Infused with a delicate visual subtlety, I don’t think Bond has ever looked better. Cinematographer Roger Deakins skillfully utilizes gorgeous lighting and composition throughout the globetrotting chase, thankfully allowed to let his set-ups and slow pans exist without the hyper-cut fisticuffs we’ve been inundated with since The Bourne Identity. Watching Craig engage Ola Rapace‘s Patrice in Shanghai against a backdrop of electronic signs and neon lights through a crystal clear glass skyscraper’s façade possesses a hyper-real feel as their darkened silhouettes fight without break. Pair this with the stark Days of Heaven-esque landscape at the end when Bond, M, and Albert Finney‘s Kincade set up a last stand inside a decrepit home surrounded by nothing but open field and you have a sense of aesthetic never before seen from the franchise.
Roger Deakin's masterful cinematography as we see only Bond and Patrice's silhouettes as they fight, a large circular white light in the shape of a jellyfish passing over Bond at one point- a visual nod to the gun barrel that was absent at the beginning of the film. The most visually stunning Bond film ever- might even get an Oscar nod- is also the most exciting.
Red: [narrating] I find I'm so excited, I can barely sit still or hold a thought in my head. I think it's the excitement only a free man can feel, a free man at the start of a long journey whose conclusion is uncertain.
Red:...I have to remind myself that some birds aren't meant to be caged. Their feathers are just too bright.
Red: [narrating] It was like some beautiful bird flapped into our drab little cage and made those walls dissolve away, and for the briefest of moments, every last man in Shawshank felt free.