Daniel Craig's last outing as Bond is Bond's 25th film!
James Bond has never been under this much pressure.
He has to be sexy and philandering without being sexist, beat Mission Impossibles and Fast and Furious-es in action set-pieces and appear politically correct.
I like Craig as much as any other Bond but he appears too morose here with nary a smile or witticism in place. Even his signature name repetition is delivered in a stone-faced style as if Bond is sick of repeating himself. It does not help that the trailer is maintains the same tone throughout its running time and if Craig was going for a straight face comic delivery it is drowned in the "serious" music playing in the back ground. I hope it plays better in the film.
The film's production has been more dramatic, in fact. Due to COVID-19 The film finished shooting the day it was set to release. But the juiciest bit of news came when Director Danny Boyle (Trainspotting, Slumdog Millionaire) was replaced with Cary Fukunaga (True Detective, Beasts of No Nation).
There is no confirmed reason yet but insiders have hinted at casting choice clashes between Craig and Boyle. After Boyle left, Fukunaga felt that the script needed something more, so he added the great Phoebe Waller-Bridge to the mix.
The supporting cast around Bond is formidable with Ralph Fiennes as "M" (I still miss Judy Dench, though), the always reliable Ben Whishaw and Christopher Waltz, Jeffrey Wright (Hollywood doesn't know what exactly to do with him), L'ea Seydoux (The go-to-name today if you want to give your thrillers an "international touch") and of course, the main villain of the piece Rami Malek. He is not shown much for obvious reasons but he does pique interest. Then there is the excellent Rory Kinnear too but he does not appear in the trailer.
Frankly, Fukunaga does not excite me as a director and the trailer does not look very exciting. I will still be there to report if I am right or wrong, so keep watching these pages!
Here's the Superbowl trailer. What do you think?