'James Bond: No Time to Die' movie review.

So when it comes to watching the latest James Bond 007 film, it has to be said that I didn't have my expectations that high about it. I wasn't thinking that the movie - even though probably not horrible or unwatchable - wouldn't be that well made as a whole.

After all, in my last post about the franchise (<click here>) I listed reasons why the films - even though successful at the box office have lately been lacking in quality. The franchise hasn't been doing well quality-wise and has suffered from all kinds of problems and issues.

Yet, as I last week got a chance to watch 'No Time to Die', as a rather big fan of the franchise, I couldn't help but to feel at least somewhat optimistic again. Perhaps I would be proven wrong here and that perhaps the last 007 film starring Daniel Craig would be okay after all.

So having now finally seen the film, I have to say that - as unfortunate as it is - I wasn't that impressed with Craig's last outing as James Bond. The movie, even though not completely awful, didn't manage to convince me that the franchise has still something to offer.

Premise- & and idea-wise, it has to be said that in 'No Time to Die', the producers & writers at least tried to do something different here. They knew they were in trouble and thought that perhaps they could make an entertaining film by tweaking the concept a bit.

In practice, what this meant is that Craig's final outing (no huge spoilers here), instead of being a traditional Bond movie, is more of a character piece. The emphasis in this movie is on James Bond as a character and how he feels as a (supposed) human being.

Indeed, the film that lasts more than two and a half hours (even with excluding the opening & closing credits) spends considerable time dealing with his 'family' life. There's his girlfriend from 'Spectre' who is involved and there's her 5 year old girl in the movie too. 

The big challenge with this kind of concept tweak is that it requires that the film is really well written. You need to have everything well thought out and balanced, which means that your story must have well rounded characters & storylines (also protagonists & antagonists).

Unfortunately, that's not how the writers were able to pull of the script in 'No Time to Die'. Even though agent 007 is the main focus in the film (the girlfriend is the protagonist in the pre-title sequence), there's no balance here in the movie with the characters at all.

 

Indeed, when it comes to the antagonists in movie, as incredible as it sounds, the two main villains get roughly seven minutes of air time total. Ernst Stavro Blofeld is in the movie for like two minutes and Rami Malek's villain Safir is on screen for like five minutes. 

Not that surprisingly, even though the movie does work in its first half, when it comes to the last act of the film the thing feels almost embarrassing. Pretty much nothing here makes sense and that includes the villain's angle with Bond's family, which is just pathetic.

Indeed, in the final 15 minutes and its climax, you can only wonder how the 'story' spent so much time with some other things (lots of 'team effort', Q, female 007, etc.) and not with the villain. How did the movie go for so long without developing the antagonist's motivation at all.

In that sense, when it comes to this film as a whole, it shouldn't come as a surprise that I wasn't able to enjoy it as much that I would have wanted to. It just wasn't that well made as a whole, even though the action scenes were solid and the movie looked great too. 

After all, when you take into account how botched the script was (had tons of reshoots) and how the writers (hacks Purvis & Wade were involved again) didn't shine here, that wasn't a good thing. That was genuinely disappointing how the story was lacking. 

Still, in the end, when it comes to this movie, I'm not saying that you shouldn't give it a chance at the some point. I'm not saying that and do recognize that we're talking about a franchise that has gone for almost 60 years and has reached its 26th movie already. 

At the same time, at least when it comes to me, it's a safe bet that I won't be looking forward to watching this movie again. I won't probably give it a second shot, and instead I'll watch those older Bond films, especially those that starred Roger Moore as agent 007.

I've been playing piano for 3 months every day.

So last time when I wrote about my piano playing hobby, I talked about how I had managed to keep my practice routine going for like a month. I had managed to keep playing piano every day, which enabled me to progress with the instrument relatively well.

Indeed, especially as I kept practicing the theme song of 'La La Land' (Mia & Sebastian's theme), I kept getting better. As I managed to learn the song and get my muscle memory improved (especially the jazz solo), it was obvious that I had been doing things right.

At the same time, even though I kept progressing and had learned some new stuff, I knew that it wasn't enough. I was more or less only getting started and had still so much to learn about the craft (proper technique, sight reading, musical theory etc.)

Naturally, the next step was to select new songs to play that would both challenge me and keep me interested with the instrument. I chose - like I had predicted in my last post - the theme song from 'Pirates of The Caribbean', which is a really popular melody.

So with 'He's a Pirate' song, I have to say that things didn't go as smoothly as I had thought at first. The melody, even though rather simple and even repetitive in many places, requires a lot of control from you and ability to play the keys really fast. 

Indeed, as I kept learning to play it - I again divided the song to sections in order to learn and memorize it - I noticed that I wouldn't be able to progress as fast as I would like to. I was simply not as good, especially technique-wise, than I thought I would be.

Progress-wise, it was rather difficult to admit that even though I did get better with the song and how I played it, I had my limitations. No matter how hard I would practice, I would still struggle with the fast transitions, even though I did my best.

So the next step, naturally, in order to keep my sanity and not go crazy from all the repetition was to move on from the song. I had to choose another song to practice, which would help improve my basic technique and consequently make me a better player.

Song-wise, after the Pirates song, I decided to choose 'City of Stars', another song from 'La La Land', which I found to be interesting too. It just sounded so melodic and fascinating, even though the song seemed rather simple and 'easy' to play. 

Fortunately, even though I at first really struggled with that song (left hand skips certain notes), I learned the melody and moved to the next song. I chose Edith Piaf's 'La Vie en Rose', a popular and romantic song that I've been practicing for the last two weeks. 

Indeed, this a song that has its own challenges and demands (octave + stretches with fingers, using almost all the fingers at the same time). This is clearly a new song that will improve my basic technique, even though it requires tons of practice from me. 

In that sense, now that I've managed to keep going with my practice routine for three months pretty much every single day, it's pretty clear that I'm slowly getting better. I'm getting better, even though I have still so many things to learn. 

After all, among other things, I still struggle with my muscle memory and my ability to control fast transitions. I also don't have the ability to sight read (play without practice by simply looking at the notes) that well, which is a sign that I have to practice on this front too.

Still, in the end, as I'm next trying to pay attention to the theory side a little bit more, I shouldn't be feeling too bad about the progress that I've made during the last few months. I shouldn't be thinking that I'm not getting better as a pianist.

After all, even though there are days when I don't notice the progress - despite my deliberate practice, I keep getting better. I keep getting better and as long as I practice diligently every single day, eventually I'll be able to play the instrument as well as I'd like to.