Here we gooooo…

Bond has left active service and is enjoying a tranquil life in Jamaica. His peace is short-lived when his old friend Felix Leiter from the CIA turns up asking for help. The mission to rescue a kidnapped scientist turns out to be far more treacherous than expected, leading Bond onto the trail of a mysterious villain armed with dangerous new technology. —Universal Pictures

The internet is full of assholes. I know, I’m one of them. Yes, dear readers, contrary to popular believe, grrls can be, and often are, assholes too. But let’s not talk about the nice type of assholes, like Orca, who are just an asshole for falling for the real assholes, let’s talk about the condescending, meaniepooface assholes and how they were poisoning the YouTubes and various newspaprs and magazines lately, with their negative reviews of the new Bond movie.

So when I watched No Time to Die I expected a completely emasculated James, ruthlessly replaced in the MI6 … by an ugly, black woman. Wrong, so wrong. Bond quit His Majesty’s Service and is living with Léa Seydoux a quiet but rich retired lifestyle on Jamaica. Not at all angry, no bad blood. Lasagna Lynch, who replaced him at MI6, isn’t as fugly as portrayed, mostly filmed in profile and of a fair character. She even offers James his old 007 number back when they go out on a last mission. Everybody cool.

If we can criticise No Time to Die for anything it’s a rather pedestrian opening sequence and a lack of the breathless action in general. We still get servicable Bond girls, very much out of James’ league to be honest. And we get to see his old compadre Felix Leiter dying in his arms, a rather touching little scene and an end to the MI6 – CIA cooperation? Best thing about NTtD is the return of Bond’s famous Aston Martin. Unfortunately no scene of catapulting unwanted passengers off into the blue skies. 😮 What a bloody waste.

Altogether not a bad end of Daniel Craig‘s tenure as Bond. And … then … is Bond really dead after his sacrifice? At the very end of the end credits we get the usual James Bond Will Return. No mention of the new project’s title, which is weird, and leaving us with the burning question of how the fuk did he survive the bombardment of that little Russo/Japanese island anyway? We saw the explosions getting closer and closer to him, didn’t we? BTW, wtf are British navy ships’ business in those waters anyway. They are disputed among USSR/Russia and Japan since millions of years and both sides are cool about it, since they have far more important things to take care about. And the Brits are bombarding one of those islands! Just like that. No international diplomatic trubbelz are looming?

CONCLUSION: As so often, far better than expected, not as good as it could’ve been. A befitting send-off for Daniel Craig. Story, end of.

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What’s wrong with mediocrity? Nothing, really. Let me tell you why I think so: Johnson, Reynolds and Gadot … big names we’ve seen attached to much biggerer, everything but mediocre films in the last couple years, but let’s ask ourselves when did you last had so much fun with them? Gal Gadot in SuperduperWondergirl was always on the cusp of her abilities, always trying to prove she’s worthy of a cartoon character role, Johnson’s latest Jungle Cruise was a disaster and aren’t we all tired of Reynold’s perma blabbermouth in every role he touches?

Well, in Red Notice they are all doing what they do best, playing their strong suits. Johnson a grumpy agent, Gadot a femme fatale and Reynolds a charming shithead. And they had fun doing it. And it shows.

The flick itself … well, shit. Hey, Hollywood, if you really wanna make 1:1 copies of Indiana Jones then at least try to do it a bit more competently. The Indy movies lived from breathtaking stunts and a good portion of humour, not from hectic editing with 100 cuts per second! Idjitz!

CONCLUSION: Fortunately the chemistry between our three leads worked and so we can recommend it for viewing. Red Notice is a pretty, if totally forgettable, mediocre flick. We had a good time while watching it. Mission accomplished.