Bond #25: NO TIME TO DIE

there were not nearly enough henchmen to kill in most of the recent Bond films imo

lots of time for them to die in this one

https://www.theguardian.com/film/datablog/2012/oct/05/james-bond-bodycount-deaths#data

re-posting since i accidentally posted it on spectre thread

fukunaga did an amazing job, whole thing looked amazing and was super varied in terms of color lighting

rami malek was terrible. not remotely scary, idiotic accent, everything he said was so groanworthy pretentious and vacuous (even by Bond villain standards), also for some reason his skin condition improved throughout the movie? by the end it just looked like mild acne scars

léa seydoux is insanely beautiful and every moment she was on screen i was jaw agog. however daniel craig and ana de armas have the best chemistry, wish she was in it more. havana scene was so fun

plot was so dumb. when ralph fiennes is like “we didn’t mean for this bio chemical weapon capable of exterminating entire races of people to become a WMD” lol

overall i loved it. i think italy was my favourite action setpiece (i was hooting and hollering in the movie theatre when he started motorcycling up stairs and flying over bridges) but they were all very entertaining

malek was less bad than i expected, maybe bc i was warned there was a possibly ineffective bond villain in this one

same thing happened with me and the world is not enough, which, i’m pretty sure i’m the only person who loves that movie

There was a lot of shooting up henchmen in a sort of … soulless, generic way - an empty way. And yes, these movies have probably always trafficked in that but this time it really leaped out at me

(I must be getting old.)

I appreciated a bunch of little Craig arc acts of symmetry they seeded in here. Poetic.

Agreed with everyone who said, above, that this movie was gorgeous, oh my gosh

The transition from the song/title sequence into the movie proper was just jaw dropping

The SPECTRE invasion of the lab ....I want a canvas print of that

re-posting since i accidentally posted it on spectre thread

fukunaga did an amazing job, whole thing looked amazing and was super varied in terms of color lighting

rami malek was terrible. not remotely scary, idiotic accent, everything he said was so groanworthy pretentious and vacuous (even by Bond villain standards), also for some reason his skin condition improved throughout the movie? by the end it just looked like mild acne scars

léa seydoux is insanely beautiful and every moment she was on screen i was jaw agog. however daniel craig and ana de armas have the best chemistry, wish she was in it more. havana scene was so fun

plot was so dumb. when ralph fiennes is like “we didn’t mean for this bio chemical weapon capable of exterminating entire races of people to become a WMD” lol

overall i loved it. i think italy was my favourite action setpiece (i was hooting and hollering in the movie theatre when he started motorcycling up stairs and flying over bridges) but they were all very entertaining

the close-quarters stairwell shootouts in the closing battle were fantastic even if they didn't feel very bond-like. overall bond seemed 'an old wreck' in this, grunting, sweating, looking winded by feats he might have once pulled off with insouciance.

craig is great, landscape photography great, but in general i didn't think this was very good. big doings are just barely acknowledged. 007 is a black woman? bond is fighting AGAINST her? the bioweapon was actually developed by MI6? bond finally gets the baddie? (several times?) any of these things could have been the organising principle for great moments of high leverage and difficult choices but they just.... happen.

the only exception to this is bond's sudden suspicion that the love of his life has betrayed him. this is based on a henchman telling him that swann's dad was in spectre. that's it. oh and somebody from spectre calls her phone. but that's enough. it sends him into a pout so deep he'd rather die in a bullet-riddled DB7 than live with the suspicions that this *checks notes* evil henchman has planted in his head. but at least it's something. at least there's some moment and gravity to it. at least he makes a choice based on his character that has consequences in the film. and really it is the sort of emotionally stunted response you'd expect from bond so it kind of works.

lashana lynch's character was deeply disappointing imo. lynch was great but she's given practically nothing to do except be jealous of bond's potency. in norway i was sure she'd show up in the woods to save bond's ass but, no? she's just tooling around? a minicab driver, essentially? poor.

everything everybody's said about malek, and his character, otm. his world domination plans are incoherent, the 'poison garden' incoherent, wtf are these workers doing in these acid baths, he's terrible, boring. the little girl is his leverage and he just lets her go? can't we at least give the little girl a neat scene where she gets the better of him, uses her smarts? the orientalization of the baddies really racist. malek's own ethnicity, the scars, but also the relentless easternizing of him, sitting cross-legged at a low table, etc - blow it into the sun

the only exception to this is bond's sudden suspicion that the love of his life has betrayed him. this is based on a henchman telling him that swann's dad was in spectre. that's it. oh and somebody from spectre calls her phone. but that's enough.

no, he suspects this because nobody but he and his wife knew where he was, and upon arriving at Vesper Lynd's grave, he is almost blown up and then almost shot to death. given Vesper turning on him without him even detecting, I don't think it's that farfetched that he assumed that she gave him up rather than Blofeld simply giving his henchmen a standing order to be on standby in case Bond ever visits her grave.

the other bit of suspicion is that their bags are already downstairs when he returns to the hotel. Now, this is because he told her earlier "when I return, let me know where we're going next", and clearly she's chosen another vacation destination to go to, but in the height of the moment, he thinks she had the luggage brought down so she can peace the fuck out now that Bond is dead.

the "Blofeld sends his regards. she is daughter of SPECTRE, she is daughter of SPECTRE" plus the phone call from Blofeld were an attempt to make him think she'd betrayed him - Blofeld even said "your father would be so proud of you" to her on the phone, insinuating she gave him up.

he suspects this because nobody but he and his wife knew where he was

ok, except this turns out not to be true - somebody else did know

i get the logic, but i think it's a little bizarre that he trusts the word of "no fade" (my son's nickname for bionic eyeball guy) over the love of his life

i guess what i'm saying is that actually i DO think this part worked because it shows bond as a flawed character willing to give in to suspicions planted by baddies; his 'trust no one' past can't really ever be shaken off etc. i do think he is being very dim here and hot-headed (even for bond) but that's okay, it fits the plot and his character and the movie gives this misunderstanding the weight it deserves

other seismic events just slide by

Blofeld didn't know though! when Bond is interviewing him, he said he just knew by instinct that Bond would eventually visit her grave. and he apparently was paying his stooges to be on standby in case he ever showed up.

After the bomb explodes, Bond goes into the building next to the cemetery, finds the employee who helped him to Vesper's grave no longer there, with the phone off the hook, and the young boy that showed him to the grave smiles at him knowingly, as he's in on it too (he knows the cars are about to come up the hill, I am guessing). So presumably the cemetery employee called SPECTRE's local stooges as soon as Bond showed up, then ran away to avoid being caught up in a shootout.

Of course it's farfetched but not within the Bond world - that's very much in line with other Bond films, SPECTRE has people on standby who can show up in minutes to gun down Bond as soon as someone calls to alert them.

listen, blofeld’s plot in ohmss, the best bond movie ever, is silly and doesn’t make any sense

comes with the territory

Of course it's farfetched but not within the Bond world - that's very much in line with other Bond films

definitely. but bond blames his wife

otoh I agree that think Safin's plans weren't all that clear - what is obvious is that his list has millions of people on it, to target with the killer nanobots, so he does plan to kill/subjugate millions of people, but for what purpose is unclear. the Wikipedia summary surmised it as "create a New World Order", but I suspect he's just sociopathic based on his whole family being killed rather than having plans to create a one government planet in which he is the ruler.

xpost because in his mind, Blofeld (who is new in this universe, and not a long-established nemesis) was less likely to be angry/bored enough to pay people to live near a cemetery in Italy in case Bond ever showed up as opposed to Occam's Razor saying his wife sold him out. esp since his previous girlfriend practically did the same thing (although not so much getting him killed, she just absconded with the money and pretended to be in love with him).

this movie probably did have the best 'bond. james bond' moment ever tbf

i guess i can talk in detail about this movie now, one of the things i really loved is the opening shot bringing to mind the severnaya levels of goldeneye 007

also whenever the action got roger moore ott, that was my shit

Did the movie explain how Safin could afford to build the secret base and have an army of henchmen (who didn't bleed when shot because PG-13)? I must have glazed over when that bit of exposition happened, in whichever movie it occurred.

he was an early investor in Bitcoin

One thing I've been turning over in my mind would be comparing the reactions in the alternate universe between the 'engineered plague is unleashed out of East Asia' plot between if this had been the last big movie out before worldwide lockdown -- which it almost was by just a couple of weeks -- versus now.

yeah the “accidentally killing someone by touching them” thing vibrated weirdly

i was like damn they filmed this two years before covid and it’s got intense covid themes

SPECTRE is now out, so they will be replaced in next film by the Socialist Humanist Autonomist Radical Troops

4th film: ... a division of SPECTRE Enterprises

Nah it'll be some sort terror plot via radioactive NFTs.

Anyway my favorite 'where the fuck IS this' moment was the first shot of the coastal island highway and then when the film revealed it was Norway I was all "Oh...that makes sense."

yeah that highway was wild

i wanna ride it
oh my fjord

the one downside to Billy Magnusson being in any movie is you always know if he's playing a good guy he's going to wind up being an actual bad guy.

007 is a black woman? bond is fighting AGAINST her?

Actually, Commander Bond gave her the lead, sir

that was a CIA vs MI6 thing and Bond only took the CIA's side because he was appalled at M allowing the development of the nanobot techonlogy

i know. but in the film it’s just a plot mechanic. seems like it would merit more “wtf”ness, deal-making, atonement… something

something else about these (that i'm sure i'm not the first to mention) is that they nearly always seem to want to put about 5 movies worth of location and circumstance into the same movie. the boat, the red lights, the short, ugly fight, felix... all that was beautiful and incredible. santiago, the vibe there, the federales, the rooftop escape, ana de armas.. man i would have liked a whole movie of that.

the running bit of every female spy going “no, I am NOT trying to seduce you, Bond!” was subtle enough that it played, imo

the running bit of how we should care what his agent number is was dreadful

so dumb. especially the "I bet you thought they'd retire it." uhh yeah he thought he was so great that they would permanently reduce their entire workforce by 11% in order to... make up for not having him anymore?

cute enough 1 time but they returned to it a bunch of times lol

idk i feel like there are plenty of numbers xp

it's not necessarily 11% there's an 0012 mentioned in one of the books

tho, ngl, i was annoyed not to know Bond's new, temporary number

0069

oh hell yeah

“No fade” is a great nickname for that guy xp