Film Preview: No Time to Die (2021)

Page Revisions:

(December 8, 2019) Original
(September 13, 2020) New Trailer (#2) / New Posters (#8-#18) / New Release Date (changed from 4/8/20)
(September 5, 2021) New Trailer (#3) — New Posters (#19-#33) — New Release Date (changed from 11/20/20) — Revised Summary

Release Date:

October 8, 2021

Synopsis:

From IMDb: “James Bond has left active service. His peace is short-lived when Felix Leiter, an old friend from the CIA, turns up asking for help, leading Bond onto the trail of a mysterious villain armed with dangerous new technology.”

Formerly: From IMDb: “Bond has left active service. His peace is short-lived when his old friend Felix Leiter from the CIA turns up asking for help, leading Bond onto the trail of a mysterious villain armed with dangerous new technology.”

Poster Rating: C- / C- (13) / C- / C- / B / D+ / D+ / C / D+ (13)

SEE ALL POSTERS BELOW
Review: (#1) The backdrop is interesting only in its genuineness. Beyond that, this whole design is rather dull. (#2-#7) Even more dull are these character posters that have little difference between them, namely the different characters. It feels like someone just did the least amount of work possible. The colors are satisfactory, though.

(#8-#14) What I said about the first six in this character set still applies to the additional eight posters, which begs the question: do they really need one for all of these characters? (#15) Just a still from a film doesn’t an effective poster make, especially when IMAX designs are noted for their lack of creativity. (#16) A poor use of black-and-white, an ugly shade of blue and an overall uninspiring design choice. (#17) The white background is the only distracting element. The rest of the design is suitably balanced in terms of color and placement. (#18) This looks like several unimpressive designs of the 007 past.

(#19) There’s nothing to the background of this design, which is basically just a larger version of the 007 symbol, which doesn’t make it work. It’s the same as design #18 except with a new date. (#20) There’s not much to this design either and it feels more like a Jason Bourne-style design than a James Bond one. (#21-#33) It’s the dullest motif and giving each character the same background is cheating.

Trailer Rating: C- / B / C+

SEE ALL TRAILERS BELOW
Review: (#1) Whomever created this trailer clearly doesn’t understand how to craft a pleasing soundscape. The audio is tinny and thin, which makes the whole film look like amateur hour.

(#2) A much more invigorating trailer with a proper sound design, lots of different faces to keep track of a slight hint to the complexity of the plot. It works much better than the first trailer.

(#3) We get a few more details about the film in this trailer and while that might be a boon, the trailer is ultimately a bit lethargic and the intense excitement of the prior effort is almost entirely lost. That said, the leitmotif of the Bond theme used is a boon.

Oscar Prospects:

The Bond franchise has had an inconsistent history with the Academy with most of the films being ignored, especially in the Original Song category. That has changed in recent years and this film could even win another undeserved Oscar for the franchise for Original Song, possibly nods for Sound Mixing and Sound Editing as well.