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Film Review
Tinashe Kusema
IF recent rumours are to be believed, then Aaron Taylor-Johnson looks pretty much set to replace Daniel Craig as the new James Bond.
The 33-year-old British actor is said to have been offered the role back in March and the ball seems to be in his court.
As a fan of the guy’s work, especially his role as Tangerine in the 2022 action-comedy “Bullet Train”, I have no problem with the casting.
However, I do have a problem with this never-ending James Bond tale going on after Craig’s bow in the 2015 instalment “No Time to Die”.
The film was unspectacular, Rami Malek was a huge disappointment as the movie’s main villain Lyutsifer Safin and the entire plot was very weak.
The film’s saving throw was Billie Eillish’s theme song “No Time to Die”.
As great and promising an actor Taylor-Johnson is, I have always thought Henry Cavill would be the obvious choice should Hollywood decide to continue sucking the life out of this character and film franchise.
In his latest work, “The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare”, Cavill does yet another masterful Bond audition.
And the fact that his character, Gus March-Philips, is believed to have been the inspiration behind Ian Fleming’s James Bond character and books screams out destiny.
The spy action-comedy is loosely based on the 2014 book “Churchill’s Secret Warriors: The Explosive True Story of the Special Forces Desperadoes of WWII” by Damien Lewis.
Cavill, as already mentioned, stars as Gus March-Philips, an infamous army captain of a royal navy, who is assigned an unsanctioned mission to sail to West Africa’s Spanish-controlled island Fernando Po and sink a fleet of U-boats that threatened to turn the tide of World War II in Germany’s favour.
March-Philips decides to recruit his team, which consists of a Danish naval officer obsessed with knives, Anders Lassen (Alan Ritchson); the younger brother of a fallen comrade, Henry Hayes (Hero Fiennes Tiffin); and a demolition expert Freddy Alvarez (Henry Golding).
Also included in the team is the trio of March-Philips’ closest friend and comrade Geoffrey Appleyard (Alex Pettyfer), Marjorie Stewart (Eiza Gonzalez) and Richard Heron (Babs Olusanmokun). Stewart and Heron are the advance party sent to gather information and prepare for March-Philips’ crew.
The movie runs for about 120 minutes but that time flies by quickly as the action comes thick and fast while the humour is on point.
The plot lacks flesh but makes up for it with quirky characters, witty banter, dialogue and, most importantly, the directorial eye of Guy Ritchie. Cavill is the film’s biggest highlight, as the 41-year-old Brit steals every scene and shares great chemistry with all his co-stars.
Online Reporter