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The Gathering 2001 ★★
Back to the DVD collection for something from the early 2000s.
An American girl goes (back) to England and before we know the whats and whys and hows she is run over by a car in the kind of town where you expect to run into Simon Pegg exchanging insults over crossword puzzles.
She gets away from the accident with amnesia (very handy) and soon starts having ominous visions (spooky). Between hooking up with Ioan Gruffudd (who does an amazing Rocco Siffredi cosplay here) and being harassed by townies, Christina Ricci and the screenwriter put the pieces together.
Because it's all related to a vague story about a buried church, which results in a solid opening kill, a piece of wood that allegedly belonged to the cross that held Jesus and an orphanage where child abuse took place... because of course it did.
At first, you still want to buy it, but when the screenwriter started tying in the JFK assasination and the KKK, it became a bit too silly for me to still follow. And of course the ending being par for the course. Oh no, that thing that we saw coming from the very start happened after all. Oh well.
But the pace is solid, the execution is not too bad and there are worse things than seeing Christina Ricci running around doing stuff.
Fun for people who like religious horror and Christina Ricci-fans.
No Time to Die 2021 ★★★
This review may contain spoilers.
Well, I never thought I would live to see James Bond have his Maury Povich moment.
James Bond, in the case of little Mathilde, you are (not) the father.
So yeah, that happened.
The whole movie felt like a final love letter to Daniel Craig. A way of hammering home in no uncertain terms in that it's really really really time to bid this Bond farewell and greet the new incarnation. Including a heroic sacrifice moment. They want you to be doubly sure that this James Bond is really, really dead and gone.
It goes together with an overall solid, entertaining action movie. We see Daniel Craig do all the narrow escapes and stunts and fighting. They keep you on the edge of your seat and the cast are well in their place. In my opinion, Ben Wishaw and Naomi Harris are growing in their respective roles as Q and Moneypenny. If he can do banter (and leave out the “boy, we sure are old” crap), Ralph Fiennes can make a good M.
The main downside is the darkness of it all. Both literally (so many scenes in the dark) and figuratively. There's not much to laugh here, apart from maybe the comic relief moments with Ana De Armas. And yet, the material is there. Their scenes from the earlier movies show that the dry wit banter between Q and Bond can work. Why not use that more here? To lighten the atmos and make the final sacrifice hit that much harder.
Apart from that, Rami Malek can sometimes be scary and yet, he does not make a memorable Bond-villain like Goldfinger or Blofeld. Also, with Christopher Waltz in the cast, the link with the interrogation scene in Inglorious Basterds is quickly laid and Rami does not match up.
Malek and Lea Seydoux's character are kind of characteristic for this movie. I can kind of get it and kind of see it, but a certain meh-factor inevitably always slips in.
Also, your opening bit lasted longer than a Simpsons episode. About 20 minutes until the opening credits. Maybe trim down a bit then.
That said, it still has its qualities: it's certainly entertaining and I can empathize with Craig-fans having to wipe away a tear at the end. For the rest of us, it's just a decent popcorn muncher. No more, no less.
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