BIG TAMWrexham, North Wales, UK.Posts: 773MI6 Agent
I haven't posted anything in ages but I regularly read up on what people have to say. Having now seen Dan's swansong I felt compelled to join in with the views expressed. Apologies if it reads flippant at times. I'm finding it harder & harder to take the films seriously these days despite best efforts by Broccoli & Wilson to make me believe in Bond's world. To be honest, I got the distinct impression that EON itself had become fed up with their own franchise. Hopefully the goodwill expressed by most critics plus healthy box-office returns will re-energise them for the next one.
YOU ONLY DIE ONCE (HOPEFULLY)
James Bond is black! A typo? Yes, sorry. James Bond is back! But 007 is black! Confused? Like most of the Craig era plots, one might be. In a series that relishes badly kept secrets this one is officially unveiled. Due to Bond's self-imposed retirement, his licence to kill code number's been handed to a stroppy black female agent named Nomi (Lashana Lynch). She starts off effectively (their first meeting features some decent spiky banter) but the writers get cold feet & give Jimmy Bond alone the bulk of the derring-do.
The Craig era's made a virtue of subverting tradition in a bid to make things more relevant to current trends. This one is no exception. And as with the previous three entries, you need to have seen the one before to truly know what's going on. Damn Marvel & their interconnected universe. Forget Blofeld & SPECTRE, Marvel producer, Kevin Feige's the real villain. But I digress.
We start off with a fitful gunbarrel logo (hurrah!) but no blood washing down the screen (boo!) What follows is a lengthy (20+ minutes!) but engrossing pre-credits sequence & a nifty main titles design overladen with Billie Eilish's moody (a.k.a. miserable) laryngitis vocals. Then it's a lot of business involving a man-made virus called Heracles that M seems to be sanctioning, that SPECTRE want to use (probably for a ransom) & the true villain wants to do something even more dastardly with. There's something about DNA, the crux of which serves to properly mess things up for Bond at the end. It's the age-old MacGuffin whose salient plot-points are tossed out at the least appropriate moments (e.g. during deafening background noise). It doesn't help that Daniel Craig & Lea Seydoux insist on mumbling or speaking their lines in whispers even when there's nobody to eavesdrop. Chief baddie, Safin (Rami Malek) opts for the same mode of diction. Perhaps they need to go to a Harley Street throat specialist with Ms Eilish.
Now the above may lead you to think I didn't like No Time To Die. But for the most part I did. It's Bond & 007's been part of my DNA since seeing Live & Let Die in 1973. I can't dislike these films even if at times the producers seem to be trying their best to make me do so. A big problem for me is all Craig's Bonds are symptomatic of an age where an undemanding action pic must mean something. Characters must be flawed & suffer the problems of real people. Why? I want to see characters who aren't like me! A sign of the more self-important times we live in. If I want to see a miserable spy I'll watch Richard Burton's washed-up agent staring into the bottom of a whiskey glass in John Le Carre's The Spy Who Came In From The Cold. Serious spy films are great. I love them. Bond films serve a different purpose. They're not real & shouldn't be played as such. Sure you can do it with a straight-face a la Connery but they're still a fantasy. Heightened reality if you like. Or that pleasing expression: escapist entertainment. I miss the sense of harmless fun earlier films offered. This has its moments but is a tad po-faced in its execution. Was once a time you left a Bond screening with a big-kid grin on your face. Now you're more likely to walk out sobbing into a hankie. Yes, that over-used word 'emotional' is very much at play here.
There's always been a battle between semi-serious & light-hearted Bond. Most tend towards the latter (to wit Oddjob, Jaws, underwater cities, etc, etc). A handful like From Russia With Love, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, For Your Eyes Only & Licence To Kill lean towards the former. That there are less of them shows the franchise is designed to be absurdist fun. The 'serious' films serve to cool things down a bit. Breathing space for a long-running series to recalibrate before carrying on with its finely honed formula of ridiculous mayhem.
This one, like all Craig's Bonds has love, loss & regret in abundance. That it manages to still pack in thrills & spills is a testament to a good production team. As with most Bonds the first half is the better. There's a nice bit of business in Cuba where Craig shows a neat line in humour he's hitherto been resistant to share. There's a great supporting character in Paloma (Ana de Armas), a rookie CIA agent with cojones whose presence livens things up. If I were Bond I'd have forgotten about Madeleine & hooked up with her! She's pretty much the best character in the film. A beacon of light showing how things used to be. Things then carry on with events unfolding at a fairly nifty pace. In fairness, for a 163 minute film it doesn't drag. I've seen 90 minute films that felt longer. For Fleming purists the events of of his You Only Live Twice novel are cheekily woven into the last act.
The ending, though nicely played is a misjudgement. Bond's a winner, not a loser. And here he pays the ultimate price. Perhaps it'll make the film more memorable. Or it may just make for a good way to win a pink wedge in Trivial Pursuit - Question: In which Bond film does 007 snuff it? Well, who knows how it'll be talked about in years to come. Whatever, at this point in time it's a bit of a downer when we should really be leaving the cinema uplifted.
So, despite inevitable negatives I did enjoy what unfolded. It's a big film & the budget's all there on the screen, which isn't always the case these days. Where would I rank it in the Bond pantheon? I'm not sure. I'd probably need to see it a time or two to determine that. But for a brief moment as I tried to decipher what Safin was saying I did think to myself, come back the invisible car all is forgiven! 😁
EDIT MAJOR MAJOR SPOILERS, NATURALLY. DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN IT. JUST DON'T.
The film I mean, not the last post. Though this film is I guess The Last Post.
Not sure I can be bothered to itemise its awfulness frankly. In all its running time barely a single witty joke or titter, nary a bit of intelligence. This is from the Lee Tamorahi / Marc Forster school of direction - relentlessly humourless, some admittedly muscular and impressive action but all so depressing, full on and stupid.
The somewhat quiet and unenthusiastic crowd gave barely a laugh throughout, no round of applause at the end.
Whatever Phoebe Waller-Bridge brought to the table I do not know, there's barely a whiff of the light fun or enjoyable twisted ness that we saw in the first series of Killing Eve - in fact, this is more like the subsequent series that she wasn't involved in - sort of grim and turgid.
The film is hamstrung by the lack of chemistry between Bond and Madeleine which didn't bother me in Spectre but does here as she is a key player.
Bond seems to be thick in this, and still mourning Vesper after how many years? How long did he know her for? A week or so? That's a bit mental isn't it? The film begins in desperate search of a premise.
We think it's in the present tense so for him to not know Madeleine's 'secrets' seems a bit dim. 'How did they know I was here?' he spits. I dunno mate, How about your driving a distinctive grey 1964 Aston Martin DB5 you absolute tool? Okay, the action with the Aston is scary and cool, but I don't know. The plot seemed cobbled together really, I did feel the same way watching Die Another Day really - what the hell is all this? As if to nod to that, we have a scene in Cuba where our hero is entering the villain's lair with a young operative with just three weeks' experience. He's a charmer, isn't he? But it's okay, because - hey! - she's not really inexperienced!
Walks into a known Spectre lair as himself, like you do. Think someone might notice?
Silly 'banter' about the black woman operative who now has his double-oh number. Oh my aching sides.
Nods in the finale to Bond's proposed fate in the end of the novel Moonraker, plus the final scenes of the novel You Only Live Twice.
Some kid thrown into the mix with the same vacant expression I was wearing by this stage.
What is this, Kill Bill Vol 2?
The villains in this are hardly in it. No idea what Blofeld is blathering on about. Nods to the writers for coming up with an astonishingly prescient plot that's a bit close to the bone given the pandemic makes the film worse because you find yourself thinking, right, are they trolling us? Get everyone into the movie theatres to help spread Covid?
You can see why director Danny Boyle bailed on this - did they spring their 'big idea' on him - 'Kill Bond, now!' late in pre-production? What was the film he wanted to make?
Some stuff I just didn't get and don't care. When Bond gets wind of that fact that someone was coming for him and Madeleine and the kid, I thought it meant that '007' was coming for him, and that she was the 'bad guy'. Things suddenly picked up as I found her character not terribly useful or appealing frankly. But no it's Saffin, borrowing Rodriguez's helicopter by the looks of things.
If that one island was developing the poison, what about the other outlets we see dotted across the glove? Do they get nuked too or are they okay? What was Safin trying to do anyway - just kill a lot of people? Why? What was his philospophy. I can buy that the Western Govts are trying to kill the populace - tell me about it, it appears the British State spent three years trying to have my Mum killed via dehydration in various care homes, you don't need to persuade me of that, even before they let the pandemic into our borders and into care homes, 'letting the bodies pile high'. Talking of which, this film was about as cheery as that recent Channel 4 dream Help with Killing Eve star Joie Comer - but a lot less admirable. I suppose when you suspect the British State of doing stuff - and just what the hell is Dame Cressida 'Stockwell Shooting' Dick doing still head of the Met, I do not know but can guess, nothing any Bond villain can come up with will match that.
The notorious Stockwell Shooting was in the news ahead of the release of Casino Royale, with unwarranted suggestions that Bond carried out a similar bit of renegade unlawful killing in the opening of the film, so maybe it's all full circle.
There are depressing hints that the British Establishment is the enemy all along in this, with M acting like a right bastard to Bond, but I couldn't follow it.
What was Safin trying to do? I suppose the old Freddie impersonator could have burst into a Queen song. 'Who Wants to Live Forever' perhaps they could have ended with that. Why did he need to wipe out Spectre? Okay, because they bumped off his family. Took his time about it didn't he. Swann landing a job as Blofeld's psychiatrist. Oh it's balls isn't it.
OMG! WTF was Mock the Week and Not Going Out comedy star Hugh Dennis doing in this in an inconsequential role as a scientist who gets bumped off after two minutes. Why? Did he win it in a bet. Would his comedy mate Lee Mack turn up as a henchman. EDIT: Still, Dennis gets to deliver a 'keep your hair on' line to the scientist which would doubtless give all the baldies and incipient baldies in the audience a stab of awkwardness and dismay, if the jollity of the pre-credits hadn't put them in a good enough mood. I mean, given Craig was receding in Casino Royale, he's be as bald as said scientist I reckon were it not for expensive hair transplants or weaves I'd vouchsafe. But Bond films are all about evoking memories of past Bonds so of course this took me back to my viewing of For Your Eyes Only at the cinema, where Bond (played by Roger Moore, no stranger to the combover by this point and, we later learned, thinning since LALD) playfully taps Blofeld's head with the same line while my male-pattern baldness Dad sat beside me, the audience laughing. Happy times.
I now realise the day after that Hugh Dennis was a co-star of Phoebe Waller-Bridges' Fleabag the second series, so that's what he's doing here, incongruous as it is. You can imagine them on set, munching sandwiches between takes: 'You'll never guess, I'm working on the new Bond film!' 'Oh, can you get us a part? Anything will do, I don't mind...' 'Oh alright then, I'll see.' END OF EDIT
The whole film has that awful faux quality you get in just about every movie it seems, even in the brilliant and entertaining Cruella. It's like, here's a version of something you've already seen. There's the same deadness you feel watching a Shakespeare play like Hamlet or any of them.
Honestly I was about to walk out, I mean if you're gonna pull a downer, if you want to make us cry at the end, make us laugh along the way too. Why should I stay watching this crap and risk getting Covid - the fact the film deals with a pandemic type plot makes one wonder if the makers aren't trolling us? Part of the plot to get everyone into cinemas again and generate 'herd immunity'. Thanks.
This is Bond on palliative or 'end of life' care - which to many of those acquainted with the British State's take on the elderly in care homes, basically means 'ending life' care. They want to kill Bond off, so this is the film they give you.
On the plus side, I went on Monday so it was cheaper seats and secondly I lost a few more pounds - in weight - so it's not all doom and gloom.
Sorry, this was longer than intended! Bit like the film itself perhaps.
@BIG TAM A very good review, not worried about the flippancy, most of your thoughts compare well to mine. I tend to take my reviews a bit too seriously.
As I stated in another thread @chrisno1 I should have let you do my review - an excellent job! In fact, I've thoroughly enjoyed yours and some other reviews on this thread, @TonyDP for instance - far more than the film of course. I thought the 007 Magazine one was spot on too. I'll go back tomorrow and salute a few others with mentions.
@Napoleon Plural, as a clueless Bostonian who spends 8/10ths of the day holed up inside, a lot of the references in your review flew right over my head. But damn if that wasn't the best thing I've read in a long time. An awesome rant for the ages. 🍸️🍸️🍸️
I'm not going to give away any spoilers for those who haven't seen it (or read these reviews) but for the first time in I don't know how many decades I am going to 110% disagree with the review I posted by 007 Magazine. The 2 hours and 43 minutes flew by. Using overtones of OHMSS in music and story set the atmosphere. I thought it was EPIC! My only gripe was the use of the particular variant of the VZ58 by Safin in the flash back sequence which would not have existed in reality when Ms Swann was a child! 🙄
And that is one of the irritants to the final scenes, the sacrifice Bond makes is non sensical given he's already lost Vesper.....the love of his life 🤷
there seems to be a direct correlation with people who didn't like the movie and those who can't be bothered to learn Nomi's name and instead refer to her skin colour over and over
I don't know, you could argue @Chriscoop that it lends symmetry as Vesper sacrificed herself for Bond at the end of CR so Bond sacrifices himself to save his child and her mother. But I never really bought Bond's talk about how Madeleine and given him so much, I mean, Blofeld's right, he's a bit wet. He hasn't seen her in five years or so and again it's hard to say how long they knew each... oh why am I bothering?
Tell you what, they missed a trick with the gadget-laden Aston Martin! At the end of it, as he drives Madeline to the station, he should turn on one of those windy Greek roads and bang! Press the ejector seat! We watch her zap up in the air with an almighty comedy shriek and Craig delivers his beset post-Vesper dinner smirk and drives off. That would have got the movie off with a laugh as the credits rolled.
But they chose to take it in another direction.
Anyway, as one reviewer here hilariously and self-deprecatingly points out, Craig's Bond comes across as an embittered loser and who needs that, one can stay at home for that, no need to buy a cinema ticket!
In my above rant there'll be people thinking, why is this bloke @Napoleon Plural (I'm so said, I like to get Notifications from myself) ranting on about his late Mum and care homes? Fair enough, but it's not so different from watching Craig's Bond vent his misery across five films, except it cost you more in time and money!
For Bond really is depicted as a loser in this. Totally. Blofeld is spot on in his summary.
Think about it. All his great adventures since CR under Craig, all of it - if Blofeld was behind it, then it only happened because Bond's parents died in a climbing accident and Bond was brought into the family as the 'cuckoo', arousing Franz's hurt and resentment. So Bond has been rushing around saving the world from a problem of his own making, really. Perhaps that's why they brought in Freddie Mercury as the villain, so Bond could sing 'Sometimes I wish I'd never been born at alll........'
It reminds me of the hilarious Big Bang Theory post put up on the Last Film Seen thread, about Raiders of the Lost Ark. Only in this case, it's not so much that if Bond hadn't been there, the outcome would be the same. But rather, if he hadn't been there, everything would have been much better! it's like A Wonderful Life in reverse.
Now, someone made an ill-advised comment about wokeness back on this thread but I will say there does seem a 'woke' flavour to this film which evokes the pejorative aspects of that term. A black woman taking the 007 moniker? Q as Queer? I couldn't care less - there's a Bond fan on Twitter called LicenceToQueer and I imagine he'd have great fun making something of Bond staying overnight at Q's flat, it's one for the fan fiction for sure. Anyway, I don't care about any of this stuff but it does seem to be served up in a 'Make something of this then' tone and in a genuinely joyless and stupid context - this movie, and often this is the climate in which the anti-woke brigade get fired up.
It really does also seem to me that by having Bond depicted as an all-round loser, that having Barbara Broccoli and Phoebe Waller-Bridger on the writing team, is an insidious move of sorts. It seems that since GoldenEye it's been all about Bond having a lousy time, been taken down a peg or two. And the latest instalment suggests that all the problems in the world are essentially caused by blokes and are of bloke's own making - after all, it's three people, Bond, Blofeld and now Saffy generating all of it, quite unnecessarily and because they have emotional issues.
Now, the thing is, there is some merit in this view. And any ordinary woman looking at the world's leading stage with Johnson, Trump, Biden - I mean, really, no woman with those traits of infidelity, lying or apparent senility could get to stand for the highest office. The wars are generally caused by blokes of course, though it may be false logic to imagine that if you put women in charge that would all disappear.
Watching Moore's Bond deflower Solitaire via trickery so he can quiz her on where Kananga is - it's a bloody horrible scene, more horrible this week than ever - and likewise the director suggesting that Bond rapes the Shrublands character Patricia, in Thunderball okay, that's arguably wide of the mark, she's hot, he's Bond, it's made clear she enjoyed it and there's a rapport between them, but he's got a point.
You can see why Barbara Broccoli, growing up with all this stuff, might feel the need to rebel against this figure that looms large, that has brought her all her fortune and from which she therefore can never escape, you can see why she might feel certain Elektra urges.
Unfortunately, the whole project seems to reflect the themes of insidious infiltration depicted in the recent Bond films themselves, so it all gets a bit meta. This does seem to be reflected in society, so the makers are on to something. Sorry to go back to my rant about the British State... but it's clear that certain local authorities and the local police (each is the others' sister organisation) have been infiltrated over the decades. It's a bit like saying 1930s Germany got infiltrated by Adolf and his Nazi mates, I mean 'infiltration' is one way of putting it. Most of the so-called regulators under the modern Conservative Govt are in effect headed by people who work in the industry and are mates with the very firms they're meant to be regulating, so any complainers, complainants or whistleblowers will find that when they report so such regulators, they are simply tipping them off who the whistleblowers are, and this will be fed back to the companies concerned. It's a form of surveillance, and quite Imperialistic in its flavour, and it's most regulators - those in the care sector such as the CQC and NMC - but you also read how the water regulators allow sewage to be flushed into rivers without punishment because they're protecting shareholders.
Charities are now - a bit like Spectre in Thunderball - infiltrated or some would argue a front for other things: often sex abuse and some say trafficking, just as that once bastion of respectability, the Church, were infiltrated by paedophile priests for decades - there's a story about 3000 of them in the French church only yesterday, so I'm not making this up, or go see the Oscar-winning film Spotlight.
Even Sir Keir is accused of being a quisling - of infiltrating the Labour Left but really being an operative of the British State, to neutralise the chance of a genuine Socialist alternative by getting in control of the very party that offers that prospect - an allegation that has some traction given the virtually non-existent opposition he's provided in the past year in the face of open goal Government ineptitude, and by the fact that he is a former head of the Crown Prosecution Service, a highly dodgy organisation that colluded with corrupt Met Police over bringing baseless criminal charges to boost conviction rates, in particular in the Operation Midlands affair.
So it seems appropriate given all this and the themes of Craig's film that Barbara Broccoli has decided to set things up to end James Bond, as if it's been a long time in planning and the agenda all along. It lends a rather doubly disturbing aspect to watching the film.
It's like when my local MP Chris Grayling pledged to save the hospital in his constituency - Epsom & Ewell - and was re-elected on that platform. After attending some public meetings where he voiced his concern, and locals were noisily against it too, why, the closure was ushered in without nary a quibble, and as decreed by Conservative policy! Nicely played, Chris. This stuff goes on all the time.
And in a way, I can see the justice in it (ending Bond, not my local hospital). It's just, it's a bit like having a Ferrari showroom staffed by Extinction Rebellion protesters, or a fish and chip shop run by vegans. I can see both sides, but when one latches on to the former, it makes for an awkward experience. There's the sense someone's not being straight with you.
Although I was totally deflated at the end of the film, I’m glad it was made. I enjoyed it but I’ve been reflecting on it since watching it on the day of release.
To kill Bond felt like sacrilege but I think it was perhaps preferable to the ending of him sitting in front of the TV with a can of John Smiths helping his daughter with her homework whilst Madeline is knocking up a Shepherds pie. We’ve seen Blofeld die multiple times so why not Bond? As someone put it, the possibility of Bond dying adds a different element.
I have read a lot of comments about plot holes but I can’t think of one Bond film without a few, some bigger than in this film.
Comments about no humour in the film and conversely other comments about silly humour in the film with Hugh Dennis. Remember Rowan Atkinson in Never Say Never Again. Okay maybe not the best example to use NSNA but my point being there is silly humour in a lot of Bond films. Clearly there isn’t the great Roger Moore one liners in this film but there is a couple of things to smile at. Humour has been absent in the all of the Craig films so not really a surprise.
His love for Vesper was pure BECAUSE it was a short lived affair, no time to see her flaws and fall out of love and he blamed himself for her death. He is a man in turmoil and so it’s pointless to rationalise his behaviour anyway.
The comments about Bond being to soft? Bond cried in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.
I think James Bond circa 1962 is great to watch but you couldn’t take an actor seriously if he acted this way in a film made fifty nine years later. What did Darwin say about adapting to change….
Daniel Craig is my favourite Bond although I grew up on Moore and Connery. I just wish No Time To Die was my favourite Bond film to see him off but it isn’t. I wanted it to be.
I must say I cringe when I see people write a true Bond fan wouldn’t enjoy the film. It’s snobbish and stunts any true discussion.
Adapting to change? I can't get over the loss of the old emoticons on this website! Oh, it's all downhill!
I wasn't objecting to Hugh Dennis per se. I mean, American's won't know him, they'll be okay even if the jokes don't land. That's a problem with this film - there ARE jokes here but because the film and director has no funny bones, they just don't land.
It's that for those of us who do know, it's like - what the hell is he doing here? It's a distraction.
Re an earlier post, I am one of those who don't like the film - obviously - and don't use Nomi's name in my review and haven't bothered to learn it, so obviously I'm racist, right? I don't remember her name being ever used, it's all stuff about her being called 007. I also can't remember the name of the scientist, or the young novice agent in Cuba (Palo or something, or is that the actress?) and I know Safrin's name but that's because of the pre-blurb publicity. These characters just don't connect with me.
I've not seen the film yet, but if Bond dies in it, then the next film could include a scene, as someone suggested, of the new Bond waking up from a sleep having dreamt the Craig Bond universe, and then saying "Thank God that was only a dream".
I was thinking about Bond's meeting with M in his office. Is it the first time Bond has spoken of anyone's drinking as a negative? "Aren't we awfully thirsty today?"
I can't work out why Bond was killed off. If indeed he is dead, and his death was not some sort of ploy like in YOLT. Or maybe they will find his DNA and clone him.
I think there are several reasons why they killed off Bond. They wanted CraigBond to be a complete story, from starting off as a 00-agent till his death. I also suspect Craig and BB wanted Craig's tenure to end in a special and memorable way. And there is the obsession with sensational "hooks" to the story in the last few Bonds: M dies! Blofeld is Bond's "Brother"!
You can, but I shan't necessarily be adhering to it*. The whole film is political and is meant to reflect and anticipate the grim times in a way that didn't happen with Connery or Moore's Bond films. So if I want to bring in current affairs, I shall. The whole movie feels a bit Line of Duty** - which the last third of Spectre somewhat resembled anyway,
**Grim, UK drama series about a special unit investigating police corruption. As with the Craig Bonds, it became increasingly convoluted and time-consuming in finding out who was really at the bottom of it all.
*Actually in that second post I do go on about politics a bit, don't I? I was making a point about how existing respectable organisations oft get infiltrated and used as a front for nefarious agendas and activities, often as a sort of feint or misdirection.
I have a feeling though that Bond's death allows Eon to have the 007 role filled by a black actor. Now Bond is dead, there is no biographical reason not to. The name "James Bond" will be used by MI6, as a tribute to the dead Bond, as a code name for any future 007.
Comments
I haven't posted anything in ages but I regularly read up on what people have to say. Having now seen Dan's swansong I felt compelled to join in with the views expressed. Apologies if it reads flippant at times. I'm finding it harder & harder to take the films seriously these days despite best efforts by Broccoli & Wilson to make me believe in Bond's world. To be honest, I got the distinct impression that EON itself had become fed up with their own franchise. Hopefully the goodwill expressed by most critics plus healthy box-office returns will re-energise them for the next one.
YOU ONLY DIE ONCE (HOPEFULLY)
James Bond is black! A typo? Yes, sorry. James Bond is back! But 007 is black! Confused? Like most of the Craig era plots, one might be. In a series that relishes badly kept secrets this one is officially unveiled. Due to Bond's self-imposed retirement, his licence to kill code number's been handed to a stroppy black female agent named Nomi (Lashana Lynch). She starts off effectively (their first meeting features some decent spiky banter) but the writers get cold feet & give Jimmy Bond alone the bulk of the derring-do.
The Craig era's made a virtue of subverting tradition in a bid to make things more relevant to current trends. This one is no exception. And as with the previous three entries, you need to have seen the one before to truly know what's going on. Damn Marvel & their interconnected universe. Forget Blofeld & SPECTRE, Marvel producer, Kevin Feige's the real villain. But I digress.
We start off with a fitful gunbarrel logo (hurrah!) but no blood washing down the screen (boo!) What follows is a lengthy (20+ minutes!) but engrossing pre-credits sequence & a nifty main titles design overladen with Billie Eilish's moody (a.k.a. miserable) laryngitis vocals. Then it's a lot of business involving a man-made virus called Heracles that M seems to be sanctioning, that SPECTRE want to use (probably for a ransom) & the true villain wants to do something even more dastardly with. There's something about DNA, the crux of which serves to properly mess things up for Bond at the end. It's the age-old MacGuffin whose salient plot-points are tossed out at the least appropriate moments (e.g. during deafening background noise). It doesn't help that Daniel Craig & Lea Seydoux insist on mumbling or speaking their lines in whispers even when there's nobody to eavesdrop. Chief baddie, Safin (Rami Malek) opts for the same mode of diction. Perhaps they need to go to a Harley Street throat specialist with Ms Eilish.
Now the above may lead you to think I didn't like No Time To Die. But for the most part I did. It's Bond & 007's been part of my DNA since seeing Live & Let Die in 1973. I can't dislike these films even if at times the producers seem to be trying their best to make me do so. A big problem for me is all Craig's Bonds are symptomatic of an age where an undemanding action pic must mean something. Characters must be flawed & suffer the problems of real people. Why? I want to see characters who aren't like me! A sign of the more self-important times we live in. If I want to see a miserable spy I'll watch Richard Burton's washed-up agent staring into the bottom of a whiskey glass in John Le Carre's The Spy Who Came In From The Cold. Serious spy films are great. I love them. Bond films serve a different purpose. They're not real & shouldn't be played as such. Sure you can do it with a straight-face a la Connery but they're still a fantasy. Heightened reality if you like. Or that pleasing expression: escapist entertainment. I miss the sense of harmless fun earlier films offered. This has its moments but is a tad po-faced in its execution. Was once a time you left a Bond screening with a big-kid grin on your face. Now you're more likely to walk out sobbing into a hankie. Yes, that over-used word 'emotional' is very much at play here.
There's always been a battle between semi-serious & light-hearted Bond. Most tend towards the latter (to wit Oddjob, Jaws, underwater cities, etc, etc). A handful like From Russia With Love, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, For Your Eyes Only & Licence To Kill lean towards the former. That there are less of them shows the franchise is designed to be absurdist fun. The 'serious' films serve to cool things down a bit. Breathing space for a long-running series to recalibrate before carrying on with its finely honed formula of ridiculous mayhem.
This one, like all Craig's Bonds has love, loss & regret in abundance. That it manages to still pack in thrills & spills is a testament to a good production team. As with most Bonds the first half is the better. There's a nice bit of business in Cuba where Craig shows a neat line in humour he's hitherto been resistant to share. There's a great supporting character in Paloma (Ana de Armas), a rookie CIA agent with cojones whose presence livens things up. If I were Bond I'd have forgotten about Madeleine & hooked up with her! She's pretty much the best character in the film. A beacon of light showing how things used to be. Things then carry on with events unfolding at a fairly nifty pace. In fairness, for a 163 minute film it doesn't drag. I've seen 90 minute films that felt longer. For Fleming purists the events of of his You Only Live Twice novel are cheekily woven into the last act.
The ending, though nicely played is a misjudgement. Bond's a winner, not a loser. And here he pays the ultimate price. Perhaps it'll make the film more memorable. Or it may just make for a good way to win a pink wedge in Trivial Pursuit - Question: In which Bond film does 007 snuff it? Well, who knows how it'll be talked about in years to come. Whatever, at this point in time it's a bit of a downer when we should really be leaving the cinema uplifted.
So, despite inevitable negatives I did enjoy what unfolded. It's a big film & the budget's all there on the screen, which isn't always the case these days. Where would I rank it in the Bond pantheon? I'm not sure. I'd probably need to see it a time or two to determine that. But for a brief moment as I tried to decipher what Safin was saying I did think to myself, come back the invisible car all is forgiven! 😁
Well, that was impressively dreadful.
EDIT MAJOR MAJOR SPOILERS, NATURALLY. DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN IT. JUST DON'T.
The film I mean, not the last post. Though this film is I guess The Last Post.
Not sure I can be bothered to itemise its awfulness frankly. In all its running time barely a single witty joke or titter, nary a bit of intelligence. This is from the Lee Tamorahi / Marc Forster school of direction - relentlessly humourless, some admittedly muscular and impressive action but all so depressing, full on and stupid.
The somewhat quiet and unenthusiastic crowd gave barely a laugh throughout, no round of applause at the end.
Whatever Phoebe Waller-Bridge brought to the table I do not know, there's barely a whiff of the light fun or enjoyable twisted ness that we saw in the first series of Killing Eve - in fact, this is more like the subsequent series that she wasn't involved in - sort of grim and turgid.
The film is hamstrung by the lack of chemistry between Bond and Madeleine which didn't bother me in Spectre but does here as she is a key player.
Bond seems to be thick in this, and still mourning Vesper after how many years? How long did he know her for? A week or so? That's a bit mental isn't it? The film begins in desperate search of a premise.
We think it's in the present tense so for him to not know Madeleine's 'secrets' seems a bit dim. 'How did they know I was here?' he spits. I dunno mate, How about your driving a distinctive grey 1964 Aston Martin DB5 you absolute tool? Okay, the action with the Aston is scary and cool, but I don't know. The plot seemed cobbled together really, I did feel the same way watching Die Another Day really - what the hell is all this? As if to nod to that, we have a scene in Cuba where our hero is entering the villain's lair with a young operative with just three weeks' experience. He's a charmer, isn't he? But it's okay, because - hey! - she's not really inexperienced!
Walks into a known Spectre lair as himself, like you do. Think someone might notice?
Silly 'banter' about the black woman operative who now has his double-oh number. Oh my aching sides.
Nods in the finale to Bond's proposed fate in the end of the novel Moonraker, plus the final scenes of the novel You Only Live Twice.
Some kid thrown into the mix with the same vacant expression I was wearing by this stage.
What is this, Kill Bill Vol 2?
The villains in this are hardly in it. No idea what Blofeld is blathering on about. Nods to the writers for coming up with an astonishingly prescient plot that's a bit close to the bone given the pandemic makes the film worse because you find yourself thinking, right, are they trolling us? Get everyone into the movie theatres to help spread Covid?
You can see why director Danny Boyle bailed on this - did they spring their 'big idea' on him - 'Kill Bond, now!' late in pre-production? What was the film he wanted to make?
Some stuff I just didn't get and don't care. When Bond gets wind of that fact that someone was coming for him and Madeleine and the kid, I thought it meant that '007' was coming for him, and that she was the 'bad guy'. Things suddenly picked up as I found her character not terribly useful or appealing frankly. But no it's Saffin, borrowing Rodriguez's helicopter by the looks of things.
If that one island was developing the poison, what about the other outlets we see dotted across the glove? Do they get nuked too or are they okay? What was Safin trying to do anyway - just kill a lot of people? Why? What was his philospophy. I can buy that the Western Govts are trying to kill the populace - tell me about it, it appears the British State spent three years trying to have my Mum killed via dehydration in various care homes, you don't need to persuade me of that, even before they let the pandemic into our borders and into care homes, 'letting the bodies pile high'. Talking of which, this film was about as cheery as that recent Channel 4 dream Help with Killing Eve star Joie Comer - but a lot less admirable. I suppose when you suspect the British State of doing stuff - and just what the hell is Dame Cressida 'Stockwell Shooting' Dick doing still head of the Met, I do not know but can guess, nothing any Bond villain can come up with will match that.
The notorious Stockwell Shooting was in the news ahead of the release of Casino Royale, with unwarranted suggestions that Bond carried out a similar bit of renegade unlawful killing in the opening of the film, so maybe it's all full circle.
There are depressing hints that the British Establishment is the enemy all along in this, with M acting like a right bastard to Bond, but I couldn't follow it.
What was Safin trying to do? I suppose the old Freddie impersonator could have burst into a Queen song. 'Who Wants to Live Forever' perhaps they could have ended with that. Why did he need to wipe out Spectre? Okay, because they bumped off his family. Took his time about it didn't he. Swann landing a job as Blofeld's psychiatrist. Oh it's balls isn't it.
OMG! WTF was Mock the Week and Not Going Out comedy star Hugh Dennis doing in this in an inconsequential role as a scientist who gets bumped off after two minutes. Why? Did he win it in a bet. Would his comedy mate Lee Mack turn up as a henchman. EDIT: Still, Dennis gets to deliver a 'keep your hair on' line to the scientist which would doubtless give all the baldies and incipient baldies in the audience a stab of awkwardness and dismay, if the jollity of the pre-credits hadn't put them in a good enough mood. I mean, given Craig was receding in Casino Royale, he's be as bald as said scientist I reckon were it not for expensive hair transplants or weaves I'd vouchsafe. But Bond films are all about evoking memories of past Bonds so of course this took me back to my viewing of For Your Eyes Only at the cinema, where Bond (played by Roger Moore, no stranger to the combover by this point and, we later learned, thinning since LALD) playfully taps Blofeld's head with the same line while my male-pattern baldness Dad sat beside me, the audience laughing. Happy times.
I now realise the day after that Hugh Dennis was a co-star of Phoebe Waller-Bridges' Fleabag the second series, so that's what he's doing here, incongruous as it is. You can imagine them on set, munching sandwiches between takes: 'You'll never guess, I'm working on the new Bond film!' 'Oh, can you get us a part? Anything will do, I don't mind...' 'Oh alright then, I'll see.' END OF EDIT
The whole film has that awful faux quality you get in just about every movie it seems, even in the brilliant and entertaining Cruella. It's like, here's a version of something you've already seen. There's the same deadness you feel watching a Shakespeare play like Hamlet or any of them.
Honestly I was about to walk out, I mean if you're gonna pull a downer, if you want to make us cry at the end, make us laugh along the way too. Why should I stay watching this crap and risk getting Covid - the fact the film deals with a pandemic type plot makes one wonder if the makers aren't trolling us? Part of the plot to get everyone into cinemas again and generate 'herd immunity'. Thanks.
This is Bond on palliative or 'end of life' care - which to many of those acquainted with the British State's take on the elderly in care homes, basically means 'ending life' care. They want to kill Bond off, so this is the film they give you.
On the plus side, I went on Monday so it was cheaper seats and secondly I lost a few more pounds - in weight - so it's not all doom and gloom.
Sorry, this was longer than intended! Bit like the film itself perhaps.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
I was with you until the homosexuality comment. Have a word with yourself, mate.
@BIG TAM A very good review, not worried about the flippancy, most of your thoughts compare well to mine. I tend to take my reviews a bit too seriously.
@Napoleon Plural Bloody hell, you really didn't like it then...
As I stated in another thread @chrisno1 I should have let you do my review - an excellent job! In fact, I've thoroughly enjoyed yours and some other reviews on this thread, @TonyDP for instance - far more than the film of course. I thought the 007 Magazine one was spot on too. I'll go back tomorrow and salute a few others with mentions.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
@Napoleon Plural, as a clueless Bostonian who spends 8/10ths of the day holed up inside, a lot of the references in your review flew right over my head. But damn if that wasn't the best thing I've read in a long time. An awesome rant for the ages. 🍸️🍸️🍸️
I'm not going to give away any spoilers for those who haven't seen it (or read these reviews) but for the first time in I don't know how many decades I am going to 110% disagree with the review I posted by 007 Magazine. The 2 hours and 43 minutes flew by. Using overtones of OHMSS in music and story set the atmosphere. I thought it was EPIC! My only gripe was the use of the particular variant of the VZ58 by Safin in the flash back sequence which would not have existed in reality when Ms Swann was a child! 🙄
🤣🤣🤣🤣 If only they employed a proper weapons expert 🤣
@Napoleon Plural and Bond is still mourning Vesper.
And that is one of the irritants to the final scenes, the sacrifice Bond makes is non sensical given he's already lost Vesper.....the love of his life 🤷
Not really a review because that one was earlier but I realized one thing (although I loved the movie)
Skyfall: James Bond is absent for 3 months, gets trough rigorous tests in order to meet the 00 status requirements, which he fails
NTTD: Bond is absent for 5 years walking around in worn out OB t-shirts, is reinstated as a 00 in seconds after insulting M
Just found it kinda funny.
there seems to be a direct correlation with people who didn't like the movie and those who can't be bothered to learn Nomi's name and instead refer to her skin colour over and over
I don't know, you could argue @Chriscoop that it lends symmetry as Vesper sacrificed herself for Bond at the end of CR so Bond sacrifices himself to save his child and her mother. But I never really bought Bond's talk about how Madeleine and given him so much, I mean, Blofeld's right, he's a bit wet. He hasn't seen her in five years or so and again it's hard to say how long they knew each... oh why am I bothering?
Tell you what, they missed a trick with the gadget-laden Aston Martin! At the end of it, as he drives Madeline to the station, he should turn on one of those windy Greek roads and bang! Press the ejector seat! We watch her zap up in the air with an almighty comedy shriek and Craig delivers his beset post-Vesper dinner smirk and drives off. That would have got the movie off with a laugh as the credits rolled.
But they chose to take it in another direction.
Anyway, as one reviewer here hilariously and self-deprecatingly points out, Craig's Bond comes across as an embittered loser and who needs that, one can stay at home for that, no need to buy a cinema ticket!
In my above rant there'll be people thinking, why is this bloke @Napoleon Plural (I'm so said, I like to get Notifications from myself) ranting on about his late Mum and care homes? Fair enough, but it's not so different from watching Craig's Bond vent his misery across five films, except it cost you more in time and money!
For Bond really is depicted as a loser in this. Totally. Blofeld is spot on in his summary.
Think about it. All his great adventures since CR under Craig, all of it - if Blofeld was behind it, then it only happened because Bond's parents died in a climbing accident and Bond was brought into the family as the 'cuckoo', arousing Franz's hurt and resentment. So Bond has been rushing around saving the world from a problem of his own making, really. Perhaps that's why they brought in Freddie Mercury as the villain, so Bond could sing 'Sometimes I wish I'd never been born at alll........'
It reminds me of the hilarious Big Bang Theory post put up on the Last Film Seen thread, about Raiders of the Lost Ark. Only in this case, it's not so much that if Bond hadn't been there, the outcome would be the same. But rather, if he hadn't been there, everything would have been much better! it's like A Wonderful Life in reverse.
Now, someone made an ill-advised comment about wokeness back on this thread but I will say there does seem a 'woke' flavour to this film which evokes the pejorative aspects of that term. A black woman taking the 007 moniker? Q as Queer? I couldn't care less - there's a Bond fan on Twitter called LicenceToQueer and I imagine he'd have great fun making something of Bond staying overnight at Q's flat, it's one for the fan fiction for sure. Anyway, I don't care about any of this stuff but it does seem to be served up in a 'Make something of this then' tone and in a genuinely joyless and stupid context - this movie, and often this is the climate in which the anti-woke brigade get fired up.
It really does also seem to me that by having Bond depicted as an all-round loser, that having Barbara Broccoli and Phoebe Waller-Bridger on the writing team, is an insidious move of sorts. It seems that since GoldenEye it's been all about Bond having a lousy time, been taken down a peg or two. And the latest instalment suggests that all the problems in the world are essentially caused by blokes and are of bloke's own making - after all, it's three people, Bond, Blofeld and now Saffy generating all of it, quite unnecessarily and because they have emotional issues.
Now, the thing is, there is some merit in this view. And any ordinary woman looking at the world's leading stage with Johnson, Trump, Biden - I mean, really, no woman with those traits of infidelity, lying or apparent senility could get to stand for the highest office. The wars are generally caused by blokes of course, though it may be false logic to imagine that if you put women in charge that would all disappear.
Watching Moore's Bond deflower Solitaire via trickery so he can quiz her on where Kananga is - it's a bloody horrible scene, more horrible this week than ever - and likewise the director suggesting that Bond rapes the Shrublands character Patricia, in Thunderball okay, that's arguably wide of the mark, she's hot, he's Bond, it's made clear she enjoyed it and there's a rapport between them, but he's got a point.
You can see why Barbara Broccoli, growing up with all this stuff, might feel the need to rebel against this figure that looms large, that has brought her all her fortune and from which she therefore can never escape, you can see why she might feel certain Elektra urges.
Unfortunately, the whole project seems to reflect the themes of insidious infiltration depicted in the recent Bond films themselves, so it all gets a bit meta. This does seem to be reflected in society, so the makers are on to something. Sorry to go back to my rant about the British State... but it's clear that certain local authorities and the local police (each is the others' sister organisation) have been infiltrated over the decades. It's a bit like saying 1930s Germany got infiltrated by Adolf and his Nazi mates, I mean 'infiltration' is one way of putting it. Most of the so-called regulators under the modern Conservative Govt are in effect headed by people who work in the industry and are mates with the very firms they're meant to be regulating, so any complainers, complainants or whistleblowers will find that when they report so such regulators, they are simply tipping them off who the whistleblowers are, and this will be fed back to the companies concerned. It's a form of surveillance, and quite Imperialistic in its flavour, and it's most regulators - those in the care sector such as the CQC and NMC - but you also read how the water regulators allow sewage to be flushed into rivers without punishment because they're protecting shareholders.
Charities are now - a bit like Spectre in Thunderball - infiltrated or some would argue a front for other things: often sex abuse and some say trafficking, just as that once bastion of respectability, the Church, were infiltrated by paedophile priests for decades - there's a story about 3000 of them in the French church only yesterday, so I'm not making this up, or go see the Oscar-winning film Spotlight.
Even Sir Keir is accused of being a quisling - of infiltrating the Labour Left but really being an operative of the British State, to neutralise the chance of a genuine Socialist alternative by getting in control of the very party that offers that prospect - an allegation that has some traction given the virtually non-existent opposition he's provided in the past year in the face of open goal Government ineptitude, and by the fact that he is a former head of the Crown Prosecution Service, a highly dodgy organisation that colluded with corrupt Met Police over bringing baseless criminal charges to boost conviction rates, in particular in the Operation Midlands affair.
So it seems appropriate given all this and the themes of Craig's film that Barbara Broccoli has decided to set things up to end James Bond, as if it's been a long time in planning and the agenda all along. It lends a rather doubly disturbing aspect to watching the film.
It's like when my local MP Chris Grayling pledged to save the hospital in his constituency - Epsom & Ewell - and was re-elected on that platform. After attending some public meetings where he voiced his concern, and locals were noisily against it too, why, the closure was ushered in without nary a quibble, and as decreed by Conservative policy! Nicely played, Chris. This stuff goes on all the time.
And in a way, I can see the justice in it (ending Bond, not my local hospital). It's just, it's a bit like having a Ferrari showroom staffed by Extinction Rebellion protesters, or a fish and chip shop run by vegans. I can see both sides, but when one latches on to the former, it makes for an awkward experience. There's the sense someone's not being straight with you.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Although I was totally deflated at the end of the film, I’m glad it was made. I enjoyed it but I’ve been reflecting on it since watching it on the day of release.
To kill Bond felt like sacrilege but I think it was perhaps preferable to the ending of him sitting in front of the TV with a can of John Smiths helping his daughter with her homework whilst Madeline is knocking up a Shepherds pie. We’ve seen Blofeld die multiple times so why not Bond? As someone put it, the possibility of Bond dying adds a different element.
I have read a lot of comments about plot holes but I can’t think of one Bond film without a few, some bigger than in this film.
Comments about no humour in the film and conversely other comments about silly humour in the film with Hugh Dennis. Remember Rowan Atkinson in Never Say Never Again. Okay maybe not the best example to use NSNA but my point being there is silly humour in a lot of Bond films. Clearly there isn’t the great Roger Moore one liners in this film but there is a couple of things to smile at. Humour has been absent in the all of the Craig films so not really a surprise.
His love for Vesper was pure BECAUSE it was a short lived affair, no time to see her flaws and fall out of love and he blamed himself for her death. He is a man in turmoil and so it’s pointless to rationalise his behaviour anyway.
The comments about Bond being to soft? Bond cried in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.
I think James Bond circa 1962 is great to watch but you couldn’t take an actor seriously if he acted this way in a film made fifty nine years later. What did Darwin say about adapting to change….
Daniel Craig is my favourite Bond although I grew up on Moore and Connery. I just wish No Time To Die was my favourite Bond film to see him off but it isn’t. I wanted it to be.
I must say I cringe when I see people write a true Bond fan wouldn’t enjoy the film. It’s snobbish and stunts any true discussion.
Adapting to change? I can't get over the loss of the old emoticons on this website! Oh, it's all downhill!
I wasn't objecting to Hugh Dennis per se. I mean, American's won't know him, they'll be okay even if the jokes don't land. That's a problem with this film - there ARE jokes here but because the film and director has no funny bones, they just don't land.
It's that for those of us who do know, it's like - what the hell is he doing here? It's a distraction.
Re an earlier post, I am one of those who don't like the film - obviously - and don't use Nomi's name in my review and haven't bothered to learn it, so obviously I'm racist, right? I don't remember her name being ever used, it's all stuff about her being called 007. I also can't remember the name of the scientist, or the young novice agent in Cuba (Palo or something, or is that the actress?) and I know Safrin's name but that's because of the pre-blurb publicity. These characters just don't connect with me.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Not sure what political comments have to do with reviews of this film. Can I politely request members keep the comments to the film itself?
I've not seen the film yet, but if Bond dies in it, then the next film could include a scene, as someone suggested, of the new Bond waking up from a sleep having dreamt the Craig Bond universe, and then saying "Thank God that was only a dream".
I was thinking about Bond's meeting with M in his office. Is it the first time Bond has spoken of anyone's drinking as a negative? "Aren't we awfully thirsty today?"
This is a good idea. Bond could wake up after the torture scene in CR.
The franchise probably wants to forget they were once part of it.
Better yet, Bond wakes up during the torture scene om SP. Many suggested this five years ago anyway! 😂
I can't work out why Bond was killed off. If indeed he is dead, and his death was not some sort of ploy like in YOLT. Or maybe they will find his DNA and clone him.
That Blofeld was reduced to a cameo considering his importance in the novels and the Connery, Lazenby, and one Moore film, is a shame.
"I've just grown tired of the heavy drama".... me too.
I think there are several reasons why they killed off Bond. They wanted CraigBond to be a complete story, from starting off as a 00-agent till his death. I also suspect Craig and BB wanted Craig's tenure to end in a special and memorable way. And there is the obsession with sensational "hooks" to the story in the last few Bonds: M dies! Blofeld is Bond's "Brother"!
You can, but I shan't necessarily be adhering to it*. The whole film is political and is meant to reflect and anticipate the grim times in a way that didn't happen with Connery or Moore's Bond films. So if I want to bring in current affairs, I shall. The whole movie feels a bit Line of Duty** - which the last third of Spectre somewhat resembled anyway,
**Grim, UK drama series about a special unit investigating police corruption. As with the Craig Bonds, it became increasingly convoluted and time-consuming in finding out who was really at the bottom of it all.
*Actually in that second post I do go on about politics a bit, don't I? I was making a point about how existing respectable organisations oft get infiltrated and used as a front for nefarious agendas and activities, often as a sort of feint or misdirection.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
"So, did we need another dose of Bond attempting to resolve his psychological issues?" Good question.
I agree.
I have a feeling though that Bond's death allows Eon to have the 007 role filled by a black actor. Now Bond is dead, there is no biographical reason not to. The name "James Bond" will be used by MI6, as a tribute to the dead Bond, as a code name for any future 007.
Cubby told his daughter "don't **** it up!"
He will be spinning in his grave.
I wonder is the blood was left out in case it upset some people? Despite the rest of the violence in the film. We live in very strange times.