There were very good stunts such as the motorcycle jump in Matera, but can any of them be compared to stunts like the dam jump in GF, the stepping on crocodiles in LALD, the Union Jack ski jump in TSWLM or the jump between the cranes in CR? While the action scenes in NTTD were generally excelent, there were no stunts the audience were likely to rave about after the movie.
That being said, I too notice how very differently people experience movies, perhaps especially NTTD.
The only action sequences that really affected me where in the beginning -- the bits after the explosion at Vesper's tomb and then Craig sitting there contemplative while the bullets pound away at the Aston Martin's glass, for example. When he deploys the miniguns and starts firing, I gave out a little cheer, not at the violence but at the expression of Bond as we've known him -- cool, in control, and resilient in the face of opposition. Part of the reason I'm so disappointed by the ending (as it was expressed) is that Bond is not the same guy, and I didn't believe there was enough in this story to make me believe his transformation.
Asp9mmOver the Hills and Far Away.Posts: 7,485MI6 Agent
I thought he was the same guy. But more so and more attuned to the ‘bigger picture’. That there was something out there he’d finally found worth dying for. He’s no longer dwelling on betrayal and distrust, none of that matters anymore. He’s finally free.
.................................
LoeffelholzThe United States, With LovePosts: 8,988Quartermasters
Yes; exactly. And I feel it made perfect emotional sense.
Check out my Amazon author page!Mark Loeffelholz
"I am not an entrant in the Shakespeare Stakes." - Ian Fleming
"Screw 'em." - Daniel Craig, The Best James Bond EverTM
LoeffelholzThe United States, With LovePosts: 8,988Quartermasters
I think the leap off the bridge with the cable, in the PTS, was brilliant as well...but I feel that this film had bigger fish to fry (so to speak), and Craig's trademark physicality - even in his early fifties! - was in obvious evidence throughout.
Check out my Amazon author page!Mark Loeffelholz
"I am not an entrant in the Shakespeare Stakes." - Ian Fleming
"Screw 'em." - Daniel Craig, The Best James Bond EverTM
hey fellers! hey wait up! hey, I finally seen the new movie and can hang out with the cool kids again!
yeh, and see I got the No Time to Die t-shirt, and the No Time to Die lunchbox, and the No Time to Die trading cards, and the No Time to Die Happy Meal, with, er, the Bill Tanner action figure cuz it was one of the last ones left...
so who wants to talk about No Time to Die and play with our No Time to Die action figures? I can be Tanner cuz I got the action figure! "ahem, Sir, Russia and Japan are both on the line for you! What should I tell them? Didn't this used to be Moneypenny's job?" fellers? fellers?
(Caractacus finally notices all the cool kids are wearing Dune t-shirts and carrying Dune lunchboxes, and nobody wants to talk about No Time to Die anymore...)
I'm always interested in your own opinions Caractacus, so feel free to discuss NTTD, regardless of what the cool kids are up to! I will be posting a long jumble of my own thoughts later tonight.
in truth it'll take me months to compose my thoughts, probably wont be able to make any value judgements til the dvd come out.
In the meantime, I'm processing what I think I saw this afternoon, and just damned glad to actually have a new Bondfilm to overanalyse. They certainly have given us a lot of new material to argue about, and that in itself is a good thing.
It's funny, looking back, that LICENCE TO KILL was considered controversial in its day. That movie took risks with the formula, and is--I think--more highly regarded now than it was at the time. Regardless, the Brosnan films continued the post-modernist trend of deconstructing both the formula, and Bond, himself. THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH's bold conceit of turning the Bond girl into the villain still floors me 22 years later.
But all of that was peripheral, as if Wilson and Broccoli were aware of the cultural legacy/baggage of Bond, and were letting the audience know that the cliches and tropes of Bond could be mocked and enjoyed at the same time.
The Craig films--at their best and their worst--throw everything out. We're starting over.
These five films are operatic, with big drama, big action, anger, betrayal, and lots of love. Somehow, it's not too much, and it's probably because of Craig. He is a star-of-sorts outside of Bond. But as Bond he is somehow extremely charismatic and compelling, and ALWAYS interesting to watch, even when he's driving you crazy. That's why they pay him so much and let him be a producer (remember, that's what Connery wanted, and when he was denied, he quit!). All of Bond is under scrutiny, and--since CASINO ROYALE was a clear reboot--nothing is off the table.
I was glad, a few years ago, to hear that Craig was returning, if only because the Blofeld and Spectre concepts were too big to let go of after one movie, and I couldn't see them being carried further with a new actor who wouldn't/couldn't be a foster brother to Blofeld. (Whether that Oberhauser business was a good idea or not, it would be worse to just abandon it without further analysis.)
But, like many, I've been very frustrated with EON dragging out the production of these films. Why they can't make smaller films with great characters and just enough action like FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE is beyond me. (Sure, audiences may not accept a scaled-down Bond, but they will have--potentially--just as much trouble accepting an action-packed spectacular featuring a very wounded, angry, and unlikable Bond, so I can't see the one risk as worse than the other, since the FRWL solution would cost $100 million less.)
So I'd just gotten tired of waiting, and, since I loved the end of SPECTRE, I wasn't really interested in seeing Bond's world fall apart again. I went to see NO TIME TO DIE simply because I haven't missed a Bond film since '95.
I have avoided all spoilers and chatter about the film. I had a feeling Bond might die, but the rest of it was shocking. These moments stood out, starting with the extremely long--and, yes, THE BEST, pre-title sequence:
--The gun is under the sink, next to the bleach; now we know what we're seeing, with no annoying introductory title card announcing location and date--right away we know that the producers are willing to empower the audience, and, indeed, we are spoon-fed NOTHING during NO TIME TO DIE
--The masked villain, seen through the wavy-glass door
--When Madeline tells Bond to go faster, it's got to be a reference to the novel OHMSS, where Tracy suggests they speed up to avoid the Maserati, and Bond tells her not to worry...just before she's shot
--Bond says "We have all the time in the world," and we cut to an overhead shot with Barry's score no longer obliquely referenced, like in the ski scene in TWINE, but quoted verbatim; tears filled my eyes as I found myself grateful to have lived long enough to see the franchise circle back to the greatest of the films; once, the red-headed stepchild--now, the jewel in the crown
--The tinkly piano Vesper music cue at the tomb was a little too much for me, and I wonder if silence coupled with a gust of wind would have been better
--Seeing the Spectre calling card was a real thrill
--Bond's jump off the bridge was spectacular, particularly because no time was wasted with point-of-view shots and Bond-reaction shots to convey Bond's thought processes; he just DOES it, and we grasp the feasiblity/survivability of it within seconds, as it's happening
--I didn't notice that Madeline was packing, but I, too, must admit I was thinking she set him up, and it was just like the betrayal in CASINO ROYALE all over again--crushing
--Bond letting the bad guys shoot the Aston Martin was INCREDIBLE; he didn't even flinch, and I got the feeling he would have been happy to die right there (but now it makes sense that he wanted to torture Madeline [who IS freaked out] and, perhaps, find out if the bad guys would leave her alone, confirming that she'd betrayed him)
As for the rest, let me just say this:
It's amusing that Bond assumes Nomi and Paloma both want to sleep with him. Some see this as a further watering-down of the womanizing Bond, destroyed by feminism. I think it's more complicated than that. First, I am conflicted, as Womanizing Bond has never been something in the franchise I've been proud of (I think Bond-in-the-clinch with Jinx as the low point in the series). Casual sex is far more consequential than the series has acknowledged. So I am proud of Bond as a strong man who leads and protects, and I am ashamed of Bond-as-a-cad who sleeps around and uses women indiscriminately. Still, fans are right to be concerned that if we get rid of Oversexed Bond we will end up with a weak hero hamstrung by self-doubt who--if he's even able to complete the mission--will probably feel guilty about killing everybody, and will blame his superiors for manipulating him into becoming a soulless "blunt instrument."
CASINO ROYALE built on the so-called 'safe-sex' Bond of THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS. In CR, Bond ditched a beautiful woman so he could go kill her up-to-no-good husband. Then, the producers decided at the last minute not to have Bond and Vesper have sex in the shower, after the stairway fight. So when they finally slept together, after having been through thick and thin together, it really meant something. And then Bond was absolutely obsessed with her (he's still fixated four films later!). And when she betrayed him, and killed herself, it was a big, big deal.
The series continued on this path, more or less. Sex was less frequent, and often fraught with danger (e.g., Fields dead, drenched in oil).
Also, since we're talking consensual sex (Bond hasn't tried to rape anybody since GOLDFINGER), girl-power feminists are definitely not the problem. This trend isn't a concession to 'woke-ism,' or Me Too, but it might be a concession to families who are desperately trying to find decent entertainment for teenagers.
And Craig is getting old. We don't want him pairing off with girls thirty years younger than him, like Roger Moore in A VIEW TO A KILL, a point canoe2 made well.
Giving Bond a would-be-wife and child forces him to get over himself, such that he can finally be the fully actualized, no-longer "damaged" man we've been rooting for, wishing for, all these years. It's a shame he will not be with his daughter. But the last scene stands out because, while children who grow up without a father DO suffer, they do not suffer in the same way as children whose parents get divorced, or children who never see their dead-beat dads. Her father died a hero, nanobot speculation notwithstanding. She will struggle without him, but her image of him is secure. He did the right thing when it counted. And she'll remember that he loved her, and protected her from Safin.
We almost have a meta-narrative twist at the end of the film. Lazenby's Bond failed his wife. She died. Craig's Bond saves Madeline and his daughter, and "We" becomes "YOU have all the time in the world." Looking at the Craig years in toto, it's almost as if Bond has been reincarnated, and--this time--he got it right.
One more thing--I'm ashamed to admit I got Dalton's Aston Martin and Lazenby's Aston Martin confused, and I thought Craig had Lazenby's in storage. Upon reflection, I really wish he had a spare Series I Lotus Esprit in blizzard white, and we could wonder for the rest of the movie what kind of gadgets were under the hood. (I hate that the Moore films seem to be slipping away from our cultural memory.)
Overall, I enjoyed the film, but I'll need to see it again before I can begin to figure it all out.
I think a lot of what you write is there intellectually, just not always explored dramatically.
But regarding Bond's alleged rapes, it's interesting how mores have changed. If we look at the two scenes usually brought up -- Pussy Galore in Goldfinger and Pat Fearing in Thunderball 00 the intended context is that they're playing hard to get, a common trope in those days. And Bond, with his usual profound human insight, knows this. That they both surrender to their hidden passions, eagerly once they do, and after are enamored with Bond is further proof.
But to the "woke" modern eye, these are clearly violations, regardless of how they were intended and how audiences in 1964 and 1965 may have seen them.
That's interesting because perspective, of course, is relative and what we see -- or don't see -- impacts it.
We seem to only notice such things in some instances but not others. For instance, in The World is Not Enough, Bond's physician essentially agrees to give him a clean bill of health in exchange for Bond's sexual favors. (This is similar, by the way, to the psychologist in Goldeneye.) Of course, because of our perspective, we see Bond as the one manipulating her, but in reality, she's the one in the power position. If we go by modern standards, she has the authority to make or break Bond's return to duty, and because she is in the power position, her quid pro quo exchange is based on her soliciting sex from him. If a man in that position had done this, there would probably be quick recognition of the power imbalance. In Quantum of Solace, Bond sleeps with Fields, but she's an underling (as one might argue is Vesper Lynd). If Bond is in a supervisory position, should he be sleeping with these women? Is this a violation, too?
On some level, we can say the same for Bond and Severigne. He comes aboard the ship, slips into the shower, and becomes immediately physical with her. There is no verbal exchange or agreement on her part. The argument could be made that she invited him, but that was only to meet aboard ship. A further argument could be made that she doesn't literally say, "No," so therefore, her body language conveys her agreement. But if she were to say the next day that she felt cornered, her space invaded, and Bond's imposing physicality and simply did not fight back -- regardless of whether she enjoyed the physical act or not -- are we not in the same territory? What about when Bond pushes Sciarra's wife against the wall to kiss her?
My point is not to debate each and every turn but merely to say that it's an area with changing definitions and moving contexts, subject further to the decisions we might make about whether or not to look for it in some situations versus others based, in part, on our politics. But outside of a signed and notarized agreement drawn up by attorneys, I'm not sure dramatically there is always the clarity we seek, even if we think there is, about a violation.
I was traveling when No Time to Die premiered and didn't get a chance to see it until a week ago. I’m not sure why it’s taken so long to collect my thoughts, especially since I wasn't able to get anything major done until I did. This is a film that gives you plenty of food for thought, and unlike its predecessor you can't be indifferent to it. Apologies in advance for the length of my comments. They're so long I'm dividing them into two parts.
This is certainly the best-directed Bond film in years. Skyfall had moments of style and Spectre had a stylish precredits sequence, but No Time to Die is genuinely stylish. And what is a Bond movie without style? The compositions, camera placement and angles, and production design (by Mark Tildesley) are a pleasure. Cary Joji Fukunaga and Linus Sandgren can take a richly deserved bow and are welcome to return for a future outings.
The lengthy pre-credits sequence had more verve, excitement, and style than all of Spectre[/i], though I wish Craig hadn’t speedwalked through the gunbarrel again. Michael Wood in the [i]London Review of Books[/i] makes a fascinating point: this is the first Bond film to devote so much time to memory via flashback, and the flashback is within the memories of the female protagonist. When was the last time so much of a Bond film took place in the heroine’s head?
The pre-credits action sequence is also the most memorable in the entire film. The “Oh s%&*” moment when the Aston was surrounded gave real chills, while the machine gun donut is the sort of clever solution required to prevent action from growing stale (as it does toward the end). As Bond took on Spectre's minions I thought back to Raymond Chandler's comments on Bond in his review of Diamonds Are Forever: "I like him when he is exposing himself unarmed to half a dozen thin-lipped professional killers, and neatly dumping them into a heap of fractured bones."
The film also succeeds in balancing sex appeal with the modern obligation for strong/"badass” female characters. Paloma is charming; her scenes are the only universally praised part of the film, perhaps because they have a lightness and playfulness that the remainder of the movie lacks. Finally, someone who's really enjoying themself! As for new 007 Nomi, she gets to be competent and feisty without overshadowing or thoroughly one-upping Bond, as Wai Lin did.
However, I did find her switch in attitudes toward Bond sudden, as if a page had been dropped from the script. I didn’t think there was an issue with Bond not sleeping with Paloma or Nomi; the audience got to feast its eyes on the pretty ladies without having to worry about how awkward an aging Craig might look with them in bed. One thing that slightly bothers me: as several people have said, both characters could be excised from the script without major damage to the story. I wouldn’t want that, but it suggests the script wasn’t fully developed.
Many have remarked on M’s behavior, and how feckless and/or malevolent it looks. I think the film missed a trick by not giving M a chance to express his motivations. Presumably he thought he was saving lives, by avoiding messy drone strikes. The film also doesn’t stress that his scheme would have also made the double-O section redundant. More could have been done with this and the reaction of the double-O section if the movie wasn’t so focused on “Bond’s story.”
What’s the point of Tanner in these movies? What does he do that Moneypenny can’t? In the books he was Bond’s closest friend in the Service and a refuge from M’s coldness, a way of figuring out what the old man was really thinking. In these films he’s M’s lapdog, a boob of a bureaucrat. Get rid of the character or repurpose him. Moneypenny could have used his screentime.
Felix’s death was a shock. “How will they deal with this in the future?” I thought oh so innocently.
No Time to Die charges out of the gate and gradually slows and sags, especially in the third act. The action sequences become less inventive and more laborious; the shoot-em-up toward the end was something out of a bad video game and badly needed trimming. A film like this should tighten up toward the end.
Zimmer’s score is adequate, if not memorable. If I was doing the score I would not want to quote John Barry—that inevitably makes me the lesser presence. Bond’s death music was pretty but so generic I wondered if it was recycled from somewhere else too.
The Slavic scientist is way too broadly played, right down to his cartoon accent. He’s a refugee from another film and hamfisted comic relief. His vicious racist turn is out-of-the-blue and he might have been a more interesting villain if we'd gotten hints of its earlier. It's like the film decided at the last minute to make an analogue of the trolls who whined about a black female 007. That would have been a good idea if explored earlier on. His death cues the corniest line in the film. I can take bad puns and wordplay--I liked "blew his mind" because it capped a truly violent death--but they have to be really good if they're also going to reference the film title.
The film does a fine job tying up and redeeming the loose ends from Spectre—whether that was worthwhile obligation is another matter—but gives shorter shrift to newer material. Rami Malek has a good creepy villain voice and demeanor but his character is an underwritten afterthought. His interest in Madeline and Matilde remains sketchy and abstract (as the film was afraid of just making him a pervert). He has to carry two plots—the destruction of Spectre and the exploitation of Project Heracles—and while his motivation for the first is simple and clear, the second is conveyed in a vaporous speech of convenience. It might have been better to just make him venal: he wants big bucks from selling the nanobot-virus and doesn’t care how many die as a result.
I wish Spectre and Blofeld hadn’t been introduced into the Craig era—introducing them in one film and killing them off in the next just wasn’t worth it. The organization and its leader were always meant to have more mileage. The first cycle of Bond films understood that, even with their shambolic approach to continuity.
I guess as an amateur Fleming scholar I should have been pleased by “Die Blofeld, die!” and the garden of death. But I’d rather see these elements not introduced rather than presented as sawn-off allusions. Don’t bother with the Garden of Death if you’re not going to do much with it. I don’t need or want Easter Eggs. If you can’t adapt Fleming without ripping sections out of context and drastically foreshortening them, you needn’t bother. Save the Fleming stuff for a later film. I’ll be satisfied if there’s material in his spirit instead of letter.
I was shocked to hear Bond say “we have all the time in the world,” then even more shocked to hear the song quoted on the soundtrack. And requoted. And then the end credits not merely quoted but recycled Louis Armstrong’s “We Have All the Time in the World.” I found this vampiric and cynical: the film knows older fans are predisposed to love this material and transfer its emotional weight to the film doing the quoting, while fans unfamiliar with OHMSS will immediately incorporate the borrowings into NTTD.
But the recyclings hammer in the message—this is Craig’s [i]On Her Majesty’s Secret Service[/i]. It too will have epic length, an extra-emotional special story, and a stunning ending. The film is a going-away present for having the longest and most commercially (and probably critically) successful run of any Bond actor.
You can retroactively hear the wheels turning in the filmmakers’ heads: Let’s give Craig a big send-off, his very own OHMSS—the template for a special Bond film. That had Bond falling in love and getting married, but we can’t simply repeat that. Let’s raise the ante—Bond re-falls in love, gets a “wife”--and a kid! Now for the special tragic ending…well, we can’t just kill the Bond girl again, and killing the kid would be too much. And we can't have Bond settling down with his family--that'll leave people wondering if they’ll be in later films. Solution: Kill Bond. Don't just kill him though, give him the complete heroic death, sacrificing himself for country and family. That'll complete his personal arc!
The deck is stacked for death, what with Bond getting shot to pieces, having to staying behind to reopen the base doors, getting nano-poisoned in a way that threatens his new family, etc. Substituting Fleming's YOLT ending wouldn't work--it was already done in [i]Skyfall[/i] and it would still leave Bond with a "wife" and kid out there. Bond's genuine death signals a mandatory reboot and continuity wipe of his new family.
Spectre, structured to be Craig’s last film in case he didn't return to the series, ended with him happily driving off into the sunset with his true love, his “personal arc” resolved. Craig’s return required restarting the “personal arc” machine because that became the formula of his tenure—Bond undergoing various stations of the cross. The second opportunity to bid Craig farewell meant he couldn’t just ride into the sunset again. Something bigger was needed.
So the Craig era wraps up in over-compensation. Bond re-finds true love! Bond has a kid! Bond dies the ultimate hero’s death! Bond cures cancer! (I might have made the last one up.) Sensing the grandiose contrivance behind this self-conscious self-apotheosis is part of what left me emotionally uninvolved by the finale. I wasn’t angry or outraged depressed…or tearful and happy. The problem is that I didn't feel much of anything. I just thought, “Oh. They’re going there.”
I'm not necessarily dead-set against the idea of Bond dying, and the idea of Craig’s era being a separate continuity that can be closed off with Bond’s death is indisputable. But since my allegiance is to the series as a whole, part of me still thinks no Bond actor should enjoy the privilege of portraying the character’s death, regardless of his personal issues. That said, I don't think much of the audience will be confused or outraged by this—Bond is doing what plenty of superhero films and comics have already done. That’s part of my problem with the last act, but more on that later.
I’m still trying to figure out why I wasn’t moved and why the death scene didn’t strike me as the finest way for Bond to go. In scripts terms it seems overdetermined and schematic. Visually it consists of Bond waiting around for rockets to vaporize him while he holds last minute cellphone conversations. I was moved more by Bond cheerfully proposing to light a cigarette under the rocket in Moonraker. (“ ‘Cheer up,’ he said, walking over to her and taking one of her hands. ‘The boy stood on the burning deck. I’ve wanted to copy him since I was five.’”) It goes to the core of the character in all his incarnations.
Part of my problem might be that Bond's new family is not one I find very involving. Craig and Lea Seydoux have more chemistry here than in Spectre, but not enough to make their characters’ relationship flame into life. Madeline still seems over-determined as Bond’s last and greatest love. Seydoux is recessive performer, without the charisma and inner fire of Diana Rigg or the siren presence of Eva Green. She looks perpetually uncomfortable, as if she was waiting to go back to arthouse films. There isn’t a deep sense of connection with Craig, whose own performance style is minimalist and closed-off; his rhythms and hers never meet. No sparks fly because their acting styles refuse to complement.
The child actress who plays Matilde is adorable, but the character doesn’t have much personality—she’s there to look innocent and wide-eyed and be symbolic. Bond getting a woman pregnant and walking away has been done; Bond acting as a full-fledged father, and having a child play a large part in Bond film, is unprecedented. And perhaps a violation of the character’s fundamental appeal. Much of Bond’s attraction lies in being an escape from the humdrum real world, including domesticity. It’s why children never figured in the books or films up to now. Fleming took Bond up to the threshold of domesticity in OHMSS--and then dashed the prospect at the devastating last minute, because domesticity is what Bond is supposed to be an escape from. NTTD crosses that threshold; now we see Bond preparing breakfast for his child, driving his family around in a Range Rover, guarding his child from supervillains, etc. I found something deflating in this. Turning a powerful fantasy character into yet another devoted dad and husband—one of us—brings him too far down to earth.
I also disliked how the film treats having a (de facto) wife and child as the apex of human existence, rather than an embodiment of the everyday world Bond—whether on film or on the page—is in perpetual flight from. Bond is a “man of war”; when not on the job he is bored and subject to accidie. He ceases to be interesting in the real world, including the world of domesticity. He needs his job to save him from boredom. He feels most alive when on the job, and the idea that a “wife” and child would really compensate for his job's absence would be depressingly sentimental if true.
Every Bond story has to find a balance between fantasy and its emotional counterweight. In return for living a life of danger and hardship, Bond reaps the rewards of the high life. For that danger to ring true there must be moments when Bond’s emotions are engaged, when “death is so permanent” and suffering is real. The deaths of Tracy and Vesper are painful reminders of this. At the back of an effective Bondian fantasy there should a whisper of melancholy, which ultimately makes the fantasy stronger. But the whisper shouldn't become a scream: the novel of You Only Live Twice has a chapter of outright depression, but it’s also the Bond novel with the most quips. The right balance gives the fantasy a seductive plausibility and emotional foundation. The wrong balance results in a Bond who’s a hedonistic, callow, fop--or a glum and joyless bruiser.
Craig’s Bond is obviously keyed to an age where everyone is working through trauma and mental health issues. But his films have occasionally strained the fantasy they were ostensibly made to project. The relentless insistence on Bond being broken and neurotic, in need of healing, the ponderous approach to these issues, the bloated running times and awkward plot structures, the heaviness…
The fact that numerous screenwriters have tried giving Bond a child and making him a father perhaps points to a sense of exhaustion. There’s a limited number of novelties that can be wrought upon the character's personal life. What’s left? Nor is giving him a child a step into uncharted territory. The trope of a cold-hearted protagonist discovering his humanity through a lost child has been done everywhere from superhero films to TV shows like The Blacklist. Bond’s death will also seem a familiar trope to anyone raised on comics and fantasy-based films. It’s what you do nowadays when your series has played itself out. Kill everyone off, then return with new actors, crew, and continuity a few years later. (Some critics have also compared NTTD's ending to that of Armageddon.)
“I want to tell you a story of a man. His name was Bond, James Bond.” This sounds less like plausible dialogue between mother and daughter than high-flown self-mythologizing. Tom Sawyer got a laugh out of enjoying his own funeral. The franchise gets Christopher Nolan-style self-importance.
NTTD is less an organically-germinated story than a series of objectives around which a story was built—Bond must complete his “story arc” and “personal journey”, enjoying his apotheosis and glorious finale. I grant that NTTD closes out Craig’s “personal arc.” Though I sometimes ask which personal arc? The one resolved at the end of Quantum of Solace? Skyfall? Spectre? How many endings does this arc require? Is he having one in the afterlife as we speak? So many personal journeys. And now he’s journeyed into having a partner and child, which means journeying out of being James Bond. I don't want to see a personal arc where James Bond learns how to be ordinary. I don’t think it adds anything to the character to know that he would sacrifice himself for his family. Who among us wouldn't, aside from deadbeats? It was more unusual and special to have a hero so ready sacrifice himself for his country.
Comic book & comic book film continuity is less a floating continuity—that of the old Bond films, where Roger Moore could briefly reveal he was the same character Lazenby played and then get back to fighting Jaws—than a thousand continuities. Hard reboots are profitable, attention-getting, and easy to find excuses for. You can start and restart stories ad infinitum. Just bring in the new talent and start a new timeline. Batman rides off into the sunset as Christian Bale but returns a few years later as Ben Affleck in a different world from an entirely different creative team and vision. Now we do the same thing with Bond actors, except that the next Bond film after NTTD will be produced by the same people (even if Michael G. Wilson stands down, his son will take over). I wouldn’t be surprised if Purvis and Wade returned either.
If the next actor to play Bond is popular with the public and appears in several well-regarded films over the course of a decade of more, he’ll probably get his own death and apotheosis too. And if later actors enjoy the same luck, fans 60 years from now might be comparing Bond’s deaths the way we compare Bond’s cars. The door’s been opened.
I know that floating continuity started collapsing with Casino Royale, but its maintenance had kept Bond different from other action franchises. Those had to have complete reboots because each really was a separate series, whereas Bond was a family affair stretching back to 1962. Bond’s death in NTTD marks a full admission that the comic book/ comic book film approach to continuity and death has prevailed.
But just as floating continuity gave plenty of opportunities for starting over, so does NTTD, which has taken the Craig approach as far as it can go. (A glorious apotheosis or a dead end, depending on your mindset.) And I hope when the series returns it rely less on cannibalizing its past (OHMSS will forever remain unique for being the first "personal" Bond story and being the least self-conscious about it) or repeating tropes set by bigger-grossing franchises. I would like Bond films to stand on their own merits again. How long has it been since a Bond film set the trends for action/adventure films? Not just in content but in style. Moviegoers went out of something like Goldfinger thoroughly dazzled—there was nothing else like it on the screen. Now I go out of a Bond film thinking about all the tropes it’s emulating. You don't need ever more elaborate personal problems to wring emotion out of Bond--a well-told story can do that instead. It's time for the series to ensure first and foremost that it's delivering sophisticated, dazzling thrillers.
Congratulations to Daniel Craig on all his achievements as James Bond. No Time to Die won't dethrone Casino Royale and Skyfall as his finest outings as 007, but third place is still an honorable one. One with the next Bond and the inevitable--and much desired--series course correction.
@Revelator I'd just like to say an enormous thank-you for that marvellous review. I posted a review 24 hours after viewing the movie and I don't think I conveyed what I really felt about NTTD. Having had over a month to reflect on it, reading articles, comments on here, reviews, etc, I have managed to align my thoughts, but I haven't been able to put finger to keyboard, I'm too worn out to care. So imagine my face breaking into a nodding, knowing smile as I read your couple of thousand words: what a joy. I am in almost complete agreement with what you wrote - which maybe helped - but you have articulated the film's and CraigBond arc's fundamental minuses and pluses with substance and clarity and balance. I barely disagree with a word. If there was an AJB award for review of the year, I'd give it to you, that was sublime. Fantastic. Thank you again.
Check out my Amazon author page!Mark Loeffelholz
"I am not an entrant in the Shakespeare Stakes." - Ian Fleming
"Screw 'em." - Daniel Craig, The Best James Bond EverTM
Brilliant review, expressed far more eloquently than I could have done, but pretty much sums up everything I felt about the film too. I was curiously unmoved by the ending too, but then afterwards annoyed that EON didn't go the whole hog and gave us Sparrows Tears from the YOLT novel, but like you mentioned, it would be difficult to do this as it was clear from the outset that they wanted to kill Bond off.
And I agree, if they are going to do Fleming, do it properly, instead of token gestures.
I discovered this forum whilst searching the web for self-righteous outrage over the termination of our hero, but I'm relieved to find insight and nuance on these pages to temper my own anger (the wine didn't sufficiently numb the pain).
I'll start by stating that Craig's turn should have remained a triptych, ending with Skyfall. Throughout, we are left in no doubt of the physical and mental effects on Bond of three key events: the poisoning by Le Chiffre, the death of Vespa and the shot by Moneypenny which nearly kills him. His efforts in Quantum of Solace are admirable but I wasn't fooled by the discarding of the necklace; recall the haunted look on his face at the beach bar in Fethiye and his apathy and cynicism over the testing process. This is a tired and damaged man, unfit for service, who drags himself into another personal crisis that leaves him drained and disillusioned, so it is unrealistic to expect he will have anything left to offer after the destruction of his ancestral home and the death of M. Hence why, at the time, I observed that Craig phoned in his performance for Spectre, a completely unnecessary instalment which has spawned an equally unnecessary fifth outing. As an actor and a person, Craig invested a great deal of himself in the first three films and there's a palpable sense of relief within his performance for No Time To Die.
Speaking of which...
This was a mess: lazy, clumsy and muddled. I was horrified by the announcement of Waller-Bridge from the outset and nothing I have seen and heard changes that. Purvis and Wade fully understand the character and her inclusion smacks of nothing more than tokenism; others are welcome to disagree, but I found Fleabag to be utterly unfunny, self-reverential tosh, perfectly placed within a public broadcaster that has completely lost touch with reality. What was her purpose here? Has she fulfilled her brief as a writer?
There was much grumbling in the build up of Lynch being a 'diversity hire' inserted to tick the strong, black and female box, yet here she is positioned weakly, willing to blithely surrender her hard-earned 00 number over a flippant comment from Bond. A reference is made to Q's homosexuality - we shouldn't care - and Moneypenny has been finally boiled down to the mundane secretarial role so suited to Lois Maxwell's cheery bonhomie, but demeaning to a tough and forthright ex-field agent whose one glaring mishap came only from following orders. I'm almost insulted that Harris acquiesced to her character giving up so easily. So much for equality of outcomes.
An entire backstory runs through this franchise based around the relevance of one character (Blofeld) to the protagonist, then he dies quietly off-screen in a mediocre sequence which presents no emotional closure. We are also encouraged to view Paloma's contribution as simply a breezy interlude; a young slip of a girl in a cocktail dress and heels lays waste to grown men and returns to the office with a wave and a smile, whilst Bond plays the puritan and keeps his manly urges in check. Bibi Dahl meets Jinx for the Tarantino Generation. Jarring. And please join me for a slow hand clap to celebrate the artistic licence involved in having Bond sail from Jamaica to Cuba and arrive precisely alongside Nomi, given that at 30mph that journey takes at least 5 hours and the plane ride is under 90 minutes. Did she oversleep or simply couldn't resist the two-for-one lunchtime special at Big Al's Seafood Shack?
I also wasn't impressed with the hackneyed lines and aerial shots borrowed from old Bond films. There's no end of recycling and at one moment I was sorely tempted to shout "Welcome Mr Powers, to my underground lair". The inclusion of Louis Armstrong is cringe and it's a shame we didn't get a fight on a train, but of course they did that last time. Again. The only segment of this fumbling, mumbling affair which provided genuine atmosphere was the descent into the woods, a pleasant optic which took me back to Fukunaga's finest work, the excellent True Detective. Otherwise the pacing was slow and disjointed, the occupational hazard of employing a director used to structuring episodic television.
And that finale. Dear God, that finale.
The why's and wherefores of killing off 007 have been debated at length already so I'll not add to it, but the enduring image of this film will remain the close-up of a bloodied, aged James Bond, snivelling 'I love you' in a pathetic and defeated voice as he prepares for death. And this my friends is the staggering audacity of those involved laid bare for us all to see, for this was nothing more than a hit piece: an assault on straight, white, heterosexual men everywhere. For in the closing seconds of his life, Bond the prospective father, protector and role model, is reduced to a martyr surrounded by strong, capable women. When gifted his final chance to be a person of genuine value, he dies alone blubbing like a baby having learned nothing from his mistakes. That this spurious ending is influenced by the minds of feminists and identitarians is no surprise. They are appalled by white male power and have greedily grasped the opportunity to eviscerate an icon of British masculinity. This ending had more than a little scent of spite. The shame of it.
thanks for that link @Loeffelholz . More positive than many of the reviews here. Less of a complaint about how it should have been done differently, more of an analysis of what we actually got.
one particular bit I like is the contrast between Safin and Bond's legacies, and the irony Mr Licenced to Kill should be the one to leave behind a child. This is from Fleming, only Fleming's Bond never knew he had achieved this. It might be worth some discussion how Fleming did tell the story of Bond's fatherhood.
__________________
SirTalbotBuxomly said:
this was nothing more than a hit piece: an assault on straight, white, heterosexual men everywhere. For in No Time To Die, Bond the prospective father, protector and role model, is reduced to a man who ultimately wasn't up to scratch even whilst surrounded by strong, capable women. Eviscerated and irrelevant, when gifted his final chance to be a person of genuine value, he dies alone blubbing like a baby having learned nothing from his previous failures. The shame of it all.
first of all welcome to ajb007 Buxomly. Good code name! and good first post, lots to discuss in there
An assault on straight, white, heterosexual men everywhere is a bit much. I didn't take the end of the fantasy personally, I hope other straight, white, heterosexual men are secure enough in their identity they don't feel threatened by the death of a fictional character.
And did Bond fail? M explicitly gives three goals for the mission: contain Herakles, kill Safin, and get Madeleine and her daughter safe. Bond succeeded in all three. He even sees mother and child escape on the lifeboat (technically a zodiac but visually...), a clever inversion of the recurring ending of the classic Connery films.
_________________
@Revelator awesome analysis! exactly the kind of encyclopedic review I'd hope for from you! Not that I agree, but I am in awe of the detail and logic in your argument.
I hope your review gets restored @SirTalbotBuxomly especially since I only quoted the most controversial bit (as its good for debate). The whole review was much longer and more nuanced than the bit I quoted.
I think we have some sort of automated SPAM filter which is ultrasensitive to new member's posts.
Thank you for the kind words @chrisno1 , @Charmed & Dangerous , @Glidrose007 , and @caractacus potts . I was a bit nervous about posting such a long and eccentric review, so I'm very glad you found it worthwhile and that it expressed what some of you felt. As my review indicated, I overall liked the film but had mixed feelings about its ultimate purpose and message. In any case I'm looking forward to the next Bond film, since the series will undoubtedly undergo a readjustment that might prove very exciting.
I will probably get it in the neck for posting this, but here goes:
I took myself to the local Empire to re-watch NTTD this week, to see if my impressions had changed one way or the other. A few points, which don’t add anything to my initial review, but may cross over with plenty of others:
1. First, the cinema was clean and the auditorium very small, seating about 120. The screen was enormous. I was in the second row. Several times I felt overwhelmed by what I was watching. If anything I was too close. However, the acoustics outshone the Odeon Leicester Square. I managed to pick up almost every word this time out.
2. There’s been a lot of comment about the gun barrel. It was alright. I didn’t miss the blood.
3. The PTS of the PTS was very good. But does it belong in a Bond film? It has nothing to do with Bond, MI6, the ‘mission’ such as it is. It’s a childhood trauma for Madeleine Swann. I was asking myself, which I wasn’t initially, why am I being told so much about Madeleine’s childhood?
4. She shoots Safin with a full clip of bullets. The man is surly dead. He even bleeds – although not from his chest – as Little Madeleine drags him outside. Perhaps he is wearing a bullet proof vest. This is not explained.
5. Didn’t we see people falling into cracked ice in exactly this fashion is Skyfall? I squinted in undisguised fury. Some originality would have been better appreciated.
6. Matera looks beautiful. The “All the time in the world” line was unnecessary, so too the [endless] cues from OHMSS. Hans Zimmer clearly found nothing in the theme tune he could use. I didn’t catch the theme in his score at all. Back to Matera. I liked the idea of burning secrets. It has a romantic edge to it. Unlike most observers, I like Lea Seydoux. I find her unbreakable-china exterior beguiling. Like Bond, I want to discover the secrets she isn’t telling me. I could have done without them exploring each other’s mouths as soon as they set foot in the hotel room, mind. Cliché. Cliché. The writing is good here, developing the lovers’ relationship. The fact Bond decides to bid farewell to Vesper [“Forgive me”] was a good sign he has finally moved on. Bond visits the Lynd mausoleum, then we have a devastating explosion. Very well done.
7. This should have been where we got the titles.
8. Matera chase. Well, it’s great, okay. There are some talking points, but this is where I begin to struggle with the film as details start to be revealed at completely inappropriate moments. Bond is strangling ‘Cyclops’ to death and he wheezes out some half-hearted lies about Madeleine which Bond believes, because he’s a twit and probably because he isn’t really in love, only in need, and I thought: missed that first time out. So too the eye popping from his skull. I hate the way modern films can’t explain themselves in a sensible and coherent manner. Blink and you miss it. Sit in a cinema with a crap sound system and your ####ed. More to the point, why does Cyclops say this? What does it achieve for him? Why doesn’t Bond kill him? The chase goes on, Bond suddenly all mean and nasty and trying to figure out what Madeleine means to him, what lies has she told, what secrets has she held. He doesn’t ask her. He puts her on a train and ####s off. I was squinting again. He’s an assassin, a spy, a member of the espionage community for God’s sake – can’t he, just once, stop and ask a suspect a question? CraigBond makes all his judgements impulsively and badly. It happened way back in CR, resulting in a girl’s death, and twice in QOS, two deaths. No wonder he put poor Madeleine on a train.
9. A comment here said Madeleine hugs her stomach as they part. She doesn’t, she puts a hand on her ribcage, just below her breasts. No womb there. Probably a heart though.
10. A song of perpetual boredom.
11. Some hi jinx in London. I hate the scientist. I can’t even type his name any more. Over the top performance, completely skews every scene he appears in. I noticed Cyclops is still working for Spectre. How does Safin know Spectre will raid the laboratory? How are those files copied so fast? It takes my laptop ages to transfer even a dozen DOCX files, he’s got thousands. They’re not condensed files, we see them later on at Q’s place. That magnet safety device was nifty and a bit sci-fi for me. Overall, and now I’m sounding old, too violent.
12. Jamaica. Bond is retired. He lives in a sort of Goldeneye retreat. I wonder why they didn’t use the real Goldeneye? Felix seems nothing like the Felix we met in either CR or QOS. His mate Logan Ash is annoying. Bond says he smiles too much. He does. It’s a terrible performance. Nomi was horrendous. Arrogant. I thought Bond was off the grid – so far off everyone thought he was dead, admits M, which seems daft as Madeleine Swann is working for him – does nobody function at MI6 without Bond? – but Nomi’s tracked him down alright. Cocky little thing. CraigBond suddenly looks his age.
13. No reason for Bond to join forces with the CIA. He even mentions this to Nomi yet promptly throws himself into the fray with wild abandon. He ought to have a clearer decision making process.
14. Cuba. Bond has a five o’clock shadow for most of this sequence. It’s disappeared by the time he’s piloting the biplane. Lots to love here. Ana de Armas. Ana de Armas in a thigh-showing dinner dress. Ana de Armas drinking vodka martinis. Ana de Armas making Bond look like a your awkward uncle. Ana de Armas kicking ass. Ana de Armas shooting up hell. This had inklings of Bond infiltrating the Spectre meeting in Italy. Repetition only flatters yourself, Eon. There’s some confusing stuff about a roving eye and a misty poison which takes some understanding. I get it now, but on first view this was almost incomprehensible to me. I’d like to thank everyone on AJB for opening my eyes to what the hell is going on here. I miss the days when they explained things properly in a Bond film. A big shoot out. No blood. Very noisy. Did I mention Ana de Armas?
15. Bond takes Oblomov [yeh, whoever] to Felix’s boat. It’s quite a big boat but there’s only Ash and Felix on it. A top notch reveal of the insider. I enjoyed that and I enjoyed it the first time. It seems simply heartless to kill Felix. Couldn’t they have just had a shark bite his leg off or something? Later on Bond refers to him as his ‘brother’ as in ‘my brother from Langley’ but suggesting something deeper. I never saw this in their friendship. Bond seemed closer to Mathis, or Q, even.
16. London. This is the dullest stretch. Nothing happens here and what does could have been wrapped up in five minutes. Why is Bond so antagonistic towards M? Why doesn’t M lay the cards out straight, get the Scooby Gang in immediately, explain the situation? Oh, wait, because then we don’t have a fun little scene in Q’s house and we don’t find out he’s gay and likes cats. I thought Blofeld had the provision on OO7 cats. So, the nanobot DNA virus feels like a genuine big scheme. I like the idea of it being mishandled by Her Majesty’s Secret Service. But, by God, this is slow.
17. Blofeld. Yawn. Christoph Waltz is okay. He dies. I was thinking, Safin visits Madeleine to give her an atomiser with the nanobot poison in it, to persuade her to kill Blofeld. In the end, she doesn’t do it – she doesn’t at this point know how Heracles works – but I’m thinking, Safin knew Bond was at the Spectre meeting, he knew Bond would be likely to return to Blofeld to uncover the mystery of Heracles, so why not have Blofeld’s DNA in the batch released at the Spectre party? Going back to Madeleine and Bond and Blofeld, I did think it was intriguing to have Blofeld explain how he ruined Bond’s chance of happiness [again] by planting a seed of doubt in his mind. He knows our James too well and relied entirely on Bond’s impulsive emotional behaviours. Curious though, as surly the bomb was supposed to kill Bond, so why the need to plant doubt? This is a confrontation which should have come later in the film. I was disappointed Blofeld wasn’t the major villain. Waltz, for all his underplaying is better than Rami Malek, and Blofeld is better than Safin.
18. Nomi’s doing nothing, chasing Ash around the world. She never catches him. She’s a rubbish Double-O.
19. Madeleine has hightailed it back to the place of her childhood trauma. She’s done what? Why would she do this? Why does she still live in the same house where her mother got killed, where her Dad keeps his secrets, where her daughter appears to live speaking French in Norway and without anyone knowing the little darling exists? Is she Bond’s daughter? Probably. I smiled. No one else was. Craig gives an earnest speech about how his biggest regret was putting her on the train. Does he say this because Blofeld told him the truth of the situation, or because he regretted it from the get-go? Not clear, should be made clear, doesn’t really matter in the scheme of things. This is a very serious Bond film. Even the sex is serious. I think they had sex, they wake up together, I’m not sure.
20. A car chase. Dull. Too much gun play again. Nomi is late. Too late. I don’t understand why this car / foot chase is even here or is it considered old hat just to knock a few people out and kidnap someone?
21. The Poison Island. There’s an aerial shot late on in the film which shows the expanse of the Poison Garden. It’s one quarter of the roof of a missile silo. Tiny. Insignificant. Nothing like Fleming wrote, which is presumably the inspiration, but the writers won’t acknowledge it because they don’t call it the Garden of Death. Safin tries to be creepy. It’s really boring. I was extremely disinterested by this point. I wasn’t engaged. I wanted the thing to end. There was a whole chapter given over to Safin describing the garden and the plants to Madeleine and Mathilde. I kept thinking, why isn’t he telling this to Bond? Whose story is this? I didn’t understand what was happening in that enormous water tank. Where did all those workers come from and go to? Did they all get obliterated by the cruise missiles. This climax didn’t engage me enough. Too much gun play, Bond and Nomi striding around without being hit, Safin’s alarmingly simple plot [“Tidying up” – really? Is that the best they could do?] no indication what he’s doing with whom, what’s the significance of the approaching boats, [not warships, boats] I could go on. I won’t.
22. Safin shows Madeleine a vial of the Heracles poison from her hair and I suddenly thought, where did he get the hair from? Then I remembered he was folding a hair inside a handkerchief when he visited her office. But how does he know that is her hair? It could be anyone who happens to be blonde – a cleaner, another patient, anyone, and why is he allowed into the office before the doctor arrives. Never happens. Rubbish.
23. Bond dies. Zimmer's music is suddenly noticeable. Lots of strings. I almost shed a tear. There have been plenty of comments about this. I won’t add to them except to say, I wish they’d ended the film differently. Hell, I wish they’d made an entirely different film. Still, it ends CraigBond’s tenure. At least we can’t have him back.
24. The two codas. The one in the office is ordinary. The one in the Aston Martin is worse than ordinary, almost sickeningly saccharine. The film should have ended as its started with a blazing white expanse of nothingness as the cruise missiles obliterate OO7.
So, did I enjoy it any more or any less? Well, I didn’t not enjoy it. It’s a Bond film, I enjoy them all truth be told, even AVTAK, which for my money is the worst of the worst. For me, NTTD drags too much. I wanted some fun and other than a brief interlude [did I mention Ana de Armas?] there just isn’t any. Second time of asking, a dour experience.
Comments
In Lea Seydoux's defence it must be said she was cast in a very different part than Ana de Armas.
There were very good stunts such as the motorcycle jump in Matera, but can any of them be compared to stunts like the dam jump in GF, the stepping on crocodiles in LALD, the Union Jack ski jump in TSWLM or the jump between the cranes in CR? While the action scenes in NTTD were generally excelent, there were no stunts the audience were likely to rave about after the movie.
That being said, I too notice how very differently people experience movies, perhaps especially NTTD.
The only action sequences that really affected me where in the beginning -- the bits after the explosion at Vesper's tomb and then Craig sitting there contemplative while the bullets pound away at the Aston Martin's glass, for example. When he deploys the miniguns and starts firing, I gave out a little cheer, not at the violence but at the expression of Bond as we've known him -- cool, in control, and resilient in the face of opposition. Part of the reason I'm so disappointed by the ending (as it was expressed) is that Bond is not the same guy, and I didn't believe there was enough in this story to make me believe his transformation.
I thought he was the same guy. But more so and more attuned to the ‘bigger picture’. That there was something out there he’d finally found worth dying for. He’s no longer dwelling on betrayal and distrust, none of that matters anymore. He’s finally free.
Yes; exactly. And I feel it made perfect emotional sense.
"I am not an entrant in the Shakespeare Stakes." - Ian Fleming
"Screw 'em." - Daniel Craig, The Best James Bond EverTM
I think the leap off the bridge with the cable, in the PTS, was brilliant as well...but I feel that this film had bigger fish to fry (so to speak), and Craig's trademark physicality - even in his early fifties! - was in obvious evidence throughout.
"I am not an entrant in the Shakespeare Stakes." - Ian Fleming
"Screw 'em." - Daniel Craig, The Best James Bond EverTM
This is true. Madeleine Swann, as written, is a boring character. By Seydoux's inability to convincingly display emotion doesn't help.
hey fellers! hey wait up! hey, I finally seen the new movie and can hang out with the cool kids again!
yeh, and see I got the No Time to Die t-shirt, and the No Time to Die lunchbox, and the No Time to Die trading cards, and the No Time to Die Happy Meal, with, er, the Bill Tanner action figure cuz it was one of the last ones left...
so who wants to talk about No Time to Die and play with our No Time to Die action figures? I can be Tanner cuz I got the action figure! "ahem, Sir, Russia and Japan are both on the line for you! What should I tell them? Didn't this used to be Moneypenny's job?" fellers? fellers?
(Caractacus finally notices all the cool kids are wearing Dune t-shirts and carrying Dune lunchboxes, and nobody wants to talk about No Time to Die anymore...)
I'm always interested in your own opinions Caractacus, so feel free to discuss NTTD, regardless of what the cool kids are up to! I will be posting a long jumble of my own thoughts later tonight.
Looking forwards to your jumble, @Revelator !
in truth it'll take me months to compose my thoughts, probably wont be able to make any value judgements til the dvd come out.
In the meantime, I'm processing what I think I saw this afternoon, and just damned glad to actually have a new Bondfilm to overanalyse. They certainly have given us a lot of new material to argue about, and that in itself is a good thing.
It's funny, looking back, that LICENCE TO KILL was considered controversial in its day. That movie took risks with the formula, and is--I think--more highly regarded now than it was at the time. Regardless, the Brosnan films continued the post-modernist trend of deconstructing both the formula, and Bond, himself. THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH's bold conceit of turning the Bond girl into the villain still floors me 22 years later.
But all of that was peripheral, as if Wilson and Broccoli were aware of the cultural legacy/baggage of Bond, and were letting the audience know that the cliches and tropes of Bond could be mocked and enjoyed at the same time.
The Craig films--at their best and their worst--throw everything out. We're starting over.
These five films are operatic, with big drama, big action, anger, betrayal, and lots of love. Somehow, it's not too much, and it's probably because of Craig. He is a star-of-sorts outside of Bond. But as Bond he is somehow extremely charismatic and compelling, and ALWAYS interesting to watch, even when he's driving you crazy. That's why they pay him so much and let him be a producer (remember, that's what Connery wanted, and when he was denied, he quit!). All of Bond is under scrutiny, and--since CASINO ROYALE was a clear reboot--nothing is off the table.
I was glad, a few years ago, to hear that Craig was returning, if only because the Blofeld and Spectre concepts were too big to let go of after one movie, and I couldn't see them being carried further with a new actor who wouldn't/couldn't be a foster brother to Blofeld. (Whether that Oberhauser business was a good idea or not, it would be worse to just abandon it without further analysis.)
But, like many, I've been very frustrated with EON dragging out the production of these films. Why they can't make smaller films with great characters and just enough action like FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE is beyond me. (Sure, audiences may not accept a scaled-down Bond, but they will have--potentially--just as much trouble accepting an action-packed spectacular featuring a very wounded, angry, and unlikable Bond, so I can't see the one risk as worse than the other, since the FRWL solution would cost $100 million less.)
So I'd just gotten tired of waiting, and, since I loved the end of SPECTRE, I wasn't really interested in seeing Bond's world fall apart again. I went to see NO TIME TO DIE simply because I haven't missed a Bond film since '95.
I have avoided all spoilers and chatter about the film. I had a feeling Bond might die, but the rest of it was shocking. These moments stood out, starting with the extremely long--and, yes, THE BEST, pre-title sequence:
--The gun is under the sink, next to the bleach; now we know what we're seeing, with no annoying introductory title card announcing location and date--right away we know that the producers are willing to empower the audience, and, indeed, we are spoon-fed NOTHING during NO TIME TO DIE
--The masked villain, seen through the wavy-glass door
--When Madeline tells Bond to go faster, it's got to be a reference to the novel OHMSS, where Tracy suggests they speed up to avoid the Maserati, and Bond tells her not to worry...just before she's shot
--Bond says "We have all the time in the world," and we cut to an overhead shot with Barry's score no longer obliquely referenced, like in the ski scene in TWINE, but quoted verbatim; tears filled my eyes as I found myself grateful to have lived long enough to see the franchise circle back to the greatest of the films; once, the red-headed stepchild--now, the jewel in the crown
--The tinkly piano Vesper music cue at the tomb was a little too much for me, and I wonder if silence coupled with a gust of wind would have been better
--Seeing the Spectre calling card was a real thrill
--Bond's jump off the bridge was spectacular, particularly because no time was wasted with point-of-view shots and Bond-reaction shots to convey Bond's thought processes; he just DOES it, and we grasp the feasiblity/survivability of it within seconds, as it's happening
--I didn't notice that Madeline was packing, but I, too, must admit I was thinking she set him up, and it was just like the betrayal in CASINO ROYALE all over again--crushing
--Bond letting the bad guys shoot the Aston Martin was INCREDIBLE; he didn't even flinch, and I got the feeling he would have been happy to die right there (but now it makes sense that he wanted to torture Madeline [who IS freaked out] and, perhaps, find out if the bad guys would leave her alone, confirming that she'd betrayed him)
As for the rest, let me just say this:
It's amusing that Bond assumes Nomi and Paloma both want to sleep with him. Some see this as a further watering-down of the womanizing Bond, destroyed by feminism. I think it's more complicated than that. First, I am conflicted, as Womanizing Bond has never been something in the franchise I've been proud of (I think Bond-in-the-clinch with Jinx as the low point in the series). Casual sex is far more consequential than the series has acknowledged. So I am proud of Bond as a strong man who leads and protects, and I am ashamed of Bond-as-a-cad who sleeps around and uses women indiscriminately. Still, fans are right to be concerned that if we get rid of Oversexed Bond we will end up with a weak hero hamstrung by self-doubt who--if he's even able to complete the mission--will probably feel guilty about killing everybody, and will blame his superiors for manipulating him into becoming a soulless "blunt instrument."
CASINO ROYALE built on the so-called 'safe-sex' Bond of THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS. In CR, Bond ditched a beautiful woman so he could go kill her up-to-no-good husband. Then, the producers decided at the last minute not to have Bond and Vesper have sex in the shower, after the stairway fight. So when they finally slept together, after having been through thick and thin together, it really meant something. And then Bond was absolutely obsessed with her (he's still fixated four films later!). And when she betrayed him, and killed herself, it was a big, big deal.
The series continued on this path, more or less. Sex was less frequent, and often fraught with danger (e.g., Fields dead, drenched in oil).
Also, since we're talking consensual sex (Bond hasn't tried to rape anybody since GOLDFINGER), girl-power feminists are definitely not the problem. This trend isn't a concession to 'woke-ism,' or Me Too, but it might be a concession to families who are desperately trying to find decent entertainment for teenagers.
And Craig is getting old. We don't want him pairing off with girls thirty years younger than him, like Roger Moore in A VIEW TO A KILL, a point canoe2 made well.
Giving Bond a would-be-wife and child forces him to get over himself, such that he can finally be the fully actualized, no-longer "damaged" man we've been rooting for, wishing for, all these years. It's a shame he will not be with his daughter. But the last scene stands out because, while children who grow up without a father DO suffer, they do not suffer in the same way as children whose parents get divorced, or children who never see their dead-beat dads. Her father died a hero, nanobot speculation notwithstanding. She will struggle without him, but her image of him is secure. He did the right thing when it counted. And she'll remember that he loved her, and protected her from Safin.
We almost have a meta-narrative twist at the end of the film. Lazenby's Bond failed his wife. She died. Craig's Bond saves Madeline and his daughter, and "We" becomes "YOU have all the time in the world." Looking at the Craig years in toto, it's almost as if Bond has been reincarnated, and--this time--he got it right.
One more thing--I'm ashamed to admit I got Dalton's Aston Martin and Lazenby's Aston Martin confused, and I thought Craig had Lazenby's in storage. Upon reflection, I really wish he had a spare Series I Lotus Esprit in blizzard white, and we could wonder for the rest of the movie what kind of gadgets were under the hood. (I hate that the Moore films seem to be slipping away from our cultural memory.)
Overall, I enjoyed the film, but I'll need to see it again before I can begin to figure it all out.
Thanks for reading.
I think a lot of what you write is there intellectually, just not always explored dramatically.
But regarding Bond's alleged rapes, it's interesting how mores have changed. If we look at the two scenes usually brought up -- Pussy Galore in Goldfinger and Pat Fearing in Thunderball 00 the intended context is that they're playing hard to get, a common trope in those days. And Bond, with his usual profound human insight, knows this. That they both surrender to their hidden passions, eagerly once they do, and after are enamored with Bond is further proof.
But to the "woke" modern eye, these are clearly violations, regardless of how they were intended and how audiences in 1964 and 1965 may have seen them.
That's interesting because perspective, of course, is relative and what we see -- or don't see -- impacts it.
We seem to only notice such things in some instances but not others. For instance, in The World is Not Enough, Bond's physician essentially agrees to give him a clean bill of health in exchange for Bond's sexual favors. (This is similar, by the way, to the psychologist in Goldeneye.) Of course, because of our perspective, we see Bond as the one manipulating her, but in reality, she's the one in the power position. If we go by modern standards, she has the authority to make or break Bond's return to duty, and because she is in the power position, her quid pro quo exchange is based on her soliciting sex from him. If a man in that position had done this, there would probably be quick recognition of the power imbalance. In Quantum of Solace, Bond sleeps with Fields, but she's an underling (as one might argue is Vesper Lynd). If Bond is in a supervisory position, should he be sleeping with these women? Is this a violation, too?
On some level, we can say the same for Bond and Severigne. He comes aboard the ship, slips into the shower, and becomes immediately physical with her. There is no verbal exchange or agreement on her part. The argument could be made that she invited him, but that was only to meet aboard ship. A further argument could be made that she doesn't literally say, "No," so therefore, her body language conveys her agreement. But if she were to say the next day that she felt cornered, her space invaded, and Bond's imposing physicality and simply did not fight back -- regardless of whether she enjoyed the physical act or not -- are we not in the same territory? What about when Bond pushes Sciarra's wife against the wall to kiss her?
My point is not to debate each and every turn but merely to say that it's an area with changing definitions and moving contexts, subject further to the decisions we might make about whether or not to look for it in some situations versus others based, in part, on our politics. But outside of a signed and notarized agreement drawn up by attorneys, I'm not sure dramatically there is always the clarity we seek, even if we think there is, about a violation.
I was traveling when No Time to Die premiered and didn't get a chance to see it until a week ago. I’m not sure why it’s taken so long to collect my thoughts, especially since I wasn't able to get anything major done until I did. This is a film that gives you plenty of food for thought, and unlike its predecessor you can't be indifferent to it. Apologies in advance for the length of my comments. They're so long I'm dividing them into two parts.
This is certainly the best-directed Bond film in years. Skyfall had moments of style and Spectre had a stylish precredits sequence, but No Time to Die is genuinely stylish. And what is a Bond movie without style? The compositions, camera placement and angles, and production design (by Mark Tildesley) are a pleasure. Cary Joji Fukunaga and Linus Sandgren can take a richly deserved bow and are welcome to return for a future outings.
The lengthy pre-credits sequence had more verve, excitement, and style than all of Spectre[/i], though I wish Craig hadn’t speedwalked through the gunbarrel again. Michael Wood in the [i]London Review of Books[/i] makes a fascinating point: this is the first Bond film to devote so much time to memory via flashback, and the flashback is within the memories of the female protagonist. When was the last time so much of a Bond film took place in the heroine’s head?
The pre-credits action sequence is also the most memorable in the entire film. The “Oh s%&*” moment when the Aston was surrounded gave real chills, while the machine gun donut is the sort of clever solution required to prevent action from growing stale (as it does toward the end). As Bond took on Spectre's minions I thought back to Raymond Chandler's comments on Bond in his review of Diamonds Are Forever: "I like him when he is exposing himself unarmed to half a dozen thin-lipped professional killers, and neatly dumping them into a heap of fractured bones."
The film also succeeds in balancing sex appeal with the modern obligation for strong/"badass” female characters. Paloma is charming; her scenes are the only universally praised part of the film, perhaps because they have a lightness and playfulness that the remainder of the movie lacks. Finally, someone who's really enjoying themself! As for new 007 Nomi, she gets to be competent and feisty without overshadowing or thoroughly one-upping Bond, as Wai Lin did.
However, I did find her switch in attitudes toward Bond sudden, as if a page had been dropped from the script. I didn’t think there was an issue with Bond not sleeping with Paloma or Nomi; the audience got to feast its eyes on the pretty ladies without having to worry about how awkward an aging Craig might look with them in bed. One thing that slightly bothers me: as several people have said, both characters could be excised from the script without major damage to the story. I wouldn’t want that, but it suggests the script wasn’t fully developed.
Many have remarked on M’s behavior, and how feckless and/or malevolent it looks. I think the film missed a trick by not giving M a chance to express his motivations. Presumably he thought he was saving lives, by avoiding messy drone strikes. The film also doesn’t stress that his scheme would have also made the double-O section redundant. More could have been done with this and the reaction of the double-O section if the movie wasn’t so focused on “Bond’s story.”
What’s the point of Tanner in these movies? What does he do that Moneypenny can’t? In the books he was Bond’s closest friend in the Service and a refuge from M’s coldness, a way of figuring out what the old man was really thinking. In these films he’s M’s lapdog, a boob of a bureaucrat. Get rid of the character or repurpose him. Moneypenny could have used his screentime.
Felix’s death was a shock. “How will they deal with this in the future?” I thought oh so innocently.
No Time to Die charges out of the gate and gradually slows and sags, especially in the third act. The action sequences become less inventive and more laborious; the shoot-em-up toward the end was something out of a bad video game and badly needed trimming. A film like this should tighten up toward the end.
Zimmer’s score is adequate, if not memorable. If I was doing the score I would not want to quote John Barry—that inevitably makes me the lesser presence. Bond’s death music was pretty but so generic I wondered if it was recycled from somewhere else too.
The Slavic scientist is way too broadly played, right down to his cartoon accent. He’s a refugee from another film and hamfisted comic relief. His vicious racist turn is out-of-the-blue and he might have been a more interesting villain if we'd gotten hints of its earlier. It's like the film decided at the last minute to make an analogue of the trolls who whined about a black female 007. That would have been a good idea if explored earlier on. His death cues the corniest line in the film. I can take bad puns and wordplay--I liked "blew his mind" because it capped a truly violent death--but they have to be really good if they're also going to reference the film title.
The film does a fine job tying up and redeeming the loose ends from Spectre—whether that was worthwhile obligation is another matter—but gives shorter shrift to newer material. Rami Malek has a good creepy villain voice and demeanor but his character is an underwritten afterthought. His interest in Madeline and Matilde remains sketchy and abstract (as the film was afraid of just making him a pervert). He has to carry two plots—the destruction of Spectre and the exploitation of Project Heracles—and while his motivation for the first is simple and clear, the second is conveyed in a vaporous speech of convenience. It might have been better to just make him venal: he wants big bucks from selling the nanobot-virus and doesn’t care how many die as a result.
I wish Spectre and Blofeld hadn’t been introduced into the Craig era—introducing them in one film and killing them off in the next just wasn’t worth it. The organization and its leader were always meant to have more mileage. The first cycle of Bond films understood that, even with their shambolic approach to continuity.
I guess as an amateur Fleming scholar I should have been pleased by “Die Blofeld, die!” and the garden of death. But I’d rather see these elements not introduced rather than presented as sawn-off allusions. Don’t bother with the Garden of Death if you’re not going to do much with it. I don’t need or want Easter Eggs. If you can’t adapt Fleming without ripping sections out of context and drastically foreshortening them, you needn’t bother. Save the Fleming stuff for a later film. I’ll be satisfied if there’s material in his spirit instead of letter.
I was shocked to hear Bond say “we have all the time in the world,” then even more shocked to hear the song quoted on the soundtrack. And requoted. And then the end credits not merely quoted but recycled Louis Armstrong’s “We Have All the Time in the World.” I found this vampiric and cynical: the film knows older fans are predisposed to love this material and transfer its emotional weight to the film doing the quoting, while fans unfamiliar with OHMSS will immediately incorporate the borrowings into NTTD.
But the recyclings hammer in the message—this is Craig’s [i]On Her Majesty’s Secret Service[/i]. It too will have epic length, an extra-emotional special story, and a stunning ending. The film is a going-away present for having the longest and most commercially (and probably critically) successful run of any Bond actor.
You can retroactively hear the wheels turning in the filmmakers’ heads: Let’s give Craig a big send-off, his very own OHMSS—the template for a special Bond film. That had Bond falling in love and getting married, but we can’t simply repeat that. Let’s raise the ante—Bond re-falls in love, gets a “wife”--and a kid! Now for the special tragic ending…well, we can’t just kill the Bond girl again, and killing the kid would be too much. And we can't have Bond settling down with his family--that'll leave people wondering if they’ll be in later films. Solution: Kill Bond. Don't just kill him though, give him the complete heroic death, sacrificing himself for country and family. That'll complete his personal arc!
The deck is stacked for death, what with Bond getting shot to pieces, having to staying behind to reopen the base doors, getting nano-poisoned in a way that threatens his new family, etc. Substituting Fleming's YOLT ending wouldn't work--it was already done in [i]Skyfall[/i] and it would still leave Bond with a "wife" and kid out there. Bond's genuine death signals a mandatory reboot and continuity wipe of his new family.
Spectre, structured to be Craig’s last film in case he didn't return to the series, ended with him happily driving off into the sunset with his true love, his “personal arc” resolved. Craig’s return required restarting the “personal arc” machine because that became the formula of his tenure—Bond undergoing various stations of the cross. The second opportunity to bid Craig farewell meant he couldn’t just ride into the sunset again. Something bigger was needed.
So the Craig era wraps up in over-compensation. Bond re-finds true love! Bond has a kid! Bond dies the ultimate hero’s death! Bond cures cancer! (I might have made the last one up.) Sensing the grandiose contrivance behind this self-conscious self-apotheosis is part of what left me emotionally uninvolved by the finale. I wasn’t angry or outraged depressed…or tearful and happy. The problem is that I didn't feel much of anything. I just thought, “Oh. They’re going there.”
[Part two]
I'm not necessarily dead-set against the idea of Bond dying, and the idea of Craig’s era being a separate continuity that can be closed off with Bond’s death is indisputable. But since my allegiance is to the series as a whole, part of me still thinks no Bond actor should enjoy the privilege of portraying the character’s death, regardless of his personal issues. That said, I don't think much of the audience will be confused or outraged by this—Bond is doing what plenty of superhero films and comics have already done. That’s part of my problem with the last act, but more on that later.
I’m still trying to figure out why I wasn’t moved and why the death scene didn’t strike me as the finest way for Bond to go. In scripts terms it seems overdetermined and schematic. Visually it consists of Bond waiting around for rockets to vaporize him while he holds last minute cellphone conversations. I was moved more by Bond cheerfully proposing to light a cigarette under the rocket in Moonraker. (“ ‘Cheer up,’ he said, walking over to her and taking one of her hands. ‘The boy stood on the burning deck. I’ve wanted to copy him since I was five.’”) It goes to the core of the character in all his incarnations.
Part of my problem might be that Bond's new family is not one I find very involving. Craig and Lea Seydoux have more chemistry here than in Spectre, but not enough to make their characters’ relationship flame into life. Madeline still seems over-determined as Bond’s last and greatest love. Seydoux is recessive performer, without the charisma and inner fire of Diana Rigg or the siren presence of Eva Green. She looks perpetually uncomfortable, as if she was waiting to go back to arthouse films. There isn’t a deep sense of connection with Craig, whose own performance style is minimalist and closed-off; his rhythms and hers never meet. No sparks fly because their acting styles refuse to complement.
The child actress who plays Matilde is adorable, but the character doesn’t have much personality—she’s there to look innocent and wide-eyed and be symbolic. Bond getting a woman pregnant and walking away has been done; Bond acting as a full-fledged father, and having a child play a large part in Bond film, is unprecedented. And perhaps a violation of the character’s fundamental appeal. Much of Bond’s attraction lies in being an escape from the humdrum real world, including domesticity. It’s why children never figured in the books or films up to now. Fleming took Bond up to the threshold of domesticity in OHMSS--and then dashed the prospect at the devastating last minute, because domesticity is what Bond is supposed to be an escape from. NTTD crosses that threshold; now we see Bond preparing breakfast for his child, driving his family around in a Range Rover, guarding his child from supervillains, etc. I found something deflating in this. Turning a powerful fantasy character into yet another devoted dad and husband—one of us—brings him too far down to earth.
I also disliked how the film treats having a (de facto) wife and child as the apex of human existence, rather than an embodiment of the everyday world Bond—whether on film or on the page—is in perpetual flight from. Bond is a “man of war”; when not on the job he is bored and subject to accidie. He ceases to be interesting in the real world, including the world of domesticity. He needs his job to save him from boredom. He feels most alive when on the job, and the idea that a “wife” and child would really compensate for his job's absence would be depressingly sentimental if true.
Every Bond story has to find a balance between fantasy and its emotional counterweight. In return for living a life of danger and hardship, Bond reaps the rewards of the high life. For that danger to ring true there must be moments when Bond’s emotions are engaged, when “death is so permanent” and suffering is real. The deaths of Tracy and Vesper are painful reminders of this. At the back of an effective Bondian fantasy there should a whisper of melancholy, which ultimately makes the fantasy stronger. But the whisper shouldn't become a scream: the novel of You Only Live Twice has a chapter of outright depression, but it’s also the Bond novel with the most quips. The right balance gives the fantasy a seductive plausibility and emotional foundation. The wrong balance results in a Bond who’s a hedonistic, callow, fop--or a glum and joyless bruiser.
Craig’s Bond is obviously keyed to an age where everyone is working through trauma and mental health issues. But his films have occasionally strained the fantasy they were ostensibly made to project. The relentless insistence on Bond being broken and neurotic, in need of healing, the ponderous approach to these issues, the bloated running times and awkward plot structures, the heaviness…
The fact that numerous screenwriters have tried giving Bond a child and making him a father perhaps points to a sense of exhaustion. There’s a limited number of novelties that can be wrought upon the character's personal life. What’s left? Nor is giving him a child a step into uncharted territory. The trope of a cold-hearted protagonist discovering his humanity through a lost child has been done everywhere from superhero films to TV shows like The Blacklist. Bond’s death will also seem a familiar trope to anyone raised on comics and fantasy-based films. It’s what you do nowadays when your series has played itself out. Kill everyone off, then return with new actors, crew, and continuity a few years later. (Some critics have also compared NTTD's ending to that of Armageddon.)
“I want to tell you a story of a man. His name was Bond, James Bond.” This sounds less like plausible dialogue between mother and daughter than high-flown self-mythologizing. Tom Sawyer got a laugh out of enjoying his own funeral. The franchise gets Christopher Nolan-style self-importance.
NTTD is less an organically-germinated story than a series of objectives around which a story was built—Bond must complete his “story arc” and “personal journey”, enjoying his apotheosis and glorious finale. I grant that NTTD closes out Craig’s “personal arc.” Though I sometimes ask which personal arc? The one resolved at the end of Quantum of Solace? Skyfall? Spectre? How many endings does this arc require? Is he having one in the afterlife as we speak? So many personal journeys. And now he’s journeyed into having a partner and child, which means journeying out of being James Bond. I don't want to see a personal arc where James Bond learns how to be ordinary. I don’t think it adds anything to the character to know that he would sacrifice himself for his family. Who among us wouldn't, aside from deadbeats? It was more unusual and special to have a hero so ready sacrifice himself for his country.
Comic book & comic book film continuity is less a floating continuity—that of the old Bond films, where Roger Moore could briefly reveal he was the same character Lazenby played and then get back to fighting Jaws—than a thousand continuities. Hard reboots are profitable, attention-getting, and easy to find excuses for. You can start and restart stories ad infinitum. Just bring in the new talent and start a new timeline. Batman rides off into the sunset as Christian Bale but returns a few years later as Ben Affleck in a different world from an entirely different creative team and vision. Now we do the same thing with Bond actors, except that the next Bond film after NTTD will be produced by the same people (even if Michael G. Wilson stands down, his son will take over). I wouldn’t be surprised if Purvis and Wade returned either.
If the next actor to play Bond is popular with the public and appears in several well-regarded films over the course of a decade of more, he’ll probably get his own death and apotheosis too. And if later actors enjoy the same luck, fans 60 years from now might be comparing Bond’s deaths the way we compare Bond’s cars. The door’s been opened.
I know that floating continuity started collapsing with Casino Royale, but its maintenance had kept Bond different from other action franchises. Those had to have complete reboots because each really was a separate series, whereas Bond was a family affair stretching back to 1962. Bond’s death in NTTD marks a full admission that the comic book/ comic book film approach to continuity and death has prevailed.
But just as floating continuity gave plenty of opportunities for starting over, so does NTTD, which has taken the Craig approach as far as it can go. (A glorious apotheosis or a dead end, depending on your mindset.) And I hope when the series returns it rely less on cannibalizing its past (OHMSS will forever remain unique for being the first "personal" Bond story and being the least self-conscious about it) or repeating tropes set by bigger-grossing franchises. I would like Bond films to stand on their own merits again. How long has it been since a Bond film set the trends for action/adventure films? Not just in content but in style. Moviegoers went out of something like Goldfinger thoroughly dazzled—there was nothing else like it on the screen. Now I go out of a Bond film thinking about all the tropes it’s emulating. You don't need ever more elaborate personal problems to wring emotion out of Bond--a well-told story can do that instead. It's time for the series to ensure first and foremost that it's delivering sophisticated, dazzling thrillers.
Congratulations to Daniel Craig on all his achievements as James Bond. No Time to Die won't dethrone Casino Royale and Skyfall as his finest outings as 007, but third place is still an honorable one. One with the next Bond and the inevitable--and much desired--series course correction.
@Revelator I'd just like to say an enormous thank-you for that marvellous review. I posted a review 24 hours after viewing the movie and I don't think I conveyed what I really felt about NTTD. Having had over a month to reflect on it, reading articles, comments on here, reviews, etc, I have managed to align my thoughts, but I haven't been able to put finger to keyboard, I'm too worn out to care. So imagine my face breaking into a nodding, knowing smile as I read your couple of thousand words: what a joy. I am in almost complete agreement with what you wrote - which maybe helped - but you have articulated the film's and CraigBond arc's fundamental minuses and pluses with substance and clarity and balance. I barely disagree with a word. If there was an AJB award for review of the year, I'd give it to you, that was sublime. Fantastic. Thank you again.
🏆️🏆️🏆️
Completely agree, Chrisno1 - that was perhaps the most insightful and intelligent review I've read here - thank you Revelator . 🍸🍸🍸
I believe this is the best review of NTTD I have read:
The Spectre of Death in NO TIME TO DIE – Cultural Conversation (ajblackwriter.com)
"I am not an entrant in the Shakespeare Stakes." - Ian Fleming
"Screw 'em." - Daniel Craig, The Best James Bond EverTM
Well done @Revelator
Brilliant review, expressed far more eloquently than I could have done, but pretty much sums up everything I felt about the film too. I was curiously unmoved by the ending too, but then afterwards annoyed that EON didn't go the whole hog and gave us Sparrows Tears from the YOLT novel, but like you mentioned, it would be difficult to do this as it was clear from the outset that they wanted to kill Bond off.
And I agree, if they are going to do Fleming, do it properly, instead of token gestures.
Hello everyone.
I discovered this forum whilst searching the web for self-righteous outrage over the termination of our hero, but I'm relieved to find insight and nuance on these pages to temper my own anger (the wine didn't sufficiently numb the pain).
I'll start by stating that Craig's turn should have remained a triptych, ending with Skyfall. Throughout, we are left in no doubt of the physical and mental effects on Bond of three key events: the poisoning by Le Chiffre, the death of Vespa and the shot by Moneypenny which nearly kills him. His efforts in Quantum of Solace are admirable but I wasn't fooled by the discarding of the necklace; recall the haunted look on his face at the beach bar in Fethiye and his apathy and cynicism over the testing process. This is a tired and damaged man, unfit for service, who drags himself into another personal crisis that leaves him drained and disillusioned, so it is unrealistic to expect he will have anything left to offer after the destruction of his ancestral home and the death of M. Hence why, at the time, I observed that Craig phoned in his performance for Spectre, a completely unnecessary instalment which has spawned an equally unnecessary fifth outing. As an actor and a person, Craig invested a great deal of himself in the first three films and there's a palpable sense of relief within his performance for No Time To Die.
Speaking of which...
This was a mess: lazy, clumsy and muddled. I was horrified by the announcement of Waller-Bridge from the outset and nothing I have seen and heard changes that. Purvis and Wade fully understand the character and her inclusion smacks of nothing more than tokenism; others are welcome to disagree, but I found Fleabag to be utterly unfunny, self-reverential tosh, perfectly placed within a public broadcaster that has completely lost touch with reality. What was her purpose here? Has she fulfilled her brief as a writer?
There was much grumbling in the build up of Lynch being a 'diversity hire' inserted to tick the strong, black and female box, yet here she is positioned weakly, willing to blithely surrender her hard-earned 00 number over a flippant comment from Bond. A reference is made to Q's homosexuality - we shouldn't care - and Moneypenny has been finally boiled down to the mundane secretarial role so suited to Lois Maxwell's cheery bonhomie, but demeaning to a tough and forthright ex-field agent whose one glaring mishap came only from following orders. I'm almost insulted that Harris acquiesced to her character giving up so easily. So much for equality of outcomes.
An entire backstory runs through this franchise based around the relevance of one character (Blofeld) to the protagonist, then he dies quietly off-screen in a mediocre sequence which presents no emotional closure. We are also encouraged to view Paloma's contribution as simply a breezy interlude; a young slip of a girl in a cocktail dress and heels lays waste to grown men and returns to the office with a wave and a smile, whilst Bond plays the puritan and keeps his manly urges in check. Bibi Dahl meets Jinx for the Tarantino Generation. Jarring. And please join me for a slow hand clap to celebrate the artistic licence involved in having Bond sail from Jamaica to Cuba and arrive precisely alongside Nomi, given that at 30mph that journey takes at least 5 hours and the plane ride is under 90 minutes. Did she oversleep or simply couldn't resist the two-for-one lunchtime special at Big Al's Seafood Shack?
I also wasn't impressed with the hackneyed lines and aerial shots borrowed from old Bond films. There's no end of recycling and at one moment I was sorely tempted to shout "Welcome Mr Powers, to my underground lair". The inclusion of Louis Armstrong is cringe and it's a shame we didn't get a fight on a train, but of course they did that last time. Again. The only segment of this fumbling, mumbling affair which provided genuine atmosphere was the descent into the woods, a pleasant optic which took me back to Fukunaga's finest work, the excellent True Detective. Otherwise the pacing was slow and disjointed, the occupational hazard of employing a director used to structuring episodic television.
And that finale. Dear God, that finale.
The why's and wherefores of killing off 007 have been debated at length already so I'll not add to it, but the enduring image of this film will remain the close-up of a bloodied, aged James Bond, snivelling 'I love you' in a pathetic and defeated voice as he prepares for death. And this my friends is the staggering audacity of those involved laid bare for us all to see, for this was nothing more than a hit piece: an assault on straight, white, heterosexual men everywhere. For in the closing seconds of his life, Bond the prospective father, protector and role model, is reduced to a martyr surrounded by strong, capable women. When gifted his final chance to be a person of genuine value, he dies alone blubbing like a baby having learned nothing from his mistakes. That this spurious ending is influenced by the minds of feminists and identitarians is no surprise. They are appalled by white male power and have greedily grasped the opportunity to eviscerate an icon of British masculinity. This ending had more than a little scent of spite. The shame of it.
Welcome, SirTalbotBuxomly, and I hope you have more to say. Great name, btw.
thanks for that link @Loeffelholz . More positive than many of the reviews here. Less of a complaint about how it should have been done differently, more of an analysis of what we actually got.
one particular bit I like is the contrast between Safin and Bond's legacies, and the irony Mr Licenced to Kill should be the one to leave behind a child. This is from Fleming, only Fleming's Bond never knew he had achieved this. It might be worth some discussion how Fleming did tell the story of Bond's fatherhood.
__________________
SirTalbotBuxomly said:
this was nothing more than a hit piece: an assault on straight, white, heterosexual men everywhere. For in No Time To Die, Bond the prospective father, protector and role model, is reduced to a man who ultimately wasn't up to scratch even whilst surrounded by strong, capable women. Eviscerated and irrelevant, when gifted his final chance to be a person of genuine value, he dies alone blubbing like a baby having learned nothing from his previous failures. The shame of it all.
first of all welcome to ajb007 Buxomly. Good code name! and good first post, lots to discuss in there
An assault on straight, white, heterosexual men everywhere is a bit much. I didn't take the end of the fantasy personally, I hope other straight, white, heterosexual men are secure enough in their identity they don't feel threatened by the death of a fictional character.
And did Bond fail? M explicitly gives three goals for the mission: contain Herakles, kill Safin, and get Madeleine and her daughter safe. Bond succeeded in all three. He even sees mother and child escape on the lifeboat (technically a zodiac but visually...), a clever inversion of the recurring ending of the classic Connery films.
_________________
@Revelator awesome analysis! exactly the kind of encyclopedic review I'd hope for from you! Not that I agree, but I am in awe of the detail and logic in your argument.
Thank you, but it seems to have disappeared...
Sorted. ☺️
Hmmm gone again....I tried to edit something, best I stop tinkering and learn how the site works lol
And sorted again. 😀
I hope your review gets restored @SirTalbotBuxomly especially since I only quoted the most controversial bit (as its good for debate). The whole review was much longer and more nuanced than the bit I quoted.
I think we have some sort of automated SPAM filter which is ultrasensitive to new member's posts.
We do- please see My posts are going nowhwere — ajb007 I've restored SirTB's post.
Thank you for that.
Thank you for the kind words @chrisno1 , @Charmed & Dangerous , @Glidrose007 , and @caractacus potts . I was a bit nervous about posting such a long and eccentric review, so I'm very glad you found it worthwhile and that it expressed what some of you felt. As my review indicated, I overall liked the film but had mixed feelings about its ultimate purpose and message. In any case I'm looking forward to the next Bond film, since the series will undoubtedly undergo a readjustment that might prove very exciting.
I will probably get it in the neck for posting this, but here goes:
I took myself to the local Empire to re-watch NTTD this week, to see if my impressions had changed one way or the other. A few points, which don’t add anything to my initial review, but may cross over with plenty of others:
1. First, the cinema was clean and the auditorium very small, seating about 120. The screen was enormous. I was in the second row. Several times I felt overwhelmed by what I was watching. If anything I was too close. However, the acoustics outshone the Odeon Leicester Square. I managed to pick up almost every word this time out.
2. There’s been a lot of comment about the gun barrel. It was alright. I didn’t miss the blood.
3. The PTS of the PTS was very good. But does it belong in a Bond film? It has nothing to do with Bond, MI6, the ‘mission’ such as it is. It’s a childhood trauma for Madeleine Swann. I was asking myself, which I wasn’t initially, why am I being told so much about Madeleine’s childhood?
4. She shoots Safin with a full clip of bullets. The man is surly dead. He even bleeds – although not from his chest – as Little Madeleine drags him outside. Perhaps he is wearing a bullet proof vest. This is not explained.
5. Didn’t we see people falling into cracked ice in exactly this fashion is Skyfall? I squinted in undisguised fury. Some originality would have been better appreciated.
6. Matera looks beautiful. The “All the time in the world” line was unnecessary, so too the [endless] cues from OHMSS. Hans Zimmer clearly found nothing in the theme tune he could use. I didn’t catch the theme in his score at all. Back to Matera. I liked the idea of burning secrets. It has a romantic edge to it. Unlike most observers, I like Lea Seydoux. I find her unbreakable-china exterior beguiling. Like Bond, I want to discover the secrets she isn’t telling me. I could have done without them exploring each other’s mouths as soon as they set foot in the hotel room, mind. Cliché. Cliché. The writing is good here, developing the lovers’ relationship. The fact Bond decides to bid farewell to Vesper [“Forgive me”] was a good sign he has finally moved on. Bond visits the Lynd mausoleum, then we have a devastating explosion. Very well done.
7. This should have been where we got the titles.
8. Matera chase. Well, it’s great, okay. There are some talking points, but this is where I begin to struggle with the film as details start to be revealed at completely inappropriate moments. Bond is strangling ‘Cyclops’ to death and he wheezes out some half-hearted lies about Madeleine which Bond believes, because he’s a twit and probably because he isn’t really in love, only in need, and I thought: missed that first time out. So too the eye popping from his skull. I hate the way modern films can’t explain themselves in a sensible and coherent manner. Blink and you miss it. Sit in a cinema with a crap sound system and your ####ed. More to the point, why does Cyclops say this? What does it achieve for him? Why doesn’t Bond kill him? The chase goes on, Bond suddenly all mean and nasty and trying to figure out what Madeleine means to him, what lies has she told, what secrets has she held. He doesn’t ask her. He puts her on a train and ####s off. I was squinting again. He’s an assassin, a spy, a member of the espionage community for God’s sake – can’t he, just once, stop and ask a suspect a question? CraigBond makes all his judgements impulsively and badly. It happened way back in CR, resulting in a girl’s death, and twice in QOS, two deaths. No wonder he put poor Madeleine on a train.
9. A comment here said Madeleine hugs her stomach as they part. She doesn’t, she puts a hand on her ribcage, just below her breasts. No womb there. Probably a heart though.
10. A song of perpetual boredom.
11. Some hi jinx in London. I hate the scientist. I can’t even type his name any more. Over the top performance, completely skews every scene he appears in. I noticed Cyclops is still working for Spectre. How does Safin know Spectre will raid the laboratory? How are those files copied so fast? It takes my laptop ages to transfer even a dozen DOCX files, he’s got thousands. They’re not condensed files, we see them later on at Q’s place. That magnet safety device was nifty and a bit sci-fi for me. Overall, and now I’m sounding old, too violent.
12. Jamaica. Bond is retired. He lives in a sort of Goldeneye retreat. I wonder why they didn’t use the real Goldeneye? Felix seems nothing like the Felix we met in either CR or QOS. His mate Logan Ash is annoying. Bond says he smiles too much. He does. It’s a terrible performance. Nomi was horrendous. Arrogant. I thought Bond was off the grid – so far off everyone thought he was dead, admits M, which seems daft as Madeleine Swann is working for him – does nobody function at MI6 without Bond? – but Nomi’s tracked him down alright. Cocky little thing. CraigBond suddenly looks his age.
13. No reason for Bond to join forces with the CIA. He even mentions this to Nomi yet promptly throws himself into the fray with wild abandon. He ought to have a clearer decision making process.
14. Cuba. Bond has a five o’clock shadow for most of this sequence. It’s disappeared by the time he’s piloting the biplane. Lots to love here. Ana de Armas. Ana de Armas in a thigh-showing dinner dress. Ana de Armas drinking vodka martinis. Ana de Armas making Bond look like a your awkward uncle. Ana de Armas kicking ass. Ana de Armas shooting up hell. This had inklings of Bond infiltrating the Spectre meeting in Italy. Repetition only flatters yourself, Eon. There’s some confusing stuff about a roving eye and a misty poison which takes some understanding. I get it now, but on first view this was almost incomprehensible to me. I’d like to thank everyone on AJB for opening my eyes to what the hell is going on here. I miss the days when they explained things properly in a Bond film. A big shoot out. No blood. Very noisy. Did I mention Ana de Armas?
15. Bond takes Oblomov [yeh, whoever] to Felix’s boat. It’s quite a big boat but there’s only Ash and Felix on it. A top notch reveal of the insider. I enjoyed that and I enjoyed it the first time. It seems simply heartless to kill Felix. Couldn’t they have just had a shark bite his leg off or something? Later on Bond refers to him as his ‘brother’ as in ‘my brother from Langley’ but suggesting something deeper. I never saw this in their friendship. Bond seemed closer to Mathis, or Q, even.
16. London. This is the dullest stretch. Nothing happens here and what does could have been wrapped up in five minutes. Why is Bond so antagonistic towards M? Why doesn’t M lay the cards out straight, get the Scooby Gang in immediately, explain the situation? Oh, wait, because then we don’t have a fun little scene in Q’s house and we don’t find out he’s gay and likes cats. I thought Blofeld had the provision on OO7 cats. So, the nanobot DNA virus feels like a genuine big scheme. I like the idea of it being mishandled by Her Majesty’s Secret Service. But, by God, this is slow.
17. Blofeld. Yawn. Christoph Waltz is okay. He dies. I was thinking, Safin visits Madeleine to give her an atomiser with the nanobot poison in it, to persuade her to kill Blofeld. In the end, she doesn’t do it – she doesn’t at this point know how Heracles works – but I’m thinking, Safin knew Bond was at the Spectre meeting, he knew Bond would be likely to return to Blofeld to uncover the mystery of Heracles, so why not have Blofeld’s DNA in the batch released at the Spectre party? Going back to Madeleine and Bond and Blofeld, I did think it was intriguing to have Blofeld explain how he ruined Bond’s chance of happiness [again] by planting a seed of doubt in his mind. He knows our James too well and relied entirely on Bond’s impulsive emotional behaviours. Curious though, as surly the bomb was supposed to kill Bond, so why the need to plant doubt? This is a confrontation which should have come later in the film. I was disappointed Blofeld wasn’t the major villain. Waltz, for all his underplaying is better than Rami Malek, and Blofeld is better than Safin.
18. Nomi’s doing nothing, chasing Ash around the world. She never catches him. She’s a rubbish Double-O.
19. Madeleine has hightailed it back to the place of her childhood trauma. She’s done what? Why would she do this? Why does she still live in the same house where her mother got killed, where her Dad keeps his secrets, where her daughter appears to live speaking French in Norway and without anyone knowing the little darling exists? Is she Bond’s daughter? Probably. I smiled. No one else was. Craig gives an earnest speech about how his biggest regret was putting her on the train. Does he say this because Blofeld told him the truth of the situation, or because he regretted it from the get-go? Not clear, should be made clear, doesn’t really matter in the scheme of things. This is a very serious Bond film. Even the sex is serious. I think they had sex, they wake up together, I’m not sure.
20. A car chase. Dull. Too much gun play again. Nomi is late. Too late. I don’t understand why this car / foot chase is even here or is it considered old hat just to knock a few people out and kidnap someone?
21. The Poison Island. There’s an aerial shot late on in the film which shows the expanse of the Poison Garden. It’s one quarter of the roof of a missile silo. Tiny. Insignificant. Nothing like Fleming wrote, which is presumably the inspiration, but the writers won’t acknowledge it because they don’t call it the Garden of Death. Safin tries to be creepy. It’s really boring. I was extremely disinterested by this point. I wasn’t engaged. I wanted the thing to end. There was a whole chapter given over to Safin describing the garden and the plants to Madeleine and Mathilde. I kept thinking, why isn’t he telling this to Bond? Whose story is this? I didn’t understand what was happening in that enormous water tank. Where did all those workers come from and go to? Did they all get obliterated by the cruise missiles. This climax didn’t engage me enough. Too much gun play, Bond and Nomi striding around without being hit, Safin’s alarmingly simple plot [“Tidying up” – really? Is that the best they could do?] no indication what he’s doing with whom, what’s the significance of the approaching boats, [not warships, boats] I could go on. I won’t.
22. Safin shows Madeleine a vial of the Heracles poison from her hair and I suddenly thought, where did he get the hair from? Then I remembered he was folding a hair inside a handkerchief when he visited her office. But how does he know that is her hair? It could be anyone who happens to be blonde – a cleaner, another patient, anyone, and why is he allowed into the office before the doctor arrives. Never happens. Rubbish.
23. Bond dies. Zimmer's music is suddenly noticeable. Lots of strings. I almost shed a tear. There have been plenty of comments about this. I won’t add to them except to say, I wish they’d ended the film differently. Hell, I wish they’d made an entirely different film. Still, it ends CraigBond’s tenure. At least we can’t have him back.
24. The two codas. The one in the office is ordinary. The one in the Aston Martin is worse than ordinary, almost sickeningly saccharine. The film should have ended as its started with a blazing white expanse of nothingness as the cruise missiles obliterate OO7.
So, did I enjoy it any more or any less? Well, I didn’t not enjoy it. It’s a Bond film, I enjoy them all truth be told, even AVTAK, which for my money is the worst of the worst. For me, NTTD drags too much. I wanted some fun and other than a brief interlude [did I mention Ana de Armas?] there just isn’t any. Second time of asking, a dour experience.