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    For Pierce Brosnan, the World Is Just Enough

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    On the last day of March, at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in Manhattan, fans approached the actor Pierce Brosnan every few minutes. Some addressed him as Mr. Brosnan, some as Mr. Bond, a reference to the four James Bond movies he made in the 1990s and early 2000s. (Brosnan has a face that demands honorifics.)Dressed in chic monochrome — navy trench, navy pants, a navy ascot at the neck of a navy shirt — he was gracious with them all, if lightly evasive. (And yes, he is the rare man who looks plausible in an ascot.) At 71, he doesn’t often show the whole of himself. People see what they want. Mostly they see Bond.“They miss a lot,” he said. “But it’s not up to me to show a lot. It’s not up to me to do anything but be pleasant.”There has always been more to Brosnan than meets the eye, although what meets the eye is obviously very nice. “He is very fortunate in the genes department,” said Tom Hardy, his co-star on the new Paramount+ gangster series “MobLand.” Brosnan refers to it all as “the Celtic alchemy.”Pierce Brosnan, center, with Helen Mirren and Anson Boon, plays a dapper killer in the new crime drama “MobLand.”Luke Varley/Paramount+, via Associated PressA longtime painter and art enthusiast, Brosnan counts “The Thomas Crown Affair,” a 1999 art heist caper, as the favorite of his movies, mostly because he got to keep the paintings. So when promotional duties brought him to New York — he splits his time between Malibu and Hawaii — he squeezed in a museum visit.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘Black Bag’ Review: Blanchett v. Fassbender

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      The actors play a glamorous couple of spies in this latest sleek collaboration from the director Steven Soderbergh and the screenwriter David Koepp.“Black Bag” is the third movie written by David Koepp and directed by Steven Soderbergh that’s been released since 2022, and it’s a banger. It’s also sleek, witty and lean to the bone, a fizzy, engaging puzzler about beautiful spies doing the sort of extraordinary things that the rest of us only read about in novels and — if we’re lucky — watch onscreen. It’s nonsense, but the kind of glorious grown-up nonsense that critics like to say they (as in Hollywood) no longer make. That’s true to a great extent despite exceptions like Koepp and Soderbergh, even if they’re too playfully unorthodox to be prototypically Hollywood.The filmmakers’ latest duet stars Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender as Kathryn and George. Cozily and happily married, the couple lives in austere luxury in a townhouse in London, where they keep long, eventful hours working for a British intelligence agency, the (real) Government Communications Headquarters. As spies go, the two certainly look and speak their roles, or at least the fictional versions of them: They’re cunning, suave and as enigmatic as the title suggests. Unlike their famed counterpart James Bond (he’s at MI6), though, they put in serious face time at the office. Inside a glass tower, they watch and are watched in turn, tracking enemies and sometimes eliminating them.The setup involves an explosively dangerous threat in the form of malware called Severus, presumably named after the despotic Roman emperor. There appears to be a mole in the agency, and George is among a select few trying to identify the culprit. He has a list of five possible candidates, all of whom work in the agency’s power ranks. Among the suspects is — ta-da! — Kathryn. Because this isn’t a problem that George can take to a marriage counselor — even if one of the main characters is an agency shrink — he does what he’s trained to do: He spies on her. It gets tricky. It also gets funny and predictably violent, with some of the sharpest, nastiest scenes unfolding across a family dining-room table.Koepp and Soderbergh are virtuosos of genre, and “Black Bag” is right in their wheelhouse. Each has made a range of films (Koepp also directs), and they last collaborated on the ghost story “Presence,” which came out earlier this year. If the two excel at thrillers, it’s partly because, I imagine, high-stakes intrigues give filmmakers room to push norms to extremes and even ditch them. Koepp and Soderbergh’s “KIMI” (2022) is another tight genre piece that embraces and detonates conventions. Its myriad influences include films about trapped women as well as claustrophobic paranoid thrillers from the 1970s like “The Conversation” and “Three Days of the Condor,” reference points that also inform “Black Bag.”To judge from George’s chic glasses and turtlenecks, the filmmakers revisited some older Michael Caine movies, too. Fassbender doesn’t have Caine’s charms, and he’s less persuasive as a romantic foil. “Black Bag” has its share of intentionally outlandish moments, some giddily funny (there are more ticklish moments than thrills), but among the less convincing plot points is George and Kathryn’s oft-stated devotion to each other. Onscreen, Fassbender and especially Blanchett have an otherworldly quality that makes them reliably interesting to watch, but it’s one that can feel like a membrane separating them from more ordinary souls. They both draw you to them, but, unlike, say, Brad Pitt, they don’t necessarily invite you in.Whether these nagging doubts about George and Kathryn’s relationship are intentional, they work in a movie that teases you with secrets and weapons, border-crossing and misdirection, and is filled out with a note-perfect supporting cast that includes Regé-Jean Page, Naomie Harris, Tom Burke and Marisa Abela. Even as the story heats up and starts to get crowded, George remains the intrigue’s central question mark. He prowls into the movie like Henry Hill strolling into the nightclub in the famously long take in “Goodfellas,” a scene that slyly suggests that George isn’t to be trusted. He may be hot for Kathryn, but there’s something “bloodless and inhuman” about him, too, as Le Carré wrote of his famous spy, George Smiley.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘The Last Rifleman’ Review: A World War II Veteran Hits the Road

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      Pierce Brosnan plays a man who sneaks out of his retirement home to attend the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings in this charming, but corny drama.“The Last Rifleman” is a sporadically affecting drama that stars Pierce Brosnan as a World War II veteran who sneaks out of his retirement home in Belfast to attend the 75th anniversary of D-Day in France. At 16, Artie (Brosnan) was petrified to be in Normandy; now 92 and three-quarters (he insists on the fraction), he’s hellbent on confronting his metaphorical ghosts.The story is lifted from the true adventures of an octogenarian British soldier in 2014, a caper also captured in the 2023 film “The Great Escaper” starring Michael Caine. This take by the director Terry Loane and the screenwriter Kevin Fitzpatrick is equal parts tenderhearted and heavy-handed. Artie absconds in a laundry truck to the ballad “Don’t Fence Me In” and, while on the lam, confesses his decades-old anguish to an American corporal audaciously named Lincoln Jefferson Adams (a touching John Amos in one of his final roles). Most strangers are kind, even a former member of the Hitler Youth (Jürgen Prochnow). For balance, in one scene some nasty teenagers play soccer with Artie’s underwear.Corny, yes. But charming, too, like when a nurse (Tara Lynne O’Neill) delivers a mini-monologue of reasons Artie’s too ill to travel that plays out like a clown car of ailments. Loane can also be cynical as he pans across a glut of tacky victory souvenirs. Brosnan, who is 71, gamely ages himself up and has fun rapping on cellphones with a cane and punctuating moments with a pained “Ooh! Ahh!” Yet, a climax where the humble survivor reels with emotions he’s never allowed himself to feel is truly sniffle-worthy.The Last RiflemanRated PG-13 for language and rather chintzy battle scenes. Running time: 1 hour 35 minutes. In theaters and available to rent or buy on most major platforms. More

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      ‘The Out-Laws’ Review: Adam Devine, Funny at Last

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      Devine channels Jack Lemmon as a law-abiding Everyman whose fiancée’s parents rob the bank he manages. (Awkward.)You can really see Adam Devine going for the Jack Lemmon vibes in his latest vehicle, “The Out-Laws.” As Owen Browning, a tidy but slightly schlubby suburban Everyman with an impending wedding, he meets adversity with a broad grin and an implied ambition to ingratiate himself to the whole world. So a superficial Jack Lemmon vibe — except Jack Lemmon never twerked in boxer shorts. Not that he necessarily would have considered it beneath him.In theory, Devine should be funny: He’s talented and game and has a decent supply of goofy shtick. This critic’s experience of his work, however, including the surprisingly bland “Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates” (2016) and the nearly unspeakable “Game Over, Man!” (2018) — like this production, also a Netflix picture — has been almost disturbingly laugh-free. Until now. “The Out-Laws,” directed by Tyler Spindel, is a slight comedy, but it’s also raucous and kickily violent, with several laugh-in-spite-of-your-better-judgment bits.The hook is that Owen’s future in-laws, up until recently off the grid, are possibly the notorious criminals who rob the bank Owen manages shortly after they blow into town. The question doesn’t remain open for long. Pierce Brosnan and Ellen Barkin play the parental units with unabashed, even unhinged, broadness, against which Devine’s haplessness really sings. Richard Kind and Julie Hagerty go to town as Owen’s brash parents. The comedic virtuosi Laci Mosley and Lil Rel Howery play Owen’s bank colleagues, and the early scene where they frankly admit that they initially thought Owen’s fiancée was imaginary is rich. (She’s not imaginary; Nina Dobrev plays her, and she’s fine in the movie’s most plain part.) In fairness to Devine, the watchability is not just the result of his being surrounded by a cast of aces; he genuinely commits to and sells his bit here.The Out-LawsRated R for violence and salty language, complete with almost endless sexual innuendo. Running time: 1 hour 35 minutes. Watch on Netflix. More

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      For $18,500 (and Up), You, Too, Can Travel Like James Bond

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      When the (real) world is not enough, new luxury tours offer fans a chance to engage with their favorite film and TV worlds.From the post-apocalyptic bleakness of the TV show “The Last of Us” to the glamorous European destinations in the sprawling James Bond movie franchise, one source of travel inspiration is taking on fresh appeal as pandemic restrictions recede: the fictional worlds of film and television.“Set-jetting” — a play on “jet-setting” — will, travel analysts say, heavily influence the choice of destinations this year. With search traffic surging for the filming locations of the most popular streamed movies and television shows, that entertainment is expected to overtake social media as the top source of inspiration for travelers, according to research from online travel companies like Expedia.In response, destinations, tour operators and even film and TV production companies are striving to offer ever more experiential ways for people to engage with their favorite fictional worlds. The government of Alberta, Canada, is even assembling a map of filming locations for “The Last of Us” devotees to follow on a road trip. (The series was shot in the province.)But perhaps none are so immersive — and extravagant — as a new series of James Bond-themed private tours. They include a high-speed race down the River Thames in the same Sunseeker Superhawk 34 speedboat used in “The World Is Not Enough”; a sail on a vintage yacht along the Côte d’Azur to the Casino de Monte-Carlo, featured in “GoldenEye” and “Never Say Never Again”; and a helicopter ride above the snow-capped Ötztal Alps in Austria, where “Spectre” was filmed, accompanied by the special effects veteran Chris Corbould.People are as drawn to the places in the movies as they are to the plots, said Tom Marchant, a co-founder of Black Tomato, a travel company based in New York and London that was enlisted by the Bond movie producer, EON Productions, to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the first Bond film, “Dr. No.”The goal of the tours, Mr. Marchant said, was “unparalleled” immersion into the 007 world. The cost? From $18,500 per person for a five-night experience, and from $73,500 per person for the full 12-day experience.The Four Seasons in Cap-Ferrat, the location of a scene in the Netflix series “Emily in Paris,” is offering a themed travel package.Stéphanie Branchu/Netflix‘Transported to the set’For many travelers, the high price of immersion is worth it. Inspired by the bucolic hills and lofty Alps in “The Sound of Music,” the 1965 musical film starring Julie Andrews, Natalie McDonald, an entrepreneur in New York, was willing to pay about 10,500 pounds, or about $12,900, for Black Tomato to plan a cross-country railway trip in Switzerland in 2019 with her daughter, then 12.“It quite literally felt like we were transported to the set,” she said, adding that memories of the journey lingered long after they returned home. “In so many ways it extends the trip in our subconscious.”That desire to be immersed in fictional worlds has also been noted by streaming companies like Netflix, which is expanding its slate of interactive (and much more affordable) events. From Regency-era balls in cities like New York to uncovering a secret government lab at a Los Angeles event, attendees are given the opportunity to dress up and engage with plotlines of shows like “Bridgerton” (from $59 a person) and “Stranger Things” (from $39 for an adult).“We want people to leave feeling like they really got to experience this ‘hero’ moment within a world or a story that they’ve loved,” said Josh Simon, the vice president for consumer products at Netflix. Some three million people have attended such immersive events in 17 cities, and the company is planning more experiences linked to series like “Squid Game.”Other operators are paying attention. The Four Seasons in Cap-Ferrat, the location of a scene in the Netflix series “Emily in Paris,” is offering a Girls Trip on the French Riviera package (rates vary, but can run at least $2,000 for a two-person room). Fans of the series “The Last of Us” are flocking to the show’s locations in Alberta, despite the show’s pessimistic premise of a world inhabited by survivors of a global pandemic.Among the most obvious winners of screen tourism this year, travel advisers say, is the cliffside town of Taormina, Sicily, where the second season of the HBO show “The White Lotus” takes place. One $7,500 weeklong “White Lotus” tour was so in demand that it sold out months in advance, according to Quiiky Travel, a tour operator catering to L.G.B.T.Q. clients.Among the popular destinations for travel this year is the cliffside town of Taormina, Sicily, where the second season of the HBO show “The White Lotus” takes place.Fabio Lovino/HBOWeb traffic for the Four Seasons San Domenico Palace, the show’s location, surged more than 60 percent after the first episodes aired, and bookings are set to be stronger this year compared to last year, the hotel said.“‘The White Lotus’ worked as a business accelerator for us,” said Lorenzo Maraviglia, the hotel’s general manager, adding that the sudden interest after the show was something he had never witnessed before. Like their fictional counterparts, guests at the hotel can visit local wineries, cruise on a Vespa around the Sicilian streets and sip an aperitivo in its restaurant (though the underlying tensions are not guaranteed).Bow ties and bubblyAs they wait to learn who will replace the actor Daniel Craig, whose last appearance as James Bond was in 2021’s “No Time to Die,” Bond superfans willing to pay for one of Black Tomato’s 60 custom tours will have the opportunity to peruse Bond costumes and props, with tales from the Bond archive director, Meg Simmonds, in London. If they’re looking for an adrenaline rush, they can learn fight sequences with Lee Morrison, a stunt coordinator and former stunt double for Daniel Craig, also in London. Or they can listen to insider tales over a Parisian dinner with Carole Ashby, the British actress who appeared in “Octopussy” and “A View to Kill.”They will also be able to indulge in the brands featured in the Bond world, including an Aston Martin workshop (the spy’s car of choice) in Millbrook, England, and a private tour of the Bollinger vineyards (the spy’s Champagne of choice) in the village of Ay, France.And then there is the tour’s most lavish offering: the 12-night journey called “The Assignment,” from $73,500 per person, which begins in London and takes travelers on a five-location European tour ending in Venice. A narrative component is potentially in development, Mr. Marchant said, so attendees can live out a Bond plot of their own.For Bond fans on a budget, there are other options. Rob Woodford, a former taxi driver in Britain who runs tours based on popular film and television series, is anticipating a busy year ahead. His James Bond-themed tours try to include an element from most of the 25 films in the series. This year, he is thinking of teaming up with a speedboat company to recreate the breathless scene from “The World Is Not Enough.”“Wouldn’t that be a good idea — to recreate Pierce Brosnan shooting down the River Thames?” he said, adding: “You’ve got to reinvent yourself a bit.”Follow New York Times Travel on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. And sign up for our weekly Travel Dispatch newsletter to receive expert tips on traveling smarter and inspiration for your next vacation. Dreaming up a future getaway or just armchair traveling? Check out our 52 Places to Go in 2023. More

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      ‘The King’s Daughter’ Review: Sinking or Swimming at Versailles

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      Pierce Brosnan stars as a version of King Louis XIV who seeks to sacrifice a mermaid for immortality in this puerile storybook fantasy that was shot nearly eight years ago.Here’s a tragic tale: Once upon a time, an action-adventure drama began production. Nearly eight years, a title change and a new distribution plan later, the movie finally sees the light of day. Nothing about it feels worth the wait.Puerile and plodding, “The King’s Daughter” — originally called “The Moon and the Sun,” and based on the fantasy novel of that name — begins as the plucky Marie-Josephe (Kaya Scodelario) is recruited to Versailles as a royal composer. Of meager origins, our young heroine thrills at palace life, and even establishes a rapport with France’s august sovereign, King Louis XIV (a puckering Pierce Brosnan). There appears to be an oddly coquettish slant to their relationship until, what a surprise: Marie-Josephe discovers that she’s not an orphaned paysan but Louis’s estranged child. (It isn’t a stretch to guess that titling the movie “The King’s Daughter” was a Hail Mary measure to undercut the principals’ accidental framing as a romantic couple-to-be.)Oh, and there’s also a C.G.I. mermaid (Fan Bingbing) being held captive until an imminent eclipse, when the king will order her sacrifice in exchange for immortality.Directed by Sean McNamara, the movie seems to aspire to the grand, squally allure of the “Pirates of the Caribbean” series. And shot partly on location at Versailles, the visuals are sometimes splendid. When, for example, Marie-Josephe and a ship captain frolic through Hameau de la Reine, the setting’s natural beauty allows for a momentary respite — until the scene ends, and we’re thrust back into storybook inanity.The King’s DaughterRated PG. Running time: 1 hour 37 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘False Positive’ Review: Pregnancy Scares

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      This Hulu horror movie is a tepid, scattered look at the dark side of childbirth starring the “Broad City” co-creator Ilana Glazer.In recent years, mainstream horror movies like “Hereditary” and “It Follows” have embraced a seemingly more sophisticated form that unites social and psychological drama with a sleek visual sensibility. But possessing these ingredients does not a winner make. Case in point: “False Positive,” a handsome new Hulu feature that aspires to be a modern version of “Rosemary’s Baby,” but that ultimately lands somewhere between tepid and confused.Directed by John Lee from a screenplay he wrote with Ilana Glazer, his “Broad City” collaborator and the star of the film, “False Positive” explores the dark side of pregnancy in the age of fertility treatments.The concept, at least, is promising. After two years of attempting to conceive, Lucy (Glazer) and Adrian (Justin Theroux), a wealthy Manhattan couple, turn to John Hindle (Pierce Brosnan), a debonair fertility doctor with a menacing glint in his eyes. The oddly simple procedure works and soon Lucy is carrying not one, but three babies.To prevent future complications, however, she is forced to undergo “selective reduction” that will either destroy her male twins or her single girl. Against Hindle’s recommendation and her husband’s desires, she chooses the girl, unfurling what may or may not be a conspiracy to wrest control of Lucy’s pregnancy from her.That women continue to lack autonomy over their own bodies is indeed a horrifying reality. But Lee and Glazer, torn between the impulse to satirize an upper-crust milieu of would-be parents and the desire to depict a complex mental breakdown, unleash a watered-down and occasionally contradictory critique of, well, just about everything — white liberals, the health care system, the patriarchy.And despite its vaguely unsettling clinical ambience, very little about the film as it makes its way to an ultimately flat and predictable final twist, manages to feel tense or thrilling. Or even funny for that matter.False PositiveRated R for disturbing/bloody images, sexual content, graphic nudity and language. Running time: 1 hours 32 minutes. Watch on Hulu. More

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      ‘The Misfits’ Review: Blood and Sand

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      Pierce Brosnan leads a band of quirky thieves in this hopelessly fumbled heist movie.“The Misfits,” Renny Harlin’s 25th movie, unfolds mainly in the Middle East, but don’t expect its tone and temperament to differ appreciably from its predecessors. Insouciant as ever, Harlin simply does his own thing, location be damned. He’s the honey badger of cinema.His titular band of Robin Hood-style criminals is at least a diverse bunch, comprising a droll bank robber (Nick Cannon), a fire-loving explosives expert (Mike Angelo), a lithe martial artist (Jamie Chung) and a cool con man (Rami Jaber). To enact their latest heist — a cache of gold bars buried deep inside an Abu Dhabi prison and earmarked for terrorists — the Misfits need the smooth skills of Pace (Pierce Brosnan), a gentleman thief and recent maximum-security escapee.Pace is far from on board with the team’s vaguely altruistic plans for the loot, but he and Schultz (Tim Roth), the prison’s shady owner, have unresolved history. Also, his estranged daughter (Hermione Corfield), yet another Misfit, is hanging around to remind him of his humanitarian duty to refugees and other downtrodden. I did not make that up.Equally insulting to Arabic dialects and the Muslim Brotherhood, “The Misfits” is inarguably awful, its grandiose muddle of a plot unimproved by bored camels and barely clothed women. Yet for the first 20 minutes or so — a blitz of eye candy and ear worms — its breezy action and the performers’ good cheer are enough to entertain. Too soon, though, the movie drifts into narrative doldrums that derail its momentum and drain the cast’s energy.“Oh, bollocks,” Schultz mutters resignedly when he sees his gold is gone. Like the movie, he seems almost too tired to care.The MisfitsRated R for mass vomiting and a bloody cellphone attack. Running time: 1 hour 34 minutes. In theaters. More