CultureCow: Goodbye Mr. Bond and Good Job

November 05, 2021 Cueball

by Devin McCue, Sumner Newscow — Happy Friday. November brings a lot of great things. Cooler weather, pumpkin spiced lattes, and what’s affectionately dubbed “Oscar season.”

Oscar season is the period between November and January where studios release their biggest hits; movies they think will net them some awards. Wes Anderson just put out the French Dispatch, a film sure to snag him a nomination for best picture. Ridley Scott wants to win the Oscar for his new movie House of Gucci so bad he can taste it. And there’s much more on the horizon before December even starts.

But there’s one film, in particular, this month that has a lot of buzz around it, even compared to the huge films on deck: No Time to Die.

No Time to Die is the final installment of Daniel Craig’s James Bond series and it’s an excellent farewell to one of the most iconic roles of the last decade. In spite of the dumbest name imaginable, this movie is a thrill to watch and manages to probe even deeper into the psyche of the most tortured Bond yet.

Students around the country will be wrapping up the fall semester soon, so let’s look at the report card for Cary Joji Fukunaga’s rendition of our favorite MI6 agent.

Music: B

The Bond theme (and general musical tone) are ingrained into any fan’s consciousnesses. It’s slick, simple, and redefined how we score spy movies since Sean Connery first held the role. So, with a rigid style to adhere to, you’d think every movie sounds the same.

You’d also be wrong.

Composers are tasked with not only staying true to the original feel of the “Bond sound,” but to reinventing it to fit the new story. It’s a very tall order and one Hans Zimmer was ready to fill. Zimmer is one of Hollywood’s go-to composers and he did a marvelous job with the score.

He played the classic “ba na na naaaaa, na na naaaa” when necessary, and scored the fight scenes to sound as interesting as they looked. A feat Marvel still struggles with over 10 years in. His biggest success was reintroducing the main theme of the film (by the same name) in creative ways.

The theme was sung by pop superstar Billie Eilish. Billie takes the job previously held by Adele, Madonna, Carly Simon and Paul McCartney, which is an impressive feat at 19 years old. She did a great job with it and her creepy style fit perfectly.

Style: A-

By “style” I’m referring to not only the look of the film but how it was shot. One of the biggest complaints I have about the Bond series, as a whole, is how rigid its visuals are.

Every director thinks they have to make it look exactly like the Connery Bonds or else it won’t be true to the series. Breaking that tradition (somewhat) is Fukunaga’s biggest achievement in the film.

You can see this Bond is going to be different from the opening scene. It’s a flashback (itself a rarity in the series) of the previous movie’s “Bond girl,” Léa Seydoux’s, childhood and looks more like a family drama than a spy movie. There are more closeups and the camera moves around much more than the still-shots we’re so used to seeing whenever there isn’t an action beat going on.

The rest of the movie breaks Bond conventions as well with a lot more camera movement than normal, as well as some really interesting tilts when the bad guys break into a lab and when James meets our villain for the first time.

This Bond feels different and I applaud Fukunaga for his job in that. But speaking of our villain…

Villain: C

Rami Malek takes the mantel of Bond Baddie, filling in some large shoes previously worn by Christoph Waltz, Javier Bardem, and Mads Mikkelsen. Let’s just say he didn’t exactly measure up to their standards.

Malek’s villain, Lyutsifer Safin, had the vaguest goal of any of the villains in Craig’s series, but even that could be forgivable if he was charismatic enough. The problem was Rami Malek isn’t charismatic by nature. He literally got his start playing on a show called Mr. Robot.

Lyutsifer Safin is sort of driven by revenge, sort of driven by a desire to ruin the Earth, but for the most part, he’s just a bad guy.

Listen, Bond villains don’t need many purposes. Most of the franchise revolves around James stopping people from literally blowing up the Earth for a non-defined amount of money. But a villain with a goal this vague and an actor who can’t make up for it with his delivery doesn’t bode well.

That being said, this movie is barely about the villain or his goals. This is a movie about James Bond’s transition out of the spotlight and what we do with this character afterward.

From this moment on, there will be spoilers.

Main plot: C-

Much like the villain of this film, the main plot is pretty fluid.

Bond movies always reflect the anxieties of the times and this film was no exception. No matter what era we’re in or what novel it’s supposedly based off of, James Bond movies tackle current fears.

That’s why every movie during the Cold War was about nuclear proliferation and took place in Russia or some other soviet block country. Even the last movie, Spectre, dealt with surveillance in a time when digital privacy was all over the news.

What’s the big fear in this movie? Disease, of course.

The COVID metaphor in No Time to Die is heavy-handed even by Bond standards. The bad guy’s plan is to release a virus that’s highly contagious and extremely deadly for no other reason than he wants to watch the world burn. It plays into COVID conspiracies and draws on the fear that a new disease can pop up at any time.

That’s a pretty simple and topical concept, but it still doesn’t answer the big question: Why would anyone want that?

It doesn’t benefit the villain in any direct way and will no-doubt cause him a lot of financial harm. Leaving that question unanswered, or at least vague enough to leave it unsatisfied, made the conflict seem half-baked.

Sub plot: A+

But, the main plot doesn’t matter because that’s not what this movie is about. This movie is about the character of James Bond.

James Bond is one of the most recognizable and storied characters in movie history and No Time to Die asks us how much we really know and care about the guy. Daniel Craig’s Bond has been a tortured soul who keeps getting dragged back into the spy game for the last three movies.

Everyone he loves dies by the next movie. His mental and physical health continues to deteriorate. And he’s constantly under pressure to live up to his legendary status with nothing to show for it.

The new 007, played excellently by Lashana Lynch, even remarks on the paradise he’s made and says Craig is someone “with time to kill, but nothing to live for.” For decades we’ve been okay with our Bonds to be drunken womanizers who go back to battle no matter how much their lives suffer.

Craig’s Bond was the first to take all that trauma seriously and No Time to Die was the first time he had some real hope of attaining peace. His girlfriend lived longer than one movie and he even fathered a daughter when we weren’t looking. Professionally, he got to see MI6, and even the 007 moniker, thrive without him.

For all intents and purposes, we saw James come to grips with his mortality and finally see a life outside of spycraft. It was great to see a movie less about Bond the spy and more about Bond the character.

Then, they killed him with a missile.

Implications on the series: A

Killing James Bond was certainly a bold choice and one that has very interesting implications.

Firstly, it means Daniel Craig can finally hang up his license to kill and move on as an actor. Secondly, it means that “James Bond” is really just a codename for whomever has the role of 007.

That theory has a bunch of holes and requires a lot of mental gymnastics to take seriously, but it’s a really clever way to look at the franchise as a whole. It shows how each of the different Bonds are similar yet have slightly different backstories. It also connects the universe in a way that’s fun for long-time fans.

Most importantly, however, is means James Bond can be different.

It means we can have a James Bond who isn’t a white cis-man or one that isn’t even a native Brit. After seven Bond actors, the role is starting to get a little stale, and switching up who takes over is a great way to breathe life into such a great franchise.

Even Lynch’s stand-in 007 was great to watch because we’ve never seen anyone, but Bond take the number. The fact that she was a Black woman only added to the intrigue. Changing who wears 007 will bring more fans to the series who can finally see themselves in the best spy in history.

Legacy: A-

No Time to Die put a wonderful cap on Daniel Craig’s Bond.

It didn’t try to reinvent him as a character, it just gave him a final movie to strut his stuff. Watching the final act of this film felt like seeing Kobe’s final game with the Lakers where they let him shoot a million times just for the sake of watching it.

This set of films also cements Craig’s title as the best James Bond. Sure, a lot of you will get mad about my Sean Connery blaspheme, but he’s #2 and it isn’t even close. Craig was suaver than Connery, he had better action scenes, and he was just more genuinely likable.

Connery was a great Bond and set the standard for every actor to follow. But every “best” will eventually get bested, and Connery can rest easy knowing Daniel Craig set his bar even higher.

The only reason I gave it an A- instead of an A+ is because Quantum of Solace was a bad movie.