Directed by: Cary Joji Fukunaga
Screenplay by: Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, Cary Joji Fukunaga and Phoebe Waller-Bridge
Story by: Neal Purvis, Robert Wade and Cary Joji Fukunaga
On general release
James Bond has left active service. His peace is short-lived when Felix Leiter, an old friend from the CIA, turns up asking for help, leading Bond onto the trail of a mysterious villain armed with dangerous new technology.
Nat says: ‘The best-looking Bond so far’
James Bond movies are weird, aren’t they? For as long as I can remember, they’ve been struggling to prove there’s still a point to them, in a post-feminist, post-Soviet, post-Islamist, post-Bourne digital age.
James Bond? A lone secret agent everyone knows and who never really goes undercover any more? Who has no technological skills so always has to rely on someone back at home base to help him? Who never speaks any foreign languages except English and who just goes around blowing things up? A man women find amazingly attractive, even though he has the conversational skills and charm of a speak-your-weight machine crossed with a book of cheesy chat-up lines that wouldn’t have worked on you when you were clubbing in your teens? A global jet-setter who visits exotic locales that most of us have either been to or could book a flight to with EasyJet on our phones right now?
That may have worked in the 60s. But now it takes some effort on the part of the movies to convince you it’s even slightly possible or interesting.
There aren’t many franchises that have that need to persuade you that they’re still relevant. They just stick dinosaurs on the screen or give their heroes new costumes and let the story persuade you.
Nevertheless, despite this constant soul-searching, such is the power of the Bond brand, the franchise carries on. Even I watch them! I’ve seen them all. Maybe there is something to them. Certainly, Daniel Craig can persuade you of most things, I suspect. That certainly helps.
But I think I watch Bond movies (when I do watch them) more because they are important and usually exciting, rather than because they’re good, because I like the character or set-up, or for social relevance. Even this year, Black Widow (2020) had more social relevance in its title sequence than the entire Daniel Craig series of Bond movies has had. I would say that, though, wouldn’t I?
No Time To Die is possibly the first Bond movie to really fix some of these problems with the character, almost by ignoring them, sometimes by using them to its advantage.
A surprise? How surprising
The pre-credit scenes start where Spectre (2015) left off. Bond is retired and trying to develop a relationship with Léa Seydoux, who has an even more tragic backstory than Spectre led us to believe. Then the bombs start exploding, the guns start firing, the cars start chasing, the motorbikes start leaping and we’re in familiar Bond territory again.
Is Spectre after Bond and Seydoux again? How can that be, given Blofeld (Christophe Waltz) is in HMP Belmarsh? What is Remi Malek up to and why does M (Ralph Fiennes) want to keep it quiet? What does CIA agent Felix Leiter (Jeffrey Wright) want with a Russian scientist who was working for M and why does he want to hire Bond to get him? Why does M send a 00 agent (Lashana Lynch) to stop Bond?
I think I can at least ask those questions without spoiling anything, since this is one of the few Bond movies that might actually surprise you – and I don’t want to ruin that for you! It is very gratifying to come out of a Bond movie and not just feel that thump of your heart and the surge of adrenaline, but to feel a little mentally stimulated, a little like you’ve got to know the character more and to have been surprised by a plot twist.
Daniel Craig says this is his last Bond movie. He said that about Spectre too but here we are. All the same, the producers seem to have taken him at his word and No Time To Die provides closure to the story that started with Casino Royale (2006). This is very much Bond – and the franchise – metaphorically saying goodbye to the people who’ve been part of his working life as he heads properly into retirement.
The movie is also happy to reference all the movies of earlier eras. We have at least two cars owned by previous Bonds; the plot owes a surprising amount to both You Only Live Twice and Fleming’s somewhat different You Only Live Twice, TMINE’s resident Bond expert tells me; Hans Zimmer’s soundtrack references not just the Bond theme but also On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. There’s a traditional wristwatch gadget and even a new Bond vehicle for everyone to play in. Even the paintings on the walls in MI6 headquarters are content to remind us not just of Dame Judi Dench’s M but of Robert Brown’s.
Yet, despite that Proustian attempt to remind us of the hero’s greatest hits by revisiting past glories, it’s what it does new that’s the most interesting thing about it.
The script, perhaps through the intercession of script doctor and general goddess Phoebe Waller-Bridge, makes the female characters vital and important. The publicity of every James Bond film there’s ever been has praised the independence of the Bond girl. This is the first where there is no ‘Bond girl’. The essence of the Bond girl was that she would only ever appear in one movie, before Bond went on to another woman, whereas Seydoux is returning for her second movie. She’s not the ‘lure’ for the male audience.
I also I think this claim to independence is for once plausible, too. There are women and they can all handle themselves, all are important to the plot and none have to rely on Bond. That’s not to say Bond is suddenly helpless and needs saving or that he’s made to look inferior. It’s just everyone is complicated and capable.
No time to lead
The film also goes back to Casino Royale basics after the Sam Mendes years, to give us a Bond who’s part of a cog in the machine. There are other 00 agents. There are protocols and security he must follow. The UK is no longer a world leader and can’t just act alone.
But it also reminds us that those cogs in the machine are people: Moneypenny and Q both have inner lives, as does Bond, of course. Unlike the efforts of its predecessors, which turned Bond’s arch-enemy into his adopted brother, these feel like real attempts to add depth. Unfortunately, Lynch’s character never really gets to do any spying, just shooting and pretending to be Caribbean, but that’s a good start and to have two Black female leads in the UK’s premiere movie franchise is something to be praised.
And then there are the final scenes. All I can say without spoiling anything for you is that no Bond movie has ever ended like that before. It’s an ending that genuinely makes you think about the character, the franchise and more. What does it all mean existentially? I’m surprisingly eager to see the next Bond movie, just to find out how they address what’s almost a philosophical issue, rather than a simple logistical one.
I’m now going to be really generous towards Hans Zimmer and his surprisingly chameleonic score, which only twice reminded me of his work on Inception (2010), only once of Batman Begins (2005). He clearly enjoyed emulating John Barry’s orchestral work and is reverential without being derivative. I thoroughly enjoyed it and hearing him – and Louis Armstrong. Nice work, Hans!
But Cary Joji Fukunaga’s direction and Linus Sandgren’s cinematography are simply exquisite. The action sequences are spectacular. But scene after scene is beautifully composed and lit, with shadows and colours sometimes creating almost geometric puzzles for your eye to enjoy. While it’s just a backdrop to the action, Fukunaga never being ostentatious and demanding you pay attention to his work, only to the beautiful locations chosen for the movie, it’s something that will register with you consciously or unconsciously by the end.
All the same, No Time To Die has a problem – and it’s not the occasionally unwanted intrusion of CGI into the action scenes.
Its problem is it’s a Bond movie.
What’s my motivation?
The script tries to flesh out Bond and Daniel Craig puts so much effort into the performance, perhaps elevating his game to match Fukunaga’s requirements. But while that does work to an extent, making Bond the legend into something like the man Casino Royale tried to make him, the movie still takes it for granted that everyone should revere Bond and that he should be more or less indestructible.
I lost count of how many times really quite major explosions went off within just a metre or two of him and all that happened was his ears rang and he staggered around. I’ve never been in the army, so I can’t claim to be an expert, but aren’t grenades supposed to damage things in their vicinity, not just knock them over and emit some smoke?
Also, as it’s a Bond movie, it needs to have a Bond villain. This is the main area where it falls apart.
I think Remi Malek is a brilliant actor – I remember him from Twilight, of course, but most people will have seen his performance in Bohemian Rhapsody (2018) – but he’s clearly playing the role of a villain, rather than a character in which the audience can believe. He has the requisite ‘unusual appearance’ for a Bond villain, too, something that genuinely does anchor the franchise in the antediluvian past, despite its efforts at modernisation.
Even by the end, I really couldn’t understand what he was trying to do and why. He wants to kill lots of people (naturally). That much I got. It wasn’t hard, and I’m not that dumb.
But why? Who? There are suggestions that his super-weapon could be turned into a racist weapon (no, really), but that’s only a suggestion, not his intent. There’s a list of people he wants to kill… but we never see the list or even get told the kind of people on it. Maybe I missed it (please be kind in the comments if I have), but the film seems to have forgotten to explain what its villain’s plan was or why it needed to be just so elaborate.
That’s not the only point that confused me. Why is he interested in Seydoux? The answer to that may be that he’s a paedophile, but I’m not 100% sure that’s the right answer. It seems an odd choice for the writers.
Also why does he keep doing such stupid things?
Is all of this because he’s a Bond villain? Probably. If there’s one element of the franchise format that really needing fixing, that was it, but the opportunity has been missed this time round.
I think though that this is definitely the best Bond movie since Casino Royale.The woman sitting next to me in the cinema was actually crying for the final 10 minutes. I might have done, too – were it not for the fact this was a James Bond movie. I guess that’s the one thing they couldn’t change.
Or can they?
