007: Devil's Dance

Devil's Dance is the 25th movie in the Eon Productions James Bond film series. Directed by David Fincher and produced by Barbara Broccoli, Devil's Dance stars Daniel Craig, Jaoquin Phoenix, Keira Knightley, Rory McCann, Lea Sedoux and Ralph Fiennes, along with Naomi Harris, Ben Whishaw and Jeffrey Wright reprising their roles from previous films.

The film premiered at Odeon Leicester Square on the 2nd of August 2017, was a box-office triumph - earning $700 million worldwide - and received generally positive reviews from critics, with praise for the plot, cinematography, action sequences, directing and the performances of Craig, Phoenix and Knightley.

The film was nominated for several awards - including Best Editing, (Baird) Best Cinematography (Hoytema), Best Actor (Craig), Best Hissy Fit (Phoenix), Best Chemistry (Craig and Knightley) and Best Score - and won Best Fight (Craig and McCann), Best Villain (Phoenix) and Best Thriller.

Plot
In Venice, Bond is in hiding from SPECTRE after destabilising their operations with the capture of Ernst Stavro Blofeld, with Dr. Madeline Swann, when he detects that they are being followed. An imposing man called Fisk arrives in Venice and stalks them back to their hotel, where he places an explosive device under the bed. Bond activates it by accident, but pulls him and Swann through the window of the hotel before it hits them. Fisk pursues Bond through Venice on speedboats, until shooting out the fuel tank of Bond's boat and exploding it - Swann is killed in the blast, and Bond is left cradling her body as Fisk disappears.

Back in London, Bond is called to hear that Fisk's attack coincided with another individual's presence in Venice - Agent V, an American spy with a reputation enough for her to be a wanted woman in Russia. Agent V, real name Vera Richardson, had been asking after Bond three days leading up to the attack. Bond, with this information, demands a background check on Richardson and an investigation into Fisk. Moneypenny provides him with files detailing that Richardson was last seen in, and has been investigating a millionaire businessman named Sir Lucien Shaw, who conveniently has had connections with Fisk in recent years. Bond decides to investigate covertly into Shaw.

Vera Richardson meets with Felix Leiter in Florida, and he details her with an instruction to eliminate Bond - Leiter is visibly reluctant to do this, but claims he is following his own instructions. Richardson investigates into Bond and Bond, following her movements, tracks her from Florida to Miami, where he tries to shoot her. She sees him and moves to shoot him but, seeing that a man is about to pull a gun on both of them, guns down that man and, in the chaos, she disappears. Bond tries to pursue her, but she shoots him in the arm and escapes via seaplane. Meanwhile, Leiter contacts Shaw and he implies that Leiter's career will be at risk if Bond is not soon eliminated.

Bond, recovering from the bullet wound, tracks the bullet to a CIA cache, where he is confronted by Richardson. She holds him at gunpoint and demands to know why he was in Venice, and he recalls about his dealings with SPECTRE and suspects she is secretly working for them. She denies this, but before the conversation can progress, Fisk appears and leads a group of armed men to attack the cache. Bond and Richardson escape, and Fisk is left with a vicious scar on his cheek where Bond missed a shot at him. Fisk returns to Shaw on a yacht, and proves he is still worth employing by killing Shaw's bodyguard with his bare hands. Shaw instructs him that both Richardson and Bond are now expendable.

When they settle in a hotel in Miami, Richardson explains that she was instructed to eliminate him because of a previous incursion by MI6 into Shaw's business by an agent named Mr. Ivory, who since went missing. Discovering that M had originally intended for Bond to become interested in Shaw, Bond contacts M and confronts him with this information and M reveals that Shaw, an ingenious but introverted individual, was a schoolmate of his. Shaw was supplying technology for a summit between Asian, British, American and Russian representatives which will decide whether or not to declare a full-scale war on SPECTRE, given that Bond has exposed its existence.

When Shaw hears that Bond and Richardson have now begun cooperating, Shaw confronts Leiter and Leiter reveals that he has also been investigating Shaw behind his back. Discovering that he has become betrayed on both sides, Shaw demands that his double agent, Agent Blake (Q's bodyguard), to eliminate M. Blake attempts to murder M, but Q uses an experimental harpoon gun to kill him. Q, realising the seriousness of the situation, supplies Bond with a weaponised car, explosives and a transponder unit. Leiter controls the transponder unit. Bond follows Shaw to Las Vegas, where he meets Shaw in a nightclub.

Shaw and Bond talk, and the conversation is riddled with veiled threats to one another, and Shaw implies that he has no objection to the progress of the summit, confusing Bond. Shaw then states that he has been playing for time, and Fisk arrives with a throng of Shaw's men and attacks the nightclub. In the ensuing firefight, Shaw calmly escapes by car. Bond and Richardson shoot several of their attackers in the skirmish, and Bond kills Shaw's contact, Victor, who tries to attack him with a knife when Shaw escaped. They escape, but not before Fisk's men are all arrested and Fisk is forced to escape alone.

With Leiter's support, Bond manages to track down Mr. Ivory to a safe house on the outskirts of Las Vegas, and he meets Ivory, who explains to him that he discovered Shaw's purchase of an explosive device as well as a powerful drill. Before he can continue, the safe house is attacked by Fisk, who restrains Bond and Richardson and kills Ivory. Fisk takes them to Shaw's retreat in New York, where Shaw greets them and reveals that he is planning to plant an explosive several feet beneath the seat of the summit, so that it will cause an earthquake which will kill the summit attendants whilst simultaneously feigning it being a natural accident. Shaw later sends the two to be killed, but they escape.

Bond and Richardson try to escape in a seaplane, but Fisk pursues them via helicopter. After an exciting chase, in which the helicopter is damaged, Fisk parachutes on top of the plane and damages the engine. Bond carries Richardson out and parachutes near the aquarium, and Fisk pursues them. Bond and Fisk engage in a vicious fight, until Bond throws Fisk into a shark aquarium, where the sharks kill him, avenging Swann. Bond remarks to Richardson 'He's sleeping with the fishes now '.

Bond and Richardson formulate a plan to stop Shaw. Richardson moves to defuse the bomb while Bond confronts Shaw. Shaw disarms Bond and holds him at gunpoint, revealing he knows Richardson is trying to defuse the bomb - the real one is in the floor above her. Bond, discovering this, tries to overpower Shaw, who damages his wounded arm with the hammer of his gun. Bond escapes Shaw and goes to defuse the bomb. However, he finds that any attempt to defuse the bomb will trigger it. Instead, he carefully moves the bomb on to the boat when Shaw attempts to escape via the Dubai Creek - Shaw discovers the bomb and, in a desperate and violent attempt to defuse it, blows himself up in a ball of flame while Bond and Richardson watch.

Bond and Richardson meet with M, who congratulates them for saving the summit and ensuring a multinational conflict against SPECTRE, before leaving the two of them together. Richardson farewells Bond and leaves him, but Bond suddenly remembers his confrontation with Blofeld (From the previous film) and recalls Blofeld stating he will remove everyone Bond cares for from his life - he runs after Richardson, but before he can reach her a man in a tan overcoat approaches her and discreetly stabs her in the lung with a knife. Richardson dies, crying, in Bond's arms.

Cast

 * Daniel Craig as James Bond, a suave British spy and 00 Agent with a license to kill.
 * Jaoquin Phoenix as Sir Lucien Shaw, a brilliant and corrupt businessman who plans on sabotaging a business summit in Dubai.
 * Keira Knightley as Agent Vera Richardson, aka Agent V, an efficient and mysterious American spy who is originally intent on assassinating Bond but ends up becoming his ally and friend.
 * Rory McCann as Fisk, a brutal and frightening hitman who works for Shaw and becomes a relentless nemesis for Bond throughout the film.
 * Lea Sedoux as Dr. Madeline Swann, Bond's former love interest who is murdered by Fisk early in the film.
 * Ralph Fiennes as M, Bond's humourless spymaster and superior, Head of MI6 and a former friend of Shaw's.
 * Naomi Harris as Miss Eve Moneypenny, M's flippant secretary who secretly provides for Bond.
 * Ben Whishaw as Q, Bond's cynical quartermaster who provides equipment for Bond and is his contact throughout the ordeal.
 * Jeffrey Wright as Felix Leiter, a high-ranking CIA operative who controls Agent V and is also curious about Shaw's actions.
 * Rory Kinnear as Bill Tanner, the Chief of Staff at MI6
 * Mark Williams as Senator Florian Phillips, the British representative
 * Robert Redford as Senator Rory Charleston, the American representative
 * Ken Watanabe as Senator Karim Blamir, the Asian representative
 * Vladimir Mashkov as Senator Dimitry Imirov, the Russian representative
 * Jack Davenport as Agent Blake, a rogue MI6 agent and Q's former bodyguard
 * Sergio Enrique as Victor, Shaw's contact who is killed by Bond in a knife fight
 * Paul Kaye as Mr. Ivory, a discharged bodyguard and MI6 agent who was outlawed and murdered by Shaw for investigating his operations.
 * John Lebar as the SPECTRE assassin who kills Agent V at the end of the film.