No Time to Die: Quibbles about that Death

My wife and I finally saw the new (to us) final Daniel Craig as James Bond movie -- on Amazon Prime. We very much enjoyed it.  In fact, although it has its flaws, I'd say No Time to Die is certainly among best James Bond movies ever made.

[Spoilers follow, of course.]

Let's begin with that shocker of an ending: Bond dies.  I didn't like to see that as it was happening --not at all -- but it is a highly original way of ending a Bond movie, and deserves credit for that.  It does explode or reveal as a myth the fact that Bond never dies.  Those around him die, and he must suffer that.  But not Bond himself.

The words on the screen at the end of the movie assure us that we'll see Bond again, and this will no doubt occur the way it's been presented in every transition to a newly acted Bond since it first happened back in Sean Connery's reign, actually twice, once for one time with George Lazenby, and then for a new series of Bond movies with Roger Moore.  In those and every subsequent case, the new Bonds were introduced with no mention of the fact that they looked different from their predecessor.  The same logic says the new post-Craig Bond can be introduced with no reference to his predecessor being killed.  What this, I suppose, means is that Bond's death at the end of No Time to Die is no big deal -- even though it meant the world in the context of that movie.

I did have two quibbles about the two characters must crucial to that death.  Rami Malek was superb as the arch-villain Safin who engineered Bond's death -- no one can match Malek's way of delivering powerful lines in a soft voice and a nearly expressionless face.  But given the profundity of Bond's death, I would have rather seen it done by a life-long adversary, like Blofeld, who's not able to step up to that role because he's earlier been killed by Bond in another nefarius Safin move on the lethal chessboard.  Similarly, although Madeleine (well-played by Léa Seydoux) with a most worthy love of Bond's life. we unfortunately don't meet her until the beginning of this very movie.  I would have rather seen someone we already got to know in previous movies.  Of course, since Vesper was already killed, it would have been difficult to pull someone out of the earlier Craig as Bond movies, but, nonetheless, that would have added a special gravitas in No Time to Die.  Bond's daughter was a really nice part of this movie, and had a gravitas of its own, but a mother with a history of Bond loving her before this story began would have added more.

Otherwise, I thought every other aspect of the movie was outstanding.  I especially loved the reprise of Louis Armstrong's "We Have All the Time in the World" at the end of No Time to Die.  The reprise, of course, was from Her Majesty's Secret Service, where it was also played at the end of the movie.  In other words, the death of Bond's true love, and then all these years later, the death of Bond, get the same musical aftermath.  Unless you're made of stone, that song is bound to bring a tear to your eyes.

Thinking about what the next Bond movie will bring, we have  the question of how many of the agents and administration in No Time to Die with survive.  I see no reason why all of them can't, deprived of course of any grief at the loss of the Bond played by Craig.  I've seen and really enjoyed every Bond movie ever made, pretty much in the year in which they were released, and I'm looking forward to more.

See also The New James Bond -- Without the Golden Pun ... It's Not HBO -- It's a Quantum of Solace

Skyfall Great with Barely a Bond Girl

There was barely a Bond girl in Skyfall - no double entendre - and it is still one of best Bond movies ever made.  Certainly better than any non-Connery Bond, and right up there with Goldfinger, From Russia with Love, and On Her Majesty's Secret Service, which of course wasn't a Connery, but Lazenby looked just like him, and it was a powerhouse of a personal and spy-thriller story.

Which describes Skyfall, easily the best movie about Bond's life, along with OHMSS.   There's not a weak or wasted scene in Skyfall, from the stunning opener in which Bond is killed to the last in which Moneypenny is revealed and Bond reports to the new M for work.   Of course Bond isn't killed in that opening segment, and the fact that we know that and still find the opener a shocker is a measure of how good this movie is.

The villain - Silva - is excellent and close to exceptional.  Played by Javier Bardem with a blond wig, Silva is probably most reminiscent of Christopher Walken's Max Zorin's in a View to a Kill (probably Moore's worst), except Silva is a little more intense, brilliant, cracked, and makes a pass at Bond.   Silva's also a lapsed MI6 agent, which also gives him a kinship to Alec Trevelyan in Goldeneye.  These similarities to earlier Bonds are actually one of the best features of Skyfall, which also brings back and nobly sacrifices Bond's Astin Martin and its firepower, which served so well in Goldfinger, Thunderball, and other Bond movies, and also has a call-out to Jaws' teeth,

Ah ... noble sacrifice.   Skyfall is as much M's movie as Bond's - she more than Bond is the target of Silva's sociopathic anger - and the curtain call for Judi Dench's M is memorable indeed, and gives Skyfall another kinship to OHMSS.  Just as Bond's beloved Tracy dies in his arms at the end of OHMSS, so M dies in Bond's arms close to the end of Skyfall.  But rather than losing the love of his life, Bond is losing his metaphorical mother, another milestone in the gradual growing up of this Bond.

There's a wonderfully winning balance of old and new in Skyfall, with Bond at the fulcrum.  M literally passes, Albert Finney puts in a strong appearance as Kincade (and old friend of Bond's family), and we see the gravestone of Bond's parents.  On the new side of the ledger, we have a sharp young cyber-arrogant Q and a bright new Moneypenny - who actually is the first Moneypenny in Daniel Craig's Bonds and in this incarnation a field agent who comes in from the cold to take up residence in M's office.  Ralph Fiennes is the new M, who comes in the from the cold of being Chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee, and is pretty good with a gun.  It's assuring to see Fiennes, who played Voldemort, put his acting power to the good.

Craig's performance is altogether perfect, ranging from the near-derelict Bond to the full tuxedoed casino man.  The action scenes take him from the top of a train to nearly getting hit by a train from above in the Tube, with a man against helicopter, man on the underside of elevator, and all sorts of other goodies thrown in.  There's gunplay everywhere you turn, from courtroom in London to misty fields in Scotland.  Craig does these better than well, and the sheer intensity of the cinematography and speed of the scenes make the movie breathtaking.

Bond is in bed with just one woman, once, and Silva kills her before she has a chance to do much in the movie.  That's the only fault I can find in the film, which was otherwise so extraordinary that it almost didn't matter, and maybe didn't matter at all.  What Skyfall has finally given us is a Bond for the 21st century, as strong in its own way as Bond through the 20th, and I'm looking forward to many more.