Double Oh...25: No Time To Die

2021, d. Cary Joji Fukunaga

SPOILER WARNING! past here there be spoilers

No Time To Die Preamble:

Originally slated for a March 2020 release, the final chapter of Daniel Craig's career as James Bond was delayed again and again and again.  Nobody knows why.  No one.  It will remain an all-consuming mystery for all eternity.  When historians look back to 2020 and 2021 all they will be thinking about is "why did they keep delaying that Bond flick?"

I can't say whether the film's year-and-a-half delay created more excitement or not for me, or for the filmgoing crowd in general.  The ebbs and flows of COVID-19 (what'sthisnow?) caused a reactive  cycle of opening and closing of cinemas, but the idea of going anywhere with crowds seemed an uncomfortable proposition.  Post-vaccination, things have opened up more broadly, people are becoming more and more used to doing public activities, but it's baby steps, and, at least for myself, I had to settle into the idea of going to a movie theatre and feeling both safe and comfortable sitting there for two or more hours in the same room as other people.  With these sort of social anxieties, the unknowns of being in public, there was no excitement for any movie, and I've definitely avoided the theatres for a lot of the big tentpole films I really wanted to see (Shang-chi, The Suicide Squad).

My return to theatres was prompted by a friend looking for someone to join him in seeing the latest Halloween movie.  This was definitely not an expected draw, but the simplicity of it, a social activity prompted by another, with transportation and tickets taken care of, for a film I had no real desire to see seemed kind of the optimal way to get back in front of the big screen.  If I felt anxious being in the theatre, it wouldn't matter if it impacted my enjoyment of the film (plus it would be a horror movie, so maybe my environmental anxiety would enhance the experience?).

The funny thing is, in anticipation of going to the film, I started getting comfortable with going to the movie theatre altogether, and that led me to look at what else was out that I was itching to see.  Of course, the latest Bond was top of the list of what was currently playing, plus it was already a couple weeks into its run, and seeing it on an off-day, like Thursday, would mean less crowds.  And the rest of the family, all of them, were into the idea of going to see it, so suddenly it became a family affair.

Amazingly I had managed to avoid doing much deep-diving into No Time To Die in the nearly three-year lead-in to actually seeing it.  I watched the trailer when it was originally released, once, and kind of let it sit.  I had vague ideas about what it could be but I had kind of let go of those by the time I got to my seat.  I sat in the theatre and just let the film do what films should do...take me away from my reality for its 2 hours and 40 minutes.... 

As noted with my Spectre entry for "Double Oh..." I seem to like each entry of the Daniel Craig era more with each successive viewing.  Do I think that Daniel Craig is the best Bond ever? An undecided probably. Spectre was such a let-down after Skyfall (my favourite Bond film) and I've watched it twice since and softened on it.  I was wary that No Time To Die would be more Spectre, more attempts at tying a neat little bow on the Craig era.  The strained efforts to connect all the threads in Spectre was what soured that movie, would they attempt more here?

 
Villains: 
Lyutsifer Safin (Rami Malek) is the main villain of the piece, and he's... underwhelming.  Something definitely happened in either the scripting or editing where we lost a lot of what Safin's deal was.  The film opens strongly, differently, with a flashback to young Madeleine Swann, daughter of Spectre/Quantum agent Mr. White and an early encounter she has with Safin.  He's there to kill White's family, because White killed his (and he bears the scars of his survival on his face, under a noh mask) She shoots him twice but he gets up an walks away from this assault (watching the film I was expecting Safin to have some form of immortality or regenerative capability, which I thought would be the crux of the film...it didn't occur to me he had a bulletproof vest on).  Despite his objectives he saves her when she falls through the thin ice on a lake. 

Past this 10 minute prelude, we don't see Safin again for another 90 minutes, which is a long time to go without seeing the main villain.  Bond movies do tend to do this, though, where the villain is more of a string-puller than physical presence in the film.
Safin re-emerges into Madeleine's life decades later, having secured Project Heracles, the maguffin of the film, for his own use (it's a bio-weapon comprised of nanites that can be programmed to attack and kill an individual based on their DNA) and used it to kill the majority of Spectre's agents at a party in Cuba. 
At first he tries to call in a favor from Madeleine, but then just uses threats to coerce her into attempting to assassinate Blofeld.
Later he kidnaps her (and her daughter) taking her back to his island lair, which is in disputed waters between Russia and Japan.  It's an island that houses a former nuclear missile base, and it's irradiated with poisonous plants and toxic water.  It's a very fitting Bond villain base.
We never get to the crux of Safin.  He's fueled by revenge when we first meet him, but what his plan is with Project Heracles is kind of a mystery.  I mean, he plans to decimate the world, but why is not entirely clear.  Malik plays him with a calm, patient demeanor which heightens his intensity, and his child endangerment tactics are pretty creepy, but I really struggle to fear him.  His obsession with toxins and poisons never really comes into play, which it probably did in an earlier script, or perhaps longer cut of the film.  If there were massive revisions to the story or big edits to not make it a 3-hour movie then Safin surely was the character that suffered the most in it.

Blofeld (Christoph Waltz) is the Hannibal Lecter of the film, except that he's just as feckless and impotent as he was in Spectre.  The measures of his imprisonment here implies he's the most dangerous man alive, with higher precautions than we see in Silence of the Lambs or the Winter Soldier's containment in Captain America: Civil War but it's kind of all-for-naught.  There's an awareness here to how limp he was as a villain in the previous film, and this film uses that to its advantage.  His personal connection to Bond gets under Bond's skin...he's a nuisance, but hardly the most dangerous man alive.  His presence is only here to show us that there are greater evils, and that the enemy of my enemy does not make them my friend.

Primo (Cyclops) (Dali Benssalah) is an assassin with a false eye.  The false eye is connected to one that Blofeld wears, allowing Blofeld to observe the world.  What Blofeld doesn't know is that Primo is a double agent, working for Spectre, but also against Spectre for Safin.  He's kind of a non-presence.  If not for the fake eye, and tier2 henchmen competency, you wouldn't really notice him as anything different from all the other mooks that Bond and company kill.   He has a pretty great death though that works extremely well for his one gimmick.

Logan Ash (Billy Magnussen) is introduced as a CIA colleague of Felix Leiter (Jeffrey Wright), intoned to be a nepotism case.  Ash introduces himself to Bond as a big fan with an excess amount of excitable energy.  He's there with Wright to recruit the retired Bond in helping to recover the Project Heracles scientist Valdo Obruchev from Spectre. Of course, Ash is a turncoat, and when Bond returns, Ash shoots Leiter which makes him the worst villain of this movie.  Despite his rage, Bond doesn't rush out to seek revenge for Felix...he's got too much on his mind, but when he runs into him later...well, let's just say Ash gets what he deserves.  It's a great scene.

Valdo Obruchev (David Dencik) is the thrice-kidnapped scientist for Project Heracles. Dencik plays him like he's in a totally different movie, a crazy Russian accent and a wide-eyed nervous motor-mouth energy. I'm not sure if it works in spite of  He's ready to report to whomever will keep him alive up until Nomi gets ahold of him, and yeah, he's racist.  He gets the harshest death in the film, but acts a fitting rebuttal to the racist reaction to Lashana Lynch being cast as 007.

Bond Girls:

Is Madeleine Swann (Lea Seydoux) the first holdover love interest for Bond?  Why yes she is.  In 24 films, the woman Bond ends up with at the end of a movie is rarely even mentioned nevermind seen (only Tracey and Vesper had ever been mentioned again).  So that's a big deal.
Not only that, for the first time ever a Bond movie opens with a sequence that has nothing to do with Bond directly.  The cold open is a flashback (only Casino Royale opens with a flashback which is a nice bookend to the Craig years) revealing Madeleine's rather upsetting childhood.
We catch up with Bond and Madeleine in modern day as they attempt to move forward in their life together.  Madeleine brings Bond to Vesper's tomb where it explodes and Blofeld sets her up to appear as if she's a sleeper agent.  Bond, having been betrayed once before (and visiting Vesper's grave brings that to the forefront of his mind) can't be certain that Madeleine isn't a Spectre agent.  There's some great, great acting between Seydoux and Craig as she implores him to believe her and he can't trust himself enough to trust her.
So it kind of sucks that she then disappears from the film following the the opening credits for what seems like an hour as the film jumps 5 years into the future (another first for a Bond film).  When we see Madeleine again she's introduced as Blofeld's psychiatrist, the only person he will talk to (which seems quite fitting for Blofeld frankly).  Bond's reintroduction to Madeleine is painfully awkward ("Dr. Swann" he said, choking on his false pleasantry with a faked smile, and reaching his hand out for a shake that wasn't returned), but it's not long before his heart has melted again and all he wants is to protect her.  As much as Bond and Swann didn't really work perfectly in Spectre, Craig really sells Bond's emotional investment.  Seydoux, for her part, effectively portrays a woman who knows she needs to keep her distance.
The reveal of Mathilde, Madeleine's child is a shocker, and the child's piercing blue eyes clearly tell the audience she's Bond's child, despite Madeleine imploring that she's not.  When Safin, earlier, threatens Madeleine's loved one, he clearly knows of her child (but we the audience, not knowing, think it's Bond he's referring to).  And so it's not long before he comes calling.
The film always undermines our expectations for Madeleine, by placing her in typical woman-in-peril situations, which would be totally eye rolling if she weren't capable of dealing with them on her own, which she does.
As much as the film rotates around Madeleine, and both Craig and Seydoux do very well at trying to sell a bond (no pun intended) that they share, it's still feels like a script necessity rather than a fully tangible connection.  The foundation is still all built out of Spectre which never really sold them as a viable relationship, and certainly doesn't stack up to the same steamy connection that Bond had with Tracey or Vesper.

For all the "controversy" (by which I mean a bunch of internet manbaby idiots who try to gatekeep properties to some bullshit white, masculine ideal by complaining and harassing) surrounding Lashana Lynch being the new 007 in No Time To Die, the film never even contemplates offering her up as a replacement for Bond.  She's just the new agent with the "Double Oh" number.  M proffers to Bond "You thought we would retire it?" and the thought of there being a tuxedo with "007" and "Bond" printed on the back like some espionage jersey lifted to the rafters of MI6 makes me laugh.
But Nomi is a tried and true "Double Oh", skilled and capable, with the same wry sense of humour.  She introduces herself to Bond in Jamaica after finally tracking him down for M, bringing him out of years of hiding, but he's not requested to come back into the fold, instead challenged to stay out of the way.  Bond, in accepting Felix's offer, has a semi-friendly rivalry with Nomi, and their dynamic is really quite fun, neither bitter nor sexist.  Likewise there's no really any winking "girl power" or stick-it-to-them aspect to Nomi, she's just cool, stylish, and capable.
The only down side for me was I was hoping for more of a spotlight for Lynch, where she's left kind of as an aside.  She never gets a big action sequence, and certainly nothing like what our next Bond Girl does.

Muh, muh, muh, muh my Paloma (Ana de Armas).  I love palomas, they're one of my favourite drinks.  Tequila, grapefruit, salt, yum.  Now, I'm trying to resist being gross, so let me just say de Armas' Paloma is seriously the highlight of No Time To Die.  She's introduced to Bond as a fresh-out-of-training CIA agent, and Bond's contact in Cuba.  She's wearing a stunning low-cut, vibrant blue dress, and guides Bond to a closet where she starts to undress him.  Bond mistakes her forwardness for a come-on, but it's just awkwardness as she tries to get him dressed for their Spectre infiltration.  Her reaction to the pass Bond makes on her is hilarious (she basically says "ew, gross" without being offensive).  Also, this is de Armis' second team-up with Craig, after Knives Out, so they already have an establish acting rapport.
Now, the set up with her giggly, fresh-meat, sex-bomb appearance and back story is a stark counter to so many other Bond Girls who are basically there for Bond to sleep with, and their competency is often called into question.  Paloma, though, just grows and grows and grows every second she is on screen, to the point that she's even more effective than Bond in the big brawl with Spectre.  Her hypercompetence, countered with her boundless positivity is utterly delightful.  For decades they've been trying to find a Bond Girl to spin off into their own film, and Paloma is it.  Make it happen Broccolis!

Moneypenny (Naomie Harris) is back in a small supporting role, mainly sharing scenes with M, Q, Nomi and Tanner.  I really like Harris as an actress, and she's a fine Moneypenny (I like how she lures Bond out to "dinner") but it's such a small role.  I always want a little more out of it.

Theme/Credits:
Truth, I did a bathroom break during the credits sequence so I can't comment at all on what happens because I saw only scant seconds of it.  Now, Billie Eilish's theme to the film came out back in February 2020, so we've had a long time with it, and it's not a bad torch song, but it doesn't have the pop-swells of the best Bond themes.  There are hints of "Writing On The Wall" from Sam Smith, which gives another connective thread to Spectre, but it at least Eilish's song builds to something which Smith's song never did.  It's not as dull as Smith's effort (which, I know, isn't saying much), but it doesn't reach for epic territory like the best Bond themes.  It's ultimately kind of a let down as a sendoff for Craig ...it's fine for just another Bond theme.



Bond:

Daniel Craig was in it to win it with this one.  Able, willing, and more than ready to say goodbye to Bond, Craig invests his body and soul into his last outing and it shows.  Though physically still as beefy as ever, his face is wearing his age, which is partly just how Craig looks, but also he uses it to show a weariness in Bond, a fatigue for all he's gone through.  Where both Skyfall and Spectre directly comment on the idea that he's getting to old for this shit, here it's more emotional.  He was more than happy to give up the life, seemingly.  He's given it up three times now in five films, but he always comes back to it.  Part of what Craig is able to do is show that Bond is incapable of hiding from what he was raised and trained to be, as much as he wants to escape.  What was evident in the early scenes with Madeleine is that he's allowed himself to be as happy as he's ever been (which was with Vesper) but he's let his guard down again.  Madeleine is set up to apparently betray him, in a sequence and setting that offers cruel parallel, a synergy between the sequence in which he discovers Vesper's betrayal and he thinks that Madeleine has betrayed him.  He still wanted to love Vesper despite her betrayal, but she didn't feel she was worthy of it and she died so that Bond could be free.  With Madeleine's "betrayal" he's caught at his most vulnerable, and his guards go up instantly.  He loves Madeleine too much to be objective, and at the same time I think he realizes he'll never escape his past, so he has to set her free, both for his own well being, and hers.

So 5 years later, when she returns, Craig does sell the hurt and pain and joy and awkwardness of seeing the love of his life, the woman he let go once again.  This is probably the most character-focused and emotional Bond movie ever, and clearly Craig relishes diving into that part of the character.  Even meeting Nomi, and learning he's been replaced as 007, it has a greater impact that I think Bond thinks it should.  Without Madeleine to take him away from the life, what life has he had?  As we saw in Skyfall, and again here in Jamaica, when Bond is liberated from his work, he descends into vice - drinking and women primarily.  Rather than having a life, it feels like Bond is just waiting to be found again.  As much as he protests against Felix's advances, it's clear it's exactly what he wants...until he sees Madeleine again.

Once Madeleine enters the picture and he realizes that she's connected to the events of the film, his objective has little to do with the safety of the world, and everything to do with the safety of Madeleine, and later Mathilde.

Bond's connection to Safin is, really, nothing, except in understanding that Safin has traumatized Madeleine in the past, and continues to haunt her.  Safin, of course, is a dead man regardless of whatever evil scheme he's trying to perpetrate.

I've mentioned a couple firsts for this Bond, and it's the first time that Bond has died, and it was, for me, a shock.  In the way they present it, Bond's death is an inevitability, so when it happens, there's still a sense of disbelief but also acceptance.  Bond's luck has run out.  But infected with a Heracles virus that is tailored to Madeleine's DNA (thus affecting her and Mathilde), Bond knows that in spite of being out of time to escape, there's no sense in trying if he can never be with these people, and that even his presence in the world could eventually kill them.  There is no choice for him, he sacrifices himself so that the people he love can have a future.  It's sobering but sweet in a way.  I don't like it, but I do accept it.

Movie:
No Time To Die is 2 hours and 40 minutes long, but somehow I never felt it.  It's an incredibly propulsive work.  There's one sequence late in the film with Bond stalking through the enemy lair taking out henchman after henchman which does get tedious but it's the only 2-3 minutes that drag.  

In spite of the villains being rather lackluster and the main villain plan being somewhat leftfield, the film is very, very grounded in its emotional connection.  Bond's connection to M, Moneypenny, Q, Tanner, Felix, Madeleine, Vesper, and ultimately Mathilde, it's all there, and it drives the film in a direction that few other Bond films even dare to broach.  Even Bond's "revenge" films don't feel grounded in any real emotional connection, but the Craig films have always looked inward.  Bond is kind of a sad figure in the Craig movies and he's at his saddest here, but trying to put on an outwardly brave face.

The action sequences in this film are phenomenal, and rarely overstay their welcome.  Because of the emotionality of the film there's a greater intensity to the action, an actual feeling of stakes.  Despite not having Roger Deakins as DP, No Time To Die rivals Skyfall in its beauty (maybe just a little less).  There's perhaps the best forest action sequence this side of Return of the Jedi, just lush, green and gorgeous.  The early action sequence in various Italian locations are just lovingly crafted and adoringly shot, perfect for armchair tourists like myself. 

The villain's lair, estabilshed inside an old missile base, is grand in scope, but has more than just a concrete bunker feel.  There's multiple environments within the base and so many threats...unfortunately the toxic and poisonous environment isn't used to an effective payoff (again, probably a sacrifice of script revisions) but it's really neat in how it's both set decorated and shot.

What I didn't like, I mean viscerally reacted to, was the killing of Felix.  That one upset me. But otherwise, I quite loved the film, and the experience of the film, and how it caps off a very special era of Bond. 

Q-Gadgets:
I really enjoy Ben Whishaw as Q, and I like how each of the past three films have given little hints at who this character is when he isn't around Bond.  A whole sequence takes place in Q's home, where we find him cooking for an incoming date, and meet his cat.

He doesn't have much to present in this film.  The only real gadget is the watch which contains a small electromagnet.  It's an untested prototype so Q can't even really tell its effectiveness.  Bond finds out not once, but twice.

Nomi takes the lead of the two seat glider that they'll need to use to infiltrate Safin's base.  It falls out of the back of a carrier plane and goes low and silent on approach, but also becomes a submersible.  It's pretty sleek, but only has a short sequence and shelf life.

Classification [Out of 01.0]: 00.7

BONUS: Ranking Bond Update:
1. Skyfall (01.0)
2. On Her Majesty's Secret Service (00.9)
3. Casino Royale (00.9)
4. The Spy Who Loved Me (00.9)
5. License To Kill (00.8)
6. Quantum of Solace (00.8)
7. For Your Eyes Only (00.8)
8. Tomorrow Never Dies (00.8)
9. Thunderball (00.8)
10. No Time To Die (00.7)
11. Goldeneye (00.7)
12. From Russia With Love (00.7)
13. Moonraker (00.7)
14. Live and Let Die (00.7)
15. Dr. No (00.6)
16. Diamonds are Forever (00.6)
17. The Man With The Golden Gun (00.6)
18. The Living Daylights (00.6)
19. Goldfinger (00.5)
20. Spectre (00.5)
21. Die Another Day (00.5)
22. A View To A Kill (00.4)
23. You Only Live Twice (00.4)
24. Octopussy (00.2)
25. The World Is Not Enough (00.2)