n Short Paragraphs: No Time to Die

2021, Cary Joji Fukunaga (Beasts of No Nation) -- download

After plowing through all those frickin' Xmas movies during December 2021's Advent Calendar, I just didn't have the heart to write one more post, let alone the energy to watch anymore Xmas flicks. It's weird, because we often watch them to add Moar Xmas Cheer to the season that I find so utterly fucking exhausting. Moar is needed. 

Between the pre-season buying and prepping, to the Week Of and all the errands and cooking and baking and prepping, and the Week After of errands, and eating and eating and drinking and eating and New Year's Eve buying and prepping and cooking and eating and drinking and drinking and drinking and drinking, I just find this whole season to be draining. And even more so when I took the entire three weeks off. So yeah, THIS week, which is post-everything, finally gives me some proper drain-the-brain time (off), and yeah, I feel like I am back (best Keanu Reeves voice). Maybe.

Sometimes, when I blog-write like this, I wonder if readers view this like they view those annoyingly long bits at the tops of recipes posts, where the writer goes on and on about how their grandmother used to make this recipe that they copied line for line from the Joy of Cooking.

No matter, it is what it is.

When we last left Mr Bond, he was quitting the spy biz to run away with Madeleine, daughter of one of his greatest enemies, the Mr. White from all the previous flicks. We've seen this before, in previous incarnations, and even with Vesper. It never ends well. So that they tie that bad ending to this new thing is slightly overt, and ... it doesn't end well. Bond (Daniel Craig, Cowboys & Aliens) is almost blown up, ends up in a brilliant chase scene in a beautiful set-piece city, and ends up with him putting Madeleine (Léa Seydoux, Blue is the Warmest Colour) on a train, assuming she betrayed him.

She didn't. Time passes. Opening credits and song.

Bond ends up in a house in the tropics, the kind of house we have seen Will Smith and Jason Statham find refuge in, in other retired-killer movies. Of course, no one will let him be, and Felix Leiter (Jeffrey Wright, Westworld) the pesky CIA operative comes seeking his assistance in the rescue of a scientist from familiar bad guys Spectre (not dead just because their boss is in British jail) at a party in Cuba. His sidekick (and shoot) for the op is 2-weeks-out-of-training Paloma (Ana de Armas, Knives Out), who proves her self less Bond Girl and more Bond Foil. As Kent suspected, I found her just enthralling, and not just because she won't be having any of his undress-me shit (Bond is old? I feel seen...) but also because she is just so effortlessly capable. Alas, the successful op has the tables turned and Leiter is betrayed & fridged. Bond has his motive to return to the fold.

To me, this struck as a return to Bond of old cliches. The BBEG is a proper world-killing villain with a proper world killing weapon. He even has a name meant to be written more than said -- Lyutsifer Safin (Rami Malek, Mr. Robot) -- murky motivations, scars, and a Island Base. Safin also has a connection to Swan which forces Bond to reconnect with her and her... daughter? 

Like Kent said, they never really get into Safin's motivations. Sure, he wants to kill a large portion of the world with his DNA directed nanobot virus, but why? That it all is wrapped up in his obsession with Swan, the daughter of the man who killed Safin's own family, is rather distracting from his goal, and yet it is the crux of his plan. I found the mewling scientist who developed the virus to be the better Big Bad, as he is motivated purely by greed, and has nothing against playing both sides against each other. 

Bond's motivation is to rescue Swan and his daughter, but also stop the evil plan of Safin, and with it he gets one last go at being 007. I found the whole "give him back the number" idea condescending. The fact that Nomi (Lashanna Lynch, Captain Marvel) bears the moniker says she is more than capable, so why not just send her along with Bond with her '00' intact -- it's not like the British govt is doing this to keep their own reputation, given they funded the evil virus initially. But for the sake of the franchise, Bond has to once again don the title and perform the duties.

The ride is thrilling, and I found the plot a bit better executed than Spectre, but given this is Craig's last go at being Bond, they do a decent job of bringing the series to an end. Bond dies. Sure, they can easily undo that, as nothing stays dead in franchises, but like the Craig era started, the next one can be more of a reboot than a playful continuation. For one, I hope they ignore the Frothing Internet and go with someone divisive.