Peel the Onion | Film Review: No Time to Die (Part I)

By J.B.Browne

Shaken: Craig's Legacy

Spoiler alert: James Bond is dead. Specifically, Daniel Craig's final turn as 007 is the actor's swan dive swansong for the series' 25th outing. A last glance saloon for this generation's Savile Row icon, which started with 2006's British Bourne-alike Casino Royale, released a year after the London bombings. That film unveiled a refurbished Bond, a return to what author Ian Fleming described as "quiet, hard, ruthless, sardonic, fatalistic" about his titular character.

Craig's performance was grittier, recalling 80s Bond Timothy Dalton and one time Bond George Lazenby in terms of a more complex Bond psyche. But where their pain became manageable or even pain-free, Craig took it further, portraying a deeply haunted yet insanely capable individual brooding louder than his predecessors. A "blunt instrument," Fleming once wrote, one tasked with shady government biz in the name of British exceptionalism but with a conscience. So, after fifteen years and five films, arriving almost eighteen months after you-know-what, where does No Time to Die place in the pantheon of Bonds and Craig Bonds? Was it worth the wait?

Answer: Yes.

But let's contextualize how and what the Craig films did for the series. Perhaps more than any other, Craig's tenure as double-oh-seven feels like the first or most complete example of what BBC's Mark Kermode describes as a "self-contained Bond cycle." Though Craig's departure will come as delayed relief to vocal detractors – sites set up around the time of his announcement like craignotbond.com and danielcraigisnotbond.com (DCinB.com for short) still operate, now feverishly debating who will be next – his legacy is that of brand frontman solving outdated Bond issues for a 21st-century audience.

Craig's performance resonated away from retrograde Bonds-of-yore, action-packed matinee idols with philandering one-liners, sarky eyebrows, and bleepy toys. Narratively speaking, up until that point, Bond films had been suggestively loose at best, so much as to spark fan theories that "James Bond" was a code name for a medley of spies.

From Casino Royale onward, Craig delivered Bond with depth and gravitas, taking cues from Bourne, yes, but also Batman Begins the previous year. All seemed to want to reinvent old school heroes for realist fiction in the 21st century. You had to believe these were real people with real emotions. Bond, like Batman, gutted to their vital essence and duly reconstructed. The Craig cycle added a sense of continuity too. He was the glue that transitioned Casino Royale to follow-up Quantum of Solace seamlessly. Solace was the big-budget Next Episode the Bond franchise had never really done before. There may have been references to past films in previous outings. Still, none were central to modern slow-burn character arcs or widescale plot developments experienced with TV formatting. Solace, for example, has the same villain and the marrow of the love and hurt of Royale's Vesper Lynd (Eva Green) – Bond's female match – her loss an emotional driver right up to No Time to Die.

Skyfall is a slight deviation from the big episodic storyline but is so beautifully shot by cinematographer Roger Deakins it almost stands on its own. A fan favorite, Skyfall rounded out Bond's social hub by introducing stay-on characters like Naomie Harris's Moneypenny while deepening his connection to M. Spectre heralded Bond's new Vesper-worthy love interest in Madeleine Swann played by Léa Seydoux, a psychiatrist with ties to chief Bond villain Blofeld's criminal enterprise. Spectre ends when Bond picks up his newly repaired Aston Martin DB5 from Q's lab, driving out of London with Madeline straight into the next film's sunrise. If Craig Bond ended there, it would have left a decent legacy for the actor and crew. Fortunately for us, the series had one final act left to tell.

As he would refer himself, J.B. Browne is a half "foreign devil" living with anxiety relieved by purchase. HK-born Writer/Musician/Tinkerer.

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