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Action, thrills in new James Bond franchise

Life & Style
ZIMBABWE was, this past week, shaken by the pre-screening of the 24th entry into the James Bond franchise, aptly titled Spectre. The suave super spy sees himself taking on a global organisation called Spectre with agents spread across the globe from spy agencies to government positions bent on global destruction.

ZIMBABWE was, this past week, shaken by the pre-screening of the 24th entry into the James Bond franchise, aptly titled Spectre. The suave super spy sees himself taking on a global organisation called Spectre with agents spread across the globe from spy agencies to government positions bent on global destruction.

BY TATIRA ZWINOIRA

From the onset of the film, the seriousness of Bond’s mission was made clear when he nearly brought the celebrations in Mexico City to an explosive end.

International Hollywood actor, Daniel Craig replays his role as the spy, with his trademark intensity and depth that reinvented the character James Bond into a gritty and modern day spy.

One aspect that has made the international franchise famous is the casting of one or two beautiful actresses, in what has been coined “the Bond girl”, who play the main female leads. In this entry, one of the two Bond girls was for the first time played by an older actress in the franchise history, Hollywood actress, Monica Bellucci who is, according to The Internet Movie Database, 51.

JAMES BOND

The movie followed the format of a good action flick, opening with a set piece rooted in the bigger plot and propelled with constant action. One thing the movie got well was setting the stakes high from the onset of the film and maintaining it throughout the movie.

The dialogue was brief and to the point, as were the main sub-plots of the film, namely the one of Hollywood actor Ralph Fiennes’s character M, who plays the boss of British secret spy intelligence agency MI-6, whose position was being threatened by an internal shakeup.

However, rather sticking to the gritty and intensity Craig comes out as James Bond, it leaned more towards the traditional archetype of James Bond. What has made Craig’s turn as Bond unique was the realistic approach he took in playing the character and having that fit well in today’s world.

Leaving this format did not really allow Craig’s Bond to stand out, which the movie compensated by maintaining realistic set action pieces and, of particular, note the car chases. Hopefully, this will not be the case in the 25th entry.

The movie is a definite five star and ranks well as one of 2015’s best action movies alongside Furious7 (Fast and the Furious 7) and Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation the fifth in its series.

Its record-shattering earnings in the United Kingdom of $80 million in its first week, the highest over any other film there, gives an idea of just how big the franchise is.

International critic website Rottentomatoes.com has given the movie 63%. This weekend the last instalment in the Hunger Games series as part of international franchise, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2, gets its official United States release.