No Time to Die: A gilt-edged Bond

No Time to Die (2021) • View trailer

4.5 stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, for intense action violence, disturbing images and fleeting profanity

Available via: Movie theaters (where it belongs!)

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 10.08.21

It’s bloody well about time.

 

Back in 1969, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service was jeered by critics and the public because a) George Lazenby wasn’t Sean Connery; and b) the script had the audacity to present a James Bond with genuine feelings for the woman with whom he’d fallen in love.

 

While James Bond (Daniel Craig, left) and Moneypenny (Naomie Harris) nervously
wait, Q (Ben Whishaw) struggles to crack the security on a computer network that may
reveal crucial information about the mysterious "Heracles" project.

History has validated what some of us knew all along: Lazenby held his own just fine, and those very story elements — the injection of authentic emotion — cemented its status as one of the all-time best Bonds.

Over the course of Daniel Craig’s five-film arc, his Bond has been defined by loss: the loss of Vesper, in Casino Royale, and M, in Skyfall; and the dismissal of his profession, in Spectre. He has endured along the way, battered and bruised, becoming as recognizably human as one could hope for, in such an action franchise.

 

It’s certainly no accident, mere minutes into this new epic, when Hans Zimmer’s score injects an echo of “We Have All the Time in the World,” the poignant anthem from On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. One has to smile.

 

Indeed, No Time to Die is laden with similar echoes of the past: from a title credits sequence that opens with the colored polka dots employed in the credits of Dr. No, to Vic Flick’s unmistakable heavy guitar twang — elsewhere in this film’s score — in John Barry’s classic arrangement of “The James Bond Theme.”

 

The impressively ambitious script — by Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, Phoebe Waller-Bridge and director Cary Joji Fukunaga — even works in a hitherto-untapped bit of Ian Fleming: Dr. Guntram Shatterhand’s “Garden of Death,” from the novel You Only Live Twice.

 

But that comes later. No Time to Die — a much harsher affair than most Bonds — opens on a flashback involving a terrified adolescent girl and a kabuki-masked assassin. The encounter proceeds in several surprising directions, concluding as a shuddery memory for Madeleine Swann (Léa Seydoux), emerging from the sea as an astute Bond notices her uneasy mood.

 

They’re enjoying the carefree life chosen when they walked away from Bond’s career, at the previous film’s conclusion. But despite their mutual devotion, these are two people with secrets; we know Bond’s, from previous adventures, and we’re about to discover Madeleine’s.

 

It proves … complicated.

 

But that, too, comes later. We’re first blown away by the longest pre-credits sequence in the entire series, which climaxes with an audacious car chase through the tight corners and narrow, labyrinthine streets of Matera, in Southern Italy. Although plenty more action is yet to come, this opener is the film’s most audacious, edge-of-the-seat sequence.

SPECTRE: Return of the über-villain

SPECTRE (2015) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated PG-13, for action violence and mild sensuality
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 11.6.15

This likely is obvious, but it bears mention anyway: Christoph Waltz was born to be a Bond villain.

That chilling insouciance. That monomaniacal smile. That calm air of authority and indifference. The utter certainty that nothing — and nobody — could stand in his way.

After having knocked Madeleine (Léa Seydoux) almost senseless, the unstoppable Hinx
(Dave Bautista, center) does his best to batter Bond (Daniel Craig) and hurl him to his
death from a speeding train.

Waltz’s Oberhauser is sinister.

His interrogation/torture scene here with Daniel Craig’s James Bond is the best — the most memorably macabre — since Auric Goldfinger responded to Sean Connery’s nervous “Do you expect me to talk?” with a mildly vexed “No, Mr. Bond; I expect you to die!”

SPECTRE represents the fruition of simmering narrative plans that have been in play since the Bond franchise was so cleverly re-booted with Craig’s introduction, in 2006’s Casino Royale. The tip-off comes during this new film’s opening credits, as fleeting glimpses of characters from the previous three films waft in and out of Daniel Kleinman’s sleek and sexy visuals.

(Just in passing, Kleinman finally nailed the tone established by the masterful title sequences designed and choreographed so well by the late, great Maurice Binder. The main difference: Kleinman’s are creepier. Which isn’t a bad thing.)

With respect to foreshadowing, longtime fans know that we’ve been here before. Connery’s Bond spent several films dealing with villains set into motion by a  Machiavellian figure silhouetted at the head of an enormous boardroom table, recognized only by the fluffy white cat snuggled into his lap.

Indeed, an early scene in SPECTRE knowingly references just such a sequence from 1965’s Thunderball ... although this update has a more tempestuous outcome.

But that’s getting ahead of things.

Skyfall: Shaken and stirred!

Skyfall (2012) • View trailer
Four stars. Rating: PG-13, for intense action sequences, sensuality and fleeting profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 11.9.12

Daniel Craig’s stint as James Bond has been about rebirth and re-invention, and Skyfall is no different, albeit with an intriguing twist: It feels more like John Le Carre than Ian Fleming.

Somehow, Daniel Craig's James Bond, left, always seems to wind up tied to a chair,
and forced to listen as the villain — in this case, Javier Bardem's Silva — shares his
nasty plans. But this is no ordinary villain, and Silva has no intention of destroying the
world's economy, or igniting a war with Russia or China. This maniac's mission is much
more personal, and it'll cut to the very core of Britain's venerable intelligence agency.

As also was the case with Casino Royale, things get personal.

The formula seems the same at the outset, with an audacious, action-laced pre-credits teaser set in Istanbul, which finds Bond and a fellow field agent (plucky Naomie Harris, as Eve) in hot pursuit of a baddie who has ambushed some MI6 colleagues and stolen a vitally important computer hard drive. First on foot, then in cars and motorcycles, and finally atop a moving train, Bond relentlessly pursues this fellow, ultimately with the assistance of a backhoe (!), all to an exhilarating orchestral score from composer Thomas Newman.

Then, at the climactic moment ... things take an unexpected turn.

And not just in terms of plot, as the scripting trio — returning scribes Neal Purvis and Robert Wade (their fifth 007 epic), allied with Oscar-nominated playwright John Logan (The Aviator, Hugo) — moves the narrative into increasingly un-Bondian waters. Director Sam Mendes gradually shifts the tone as well, utilizing the obligatory exotic locals as a means of moving the action from London to Scotland — the long way around — for a stripped-down third act very much akin to his masterful 2002 adaptation of The Road to Perdition.

An unusual approach, for our big-screen imbiber of cocktails shaken, not stirred? Indeed. But there’s a reason for the madness concocted by Mendes and his writing team: an artistic flourish that suitably honors this 50th anniversary outing in cinema’s longest-running continuous franchise. (Dr. No opened in London on Oct. 5, 1962.)

There’s also plenty of madness elsewhere, in the form of Silva: an adversary who stands among the most memorable of Bondian megalomaniacs, and is brought to chilling life by Javier Bardem. And if we see a bit of his horrific Anton Chigurh, from No Country for Old Men, that’s probably no accident.

Bond villains too frequently have felt like pretend scoundrels with fancy dress and fancier accents — particularly during the spoof-laden Roger Moore years — but Bardem’s Silva is the real deal. His introductory soliloquy on the feral nature of trapped rats probably is the best scene-stealing debut ever granted any Bond baddie, and Bardem sells the moment masterfully.

And this fellow isn’t out to rule the world; he merely wants revenge.

For what, precisely? Ah, therein lies the tale.

Quantum of Solace: Quantum thrills

Quantum of Solace (2008) • View trailer for Quantum of Solace
Four stars (out of five). Rating: PG-13, for action violence and sensuality
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 11.14.08
Buy DVD: Quantum of Solace • Buy Blu-Ray: Quantum of Solace [Blu-ray]

One expects many things from a James Bond film — furious action scenes, mordant one-liners, compliant female companions — but political topicality isn't high on the list.

And yet Quantum of Solace boasts a central plotline ripped from today's headlines: a subject so serious that a grim documentary, Flow, has been making the rounds even as this newest Bond adventure explodes on screens across the world.

Somewhat worse for the wear, James Bond (Daniel Craig) and Camille (Olga
Kurylenko) manage to escape from one tight spot, only to find themselves in
the midst of an even worse predicament. Truly, though, what else would we
expect of an 007 adventure?

Daniel Craig once again cuts an impressive figure as both the most physically imposing and vulnerable 007 the 22-film series has delivered, and he also fills the stylish Tom Ford suits with considerable aplomb.

As was the case with Casino Royale, though, the much-welcomed series reboot isn't limited merely to the actor whom naysayers once foolishly dismissed as "the blond Bond"; scripters Paul Haggis, Neal Purvis and Robert Wade have built another ground-level thriller as far removed from the cartoon megalomania of (for example) Moonraker and Tomorrow Never Dies as could be imagined.

Clearly, the re-booted Bond formula has been influenced heavily by the success of Matt Damon's Bourne entries, but that's just fine; we need to remember that Bond was there first anyway, when the series debuted back in the 1960s, with the more realistic From Russia with Love and On Her Majesty's Secret Service.

Both those earlier films also had an emotional undercurrent that vanished as Bond moved into the 1970s and '80s; watching Craig resurrect that aspect of our not-so-secret agent is a welcome sight.

Quantum of Solace begins minutes after the adrenalin-pumping finale of Casino Royale, as Bond bundles the injured Mr. White (Jesper Christensen) into the trunk of his car — you'll recall that 007 shot White, having deduced that this shadowy figure had something to do with Vesper's death in the previous film — and attempts to deliver this baddie to an interrogation session with M (Judi Dench).

First, though, we're treated to a literally smashing car chase — Aston Martin vs. Alfa Romeo — taking place on a crowded, enclosed mountainside highway along Northern Italy's Lake Garda: a novelty because of the bumper-to-bumper traffic which you'd think would make such an action sequence impossible.

The subsequent session with White also hits an unexpected snag, which leads to the film's second breathtaking action sequence: a footchase that manages to outdo the "free-running" sequence that so stylishly kicked off Casino Royale. Second unit director Dan Bradley and stunt coordinator Gary Powell do astonishing things with this hell-for-leather pursuit; the result is a visceral thrill-ride that'll literally catch your breath.