No Time to Die? No longer do we have to wait!
Ah, here comes the last Bond movie I may ever want to care about. The woke have been trying to get their claws into James Bond for ages, and while I’m in support of diversification, ever since the Cold War ended, and the Ian Fleming novels have dried up, it’s been hard enough maintaining the essence of what James Bond is, as it is. I’ve been tempted to write a pondering essay, on why I’d rather see a black Bruce Wayne before ever thinking about taking the ‘white privilege’ and arrogance out of Her Majesties best agent. It’s not like other spy movies don’t exist either, with black leads, and female leads – Salt, Atomic Blonde, Red Sparrow, Tenet… Okay, wow, there isn’t many black-led spy movies, but there’s movies like Men in Black and Passenger 57 that value black men as badass agents; and, there’s plenty of room to create more. When it comes to James Bond, all we’re really squabbling over is that bullet-shot intro, and that iconic guitar riff; but it’s the prestige they want, built solidly over decades. It’s not about representation; it’s about claiming what exists.
Anyway, that’s the future we’re talking about, for right now we have before us Daniel Craig’s fifth and final outing as 007. I think YouTube commentator ‘The Critical Drinker’ said it best when he described Daniel Craig’s tenure as James Bond as ‘uneven’. SPECTRE, the most recent Bond film, may just be my personally-voted most disappointing movie experience ever, considering how excited I was to see it – great cast, the anticipation of seeing SPECTRE again, hot off Skyfall‘s success – but the movie contained some lazy to baffling choices, including copying the Austin Powers’ parody, by making Blofeld and Bond half-brothers. But let’s not forget Skyfall, and Casino Royale; two revolutionary Bond films that sit among the best across the entire James Bond catalogue, if not THE best. Craig’s other outing is Quantum of Solace, that reportedly had its production troubles, and is pretty forgettable. So, with Craig at 2-2, we put the carnival ping-pong ball into the swaying clown’s mouths one more time, to see what final prize we get; will No Time to Die fall to the good, or the bad side, and determine Daniel Craig’s legacy?
A long time ago, a masked assassin stalked a little girl, but decided to spare her life as she fell through an icy lake. Fast forward, and James Bond (Daniel Craig) and Dr. Madeleine Swann (Léa Seydoux) are enjoying a break in Italy, following on from taking down the head of SPECTRE in the previous movie. As Bond goes off to complete an errand, he is ambushed by an explosion that nearly kills him, and barely escapes an assassination attempt that sees the ‘DB5 a little worse for wear. But how did the remnants of SPECTRE know where Bond would be? Concluding Swann is a threat, Bond puts her on a train and vows to never see her again. Five years later, Felix Leiter (Jeffery Wright) contacts Bond to help the CIA track down a kidnapped scientist with a prototype for biological weaponry, passing through the hands of SPECTRE, and a shady new villain, Lyutsifer Safin (Rami Malik). MI6 has moved on in Bond’s absence, but this mission requires some information from Bond’s old pals, including Swann, who’s now working as Blofeld’s personal psychiatrist, and she may hold more secrets than she’s willing to reveal.
I don’t know why James Bond needs a girlfriend. As for Swann, I think Bond should have kicked her to the curb at the end of the last movie; there’s a moment near the end of SPECTRE, after they say goodbye, that I always imagined it better if Bond shirked her off like he’d played her – it would have aligned with his once-revered callousness and focus for the mission, and it’s how I would have written it. We saw Bond get attached to Vesper in Casino Royale, and it was a novelty; I don’t see why Swann is here, unless we’re aiming towards replicating the ending to On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, but ssshhh, don’t give the game away. Then, as soon as Bond says to Swann, ‘we have all the time in the world’, before the opening action sequence, it was clear to me, as a Bond fan, that some On Her Majesty’s Secret Service shenanigans were about to go down, and someone wasn’t going to make it out alive. But even watching this movie, I don’t value Swann as a character at all. It’s like seeing a friend date someone that isn’t good enough for them. Madeleine Swann brings up letting go of Vesper (ground that I thought was well-worn and dealt with after Quantum of Solace) but Madeleine, you’ve got nothing on Vesper. I don’t buy their chemistry either, and I thought of how the show Seinfeld reckons it deliberately picked an actress that didn’t gel with Jason Alexander to play George Costanza’s girlfriend – an extreme example, but that’s kind’ve how I feel here. As Nomi (Lashana Lynch) is waiting for Swann to apply her ‘perfume’ in the bathroom, I was like, can we just forget this woman – she’s clearly hiding secrets, she’s so pouty, and no good to anyone. And, I already like Nomi better, and I only just met her.
Because yeah, I thought the new 007 was pretty cool. It’s not like Bond hasn’t had a contemporary before, but it was unique to see them share the same signal code. She was smarmy at times, but so is James Bond, and I think they gave each other a few good licks. It was amusing to watch Nomi be the one to pick James up off the street and cut to the chase, asking him for the bedroom… even if no actual licking was then there to be had. But the best creation for this new movie has got to be giving James Bond a daughter, hands down (Mathilde, played by Lisa-Dorah Sonnet). It made me feel his age, and added responsibility, for something new to care about. I liked the opening fight scene, with the guy with the glass eye, Primo (Dali Benssalah), and I liked the smiling assassin, Logan Ash (Billy Magnussen) – great casting, getting Magnussen for the part, because I’ve seen him in other things as an air-head jock that’s not taken seriously, and its exactly how James and Felix are lured into thinking about him in the same way. In fact, the entire movie seems to contain an underlying notion of a changing of the old guard, with Bond and Leiter’s methods of doing things, proved to be not the only way of doing things, and no scene showcased that more than Bond and Leiter discovering that they were in over their heads, and Leiter’s resulting demise. Leiter’s death; he didn’t ‘disagree with something that ate him’, but overlooked his smiley side-kick – a different set of gnashers to worry about this time. Ana de Armas’ brief appearance as a nervous new agent was gorgeous and spunky too, and I appreciated that.
But, for all those kind words, I really found much of the movie very boring. The phrase, ‘much ado about nothing’, came to mind. Obviously, I don’t like Swann, but why do all the missions have to be so personal these days? It’s a cheap way to raise the stakes, I reckon, especially when the fundamental plot is less than average. In No Time to Die, Safin has a personal vendetta against SPECTRE, Swann has a personal relationship with Safin, and M (Ralph Fiennes) is personally responsible for the nanotechnology. Blofeld (Christoph Waltz) will only talk to Swann, Swann has personal history with Bond, and Blofeld has a personal hatred of Bond… so let them all fight it out, and who cares, like a feud on Jerry Springer. It’s only half way through the movie that No Time to Die is like, oh yeah, and Safin’s plan is going to affect the rest of the world too, so spies be spies; but even then, it’s murky – Safin has a list of thousands he’s going to kill, for some reason, and Q figures out that it could mean a wider risk for the rest of the population too, if he chooses to get trigger-happy; am I getting that right? Then when Safin and Bond have their little chat, the villain goes on philosophically, about how people don’t really want free will, and… what is he talking about? What does any of that have to do with poisoning people? The movie makes a big deal about Swann hiding malevolent secrets, but she isn’t really – she is tasked with killing Blofeld, and is willing to do it (even though she’ll get caught instantly by the good guys she’s been working alongside for five years), but then bails out, and asks James to not make her do it, like he knows what she’s talking about. The movie makes it seem like Safin visits her in the present day, and appeals to the fact that he once saved her life, and I wasn’t sure if it would have made more sense if he’d visited her years ago, before she met James Bond, and got her in his pocket then; but then, that would have been nearly a decade before knowing the nanotechnology would work, and would’ve been a stretch as well, where she couldn’t maintain her ‘relative’ innocence – she did attempt to kill a guy.
If only to backtrack to go forwards, I understand Skyfall was a personal story too, and a very successful movie, but it doesn’t work if you do it every time – not to mention, Bond has ‘retired’ three times in five movies, so originality is thin. Who would have thought we’d still be talking about Mr. White four movies after Casino Royale? He was a facilitator, hiring Le Chiffre for SPECTRE; honestly, considering how big SPECTRE is, he’s not that special. Then James Bond has to die because he’s too poisoned to kiss his girlfriend. I’ll say that again; he was too poisoned… to kiss… his girlfriend… He was literally toxic to the women in his life. Look, James Bond has always lived in the realm of outlandish premises, and you either go with it or you don’t. All silly reasoning aside, it was fitting to see Daniel Craig take James Bond out, and I respect that. I’ll admit it, it was hard to watch – James Bond isn’t supposed to lose the mission, and it’s always tough to say goodbye. I admired M’s sombre tribute; his reading and a clink of the glass.
These latest Daniel Craig movies have pimped Bond out with diversity for days – a black Felix Leiter, a black Moneypenny, a new black female 007, and a gay Q – but I can already tell it isn’t going to be enough going forward if the people in charge continue down the direction they’ve chosen. Come to think of it, the Sean Connery era Qs and Ms could have been gay too for all we know, but it wasn’t important to know, because it didn’t affect the spy mission. But you know what, it’s fine – this is a franchise I loved as a teenager, and I really haven’t revisited anything older than the Daniel Craig’s films for over a decade. After No Time to Die, I feel like I’ve outgrown it anyway. I’ve had my fill, and if Bond has to be given to someone else deemed less fortunate, then I hope they enjoy it. Casino Royale was such an unexpected and terrific presentation of characterisation; they created the most ruggedly rounded James Bond character ever, and I feel like the four movies since have really struggled to find scenarios entertaining enough to match their creation. But who knows, maybe the next James Bond interpretation will be a positive surprise for me again. I can only hope.
2.0
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