Jolt Country

The James Bond movies I grew up watching were different than modern 007 films. For the most part, those old movies stood on their own. All you needed to know going in was that James Bond was a spy who liked shooting spies and shagging anything with curves. If your first James Bond movie was 1983's "Octopussy", you didn't need to watch the dozen or so movies that came before it to figure out what was going on.

The latest Bond film, 2021's "No Time to Die", is a direct sequel to 2015's "Spectre". In fact, the past five Bond films, all starring Daniel Craig, bucked the original formula of being stand alone films and are related, sharing characters and plots. Technically you don't need to have seen any of the other films to enjoy "No Time to Die," but many scenes won't have the same emotional impact if you haven't.

"No Time to Die" finds Bond five years into his retirement, living happily with Madeleine Swann, the daughter of Mr. White (one of Bond's old enemies). After urging from Swann, Bond visits the grave of his former lover only to be ambushed by bad guys. Assuming Swann has set him up, he dumps Swann at the nearest train station after killing multiple assassins, jumping off a bridge, stealing a motorcycle, and shooting people with machine guns mounted behind his car's headlights. This takes place before the opening credits -- buckle up!

Bond's retirement is cut short when a new bioweapon is discovered. This new artificial nanobot virus can target specific human targets based on their DNA; in other words, you can gas an entire room and only kill one specific person. The bad news is that you can carry the virus ("Heracles") indefinitely and never know it, only to infect an intended target. Even worse is that someone has figured out how to essentially do "wildcard masks" with the virus, turning it into a weapon of mass destruction.

That someone turns out to be the gloriously named Lyutsifer Safin, played by Rami Malek. Safin comes off as a conglomeration of half a dozen Bond baddies; sticking to the mold, he's an insane genius with lots of baggage and perfectly content to watch the world burn.

Along with M, Q, Moneypenny, Bond's normal supporting team, we also meet secret agent Nomi -- a strong black woman reminiscent of Grace Jones who just so happens to have inherited the number 007 after Bond returned from service. Nomi doesn't have a lot of character development and does little more than move the plot forward when convenient, but it has been well advertised that this is Daniel Craig's final Bond film, so who knows if the franchise will move forward with this new and unconventional 007.

The film contains some fantastic action scenes as Bond and his merry troupe chase after Safin and the source of the Heracles weapon. Sweeping shots of scenery and larger than life action sequences remind audiences that this film was made with IMAX in mind. It's no wonder why the film was pushed back multiple times for a theatrical release instead of streaming into homes.

The romance between Bond and Swann goes through many twists and is a strong subplot. The ending of the film even had me shedding a tear or two... or maybe that was due to the film's 2h45m run time combined with my ever-shrinking bladder. No time to pee!

Daniel Craig has said this is his final Bond film, and whatever comes next will surely be a reboot of the franchise. If "No Time to Die" was intended to send Bond off and formally end his career, he certainly retires in style.

The Casino Royale reboot was ok and Skyfall was really good. Then...I dunno. I gave up on watching movies around that time. It's really nice to see they have moved away from the just-what-he-needed gadgets, that was getting seriously campy. Concentrating on the characters is the best thing for that franchise.

I was reading the old James Bond comic strips a while back and you can tell it was a B franchise at the time. The Daniel Craig movies really moved Bond up the ladder.

Hope he's not stringing us along this time, good riddance to Daniel Craig's Bond.

He's nowhere near the worst bond, probably wedged between Roger Moore and Pierce Brosnan. What's wrong is what Bond has become, it's almost indistinguishable from every single other action movie that's been churned out over the last few years. It's too bad because Bond movies started the whole secret agent action + technology + gunfights + comedy + fast cars + fighting + extra points for martial arts genre that's now grown up around it. They used to go all out for Bond movies too, sending him all over the world to piece together the plot, this movie I think he went a total of 3 places and one of those was London. They're just not doing anything new with Bond these days. I'd rather watch Bourne (especially the one with Jeremy Renner), Girl with the Dragon Tatoo (s), or maybe I should give Fast 3 a chance.

The other thing that's really irking me about these movies being churned out these days is all the self referencing going on. it's bad enough that most big movies these days are all watered down sequels but they shove it in our faces by talking about it in the fucking movie. I get that by the time they got to Fast 9 they're out of any of the dialogue they ever had but Bond was supposed to be different.

Now about this movie, Flack's right it must be Craig's last one as the only way forward is a complete re-boot. Hope we're not stuck with this movie's black woman 007. Couldn't they find a better british black woman? Someone who can actually pretend to fight. I'm all for blackening up the role but I thought Idris Alba should have gotten his chance. Oh god the dialogue is awful. The closeup of Daniel's Craggy face with the trite banter with one of the most boring supervilans in the bond series is still going on after like 10 minutes. Why is this movie so very very long and drawn out? There are like 8 minutes after Bond is killed that should have been on the digital "cutting room floor" and probably another hour of dialogue too.

Yeah, I'm the cynical, jaded one. Jesus Christ, Flack posts a great movie review and then the "everything sucks nowadays" parade immediately has to roll through town.

pinback wrote: Wed Feb 16, 2022 3:40 am Yeah, I'm the cynical, jaded one. Jesus Christ, Flack posts a great movie review and then the "everything sucks nowadays" parade immediately has to roll through town.

Think Flack and I saw different movies.

Flack has basically been deciding what movies I watch these days. And then I have to remember to come back and leave my TAKE. I would have not enjoyed those two new Halloween movies without him. And I thought they KICKED ASS.