Bloody mother’s eh
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She likes to think so…
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Saw it this afternoon. Good but not great. There are a number of problems - the saggy latter half is plot heavy and the whole things slows far too often - but my first huge probem with it is Safin. He’s a nothing. He is a very weak Bond villain. He may have a fabulous lair and a bonkers plot, but he’s not well developed, weakly written and comes across as somebody Bond would normally deal with while he’s putting the kettle on. Remi Malik can be terrific but he got very little to play with here. Blofeld didn’t really need to be there. He was a plot device rather than anything and he’s still the least interesting iteration of the character we’ve seen IMHO - but that’s just an opinion. It’s not a great film for M’s reputation, though I did like the scenes with Moneypenny and Q with them ignoring their boss’s instructions. The new 007 did well, though. Titles and opening song… still can’t stand the song ad the graphics are instantly forgettable.
Now that I’ve kicked it a bit…the opening hour is really pretty solid stuff, with some of delicious light moments that don’t dent the drama in any way. It really comes to life in Cuba - Paloma is a joy and I really wamnted more of her in the film… which probably means there was exactly enough of her in the movie for me to want more and for her not to outstay her welcome. The relationship with Felix felt natural and the end of that was keenly felt. The regulars do well, though I imagine M might be cleaning out his office after his culpability in the events unfolding in the plot. There are some really well done set-pieces in Italy and a forest, the home invasion is unsettling. The heart of it is Bond’s relationships with Vesper and Madeline and I think that’s handled well. The performances are generally good to very good. The direction is solid, the music is better than I expected - it’s Hans Zimmer so it sounds like Hans Zimmer but he touches enough Bond bases, particularly with his OHMSS riffs that it works - and the film really looks great. Some of the exotic travelogue wonder of the 60s Bonds is touched on here, particularly in Italy. I need to see it again, but it’s solid, engaging and probably the right kind of ending for Craig’s self-contained Bond run… but I hung around till after the end credits (several million plus points for the song choice there) to wait for JAMES BOND WILL RETURN… just in case.
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Great commentary as usual, Jim.
The mentality of a special forces operator is that a mission has no set finish line. It only ends when the outcome is achieved. Craig’s Bond adhered to that. The silo doors close and he goes back to open them, which is something I can see every Bond doing. Alec Trevelyan said “007’s loyalty was always to the mission, never to his friend.” Craig’s Bond demonstrates he is capable of achieving both.
Funnily enough, I think standing on top of a raised platform would probably be a ‘safer’ position to be. If Bond’s badly shot he can barely move. The missiles would enter the silos and ground level would be the true first point of impact. I can’t see Bond walking away fast enough to escape that ground blast radius, considering the limited time available. Silos at least serve to contain an impact somewhat.
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I thought his choice of vehicle in Jamaica was a bit odd, where did the B reg Aston Martin in London come from? Surely if it was his own car,he would have had It shipped out to Jamaica?
The DB5 would have been more inappropriate than a Land Rover, that’s for sure (and the sponsor was quite happy).
The Aston in London, he left it there in case he needs it. Heaven knows where he got it from, five years have passed, maybe he had the chance to buy one from old MI6 stock for cheap.
The DB5 might be stored away somewhere in Kingston, maybe he spent the past five years restoring it…
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Good to be back! I’m a longtime member (joined around the time Casino Royale came out) but haven’t posted here in God knows how long (long enough that I had to create a new account for the new forums).
I really LIKED No Time to Die, but I didn’t quite love it. I was grateful that the first 90 odd minutes motored along as they did, with wonderfully playful action scenes and sharp dialogue that felt decidedly more entertaining than the slow crawl of the Mendes films (ironic that this felt so much more colourful and fun compared to the morose, sombreness of his two films when THIS is the film where Bond dies…).
As is so often the case unfortunately, it all falls to pieces with the villain plot and the unconvincing emotional connection. I WANTED to feel something as Bond sacrificed himself for the greater good, but I just didn’t…the writing of the final act was all just too sloppy for me to be invested and the death was signposted from a country mile away (how many genre films have we seen over the past decade where the hero discovers a surprise daughter and then dies at the end?). I wanted my expectations to be subverted and they never were.
The familiar feeling of the plot running away from the writers made me wonder moreso than ever why Eon keep going back to Purvis and Wade - with respect to their efforts, their stories always have the uncomfortable aroma of fanfiction. Their creaky plots and underwritten story bridges just don’t stack up next to Marvel or the Mission Impossible films and no amount of jazzy Phoebe Waller Bridge dialogue or lavishly directed sequences can save us from that.
Despite all of that though, I still really did enjoy the film - in many ways that explosive first hour and a half felt like the “Daniel Craig’s The Spy Who Loved Me” that Spectre tried so hard to be. The classic elements were in full force and Craig was enjoying every minute of it. I think I have enough goodwill towards these elements of the film that I can forgive the weaker elements of it - I think the five star reviews are disastrously overrating the film, but the excessively negative reaction from certain corners of the fandom doesn’t feel deserved either - it’s a perfectly fine middle of the road Bond adventure that sits comfortably in between some of the later Moores and Brosnans.
No great crime has been committed by this film and I look forward to watching it again, for all of its flaws. Three out of five.
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Welcome to CBn, @gothamite27. As you can see, NO TIME TO DIE has provoked a wide range of responses from critics and fans alike. I suspect this may be one entry that will keep us busy discussing its merits or faults for a considerable time. While I really liked it myself I actually still ponder how to rate it…
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I’ll need to see the film again before I write a full review but I’ll just say this.
I hated the gunbarrel. They nailed the look with Spectre’s gunbarrel, it just needed the iris out to be 100% perfect and I’m frustrated they completely abandoned it for NTTD.
Ultimately I’m too overwhelmed to even really process the film.
Technically, NTTD is Daniel Craig’s AVTAK. Since it is his last Bond film.
Craig is the longest running Bond in the franchise, for 16 years! Roger Moore is the runner up and Brosnan is 3rd.
Hello everyone,
It’s been a long while since I posted a comment of any weight and would like to share my initial thoughts on NTTD. I saw it 24 hours ago, so the immediate feelings have had some time to sink in and stew by now. I’d like to share a more thorough review once I’ve seen it a few times.
Anyway, first thoughts…
Objectively, it’s great. It should be an instant classic.
But somehow it isn’t. It’s just good. A solid, well done, conclusion to the Craig era. It’s a drama-action-thriller, not really a Bond film, despite containing many elements that only a Bond film can possess. Nothing wrong with that.
At the moment, my major gripe is the very ending. I have no problem with CraigBond having a definitive exit. But I think the exit that they contrived feels contrived. My other, minor gripes are perfectly forgivable and may go away with repeat viewings.
It’s easily the third best Craig film. And that cuts both ways. It surpasses the shortcomings of SP and QOS and doesn’t achieve the successes of CR and SF.
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I’m with you. Personally I had no problem with Bond dying at the end - I expected him to (and I find it odd that more people didn’t to be honest).
But the business of incurable nanobot smartblood (!) and a villain’s lair that simply HAD to be blown to smithereens (for some reason…?) all felt a bit thrown together and unconvincing, when a more focused, down-to-Earth, Flemingesque death likely would have been far more effective and fitting for the Craig era (especially the more celebrated corners of it).
The last act of the film isn’t a dealbreaker for me, far from it - the parts of the film I liked were wonderful enough that the good outweighed the bad, but it just cemented for me how clunkily written much of the Craig and Brosnan eras have been. It’s past time to wave goodbye to Purvis and Wade and their bloated fanfiction writing.
What P&W look like to people on the internet…
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I found it utterly convincing, the film made it very clear that even the slightest trace of the weapon was dangerous.
And Fleming’s plot are equally ludicrous, he isn’t Le Carre - Dr No is using a radio beam to send rockets off course, Goldfingers plan defies the laws of physics, and Fleming literally had designed weapon that he smuggled round the world using people as unwitting hosts. Every single thing people bitch about NTTD for doing, “because it’s not the Bond i know!” are things literally done by Fleming.
Bond dies at the end of the fifth one (and Fleming left far less wiggle room than Eon)
The daughter of an old enemy at war with Spectre has a young child
Bond fathers a child
A specifically designed virus is made and smuggled round the world.
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I’m not one of these people who thinks Fleming did no wrong - I’m reading OHMSS at the moment and I’m in firm belief that Maibaum’s economic, character-driven screenplay is far superior to the source material (which contains FOUR boring chapters of Bond and a load of Governmental fuddy duddies trying to figure out Blofeld’s plan, instead of the simple, brilliant expository scene in the movie where Ernst just explains it). I love goofiness in Bond films and I have no problem with the Craig era diving into the mild sci-fi of Moore and Brosnan.
But pointing at Fleming and saying “See! It’s been done before!” doesn’t forgive a film from having sloppy screenwriting. Why couldn’t Bond be safely extracted before the place had to blow up? Couldn’t they just quarantine him and figure out a way to cure him (as has been done in plenty of similar stories like this)? Couldn’t Bond’s EMP watch or Q’s smartblood have some effect on the nano-infection? There appeared to be a lot of possible backdoors to his death and it was odd that the movie didn’t imply that any of them were taken. Again, a simple bullet to the heart would have been more cut and dried.
And honestly, while Bond fathering a child is hardly worthy of the disgust displayed from certain corners of the fandom - a surprise daughter in a genre film like this signposts the hero’s death before the end of the film. We’ve seen it in Logan and Avengers Endgame quite recently - Bond aping modern genre trends once again. It’s a bit lazy.
(Once again with feeling - I do like the film. I’ve just booked another viewing of it!)
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Would have been sloppy screenwriting, I think.
But I have not read any of the drafts or know who contributed anything, including the credited Fukunaga, EON, Craig, MGM, the spouses and kids and so on.
And now for something completely different (@orion, you surely know this already?):
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Or even the un-credited Burns, or a hangover from Boyle/Hodge.
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The movie clearly wanted to build to this scenario, but regardless: imagine if a global pandemic could be averted. I too would be desperate to destroy the point of origin and avoid an outbreak that would never leave the face of the Earth. Bond would have escaped, but then Safin appeared, and attacked Bond’s body and soul. Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.
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So you interpreted Bond being infected as a key reason that he needed to stay and be obliterated with the rest of the base?
Interesting. I like that spin on things, though don’t think that was made sufficiently clear by the film - the exposition indicated that the targeted nature of the nanotech means Bond was simply a danger to his family, rather than to anyone else.
Bond’s motivation was that virus was designed to forever move from person to person until it found the dna it had targeted, given the targets were Madeline and Matilde even the slightest chance it could ever get out was a deal breaker. He had to be obliterated along with all the other samples.
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