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Yes, that is my one big regret about the Craig era in retrospect: The missing film (or two) between Quantum and Skyfall. As it is, it feels like there is something missing...
I delve into my fondness for QoS in the appreciation thread - I like several of it's sequences (Aston Martin chase, Haiti, Bregenz Opera, Bolivia Air chase all feel more 'Bond' to me than what is dished out in SF and SP), it's vibrancy, and feel Craig is written better in both CR and QoS than the others (Haggis adds some great moments of dialogue for DC). I'm less keen on 'post CR/QoS' DC Bond.
Apart from an underwritten villain (Greene) and slightly stunted screenplay I find its highly underrated and QoS entertains me more than SF and SP.
I'm not entirely sure if I will 'leave' it in 2nd place above NTTD, but have left it there for now...
This is a massive problem, imo. A gaping hole in the DC narrative that the producers completely dropped the ball on.
I'm not a fan of SF either. I don't think it has stood the test of time well, despite the initial praise that was heaped on it when first released (I was one of them)!
I prefer QoS over SF, and maybe even SP is better than SF too. Other than the Adele song (which is one of the best in years), I'm not keen on the soundtrack, or the direction. I also think out of the entire Craig tenure, he looks his worst in SF. The shaved skinhead look doesn't suit him, neither does the stubble that he grows in the first part of the movie either.
For all QoS's faults, it feels edgy, violent, no nonsense, Arnold gives one of his best scores (circa Barry 1971) and the film lives more in Fleming's world. It was never going to live up to CR, but what film could.
Excellent post, @jetsetwilly! We agree. I had issues with QOS when it came out, but I learned to see tons of quality aspects to that film, a film that had its own struggles, what with the strikes and all. They barely had a script to begin with. I profoundly respect the film that got made regardless.
Just change that damn song to something better. What Arnold did with Bassey would have been an improvement.
No Good About Goodbye is 100 000 times better than AWTD, which sounds to me like two nervous people shouting at cabs in NY that refuse to pull over for them. BANG BANG BANG BANG! What the ef?
Definitely. I think AWTD and DAD are the 2 worst songs in the franchise.
I understand JW and AK had very little time... but so did Barry in '74. Now then, TMWTGG is still an excellent song compared to AWTD and DAD. Lulu blew her pipes wide open but JW and AK were just shouting. Madonna just talks. She just talks. That's it.
But I came here to check members' thoughts or reviews on NTTD ... my bad. ;)
QOS feels like what the Bond series of films would have been like had Goldfinger never been made and changed the course of the series.
Good shout! B-)
Yes, TMWTGG is not one of Barry's best, but it's still light years ahead of DAD and AWTD.
That's one way to describe it.... =))
Except that it isn't.
Not that it pertains to the topic but I find it to be very fun.
A man carrying a gun, and wearing a noh mask, slowly makes his way toward a house in the middle of a deserted, icy landscape, intent on getting revenge against the man who murdered his family.
The opening scene of No Time to Die is a mostly self-contained, gripping suspense scene, with an unexpected outcome that will later prove to be a crucial character-revealing moment. Safin's visually striking mask brings a slight touch of horror and Bondian flamboyance to the proceedings, and much like the regret-tinged alcoholism of Madeleine's mother, it stimulates one's narrative curiosity and makes the world of the film more detailed and believable.
There's a sense that plenty of thought and care went into the making of that scene, and the same goes for much of the rest of the film. No Time to Die is for the most part a terrific film, and a delicately balanced banquet of Bond: An exciting story, with a fair share of surprises and an enjoyable high-tech vibe. Very well-drawn characters; some interesting in their complexities; others superficial, yet highly entertaining to watch. Well-crafted action scenes that display technical prowess. A healthy dose of silly humor. A brassy, ballsy music score. Gorgeous cinematography at the service of exquisite locations. And at the center of it all, the character of Bond himself, in a fantastic acting turn from Daniel Craig.
The story of No Time to Die is somewhat evocative of that unused story idea of The Spy Who Loved Me, in a which a new generation of terrorists takes over SPECTRE. It's something we haven't seen before in a Bond film: the current villain getting revenge from the previous film's villain over the death of his family. It's a logical and interesting scenario, one which builds upon the myriad of occasions in the Bond films in which bad guys executed other bad guys without any repercussions. Seeing Safin operating for much of the film from behind the shadows, manipulating others into doing his bidding (sometimes without even knowing it), is a source of intrigue and twists, particularly in the early half of the film, as we try to decipher who is working for who and what their endgame is. Safin's ultimate plan, with its apocalyptic implications, is a great throwback to the classic Bond plots which we had slightly departed from in the Craig era. The fact it involves deadly nanobots, built to murder certain targets based on their DNA, gives this story a cool technological flavor that is on the edge of plausibility.
Let's talk a little about the character of Bond. The pre-title sequence of No Time to Die offers plenty of food for thought on this matter. We find out from Blofeld that Spectre was just waiting for Bond to visit Vesper's grave in Matera to murder him. The implication here is that Bond's human side is a weakness for his enemies to exploit, which is perhaps one of the main ideas that have been explored throughout the Craig era. It's also interesting to see how, when Bond's trust in Madeleine Swann is broken —by means of that brilliant line: "she's a daughter of Spectre"— he seeks no further answers or explanations, and immediately "puts his armor back on". Indeed, he still carries the scars and the lessons from the outcome of his relationship with Vesper. Another moment I appreciate very much is when Bond comes to a mental standstill while sitting inside the DB5, which is receiving gunfire from all directions. We are left to imagine what is going on through his mind at that moment. I feel his rage almost makes him want the assassins to shoot Madeleine dead, and perhaps even him, as once again his life has been shattered into a thousand pieces, and he has been left alone, bitter and purposeless.
But for Bond, the rest of No Time to Die is, to employ M's words, a journey from an existence without life, to a life beyond existence. It's a touching subject matter to explore. A crucial aspect of it is Bond's relationship with Madeleine and their daughter. In a first for this franchise, Bond gets a family in No Time to Die. While it is completely outside the norm for these movies, it is a logical conclusion for Craig's Bond, not to mention an interesting development to witness. The man with no attachments, with no future, gets an opportunity to leave a legacy beyond his career in the secret service, even if this might result in his death.
Regarding Daniel Craig's performance, I must say that, contrary to popular opinion, I thought he delivered a rather muted, uncharismatic performance in Skyfall, so I was delighted to see that for Spectre, he brought more playfulness and humor to the role of Bond, as he had done at the beginning of his era. In that film, I found some moments where he delivered sly, sarcastic comments frankly electrifying to watch. And for No Time to Die, Craig has continued to improve in this area. He is more natural and relaxed than ever before, even delightfully goofy in a couple of moments. During certain parts of the film, when the tone allows for it, you can feel Bond is really enjoying his work. Fittingly, Craig also displays looser, slightly more animated body language. But he is also perfectly convincing and emotionally engaging in the dramatic moments, whether conveying sorrow and anger under a steely façade in the pre-title sequence, expressing his regrets and his love for Madeleine in Norway, or coming to terms with his death and his legacy in the final moments of the film.
On the subject of the villains, coming after Silva and Blofeld, Safin represents another attempt at creating a villain whose past we get to explore in some shape or form, but Safin is certainly more detailed and coherently constructed than Blofeld the last time around. Between the opening scene of No Time to Die, and a few other moments and bits of dialogue scattered throughout the film, we are given just enough information to understand this character, but not so much that all the mystery evaporates. His fascination with power over life and death is intriguingly set up at the beginning of the film, and revisited later on with some terrific and provocative dialogue about his feeling that people have a secret wish to be told how to live. Safin's ultimate nanobot scheme represents an attempt at both recapturing his family's glory and following in their footsteps as suppliers of death, so to speak. His feelings for Madeleine are also interesting. The opening scene establishes her as an accidental catalyst for Safin's twisted desire for godhood, but what does he feel for her after that? Gratitude, ownership? What is the nature of his love for her?
Rami Malek's performance is competent, but by no means outstanding. While he successfully conveys the character's eccentricity and utter insanity, he still feels a bit bland, as well as unthreatening, especially coming after Christoph Waltz's Blofeld, whose sinister presence and penchant for cruelty created some significant tension and excitement in his encounters with Bond (in fact, in his brief but wonderful appearance in No Time to Die, Blofeld comes across as more villanous than Safin). To some extent, this issue might also have to do with the script rather than just the acting. Safin is established as a master manipulator, but he doesn't get enough opportunities to personally demonstrate cruelty, the main one being the scene in which he holds Mathilde hostage. (Incidentally, I find the last stretch of No Time to Die, set on Safin's island, slightly less interesting than the rest of the film. This could be precisely because Safin takes center stage in this section.)
Moving on to other villains, Valdo Obruchev is an example of something I had sorely missed: the goofy bad guy. I appreciate seeing a funny villain from time to time, as they can add welcome tonal variety to a film. For me, David Dencik is another highlight of No Time to Die: a weasel, a scoundrel, skillful at building the instruments of armageddon, but acting as if he was just making breakfast. He is a monster who does not know he is a monster. On the other hand, as played by Billy Magnussen, Logan Ash is perfectly aware of his evil nature, and relishes it. His unsettling presence, with a clear undertone of sadism, reminds me slightly of Vargas in Thunderball. Seeing Bond execute him in retaliation for Leiter's death is very satisfying. Dali Benssalah's Primo might be a fairly anonymous character, but his bionic eye, used to communicate with Blofeld, is a highly entertaining and Bondian bit of hi-tech. It also provides the basis for an amusing death scene. There is nothing like seeing Bond use a gadget —in this case, the EMP watch— in an unexpected way. And finally, there is Blofeld himself, as played by Christoph Waltz...
I want to talk in some detail about the scene in which Bond and Blofeld reunite. It's one of my favorite moments of No Time to Die. The scene begins with a delightful touch of heightened reality. Blofeld's moving cage is an unlikely, yet dramatically appropriate conceit, one which echoes the glass window scene at the end of Spectre. While the cage slowly approaches Bond, we hear a suitably cold, mechanical piece of music. And then, the actors take center stage. As they demonstrated in Spectre, both Craig and Waltz are wonderfully skilled at conveying hostility under a façade of sarcastic cordiality, something that I find very Bondian. For a few minutes, the two actors recapture the same exciting dynamic. But at the end, the scene takes a particularly interesting turn, when Bond starts strangling Blofeld after he admits Madeleine's betrayal was a ruse by him. In my opinion, the sudden way in which this highly dramatic action occurs straddles the line between funny and serious. I like this tonal ambiguity and playfulness very much. It's a highlight of the film, for sure.
As for the women of No Time to Die, the character of Madeleine, who already had a fascinating backstory in Spectre, is given a bit more substance, a bit more life beyond the immediate confines of her relationship with Bond. Léa Seydoux also gets to display some superb acting chops in certain crucial moments of the film. For me, two of the most significant ones are when she and Bond are in the DB5 while surrounding by Spectre assassins, and when the train leaves the station, and her relationship with Bond comes to a sudden and painful end. A trend that's present in several characters of No Time to Die —namely Bond, Madeleine and Safin— is the hold the past has over them. All these characters find different ways of dealing with their traumas. Bond falls off the face of the Earth, disappearing in Jamaica. Madeleine becomes Blofeld's psychiatrist, as if she wanted to revisit and understand the cause of her ordeals. She also passes along her fears and anxieties to her daughter Mathilde, when she makes sure she knows how to deal with an intruder in the house. Safin I've already discussed, but both his revenge on Spectre and his nanobot plan are deeply tied into his family history.
(Speaking of Mathilde, I must say the actress who plays the part is perfectly cast. In her scene with Bond in the kitchen, she has a sad, solemn expression on her face, as if she had inherited some of Bond's emotional pain.)
But back to the women. Ana de Armas, who plays Paloma, appears probably a third into the film. She immediately proceeds to take over it, completely holding her own against Daniel Craig, and delivering a supremely charismatic and sexy performance. She brings a splendid light touch to her role, which makes me think she would be superb in a comedy film. And as swiftly as she appeared, she departs the film, but having made a big impression.
Lashana Lynch as Nomi, the new 007, brings a cool and rather Bond-like swagger to her role (appropriately, she even gets to wear a safari suit in one scene). In their scenes together in Jamaica and Cuba, a sense of playful competition is created between her and Bond. There is also an amusing running joke about the fact she has taken over the 007 mantle, a gag which fortunately doesn't overstay its welcome. I do wish we had gotten to know this character a little better, but I understand the film is rather long as it is.
As for Ralph Fiennes as M, he continues to impress me. In this film, M has to make some tough decisions and face some difficult situations. Fiennes conveys such quiet dignity and humanity, and such a strong sense of duty, that you can't help but empathize with his character and root for him. I vividly remember the moment in which M gives the order to launch the missiles at Safin's island. You can just feel him soldiering through his fear that his actions might result in the death of Bond. It's a wonderful performance.
And how nice to see Jeffrey Wright's Felix Leiter again. There used to be tension between him and Craig's Bond, owing to the fact they worked for different organizations and didn't know each other that well. In No Time to Die, we've finally left all of that behind, and we get to see them demonstrate a strong camaraderie.
As usual for a Bond film, we also get some cool action in No Time to Die. Early on, the bridge scene in Matera offers a couple of very exciting and memorable moments, namely Bond barely dodging the incoming car, and jumping off the bridge to escape his pursuers (all while wearing that fantastic suit). In the bike chase scene that follows, Bond turns to avoid an incoming religious procession— a classic humorous Bond touch that brought a smile to my face. I also enjoy seeing that shiny, silvery DB5 speeding through the stone streets and doing doughnuts. Other highlights of the film include Paloma beating up a bunch of Spectre assassins, the Norway car chase with Bond ramming the vehicles to get them to flip over, and near the end, that superb long take of Bond shooting and fighting his way up the stairs while avoiding gunfire and grenades, before fighting Primo one last time.
In my opinion, the tone of No Time to Die strikes a good balance between serious and playful. I look for a certain sense of fun, a joie de vivre in a Bond film, and luckily, this one makes room for occasional jokes and lighter moments without undermining the more dramatic ones. The Cuba party sequence is one of the best scenes of the film, both in and of itself, and in terms of how it handles tone, successfully alternating between mysterious, macabre and funny. The actor who plays the Spectre member carrying Primo's eye, whose name is I believe Philip Philmar, is another example of great casting. He was obviously selected for the role for his striking, quirky face, and he follows in the steps of the Austrian bad guys chasing Q in Spectre, and Sandor in The Spy Who Loved Me, to name a few examples. It's a Bond tradition that I hope never dies.
Hans Zimmer's music for No Time to Die emphasizes the traditional Bond sound more than Thomas Newman did in his previous scores. It's a joy to hear those horns and wah-wah trumpets blaring bold, extravant passages once again, sometimes joined by electric guitar. The score also fashions a brilliant, muscular action motif for brass out of the bridge of the James Bond Theme, and happily includes several quotations of Billie Eilish's terrific song. Even the less melodic passages of the soundtrack offer some very pleasant instrumentation, such as the steel drums and guitars heard when Bond talks with Nomi at his house in Jamaica, a scene set to a moody, introspective and captivating piece of music. Intriguingly, the score also brings back two pieces from On Her Majesty's Secret Service: the title theme and We Have All the Time in the World. Never before have we heard such overt musical callbacks in a Bond film. While I think it would be a bad idea to make a habit out of this, I find they work very well here, as they emphasize the thematic connection between the aforementioned film and this one, and drive home the point that No Time to Die, with its unique ending, exists on the shoulders of —and offers a reflection on— a franchise that's nearly sixty years old. The only significant negative aspect of the score are some chord progressions heard in the last part of the film, which are almost lifted verbatim from the Batman films directed by Christopher Nolan, also scored by Zimmer.
For the most part, the cinematography of the film is a feast for my eyes, from the dusk at Matera, with those golden and purple hues, to the mostly nocturnal but colorful sights of Jamaica and Cuba —great locations by the way, bursting with life—, to the desaturated blues and grays of Safin's lair. One of my favorite shots in the film is that wide shot of Bond driving into the Jamaican town at dusk, while being followed by Felix Leiter. I also enjoy how they play with up and down in the scene right after the title sequence, when the Spectre commandos are rappeling down the building to break into the secret MI6 laboratory. My only real complaint in terms of cinematography is that the last part of the No Time to Die, set in the island, is shot in a slightly monotonous way, with too many eye-level shots of Bond (either with Nomi or by himself) moving through dark corridors. I suspect the cinematography doesn't entirely do justice to the set design in this section of the film.
Now, let's delve more deeply into what is without a doubt the most distinctive aspect of No Time to Die: the death of Bond. I must say the first time I saw this film, I was completely blindsided by this outcome. In a way, it goes completely against my expectations for a Bond film, which are to experience high-quality escapism. Now, the term 'escapism' doesn't imply a film has to offer sheer positive fun and nothing else— there is room for darkness and introspection in escapism, but I felt that Bond's death was a step too far. I was a bit sad after seeing that outcome, not only because of the death itself (in a film that I really liked otherwise), but because I felt detached from the creative sensibilities of the filmmakers. On the other hand, after that first viewing I was already aware that, seen from another angle, this outcome made narrative and dramatic sense. So I felt it was a good ending for a film, but a bad ending for a Bond film.
Two viewings later, I have become much more accepting of the ending. I like it. It's a touching, meaningful resolution which makes plenty of sense, whether you look at the film by itself or as part of the Bond franchise, and especially the Craig era. But I'm not crazy about it either, owing to my ingrained expectations of what a Bond film should be. The dichotomy I'm describing randomly led me one day to coin a term for the ending of No Time to Die: the singularity, meaning a point in space in which the common frames of reference no longer apply.
But enough about that. I must say that in the scene in question, Daniel Craig's acting when saying goodbye to Madeleine is superb; somehow, it manages to show Bond both at his strongest and most vulnerable. And the concept of Bond getting poisoned, thus becoming unable to touch his family without killing them, is a clever metaphor for the take on the character that we have witnessed during the Craig era: that of a man who cannot get close to other people, because of the nature of his business as well as his own nature. Much of the impact of Bond's death scene is derived from the closeups allotted to the main characters of the film, which allow us to see their shocked and sorrowful reactions. Most of these characters have had a long history with Bond, much like us as audience members, so they operate as our surrogates during this unprecedented moment.
The scene that follows is well judged in its sobriety, simplicity and brevity. I appreciate the fact that Tanner, who did not get a closeup in the previous scene, is the one to initiate the toast in remembrance of Bond. He is, in my opinion, an underrated character, probably uninteresting on the page, but brought to life by Rory Kinnear's unobtrusive yet endearing presence. The shot of the glass on the table, filled in honor of Bond but never to be drunk by him, is very emotive and eloquent. As the film ends, we see Madeleine and Mathilde driving through a tunnel. The camera shot is evocative of the gunbarrel sequence, only this time, the gunbarrel, typically an image associated with danger and death, becomes, strangely enough, a symbol of life. Bond might not exist anymore, but he lived life in full and left something meaningful behind.
Whatever our feelings might be on the ending of No Time to Die, we can hopefully agree that at the very least, such an outcome is a sign of creative passion and vitality, rather than stagnation. And after nearly 60 years of Bond films, I think that's something positive. James Bond will return.
That's it. I do hope to write a little companion piece on my efforts to have a completely spoiler-free experience with No Time to Die, something that almost became a journey unto itself.
Regarding Safin that’s a man clearly without any empathy. I believe his fascination with Swann comes from the fact that he doesn’t really know why he saved her. Perhaps because her eyes were begging him to save her and he felt that kind of power and he liked it. He’s clearly a man with a God complex.
Thank you. I really like what you wrote in the bolded part; it makes a great deal of sense.