By J.B.Browne
Stirred: Final Bond
Warning: This is an actual review of the film and may contain plot reveals.
After watching No Time to Die this week, I've realized that the main appeal to any Bond film has always been its glow of abundant beauty—humans, cars, gadgets—but really, it's about the places.
In No Time to Die, we're on the gorgeous frozen lakes of Nittedal, Norway, where production kicked off; idyllic Matera in Italy's breathtaking Mezzogiorno; the stunning Faroe Islands archipelago sandwiched between Norway and Iceland; Jamaica's Port Antonio, home of creator Ian Fleming's GoldenEye property; Cairngorms National Park, the largest in the UK; to Hammersmith Bridge where Bond meets Agent M aka Ralph Fiennes aka Voldemort.
So, does the 15-year-long story told by the Craig cycle satisfy? Early critical consensus on Craig's final Bond is that it's up there with some of the decent ones (looking at you Casino Royale, Skyfall).
Rotten Tomatoes gave it a "fresh" rating:
"It isn't the sleekest or most daring 007 adventure, but No Time to Die concludes Daniel Craig's franchise tenure in satisfying style."
That's them, but what about us?
No Time to Die satisfies likely because its primary function is to conclude the Craig cycle as an extended farewell to the first 21st century millennial Bond. Some set pieces are intoxicating, and like old Bond movies, the excitement of travel-through-screen to exotic locales is thrilling. There are tweaks to the Bond formula too. Instead of an action sequence, the film begins with a little girl in a chalet in the dead of winter. Her mother caresses oblivion in a haze of alcohol and pills. She's double alone. It's beautiful and quiet, but for the encroaching horror of a Japanese kabuki mask-wearing figure — a sinister home invasion ensues, recalling the Halloween movies. It's a different vibe.
The rifle barrel titles with maudlin pop song bit follow, and we meet Bond in Matera. He's since retired from secret agent life but is still lethal with all the gadgets. Léa Seydoux's pouty Madeline Swann accompanies him. They're in love, but both still have some demons to incinerate. Two crucial Bond elements threaten to derail any Bond film if left unconvincing. The first is the Bond girl. Swann is an intriguing character, but Seydoux and Craig lack the fiery chemistry of Craig and Green; her memory hovers over these early scenes, James's feelings for her still yet to process.
But what's this? 007 seems to have newfangled respect for his female associates, which might have to do with Phoebe Waller-Bridge's contribution as a writer. Craig specifically requested the Fleabag creator to add her trademark quirkiness to the script, according to The Observer. Lines like "mad as a bag of bees" find their way in and suitably lighten the mood. But then there's the feeling that this is a team effort without a singular voice. For every charismatic Nomi – played by Lashana Lynch, the first 00 Black female, there's a chairlift Bond girl like Ana De Armas who could be airbrushed out with hardly a script rewrite.
But with multiple writers, you're still getting those old-school style Bond gags, some of which work and some that just look and sound silly. For example, Bond loves alcohol and drinks it whenever he can, even during a fight with bullets flying at his head. He keeps his cool all while flirting with De Armas; not once does he flinch in the face of on-set apple juice. It feels forced and elbowed-in, like, "oh, this is so vintage Bond, let's put it in the scene with the second-tier Bond girl." There's play on old Bond gadgetry tropes, too; instead of an exploding pen, we get an exploding bionic eyeball.
The second crucial element that makes a great Bond is the inclusion of an iconic villain. However, a good villain with a good backstory and motive for world domination is the nutrient-rich smoothie for Bond movies. The Craig Bonds that got this right were Casino Royale and Skyfall, with memorable villainy you loved to hate and probably just loved. Javier Bardem as Raoul Silva in Skyfall comes to mind. But sometimes, this crucial yin-yang balance misses the mark, landing somewhere in goofy Austin Powers Dr. Evil territory.
No Time to Die has two main villains. One is Christoph Waltz's Blofeld, returning from Spectre, running Spectre while feigning insanity in solitary confinement, and whose one central appearance is an interrogation scene that's pure Anthony Hopkins Hanibal Lecter. The other is Rami Malek's Lyutsifer Safin, which might as well be a poorly disguised Lucifer Satan party name. Malek's performance is somehow big and echoey without much for his character to convince us of his master plan. Watching him stroking a child instead of a cat reminded this writer of the dangers of parallel universes where Freddie Mercury may have turned out bad.
I was suitably happy until the bold final acts, where the film gets a bit wobbly. James 00 is walloped with shock upon revelation as he tries to save the world yet again from the bowels of — and this is Austin Powers Dr. Evil stuff — a remote missile-silo-island-supervillain-lair with poisonous Japanese gardens and sharks with lasers (kidding about the lasers).
But in the simmering hours after the movie, it becomes apparent that aside from doing justice to the emotional thrust of Daniel Craig's final Bond, the idea of family becomes clear, mouthed silently to the audience from one of the characters. Be it personal, organizational, or sovereign state—Bond, Safin, Blofeld, hell even M and Bond's colleagues pine for a sense of family, if they haven't already suffered losing one. That's the emotional resonance. Otherwise, No Time to Die is a slightly overlong, villain-lite attempt to wrap up the plots from the previous films with a bombastic finale to be discussed for years. If it took a few mediocre Bonds to get there, it's still worth the wait.
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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