Eight blockbuster films to see this summer

Daniel Craig in his final James Bond film, No Time To Die. Photo: Universal - COVID-19-delayed blockbuster films are now being released over the holiday season. Associate Professor Bruce Isaacs, senior lecturer in Film Studies, gives us his personal recommendations and hot tips for 2022. In cinemas now As Daniel Craig's last outing, discussions abound about his place in the James Bond pantheon. In 2006, after  Casino Royale 's gritty black and white opening sequence, it was clear that Bond had been reinvented for a 21st-century audience attuned to new artistic values, new ideas about global politics and, perhaps most interestingly, an entirely new take on a politics of identity. In the world of Craig's 21st-century Bond - the Bond of  Skyfall ,  Spectre  and  No Time to Die - even Sean Connery's elegance and 1960s cool recedes further into the past. No Time to Die  is a glorious summation not only of Craig's career as Bond, but of Bond's enduring cinematic legacy. What remains to be seen, as the final credits roll, is whether a future exists for 007. In cinemas now Dune  looks, sounds and feels like the biggest Hollywood spectacle of the decade. It reminds us that, for good or bad, the movies have gone further towards digital and computer enhanced images. The film is a visionary blockbuster but, against some of the claims about the 'reality' of the desert world,  Dune  shows us once again that the future of movie fantasies are big spectacles effected by CGI and visual effects wizardry, with formulaic stories elevated to operatic proportions. Dune  also faces the central challenge of all big budget Hollywood franchises: how do you make an unfinished film into a blockbuster?