone?), getting back to a relatively lean 120 minutes is no bad thing. It’s just a shame that it routinely bypasses much in the way of substance to grand-slam yet more style and silliness.

Ultimately, we’re eight visits in for Hemsworth, and Odin-knows how many more for Marvel releases as a whole. Fatigue is, perhaps, inevitable. But it is a little surprising that, only two outings in, the Waititi magic has already become rote. That it is sprinkled on a film that, much like Multiverse of Madness before it, hung on a painfully atypical Marvel structure, only compounds the beige.

It proves to be, after all ‘another classic Thor adventure’, but precious little more.

It’s nigh-impossible to discuss and appraise Jurassic World: Dominion without drawing a beady, world-weary and brow-beaten glance towards 2019’s Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.

The sheer number of parallels is striking. Both are pitched as grandiose closers not just to their own respective sequel trilogy, but indeed as the final chapter in a wider saga of decades past, and one which began with a bonafide cinematic classic. Fan favourites and old faces have been dragged out of character retirement to tickle the nostalgia bones. An OG villain returns from death/obscurity to adopt the mantel of finale big bad. And both see the helmer of their trilogy’s first outing back to wrap up business after a decidedly more artisan and divisive middle chapter.

Where the Jedi and the Jeff diverge, however, is in their fidelity to the essence of their franchise DNA. Rise is a cluster bomb so busy trying to make itself Star Wars that it completely fails to be its own film, whilst Dominion tries so hard to be something different that it utterly bypasses pretty much anything and everything that made the franchise (or at least its glorious original and a handful of moments from one or two of the sequels) special.

The grandeur, awe and suspense of Spielberg’s 1993 classic is quite literally nowhere to be found here. Which, on the surface at least, is somewhat surprising, given director Colin Trevorrow follows suit with J.J. Abrams in stuffing so many callbacks and nods on screen throughout Dominion’s runtime that they reach the point of actually becoming laughable (just you wait for even the iconic Jurassic Park logo to get a set-up and pay off precisely nobody asked for).

Events in Dominion pick up a few years after the close of Fallen Kingdom – an uneven but bold instalment which at least deserves credit for JA Bayona’s inspired sharp-turn into haunted house semi-horror midway through. A film of two halves, Kingdom looks positively restrained next to Dominion’s choose-your-own, Saturday morning serial style adventure, which sees World franchise leads Owen (Chris Pratt) and Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard) embark on a bizarre, increasingly absurd globe-trot to find friendly pet raptor Blue’s new offspring and adoptive daughter Maisie (Isabella Sermon), both of whom they’ve whisked away into a life of isolation (see: protection). Because, naturally, someone thought it was a good idea to continue the widely-detested clone subplot from last time round.

Elsewhere, in a plot line which Dominion almost breaks its beak trying to shoehorn into wider World lore and continuity, Jurassic Park bit-part Lewis Dodgson (Campbell Scott) – ‘nice shirt’, ‘see nobody cares’ for franchise non-devotees – is back, only this time in the style of a genetics-obsessed Tim Cook (complete with his own prehistoric Apple Park, no less), and his shadowy work is threatening to bring about something bordering on the apocalyptic. Thankfully, Dr’s Ellie Satler (Laura Dern, giving it her all despite a laughable script), Alan Grant (Sam Neill, mostly superfluous) and Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum, unsurprisingly one of the film’s few glimmers of light) are at hand in an attempt to expose the shady goings-on.

In an increasingly embarrassing screenplay with risible dialogue and plotting that would be embarrassing even in the scope of the franchise’s child-aimed Camp Cretaceous, Treverrow misfires in practically every direction. The action sequences lack any believability, and whilst a couple of moments, such as a Bourne-esque tussle through an apartment building, or an underground cave encounter, briefly pinch the adrenal glands, you can rest assured that a line or moment of sheer detaching stupidity will follow not long after. By the time you’ve got Pratt grabbing formerly dangerous carnivores into choke holds, you know any attempts at tension and grounding have long since checked out.

Sure, Dominion does attempt to offer up some new things, but little of it remotely successfully. Early moments, such as a sauropod navigating its way through a Sierra Nevada logging community, or the film’s customary Mosasaur cameo, offer up glimpses of a film that could have been, and indeed that Kingdom’s denouement teased. But that quickly goes out the window. It’s all too nonsensical, internally contradicting and surprisingly bloodless to fashion any impact. Having clearly learnt little from Book of Henry, Trevorrow once again delivers something representing complete tonal napalm.

An extended series of action sequences in Malta, for instance, are completely undone by camp villainy, lazy coincidence and fist-clenching lapses of internal logic (maybe just… shoot the dinosaur that’s attacking you, rather than using said gun to try and shoot out a window exit?).

“…almost literally, a jigsaw of showdowns and set pieces we’ve seen exhausted by Jurassic too many times already.”

Almost as if the film itself realises it is suffering a mid-reel identity crisis, Trevorrow and team hard reset, soft reboot  and course… correct (?), into an equally egregious fumble as all paths and characters meet for a painfully formulaic Jurassic finale. There’s little vision or invention to be found here. Again, like Rise of Skywalker, which lazily culminated in a space battle whilst dealing with that pesky Emperor Palpatine, Dominion’s conclusion is, almost literally, a jigsaw of showdowns and set pieces we’ve seen exhausted by Jurassic too many times already.

Enjoyed Jurassic World‘s three-way dino dukeout? Here, have it again! And how about that classic scene of Ellie Sattler being sent off to reboot a power system, with Malcolm guiding her over radio? Here’s round two!

The original trio do what they can with the vapid material they’re given, though Neill’s Dr Grant is left by the wayside for much of the plot, and Sattler and Malcolm both regularly feel like slightly exaggerated caricatures of what came before. Pratt and his Owen are on complete autopilot, DeWanda Wise is all sass but little substance as severely underwritten newcomer Kayla, leaving Dallas Howard as the only one of the World cast given much in the way of an arc, paper thin though it may be. It’s borderline unforgivable that the characters given the most to do, learn and adapt from are Sermon’s Maisie and BD Wong’s returning semi-baddie, Henry Wu.

Technically and aesthetically, the World franchise continues with its slightly jarring approach to creature design. By the time we encounter the boxy ‘Atrociraptors’ (seriously) and numerous cartoonish dino offspring that look like they belong more alongside the cast of Jim Henson’s 90s Dinosaurs! tv show, it’s difficult to decide who will be rolling hardest in their graves – Michael Crichton or Stan Winston. And, perhaps more than anywhere else in the series, the symbiosis of CG and cinematography fluctuates wildly, ranging from genuinely impressive (hazy, fog-laden jungle scapes cast some new beasts in a moody, effective hue, and the new mega dino is generally lit and rendered impressively) through to decidedly ropey (pretty much every raptor, Blue included).

Jurassic World: Dominion bills itself as ‘the epic conclusion of the Jurassic era’. Only, it isn’t really a conclusion at all – offering a mostly-self contained story positively saturated with increasingly lazy callbacks and nods, and that ends up bringing itself pretty much back to where it started. And it isn’t so much epic as it is very, very silly. The dinosaur action is mostly incidental, frequently uninspired and disappointingly toothless throughout.

Robbed of any of the majesty and craft that oozes out of every frame of the original Jurassic classic, Dominion can at least share one mild redeeming footnote with its franchise-souring counterpart. It may be a woefully uninspired, nostalgia-bating mess of Triceratops dung but, like Rise of Skywalker, it is separated enough from what has come before that it can be somewhat mercifully rejected and ignored altogether.

Life, after all, will find a way.

…Even if that ‘way’ is just, well, pretending it didn’t even happen.

The colossus of the Marvel engine has finally, it would appear, been capsized by its own hype carriage. The Studio that made a cultural staple of mid-credits surprises, internet-breaking cameos and monolithic crossovers a la Avengers: Infinity War and Spiderman: No Way Home seems, when presented with the most obvious opportunity yet to completely freewheel on its smorgasbord of intertextual goodness, to have opted to spin its wheels with formula instead.

There’s probably a fair argument to be made that the relative restraint of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is worth celebrating. This is no kaleidoscope of fan service or flurry of cross-franchise scuttling. Indeed, outside of a second reel vignette that clusters a few twists, turns and surprise faces within itself, Sam Raimi’s long-awaited venture into the MCU is a mostly focused and linear affair.

Still, it seems a trifle anticlimactic given months (years?) of fan hypothesising and Studio hyperbole, that the long-awaited venture into the mythical multiverse of endless opportunities settles on delivering a fairly typical Marvel follow-up. And it’s a flatness only amplified by those hands guiding the project. In Evil Dead and Spider-man supremo Raimi, the sheer creative possibilities for Benedict Cumberbatch’s sophomore adventure as the reality-warping Stephen Strange seemed, much like the multiverse itself, endless.

Let’s be clear, cameos and narrative detours shoehorned in for their own sake add nothing. That Multiverse isn’t the name checking bombardment some expected and hoped for doesn’t, in and of itself, constitute a critique. What does, however, is Raimi and screenwriters Michael Waldron and Jade Bartlett’s seeming reluctance and timidity to explore the dramatic and creative possibilities of their infinitesimal McMuffin. The spectre of No Way Home looms large here, as does the joyously barnstorming trailer (and first reactions) for Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert’s Everything Everywhere All at Once, both of which seem to offer more fun, impact and invention with their reality-hopping antics.

Instead, Multiverse of Madness is a pretty rote exercise in typical MCU shenanigans, as Strange and Elizabeth Olsen’s Wanda Maximoff attempt to unravel the mystery surrounding newcomer Xochitl Gomez, whose America Chavez appears to be jumping through realities, pursued by sinister forces. Cumberbatch is on reliable form here, even if the character gets little to do beyond pining for his yesteryear love in Rachel McAdams’ Christine. Olsen, buoyed by the heavier arcs Marvel flung her way in Infinity War and Wandavision, is perhaps served best by a script that nonetheless mostly undercooks both its characters and, as mentioned, its premise, but even Wanda’s journey is immediately predictable and akin to what we’ve seen from, say, X-Men several times over.

And with Raimi, Marvel look to be trying to have their auteur cake whilst avoiding eating it too much of it, too. Being the director who delivered one of the finest superhero sequels ever in Spider-man 2, Multiverse is an altogether less impressive and consistent beast. Some of the best sequences here are where Raimi leans on his pulp horror sensibilities – an increasingly violent escape from a fortified complex, or a late-game ‘if needs must’ that could have been pulled straight from Army of Darkness or Drag Me To Hell. It’s sprinkled with both fun and fright, and yet under the palpable shackles of the MCU family-friendly totem – and doubtless a PG-13-at-worst edict – these more extreme moments end up feel jarring and even in places a touch silly, embedded as they are within the more neutral and measured Marvel filmmaking around them.

Multiverse of Madness is not a bad film. Nor is it a bad sequel. Throw it on a ranking board of the MCU releases so far, and you’re likely looking somewhere middle of the pack. The problem is, following on from recent juggernauts in the film’s own studio backyard, and some decidedly more original offerings elsewhere, middling feels even more underwhelming than usual. Doubly so given the narrative potential at play, and treble for having one of cinema’s most distinctive and vibrant visionaries at its helm.

Raimi’s long-time collaborator Danny Elfman does a serviceable job of trying to elevate things with a solid score, and visually and aesthetically it’s all bold and dynamic enough – even with some genuinely wobbly CG peppered throughout. Not to mention some fairly trademark Raimi-esque prosthetics that, again, end up feeling downright hammy and out of place amidst the polish and cleanness of Marveldom.

“…the Marvel magic may finally be itself beginning to wear off, or at the very least, thin.”

Spider-man aside, Phase Four of the Marvel Cinematic Universe seems to have struggled to gain much of its former traction. Accusations of formula fatigue were levied at Black Widow, Eternals and even (unfairly), Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings pretty much instantly. And, whilst there remain strong contenders coming up to hopefully jolt some life back into Kevin Feige’s own multiverse of possibility and profit (see: Taika Waititi’s Thor: Love and Thunder, James Gunn’s third Guardians outing), to have flubbed with Raimi suggests perhaps that, after a fairly uncontested reign and an unprecedented surge of consistency and creativity, the Marvel magic may finally be itself beginning to wear off or, at the very least, thin.

The ardent fans will doubtless flock to it in their droves, and it’s by no means a bad time at the cinema, but one can only hope that somewhere out there in the multiverse exists a version of Sam Raimi’s Doctor Strange that offers up a little more to, well, marvel at.

If applying the law of diminishing returns to the vortex of ‘inspired by’, wheels-within-wheels intertextual madness of Ruben Fleischer’s long-gestated Uncharted, you can perhaps start chipping away at why it feels like such a tired slog through the overly familiar. The original series of Naughty Dog videogames of the same name (and 99% of the same plot line, albeit over the course of four instalments) were themselves bold, dynamic and, indeed, cinematic homages to both the Indiana Jones movies and also the globetrotting, tomb-raiding gaming hijinks of a certain Ms. Croft (Tomb Raider being a franchise similarly mishmashed and manhandled by the Hollywood adaptation machine.). Whispers of a movie adaptation manifested almost immediately, and as the adventures of Nathan Drake jaunted across multiple console generations and increasingly impressive sequels, there’s still probably a fair argument to be made that nestled somewhere within its archeological bones lie the promise or schematics of a decent big-screen adventure romp.

Sadly, Uncharted is not it. Even as a bloated origin story, it bandies between feeling formulaic and altogether unnecessary, despite the best efforts of current Hollywood go-to Tom Holland and the mostly-dependable Mark Wahlberg trying to rise above a flacid script.

Anyone remotely familiar with the games will know the key beats here, though even complete newcomers will see most of the twists and turns coming a mile off. Bartender-cum-kleptomaniac Nathan Drake (Holland) catches the attention of professional pilferer, Victor Sullivan (Wahlberg), who recruits him to embark on an expedition to find the greatest treasure never claimed. Surprise; it isn’t spices, knowledge or anything particular inventive (despite the film’s own acknowledgements), no, it’s gold. Yes, gold, and not even the kind with the decency to bring along with it any sort of curse or supernatural complication.

Cue a familiar foray of shadowy goons, ancient relics, underground vaults, globe-trotting that actually vocalises its Indy inspirations, and everything on the adventure romp 101 check-list right, down to yet another rising water (sinking thrills) trap room.

The problem is, not only have we seen it all before, but here Fleischer and co. commit the cardinal sin of never making Drake’s journey feel remotely dangerous or thrilling. Some of the crazily kinetic fight choreography may momentarily excite, with a jostle in an underground bar fleetingly fun, and Holland’s balletic and acrobatic background is on impressive display throughout, but we quickly crash down to Earth reminding ourselves this isn’t Peter Parker we’re watching. Just as wistfully as his Drake flies around in mid-air being hit by everything from sucker punches to an accelerating car with nary a bruise to show for his troubles, so too does too much of Uncharted feel weightless and inconsequential. The crosses and double-crosses have no real bite – or in the case of one particular turncoat make absolutely no sense whatsoever – and as the film desperately tiptoes around its 12A rating, it foregoes any chance to get any dirt – or blood – beneath its fingernails.

It would be easy to dismiss this as videogame logic mistranslating to the big screen, but even at their most fantastical, the Uncharted games never shied away from showing off the fire in their belly. Characters die, actions have consequences, and heck, Nathan and Chloe (admittedly well played here by Sophia Taylor Ali) jump into bed with each other practically immediately following her introduction in the second game. And whilst the film does shrewdly handle the fact that videogame Nate is a mass murderer on a scale that would make Harold Shipman wince, it’s aversion to fatalities only adds to the overall wanton bloodlessness. Again, outside of cashing those family-friendly dollars, there’s no real reason for this to be such a relatively sexless, diluted affair.

Sure, the filmmakers have some hindsight on their side in being able to thread a sub-plot regarding Drake’s older brother in from the start -whereas the games clumsily semi-retconned it all into their fourth entry – but it’s still integrated and executed with little in the way of invention or surprise.

Antonio Banderas gets a thankless role as a cookie-cutter villain about as intimidating as he is memorable, and Tati Gabrielle does the most as his woefully underwritten subordinate, but most of the positives that can be found here are to be lain at Holland and Wahlberg’s feet. They have just about enough chemistry to carry the plodding plot, and, despite early naysayers, it’s easy enough to see why this introduction to the characters is pitched so comparatively young. Holland himself is notably buffed up from even No Way Home standards (as the film goes to pains to showcase several times over), but again this just compounds the lack of any real frisson he’s offered with any of his co-stars. Keeping his squeaky clean gloss intact was clearly vetoed by last year’s Cherry, so again blame has to go to courting that 12A rating and consciously watering down the more consequential games into what regularly veers towards Saturday morning TV standards. By the time suspension of disbelief has been jettied off the back of a rotting ship being implausibly airlifted and swung around the Philippine coastline, it’s really only the central duo’s bond and on-screen dynamism that just about manages to hold the whole precariously dangling thing together.

“…it’s really only the central duo’s bond and on-screen dynamism that just about manages to hold the whole precariously dangling thing together.”

The first Uncharted game was an ambitious, exciting romp that laid the foundation of strong character work and fun adventure storytelling as a litmus for what was to come. Its follow-up, Among Thieves, was a virtual masterpiece, and remains to many the apex of the series. If this derivative, CliffsNotes Hollywood adaptation series follows suit – and a late sting and bizarre mid-credits sequence suggest at least intent to do so – then at least there’s hopefully an upward trajectory ahead. The biggest challenge Holland’s Nathan Drake faces right now, though, is whether or not this tepid, uninspired debut can garner enough traction and precious box office coins to get said sequel greenlit and, if it does, whether he and his ‘Sully’ can go on to unearth an even more nebulous, forgotten treasure of all; our interest.

“Steven uses cranes like other people just use cameras. He’s got big cranes, little cranes, medium cranes. And he’s swooping all over the place.”

EGOT legend Rita Moreno tells Parade of maestro Spielberg’s penchant for grandiose, sweeping and at-times audacious camerawork when discussing this, remarkably his musical debut, over five decades in to his illustrious career.

They’re superlatives that can be laid at West Side Story as a whole.

The industry took a collective intake of breath when the master of the blockbuster announced he’d be helming a remake of the seminal 1961 Sondheim-Bernstein classic.

That critical and audience favourite – sitting ‘pretty’ in the history books with 10 Academy Awards including Best Picture and a Best Supporting Actress statue (for returnee Moreno) – is regarded as amongst the finest of screen musical adaptations. Did it even need a remake? With the fifties period having been etched in early on as staying, there was no chance of it being a modernised take on what was already a rejuvenated spin on Romeo and Juliet, translocated to the West Side of Manhattan, that exchanges its Capulets and Montagues for toe-tapping, soft-shoeing ‘Jets’ and ‘Sharks’. Familial honour and dynasty clashes making way for turf warfare and racial tensions.

The answer, as Moreno rightly alludes, lies in Spielberg himself.

And, yes, those cranes.

As Story 2021 opens, with a stunning extended span over the crumbling remains of Manhattan’s impoverished slums of yesteryear, with trademark visual gusto Spielberg and DP Janusz Kamiński take in birds-eye sweeps of nigh-dystopian vistas of urban collapse, pushing through to frames suffocated by wrecking balls and detritus, eventually soaring from the vast to the intimate, as the director’s impacting one-shot hones right down to – quite literally – street level.

“A master of film taking on a dynamic, emotional story and infusing it with his borderline-unmatched mastery of camerawork and the visual language of cinema.”

It’s a litmus for what lies ahead; a master of filmmaking taking on a dynamic, emotional story, and infusing it with his borderline-unmatched mastery of camerawork and the visual language of cinema.

Every beat, set piece and sequence of West Side Story positively crackles with this same level of scope, vitality and vision. See as ‘America’, already modified back in ’61 to be an infectious to-and-fro between Puerto Rican lovers, here bursts from its original rooftop confinements to take in what feels like the entirety of the Big Apple; stopped traffic, sky scraping verticality and all.

But it isn’t all bombast, either. Late-game favourite ‘Somewhere’ is put in the hands – and soothing, delicate vocals – of Moreno (playing an alternative, beefed-up take on Kevin Young’s pharmacy owner from the original) and what was once a rousing – if slightly discordant – duet between the story’s doomed young lovers becomes here a tender, affecting reflection on societal divide, and a tinged hope for a better tomorrow, as second reel deaths and disasters compound upon themselves.

“It’s almost unprecedented to say this is actually better than its predecessor in pretty much every regard.”

Spielberg has gone on record to say that every musical number had him both chomping at the bit in excitement and simultaneously chewing his fingernails in trepidation to get them right, and does it ever show. It’s almost unprecedented to say this is actually better than its predecessor in pretty much every regard.

It’s a long list of boxes to tick, but the musical arrangements, truly stunning choreography and stuntwork, and potentially MVP Kaminski’s gorgeous, vintage palette that borrows from Daniel L. Fapp’s Oscar-winning work on the original in heightening and saturating the moments between Maria (Rachel Zegler) and Tony (Ansel Elgort) to a point of almost ethereal radiance, all harmonise and hit the same staggeringly high bar that their ship’s captain manages to catapult over throughout.

On Zegler and Elgort, they head up a cast quite stupendously good. It’s perhaps a tad rote to wheel out the ‘star is born’ homilies for newcomer Zegler, but it’s a film debut of such startling confidence and power that little else seems fitting. Pushing any external conversations about Story’s leading man aside, he is undeniably on point, switching between boyish naivety and commanding ex-con on a dime, and the chemistry between the duo lights up the screen – and tugs on the heart strings – throughout.

Supporting, Ariana DeBose dominates every moment she appears as the fiery Anita – dancing, singing and acting up a storm in a turn that deserves to do for her exactly as it did for her co-star Moreno. She’s beautifully met by a brooding, dangerous David Alvarez as Shark leader Bernardo, the two practically setting the screen on fire during any of their (thankfully numerous) musical pair-ups. A repeat of Moreno and George Chakiris doing a rare Supporting Oscars double-dip could well be on the cards for their successors, and it would be more than deserved.

Elsewhere, Mike Fast is excellent as ‘Jet’ leader and Tony’s best friend, Riff, all derision and barely-contained rage at what he perceives to be the dual evils of gentrification and migration, whilst Corey Stoll is suitably odious in a bit part as a Lieutenant assigned assigned as overseer of both. Ezra Menas carries a lot of the film’s less showy but pivotal moments on his shoulders in a sensitive and well-observed update to the character of ‘Anybodys’, and the ever-reliable Brian D’Arcy James is suitably put upon, yet never parodic, as the officer desperately attempting to keep order between the vying factions.

But in truth there are no weak or middling links – and the buoyant ensemble get to shine in moments of Spielbergian invention even where there are no leads about; see, for instance, the transmogrifying hijinks of ‘Gee, Officer Krupke’.

It isn’t really a spoiler to say that West Side Story ends on much the same technical note as it begins; with another trademark crane, only this time somberly panning up and out, to take in the emotional and physical fallout of the what has unfolded.

The audience, likely breathless, devastated and overjoyed in equal measure, become grateful for one final, considered beat to exhale and take in what has just played out. Eventually, Bernstein’s glorious score picks up the ante and kicks the end credits into a more rousing gear, but, played out as they are over images of the film’s dilapidated locale, it’s almost impossible to shake the feeling you’ve been privy to something very special indeed, guided by one of the finest filmmakers of all time somehow at the absolute peak of his powers.

Somehow, someday, somewhere.

Today, here.

A magnum opus amongst masterpieces.

Anyone going in to Pablo Larraín’s eagerly-anticipated biopic expecting Peter Morgan-esque high drama, character confrontations and power plays should temper their expectations. Spencer is decidedly not The Crown 2.0, nor is it really even about the late Princess of Wales’ relationship with Charles, The Queen or any particular member of the institution she eventually came to very publicly separate from. Indeed – bar fleeting glimpses and wide establishing shots of their arrivals at Sandringham early on – it’s almost a whole hour into proceedings before we even get a proper appearance from the Windsor elite, and even then it’s all disapproving glances and steely silence over a toe-curlingly uncomfortable dinner sequence where Diana (Kristen Stewart) battles to keep both her Bulimia and marital anguish bay.

No, this is Diana’s – and by proxy, Stewart’s – film, and for most of the first half we join the disillusioned royal as she scuttles about the unwelcoming, alien halls of Sandringham (take a shot every time someone mentions how ‘cold’ it is, and prepare for renal failure), with little by way of human contact or warmth outside of young Princes William (Jack Nielen) and Harry (Freddie Spry) and the odd helpful servant or member of staff.

Set over the course of a Christmas weekend stay at Sandringham at a time where Charles and Diana’s marriage was decidedly on the rocks (it’s the ultimate ‘Christmas with the in-laws’ horror, really), the context is well established – see, for instance, the shadow of Charles’ relationship with Camilla (Emma Darwall-Smith) looming large over early proceedings despite the latter’s actual appearance being no more than a fleeting churchyard camero – but it is ultimately set dressing for a fascinating, remarkably performed character study.

Dubbed ‘a fable from a true tragedy’ at the off, Spencer sets out its stall with a not terribly subtle opener that intercuts the quite literal military operation of Christmas ingredients arriving at Sandringham via an armed convoy with a lone, unprotected Diana driving top-down through the Countryside (she’s ‘lost’, you know…). It’s this very clash of the regimented and the precise with the spirited and the wilful that forms the key conflict at the heart of Spencer, and whilst its handling and depiction can occasionally be a little blunt, in Stewart’s steady hands and by isolating her and audience both, it makes for an absorbing, empathetic look into a troubled life.

‘Troubled’ being the operative word. Many will no doubt chew up and then spit Spencer back out over its perceived accuracy or lack thereof, whilst others still will debate ad naueseum as to whether or not screenwriter Steven Knight presents an axe to grind with the royals, or if he unduly deifies Diana here. Ultimately, it’s all irrelevant, as Spencer works best when it is full-frame focused on its damaged, struggling protagonist in a matter-of-fact fashion that bypasses obviously labelling.

Which, thankfully, is the vast majority of its run time – full-frame, warts and all.

Has one of Diana’s only friends and allies in the estate (delicately played by Sally Hawkins) actually been accusing her of going crazy behind her back? Did the all-seeing new major-domo (Timothy Spall in a stellar supporting turn) actually sneak a book on Anne Boleyn (‘the one that was beheaded’) into her room as a warning? Spencer does hint early on at Diana’s potentially loosening grip on reality, and she even implores her young boys to tell her if she gets a little too ‘silly’, adding that is only them she will believe.

What’s admirable in how Knight and Larraín craft Diana’s story here is in its ongoing ambiguity and nuance. Yes, in places it can get a little ‘silly’ – the recurring Anne Boleyn motif (a royal executed by a paranoid husband who was in fact the one having the affair… sound familiar?) is a trifle laden and overcooked, but generally much of the character’s anguish here is palpable and immediate. Relatable, even.

“What’s admirable in how Knight and Larraín craft Diana’s story here is in its ongoing ambiguity and nuance.”

The sense of discomfort and suffocation she feels as a string of pearls metaphorically choke her at the kind of family dinner or formal function we’ve all been to and loathed. The degree to which so much of her anxiety and frustration is either self-imposed or presumptive. And the aforementioned ever-circling gnawing of paranoia and uncertainty.

It leaves, admirably, in Spencer a tale that doesn’t glibly depict either side as right or wrong. Stella Gonet is mostly decoration on the periphery as big Liz herself – barring a short exchange where she punctures through Diana’s popularity and media darling status, and Charles (Jack Farthing) mostly operates from the shadows, for instance presumably the agent behind Diana’s curtains being sewn together as a further act of suffocation. Or is even that genuine concern when she has already been spotted undressing in plain sight of the much-mentioned (yet never seen) cabal of photographers and paparazzi supposedly circling the estate.

Take too much of it at face value, and Spencer can seem to bandy between the mundane and the melodramatic. But it is in its restraint, in its multitude of murky grey territory where it really shines.

Of course, the conduit for almost all of this is Stewart, who is exceptional and utterly transformative here. The physical resemblance ebbs from passing to borderline uncanny, but so much more than simply attempting to create a biopic, Stewart dives wholesale into an intoxicating, unforgettable exploration of a wife, mother and woman desperately attempting to navigate her isolation, her confinement (both mental and physical) and her demons within an institution not exactly renowned for its empathy or modernity in handling such matters.

“Stewart dives wholesale into an intoxicating, unforgettable exploration of a woman desperately attempting to navigate her isolation, her confinement and her demons…”

Much has already been written, said and performed about the idea that it’s a selfless, sacrifical life to be a royal – even in other fairly Diana-centric fare such as Stephen Frears’ The Queen (2006). But, barring a brief verbal jostle between Charles and Diana on the subject, there’s very little of that overt postulating going on here. Instead, the full weight of the stifling formality, traditions and expectations of royal life are simply thrown on top of an already existing bonfire of marital unhappiness, and we get to watch the emotional fireworks fly almost entirely through Diana’s eyes.

Larraín and cinematographer Claire Mathon bathe much of Spencer in moody hues of muted grey and blue, lending even scenes that should conventionally feel festive and inviting (being set, after all, at Christmas) that consciously cold, unwelcoming nip. And they bandy – sometimes suddenly – between the intense immediacy, extreme close ups and whips of Diana’s face filling the screen, to the distance, rigorous uniformity and stillness of the royals, whom, perhaps like Diana herself, Larraín never allows us to get too close to – casting them in shadow, or blocking them out of reach behind overstretched billiard tables or elaborate candelabras.

Though indeed befitting the erratic nature of its central character, Jonny Greenwood’s overbearing score is nonetheless a slightly jarring mash-up of style and approach. Light, almost improvisational jazz plays over Diana sneaking out into the grounds of Sandringham by night. Organs deafen out a Christmas morning church trip, and the initial arrival at Sandringham sounds more akin to something ripped from a James Wan piece. Again, intentional as the discombobulation and discordance may be, it’s still amongst the film’s lesser achievements.

Ultimately, though, despite some handsome and clever camerawork, plenty of era-appropriate hair, costume and production design that completely convince, this is, as mentioned, a character study front and centre.

“Despite some handsome and clever camerawork, plenty of era-appropriate hair, costume and production design, this is a character study front and centre.”

Very often, big ticket film biopics like this flail about attempting to cover too much ground, shoehorning in too much backstory or event, or simply unable to find an effective way to convey their subject matter through the prism of cinema.

By stripping out so much of what would have seemed de facto inclusions, and instead taking essentially one key moment and decision in Diana’s life, Pablo Larraín and Kristen Stewart afford their piece the time and opportunity to do something far more interesting; really explore and consider the psyche, potential unravelling and the hopes and fortitude of a woman whose story would only be cheapened by filtering it through such conventional, soapy means.

But in doing so, and in much the same spirit as its late, iconic muse, Spencer sweeps away so much baggage and weight from its shoulders, and unburdens itself to become a wholly absorbing, remarkably focused and perennially fascinating biopic that knows exactly where its worth and merit lies – in a central character and accompanying performance that are both truly for the ages.

So, at long last, Dune. It’s strange to come to terms with the prospect of Frank Herbert’s widely celebrated masterpiece of science-fiction literature finally making it to screen after all this time. Although prior attempts and adaptations have been made – notably David Lynch’s 1984 bloated cult oddity and a somewhat more successful Sci-Fi Channel miniseries in the early 2000’s – the efforts to wrangle the weighty tome of a text into something cinematically workable have proven surprisingly difficult.

Not because the text itself is telling a story too difficult to grasp or beyond comprehension, but mainly owing to the deeply entrenched nuances of its intricate world-building of names, places, items, rituals and people, its thematic grounding, its unwieldy, sometimes dense and impenetrable prose, as well as its direct and indirect groundings in historical significance that draw from a well of influence ranging from medieval Byzantine fantasy and cosmic transformation to the life of T.E. Lawrence.

To say there is much to digest behind the subtext of the book’s function and purpose as a generation-defining text in the genre – this is very much to science-fiction literature as, say, Tolkien is to fantasy – is an understatement. The problem that is faced is how much do you realise and where do you draw the line? In diluting the majesty of these deeply entrenched concepts at play, you run the risk of having just another white saviour narrative wherein our young male hero (man of the hour Timothy Chalamet) is called to his destiny saving the natives of a foreign land whose resources are being harvested for political and capital gain. A narrative trope so familiar as to almost be rote. Much like John Carter of Mars, these are narrative hallmarks that have been mined for nearly a century.

The challenge, then, has never been to answer the question of whether someone can make an accessible and inherently cinematic adaptation out of Dune, but rather whether they can do so whilst also managing to stay true to to the essence of its higher-minded ideas concerning consciousness, fate, revolution and revelation.

Fortunately, the answer we have in the form of filmmaker Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part One (as titled on screen, we’ll get to that) is a mostly satisfying one. An epic science-fiction studio blockbuster that delivers on the expected visual splendour that is to be expected from the director of Blade Runner 2049, and on a narrative and cinematic sensory level is just about the best of what could have been expected of such a production – some casting choices for certain Arab and Islamic based characters aside.

The vistas Villeneuve presents are stunning to say the least. Greig Fraser’s cinematography grants everything a lived-in, washed-out aesthetic that manages to unify the different worlds depicted into something of a believable whole, and that’s without mentioning the gorgeously unique production design running the full gamut of clothing, makeup, set dressing and the design of spacecrafts that feel at once rustic and functional yet distinct. The aural and sensory stimulus is bombastic and loud. Villeneuve certainly grants everything a sense of enormous visual scale when it comes to landscapes, of tiny vessels exiting the centre of a spacecraft in orbit, only for these tiny crafts to measure to entire city blocks on the planet surface. That being said, it does feel weirdly underpopulated at points even given the size of the speaking cast.

Hans Zimmer’s score is expectedly grandiose; a rapturous blend of assorted sounds and instruments to account for the themes of different houses and overtures, from pounding drums and choral swells to throat singing and bagpipes.

When it comes to the storytelling itself, Villeneuve’s sense of pacing certainly helps the film to sprawl and extend itself in order to settle us into its world and conflicts before things start going bang. Jon Spaihts and Eric Roth’s screenplay strikes the right tonal balance between mythologic portent, accessible summer blockbuster and high fantasy fare. There are very few compromises in the faithfulness of events from the text, though it does occasionally stumble to the repetition of already established information and expositional dialogue that feel slightly unnatural under the circumstances.

The cast are generally outstanding, perfectly suited to their positions as both stand-ins and fleshed-out figures within the narrative. There is a briskness to some of them that feels like some more attention could have been paid, and a few beats missed when it comes to emotional exploration and clarity even if it does feel that there are at times being held unintentionally or accidentally at arms length.

Oscar Isaac does well as Duke Leto, the descendent of once great men who walks into a losing battle for the sake of his house and pride. Jason Momoa and Josh Brolin turn their hardened warriors into scene stealers through sheer charisma and chemistry alone. Stellan Skarsgård is a grotesque scenery-chewing delight as villain Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, a man so gluttonous that he uses antigravity equipment to float around the scenery to humorous yet haunting effect.

But Rebecca Ferguson as Lady Jessica almost walks away with the entire film, a performance of deeply rooted pain kept at bay behind closed doors, carrying the burden of guilt and shame thrust upon her by her sisterhood, the secretive and matriarchal Bene Gesserit.

Affirming his position as a bonafide tentpole lead, Chalamet is excellent as the young chosen-one-to-be too, cocky and adolescent yet struggling to come to terms with his own destiny, untapped power and potential, calling him from across time and space to a blood-soaked fate that may rob him of his humanity in the process. Most enticingly, by the time the credits roll, it’s clear that his journey and awakening have only just begun.

Therein lies the primary issue at the heart of the film, though. This being the first of what is intended (and hoped) to be a two-parter, the climax doesn’t entirely satisfy as an ending in and of itself, leaving so much once again stranded in the speculative status of benefit of the doubt when it comes to how the rest of the narrative will play out and satisfy what has already been established.

There’s also the unusual circumstance of the film’s reliance on flash-forwards that offer glimpses of events predetermined to happen. While they operate well on the level of the themes and narrative track concerning a future that has and always will be, forcing its hero into the role of an active participant trapped within a passive narrative he knows he will not escape, it does suck some of the suspense out of a piece of cinematic storytelling when visualised as such in some unforeseen ways.

Still, despite a second act lull and a non-climax of sorts when nearing its final reels, Dune presents a rather breath-taking cinematic experience to take in. The full level of Villeneuve’s achievement will only be realised when we get round to the recently-confirmed Part 2. But even as a slightly uneven half a story, it still stands as a tremendously exciting, visually engaging and full-blown operatic blockbuster of extremely high calibre and craft, and one whose existence is worth celebrating alone.

Perhaps the biggest sin that the second instalment in a film trilogy can commit is to essentially become little more than an exercise in floundering; trawling from point A to point C by way of cinematic water-treading. And yet, so too problematic is the ‘part 2’ that overplays its hand and leaves the powder keg a little too dry for the finale (we’re looking at you, The Last Jedi).

It’s an at-times fiendishly difficult balancing act; crafting a satisfying and complete singular that also works as part of a greater whole, turning the screws and applying the heat to both character and event without burning the filmic broth – a juggle only complicated by the sheer number of franchises and stories that are needlessly stretched out into a trifecta (for reasons usually solely within the realms of commercial gain).

In returning to the bloated, convoluted Myers-verse for his 2018 Halloween, David Gordon Green and pals wisely decided to excise everything from the franchise save for Carpenter’s iconic original. Laurie and the Shape were no longer siblings. Dr. Loomis no longer inexplicably survived being blown to smithereens. Laurie didn’t spend most of a movie stuck in a hospital… oh, wait.

The simplicity and unburdening of Green’s first foray into Haddonfield allowed it to channel much of Carpenter’s sense of singular purpose and dread. Myers was once again a relentless killing machine with next to nothing by way of motive or humanity, making him all the more terrifying a screen presence as a result. Perhaps that film’s single greatest narrative steer – though somewhat goofily executed – was its insistence that Jamie Lee Curtis’ heroine was not some trophy goal that Myers aimed for. She was an incidental survivor, a casual fly in his murderous ointment, and one whom he crossed paths with in ’18 once again almost equally incidentally, despite decades of trauma and paranoia instilling in her a kind of inverted saviour complex (which Curtis pulled off with bristling relish).

The subsequent decision – unsurprising though it may have been given Halloween 2018’s commercial and critical success – for McBride, Fradley and Green to return for another wave of the butcher knife with not one but indeed two follow-ups, left an obvious potential pitfall. You don’t jetty a load of convolution and narrative baggage, only to pile it straight back on.

How could they navigate two more films, crafting their follow-up into a full-blown trilogy, without succumbing to the same over-complication, convoluted protraction and other myriad problems that had formerly plagued the franchise?

How could they take 2018 and the original film’s biggest strengths and successes – their relative simplicity and focus – and draw it out across two more films without heavily sacrificing on credibility, tension and impact?

Halloween Kills rises to this challenge with surprising and admirable confidence, crafting a middle chapter that, whilst yes, somewhat spins its wheels, nevertheless makes a brutal, bloody and oft-thrilling spectacle whilst doing so.

Picking up literally moments from where events were left in 2018 (following a brief sojourn back to ’78 in an impeccably executed extended prologue), Kills is nonetheless a film that decidedly broadens and shifts focus – oscillating this time from the singular trauma of the Strode’s (Curtis, Judy Greer and Andi Matichak, once again a winning triad) to the wider rage and fallout that the local Haddonfield community feel as the spectre from their traumatic past returns to haunt them. Indeed, Jamie Lee Curtis’ Laurie spends practically the entirety of her screen time this go round bedbound and recuperating in hospital after receiving the wrong end of a knife to the gut in her duel with Myers, but that’s fine.

Laurie remains the weary, cautionary yet passionate heart and soul of the film, inadvertently fuelling the fires of revolt, and physically sidelined though she may be, there’s an admirable assuredness to how Green and co. keep her out of the action whilst still spiritually holding her at the front and centre of the story being told.

Others may bemoan her passivity, and Curtis’ somewhat more slight screen time, but the choices made here – particularly come the finale – lay the foundations for next year’s Ends with even greater clout for the beloved character to come to an inevitable showdown with her self-appointed arch-nemesis.

Speaking of whom, Kills mostly manages to maintain the previous film’s terrifying simplicity and efficiency of approach with Myers, festooning him with some of the most brutal and barbaric fatalities and set pieces the franchise has seen. An early twofer sees the Shape despatch an unsuspecting couple in shockingly visercal, drawn-out fashion, whilst later on an extended set piece involving pistols, a parked car and even a sack of bricks throws up some unexpectedly macabre delights. James Jude Courtney once again proves a terrifyingly still, ominous presence as Myers, even if some of the excesses this time around do threaten to tiptoe his character toward Jason Vorhees territory.

But as mentioned, this is no longer just Laurie and Michael’s story. Although written prior to such events, in a world of the Capitol Building and Black Lives Matter riots, the narrative thread of Myers’ return stoking an unbridled collective rage in the community (and one that threatens to become almost equally as dangerous), is a prevalent and somewhat sobering angle to explore, even if its execution is at times wildly inconsistent.

It’s a narrative swerve at its best, again, when keeping things simple. Much of the subplot rests on the shoulders of returning characters from the original 1978 classic, from Anthony Michael Hall’s ringleader Tommy, to Nancy Stephens’ Marion and Kyle Richards‘ Lindsey (the latter two being, of course, OG cast members). Although some of the contextual set up for the characters is a little heavy-handed, with them habitually honouring the events of Myers’ initial rampage some 40 years later, they’re a mostly likeable cadre. It’s when we’re spending time with them out hunting Myers in the cold dark of night that the film feels at its most confident and tense, and there’s enough history and heritage here to make their involvement – and for some, their fate – a little more impacting and meaningful than, say, a humorous if slightly offensive new gay couple (Michael McDonald & Scott MacArthur) who have taken up residency in the old Myers family home.

As the bodies begin to mount, the effective and tense set pieces rack up, and the Shape makes his inexorable, blood-soaked rampage across town, the vestiges of simplicity and focus do gradually start to wobble loose, until Kills throws a wheel.

If it is confidently treading water for the most part, successfully recycling the ‘Halloween’ formula with visceral aplomb, then an ill-conceived and even more poorly executed foray into mob madness at Laurie’s hospital come the second reel threatens to temporarily submerge the film completely.

It’s an obtusely blunt and staggeringly obvious misfire on all fronts, the writing temporarily becoming borderline idiotic, the performances from the angry residents venturing into pure panto territory, and Green’s usual deftness for blocking and pacing thrown into a blender of lunacy and awkwardness. Worse, we’ve already felt these beats of collective rage and trauma more effectively elsewhere. We know this is a town still reeling from freshly opened wounds, and yes, we know that, for the people of Haddonfield, ‘evil dies tonight’ (take a shot each time a character says this and you’d best have a liver donor on speed dial).

Fortunately, Kills pivots sharply back into focus for a tense (if formulaic) finale that wisely puts the Strode ladies once again front and centre. Green and co. make good on the fleeting hints of rage that Matichak’s Allyson exhibited toward the end of ’18, as she becomes determined to seek out revenge for her recently-murdered father, teaming up with boyfriend Cameron (Dylan Arnold) and the Haddonfield Justice League to hunt down Myers. Arnold does good work here in fleshing out the formerly dickish Cameron, even if the decision to have his family sewn in to the events of ’78 feels like it probably would have been at least mentioned in the events of the previous film.

In many ways it becomes Judy Greer’s film, though. Even during the madcap shenanigans of the hospital riot, she’s a steady, empathetic presence that the audience can at least attempt to ground to. She was afforded some of the best moments of character growth in the first film, and that continues here.

By the time the credits roll, Kills has already begun exploring ideas of legacy and collective fear, segueing into the third instalment whilst taking enough steps to cement itself as a worthy follow-up and chapter in and of its own right. It widens the scope of its world, bringing in some new ideas, whilst fleshing out characters old and new. Will Patton, for instance, somewhat unexpectedly returns as a wounded Officer Hawkins (who, let’s face it, was pretty damn dead at the end of ’18), and an exploration of his own history with Myers provides a welcome realisation of events that were only referenced (somewhat frustratingly so) to in the previous film.

Some may find the incapacity of its central heroine frustrating, and for others the less singular focus may dilute its appeal, but in truth Halloween Kills works remarkably well as a middle chapter in this revitalised story of Strode vs Myers. It says enough, does enough, and executes itself (quite literally) with enough of the franchise staples, a decidedly upped ante with Myers’ brutality, treats us to another stellar Carpenter & Sons score, and ultimately keeps itself anchored itself to a trio of strong, likeable female leads.

If Halloween indeed Ends next year, let’s hope it can stick the landing and round out a trilogy that, on paper at least, and given the franchise’s dizzily erratic track record, had no rights being quite this good (or gory).

For a while there, it looked like the 25th outing for Ian Fleming’s James Bond would be trapped in cinematic limbo forever. If not only for the prolonged delays of the film’s release courtesy of COVID, but also the changing of hands throughout the course of production from filmmakers and writers, an initial reluctance from Daniel Craig to return to the role, and of course the MGM buyout that now leaves the franchise in the hands of Amazon.

But there were of course other uncertainties to take into account. For the first time in the franchise history, a leading actor was stepping away from the iconic role with open acknowledgement that it will be their last outing as the fictional British MI6 agent, and as such a production and marketing hype machine could be crafted around this very ‘farewell’ to the Craig era.

There’s other concerns, too, particularly regarding said era’s narrative path. One of the defining divergences from 2006’s Casino Royale onwards has been an interconnectivity between the plots for the various films, the results of which have felt mostly inconsistent and retroactive in nature to say the least. So with that in mind, how does a film operate as both an accessible James Bond film, a farewell to Craig, and a narrative conclusion of sorts for the ongoing narrative that the series has written for itself?

No Time to Die is at its best when playing to its stronger feats of simply being a globetrotting, gun-firing, double entendre dipping James Bond adventure. The gadgets, the cars, the exotic locations, the henchmen, the girls, the evil mastermind with a plot to destroy the world. These very core components – staples practically hardwired in to the 007 brand – are here and present to varying degrees of success, and really where the film feels like it should have been focusing more of its attention.

It’s spinning a lot of plates; there’s Bond coming out of a five-year retirement to find he’s been replaced by Lashana Lynch’s Nomi as the new 007, the continuing meddling of evil organisation SPECTRE and his step-brother Blofeld (Christoph Waltz, once again being given nothing to do), tensions involving new love Madeleine (Léa Seydoux) and her own secret past, which happens to tie into the plans of new villain Rami Malek as Lyutsifer Safin and his own inevitable plans for global catastrophe, this time round involving a biohacking virus stolen from MI6.

The plot as it is feels wildly disparate in components, as it spends too much of its time dealing with both the immediate fallout of Spectre, and tying up as many of the lose ends as it can before getting on with being a more traditional ‘stop the bad guy’ Bond outing. There’s an entire excursion to Cuba that serves almost nothing but to close off the narrative of the previous film, and which frustratingly ends up raising more questions than it answers regarding the shadowy organisation.

Which comes to an issue that has haunted the Craig era as a whole – the fact that while there has been some fun to be had at the changing of gears for the franchise to suit a new and more contemporary take on the character and his world, the series’ ongoing focus with introspection has been the crutch that it has been holding itself up on. Not content with merely just updating the formula or softening the edges of the characters more imperialist/misogynist/occasionally racist and semi-abusive roots, writers Neal Purvis and Robert Wade (who have who have had a hand in every one of the Craig films) became so preoccupied with the very ‘idea’ of James Bond and his place within popular culture as a narrative, thematic and metatextual device that they seemingly forgot to actually do much of anything else with the series.

The result is an entire story structured as a ‘conclusion’ to what has been mostly an afterthought of continuity, with disparate elements that rely way too much on an intimate working knowledge of a franchise that was ultimately always supposed to be light, vicarious escapism. Bond was always at its core a series of jaunts across the globe with a suave superspy, and here, as has often been the case in the preceding few instalments, so much of its other components end up coming across as strangely half-baked.

None of which would be of greater issue if the storytelling wasn’t so vague and confused half the time, to boot. The much-hyped Safin makes little sense, ether as a character or indeed his overall plans. As well as being barely in it, Malek carries his time with a bizarre accent and clothing choices cribbed from Dr. No. There’s yet another “author of all your pain” moment of revelation from Blofeld, but it concerns information that we and the characters already know. And that is is all without mentioning the one stonking, major development in the film that’s been conspicuously hidden (yet teased from the marketing), but one which should be a genuine shock that could not only raise the stakes but alter the entire field of play for the film’s ongoing drama. Instead, this huge pivot is bafflingly botched by a very non-committal obfuscation of said reveal, playing it off as more of a running joke, and leaves the whole plot point utterly bereft of functional dramatic status until a last minute confirmation that sadly winds up feeling like too little, too late in what should be a heart-rendering climax.

Amongst the rubble of the narrative and intentions, there is still plenty of good to be taken in here. The direction by Cary Joji Fukunaga is confident enough in the action sequences to maintain a sense of thrill and engagement in the moment, and they’re certainly a step-up from the lacklustre squandering of the last one, and Linus Sandgren’s cinematography is genuinely handsome and imaginative at points.

The performance from Craig is committed and solid, as he always has been – even if it feels like this version of his Bond is a far cry from the man and performance given in Casino Royale. He still shares shockingly little chemistry with Seydoux, which is even stranger considering they’re supposed to be passionately in love with one another. As with so much of Craig’s tenure, the standard set by Royale – in Eva Green’s femme fatale Vesper Lynd – has proven a frequently unattainable bar for its successors to reach.

The return of the likes of Naomie Harris, Ben Whishaw, Ralph Fiennes and Jeffrey Wright are all welcome presences, and Ana de Armas turns a bubbly CIA agent experiencing her first time in field alongside Bond into a delightful scene-stealer (her entire role feels as though co-writer Phoebe Waller-Bridge plonked a character from Fleabag into this world and watched her react).

Much has been stirred-up and churned over regarding Lashana Lynch’s role as the new 007, but beyond her evident charisma and chemistry with Craig, she actually ends up getting very little to do, beyond serving as both a generational stand-in who generously allows Bond to continue in his service of queen and country in spite of their apparent differences, but also as a strangely tired mouthpiece for studio virtue signalling, one who goads the audience as much as Bond concerning her status as a black woman in a traditionally white man’s role. It’s both slight and heavy-handed at once, culminating in a big moment for her at the climax involving another tone deaf comedic character that comes across as the falsest beat in the entire film.

These are the good in an otherwise decidedly mediocre, overlong and somewhat tiring production though, and as well as this may go down with audiences, it’s also maybe a sign that it’s time for us as a collective to let James Bond go. Maybe its that we have simply outgrown this character, his gun barrel and gadgets. More likely, the sophistication with which contemporary television (and, a few yards behind in most cases, cinema) is presenting us with an abundance of layered, nuanced and fresh characters – some even in the mould of Bond – means that in trying to tow the line between honouring the series’ heritage and the needs of a contemporary audience, the franchise is ultimately compromising on both and satisfying neither.

With less navel-gazing and a willingness to lean into what ultimately works for the character and brand, there could be hope. But unless the next incarnation – whoever and whenever it may be – is able to deliver on what makes this series so appealing from a building blocks perspective, instead of constantly trying to work around it with deconstruction and reflection on the mind, the future feels somewhat uncertain.
For now, this at-times wildly inconsistent chapter in the 007 saga draws to a close, with an occasionally satisfying, but mostly diluted last gasp. Let’s hope for some spark of invention and confidence in what follows, lest Fleming’s book be finally – and definitively – closed for good.