Off to the cinema to see No Time to Die. A film which answers a bunch of questions such as "what would happen if Hugh Dennis was in a film" and "does James Bond have sperm" and "what would happen if Ana de Armas kicked a man in the face while wearing high heels" and "how can you make London look attractive", to which the answer is that you make it look slightly blue.
To leave the cinema walking tall. No Time to Die is the latest James Bond film. It stars Daniel Craig as James Bond, plus some of the same people who were in the last couple of Bond films, plus Lashana Lynch as a character called Nomi, which - if you recall - was also the name of Elizabeth Berkley's character in Showgirls. In that film the name was symbolic, because Berkley's character was unsure of herself, e.g. there was "no me", and I think it's symbolic in Die as well. Beyond that the connections with Showgirls are very limited. I'll move on.
Is it any good? Not Showgirls, I mean No Time to Die. It's so-so. My first big-screen Bond was Goldeneye (1995), which was terrific, nay iconic. It was so good that it made Eric Serra's godawful postmodern sample-heavy score seem good as well. Did you know they replaced some of his music with a traditional orchestral score, because the producers felt that the tank chase in St Petersburg sounded stupid with sampled orchestra stabs and presets from a EMU Proteus or whatever?
You probably did know that. Tomorrow Never Dies (1997) was a step down. Still good, but it had a weak villain, and not for the last time it largely wasted the talents of an interesting co-lead, in this case Michelle Yeoh. Furthermore Pierce Brosnan's Bond had lost all of the admittedly limited depth he had in the first film. Did I mention that Pierce Brosnan was Bond? He's a likeable man, swave and deboner, although it was hard to think of him as a stone-cold killer. The World is Not Enough (1999) was odd. It had a gritty cold war story about gas pipelines that's still relevant today, and individual bits of it were good, but the tone was all over the place and ultimately it was just grey and dull. That was the one with Denise Richards as a nuclear scientist. And Robert Carlyle as a baddie, which shouldn't have worked but did.
I mention Carlyle because No Time to Etc has lots of little homages to earlier Bond films. For example it has a character called James Bond, and he's a spy. I'll start again. In particular there are a bunch of references to On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969), which was the one with George Lazenby. It has Lazenby's Aston Martin DBS, or V8, or whatever. It has Louis Armstrong's "All the Time in the World", and a snatch of James Barry's OHMSS theme. But it has bits of other films, and I'm convinced that Dali Benssalah's character - a one-eyed villain called Cyclops - is a reference to Robert Carlyle's Renard. They both wear the same outsized military uniform and they both have an unusual physical ailment, and the film isn't sure whether to treat them as a joke or as a serious threat. That's my theory and I'm sticking with it.
Die Another Day (2002) was horribly awful on its own merits, and felt doubly bad because there was strong competition. The likes of Ronin and the Bourne films demonstrated that it was possible to make a gritty, exciting thriller that felt real and yet still had a 12A certificate, while xXx and the Matrix films were much better pure action films. Poor old Pierce Brosnan was canned after that film. It made a tonne of cash but wrecked director Lee Tamahori's career and did nothing for Rosamund Pike, who essentially had to start from scratch ten years later. There was talk of a spin-off starring Halle Berry, but that went nowhere.
And then silence fell. The same silence that explains why I didn't see a James Bond film in the cinema until I was a grown man; I was too young for Licence to Kill, which wasn't awful but didn't feel like a Bond film. Periodically the Bond franchise has to lay low in order to regather its strength, and so it was after Die Another Day.
Thankfully for the British film industry the series came back strong with Casino Royale (2006). I saw it at the cinema. I didn't write about it because it predates this blog. It was good. Not great, but good. It was slower and less action-packed than the Brosnan films, but what it had was executed to perfection. It was not a million miles from the contemporary Batman reboot, which commenced a year earlier with Batman Begins (2005). They were both solutions to the problem of making a gritty, grounded action film that played well with kids and also in China.
Casino Royale didn't necessarily have to be excellent, because the best would come later. It just had to be set up a cast of likeable characters, which it did very well. Craig was a natural. Judi Dench was carried over from the Brosnan films because there was something definitive about her. Eva Green was also good as a femme fatale - I miss her - and that's one of the problems with the Bond films. Death in the Bond universe is permanent, so the scriptwriters have to keep coming up with memorable characters, and that's hard. Furthermore they can't put the heroes into too much jeopardy because they are precious. Hold that thought for a couple of paragraphs.
I missed Quantum of Solace (2008). Didn't see it until years later. Bad reviews, and I was busy. I can barely remember it. There's a cool bit where Bond stabs a man and waits for him to die, and another bit where he drops onto a car windscreen and shoots someone, and a bit with an opera. But I can't remember how any of those things connected. It feels like a dream.
No, tell a lie. I remember something else. This article about the title sequence. I remember it because the titles were shot at Pinewood with Daniel Craig, the actual man, and they had to use two cameras. It must have cost as much as a whole film. A lot of people worked hard on Quantum of Solace. It was a thing, you know. For almost half a decade it was the most recent James Bond film.
There was a premiere, with all the actors dressed up, and a round of interviews in which they tried to sell it, but I can't remember how it went. It had a lot of plot but no real theme. The best films have a theme. They're about something. They're about getting old, or realising that you can't have it all, or realising that revenge leads nowhere, or realising that this world is a cesspit. They're about something. Quantum of Solace was a lot of action sequences strung together with choppy editing. It wasn't about anything.
Of course the reason for this is that there was a writers' strike, so although Quantum began a split-second after Royale ended it feels like an imposter in retrospect. The look, the tone, the overall feel don't gel with the other Craig Bonds. The villains worked for an organisation called Quantum, which had been invented because the producers didn't have the rights to use SPECTRE, who had been the villains in some of the earlier films. But by the time Skyfall came out in 2012 the producers had given Kevin McClory's estate a big cash money wad, so they didn't need Quantum any more, and thus almost everything that appeared in Solace was thrown out.
I also didn't see Skyfall at the cinema, which was a mistake because it was fab. It was one of the few Bond films that appealed to people who didn't care about the Bond franchise. It had a strong villain, good performances from all concerned, a theme, several exciting action sequences, a memorable song, and at least two great shots that everybody remembers (the Scottish road; Bond watching over London). One benefit of Solace's anonymity is that Skyfall could start afresh. It introduced a new cast of supporting characters who immediately felt as if they had been in the series forever. In fact until I did a bit of Googling I had forgotten that Ben Whishaw (Q), Naomie Harris (Moneypenny), and Ralph Fiennes (M) had not been in Royale or Solace.
Alas Spectre (2015) was not nearly as good. I did see it at the cinema. I even wrote about it. I don't read my old articles. They can look after themselves. In retrospect it was a messy albeit good-looking retread of Skyfall that had a number of baffling elements. Bond is tortured with a needle, but nothing happens. Much was made of Bond's relationship with the chief villain, but none of it meant anything. It ended with James Bond shooting down a helicopter with a handgun, by firing lots of bullets at it, which isn't entirely implausible but feels prosaic for a Bond film. Isn't he supposed to do something clever? Snare it with a rope, or use a giant magnet, or something?
As with Solace I can barely remember how Spectre held together. The advertising had a Mexican Day of the Dead feel, but that was just the pre-credits sequence. What happened after that? I can't remember. I can't remember what the villains planned to do. There was a good bit on a train. If I ever write a Bond film I'll have a sequence on a train. Perhaps even a fistfight. On a train. Inside a train. Not on a train. That would be too 1970s. Literally every film in the 1970s had a fistfight on top of a train. Literally every film.
Spectre also introduced Lea Seydoux as Bond's love interest, and although she's fab I just didn't feel that Craig's Bond liked her as much as he liked Eva Green's Vesper Lynd. But perhaps that was just acting, who knows. I'll let that slide because the film does imply that Bond hasn't got over Lynd's death. I wonder if Eva Green gets royalties whenever the films use her portrait, or if she signed away the rights to her face? Who knows. She is by a wide margin the most memorable of the modern Bond women.
Also for the record I haven't seen any of the trailers, or heard the theme song, or read any reviews of the film. I went into the cinema a virgin. And I came out a virgin. That's a separate issue. Forget that. I didn't write that. I went into the cinema with no preconceptions and my opinions are my own, not those of other people.
Good stuff? Bad stuff? The cinematography is again superb. The pre-modern Bond films were expensive, well-staged, but until the modern age they generally didn't have a look. The producers weren't interested in arty shots and fancy colours. They wanted slam-bang action and wide shots of Istanbul and Bond in the middle of the frame etc. None of this film school rubbish. Chiaroscuro, that's what they call it. None of that. They weren't bad-looking films, and they did occasionally have pretty touches, but there was something puritan about them.
That all changed with Skyfall, and continued with Spectre, and once again No Time to Die is a fantastic travel advert for London, Norway, Port Antonio in Jamaica and Matera in Italy. I've been all over Italy but I've never been to Matera. Never been that far south. It's going to be packed when No Time enters wide release. Hoteliers are going to do good business. I mean, I assume it's embellished with CGI, and likewise Port Antonio, not least because most of it gets blown up, but it probably looks nice in real life as well.
Billy Eilish's theme song is short and unmemorable. Descending chords, a couple of verses, the lyrics fit the film. There's nothing wrong with it, but I can't remember how it goes and as of this writing I only heard it four hours ago. I can however remember Chris Cornell's "You Know My Name", which was the theme tune to Casino Royale. I heard it once, in 2006, and have never heard it since - Bond themes don't get played on the radio after the film has left cinemas - but I can still hum it. Arm yourself, because no-one else here will save you; something something, are you ready to die? You know my name. Then angel violins and devil trombones. He died, didn't he? Dammit.
Quantum of Solace had a theme tune as well. Can't remember that either. Can't even remember who did it. Can remember Adele's "Skyfall". Can remember Sam Smith's "Writing on the Wall". Can't remember Billie Eilish's whatever it was called. I mean, it's not bad! She has pipes. It just doesn't stand out.
I want to stress that Duran Duran still exists as a functioning band, with most of the original members, and they would probably relish the chance to have another bash at the assignment. They did good the first time. And yes I can't hum Benjamin Britten's War Requiem either, and that's a quality piece of work, but shut up, brain.
More bad stuff? Ana de Armas is excellent as a variation of Solace's Gemma Arterton's Strawberry Fields' first-act co-lead character type. She is a green field agent who slinks across the screen in a cocktail dress. I remember that dress, oh yes. But she's only in it for what amounts to an extended cameo - she is perhaps the first Bond woman to never change her wardrobe - and leaves so abruptly that I remember wondering if she had won a competition to appear in the film, or something.
The biggest problem is the plot. And the villain. The villain's plot. And the villain. In fact the film kept reminding me of Deus Ex: Human Revolution, the mostly-excellent video game adventure from 2011. They even look the same at times and have similar sets. That game had a strong beginning, an overlong middle, and an abrupt ending, and so does Die.
I'll talk about the plot. The film begins with two introductions. Firstly we
learn that Lea Seydoux's Madeleine was almost killed by Remi Malek's Sarif Safin, who instead saves her life. This whole plot strand doesn't really
go anywhere. It feels like an attempt to make another grand unified story
arc - as if Safin had been in the other films all along - but it could
have been cut without changing anything,
The film then begins again in what is presumably the present day. Bond is attempting to retire with his partner, but in short order he is blown up, shot at, smashed against cobblestones, punched, forced to damage the bodywork of his Aston Martin, and then shot at again in a sequence that put me in mind of a similar scene in the second Sicario film, but this time the villains are shown to be using pistol-calibre weapons and thus the resilience of the Aston Martin's bulletproof glass is understandable. Plus one to Bond's technical advisors.
The sequence introduces something that happens time and again in the film. Bond is attacked by waves of baddies who come from nowhere. He despatches them, and then immediately relaxes and goes about his business, and nothing happens, as if the film was a big video game with timed action sequences and cutscenes. He gets into his car and it doesn't blow up, even though the villains should and could have wired it for explosives. He saunters into a train station and stands at the platform, even though the shadowy baddies could easily have followed him and killed him. It's jarring because the new Bonds are supposed to be grounded, and the film has a theme of being unable to escape the past, and yet Bond knows precisely how many baddies he has to kill before the cutscene triggers.
The film then fast-forwards five years into the future - or is the pre-credits sequences set in 2015? - by which time Bond has retired. He has been replaced by a new 007, played by Lashana Lynch, who is solid in the role but isn't given enough to really flesh out the character. The script isn't sure what to make of her. She is a lot more direct, more pragmatic than Bond, but despite the occasional glimpse of a stone-cold killer suitable for a more brutal age she doesn't do anything particularly ruthless, except on one occasion, where it comes out of the blue. Ultimately she feels like a missed opportunity.
Bond is brought back into the world of espionage, albeit as a freelancer for the CIA. A British weapons laboratory has been destroyed, with a key scientist kidnapped, which again reminded me of Deus Ex; sadly the key scientist is not Hugh Dennis. He instead plays another scientist. Don't get too attached.
Shenanigans then ensue in Norway - the film ends with an advert for Norway - and an island in the sea somewhere off Japan, or somewhere. The Norway section is exciting, and again it has a couple of nods to other Bond films; one detail in particular involving a teetering car reminded me of For Your Eyes Only, although it was less impactful because we already know that Craig's Bond is a hard man.
At that point the film returns to London. It turns out that the British weapons lab was making a kind of doomsday virus involving nanobots that can be tuned to kill individual people or entire populations. Nanobots are on a par with Die Another Day's invisible car, but I'll let it slide. Let's pretend they're just viruses. The film establishes that these viruses live forever inside the human body, and are harmless until they come into contact with the target, which leads to a couple of clever moments. An awkwardly rebuffed handshake is particularly clever, in a Hitchcockian way; for a brief moment we know more than the characters.
It all builds up nicely until the death of a key character, at which point the film seems to go wrong. There's a subplot in which Bond is horrified by M's biological warfare progamme, but after a short pep-talk all is forgiven and M is Bond's great mate again. Safin, the chief villain, comes to the fore in the second half, but he only has half a dozen scenes, and his villainous plot doesn't make a lot of sense. He put me in mind of Gary Oldman's Zorg from The Fifth Element albeit placid whereas Oldman was manic. Zorg wanted to kill all life in the universe because something something something broken crockery. Likewise Safin. He wants to engineer a deadly plague for reasons that never make any sense.
Which is a shame because the first half of the film sets up a growing sense of unease, as if the producers were going to spring something akin to the end of, yes, Deus Ex: Human Revolution at us - an ending in which Bond fails to avert global catastrophe, leaving millions dead. If that ending had ever been planned I imagine COVID would have put the kibosh on it. Too close to the bone.
And so ultimately the film just peters out. There's a good action sequence in which the two 007s storm the villain's hideout, but it goes on too long, especially given that Bond has to do it twice, going through the same sets a second time. Safin turns out to be surprisingly ineffectual, at one point letting a hostage go seemingly out of boredom. A sequence in which Bond escapes from certain death merely involves quick gunplay, which is exciting but (as with Spectre's helicopter) feels like a cop-out. As if the writers had no idea how to come up with a clever solution.
To say more would spoil the film. It ends with a postscript that evokes one of the most memorable scenes from Skyfall, in which Judi Dench's M recites some poetry, but it doesn't have the same impact because the pacing is all wrong. And then the credits roll. Again, as with Deux Ex the film has a lot going for it, but it rushes to an ending that makes thematic sense but feels simplistic. Just shooting and missiles and another exploding base. Moneypenny and Q appear again, but Moneypenny has nothing to do, and Q essentially becomes Bond's telephone voice, which is a step down from Spectre, in which (to that film's credit) he had some action bits.
In its favour No Time to Die barrels along. It's over two hours long but I didn't notice the time. I remember being surprised when it became apparent that the film was entering the final stretch, because there seemed to be an act missing. A late subplot in which the Royal Navy almost triggers a world war is raised and dropped in a couple of sentences. Is it a satisfying send-off for Craig's Bond? I suspect the filmmakers were trying to emulate The Dark Knight Rises, but although Die's ending makes logical sense it didn't have the same emotional impact. Without wishing to spoil anything, part of the pathos comes from the existence of nanobots, and nanobots are inherently funny. Because they have "bot" in the name and they're little tiny robots. It's hard to take nanobots seriously. Furthermore I never really connected with the villain's plan, horrible as it was.
And that's No Time to Die. It looks good, it passes the time, it's a lot better and more coherent than Spectre, but it's mid-tier for Craig-era Bond and ultimately is a less satisfying sendoff than Skyfall would have been if it had been the final Craig-era Bond film. It's hard to top Skyfall. It'll be interesting to see what the next Bond film is like.
NB None of the pictures have anything to do with Bond. I just liked them.
