No Time to Die. It is a peculiar title in a tradition of peculiar titles, that perhaps hint towards far graver sentiments. It may be an avowal of self-reassurance for the character who, even with his reluctance for action, won’t be allowed to die. Or is a forewarning of new beginnings, since we know this to be Daniel Craig’s last film as an eternally melancholic version of James Bond.

Maybe it is a pledge of warranty of author Ian Fleming’s spy-brands’ resilience in cinema (the films have been around for 59 years; this is the 25th milestone in the “official” list, which discounts Casino Royale (1967) and Never Say Never Again (1983)). Possibly, it could be the fulfillment of a long overdue promise to the audience, who endured the long wait to see this story’s conclusion in cinemas after the film was quarantined for eighteen months as a victim of the coronavirus.

I always felt that the character played by Craig paraded a sense of impermanence in life. He showed little interest in worldly affairs, and craved seclusion since his debut in Casino Royale in 2006.

Whatever the case, the anticipation of mortality has long been synonymous with the titles. You Only Live Twice (1967), Live and Let Die (1973), A View to a Kill (1985), License to Kill (1989), Tomorrow Never Dies (1997), Die Another Day (2002), all refer to death, though mostly the demises are reserved for the bad guys.

As Daniel Craig’s last film as 007, James Bond’s own mortality looms like a menace over the wow-factor of the car chases, the gadgetry and the threadbare plot of No Time to Die

Bond’s own susceptibility towards mortality looms like a menace over the wow-factor of the car chases, the gadgetry and the threadbare plot of No Time to Die.

In the pre-title action sequence set in Matera, Italy, Bond and Madeleine Swann (Léa Seydoux, continuing her character from Spectre), are holed-up in an Aston Martin riddled by gunfire.

A typical, bizarre, Bond henchman (Dali Benssalah, wearing a fake eye with a camera) shoots rounds from a Uzi, a few feet away from Madeleine’s window. She is scared, but Bond, freshly reeling from betrayal (somehow his vacation spot was leaked), lets the sensation of death linger longer than anticipated. As the near-impenetrable window barely holds-on, he shoots Madeleine a look that makes one think he has a death wish.

This Bond is weary of his spy-world shenanigans. What he wants — and that’s probably the one thing I can recall with ease from the Craig films — is to disappear to an island resort. Saving the world can be another agent’s job.

Given the near-negligible use of spycraft in Bond films (there have been next to none for decades), it should be a cakewalk for anyone. The only prerequisite for an agent is to not die while bedding a seductive female who is already entrapped in espionage.

In comparison to his other selves played by five previous actors, Craig’s Bond has been reluctant in triggering sexual encounters. He means it when he says “I love you”, even if the woman is long dead, or belongs to the enemy’s camp (isn’t that always the issue, though).

The death of Vesper Lynd (Eva Green), the only other woman he loved (other than his current sweetheart), and whose gravestone he visits during the early sequence of the film, still tampers his willingness to commit to life and new beginnings (frankly speaking, I never understood, or cared for, Lynd’s love story).

Craig’s Bond has long been a victim of late 2000’s screenwriting trend, where the hero should be unhappy, morbid and lonely, and stories should be a mix of unspectacular extravaganzas. Like the stereotype, he should be an essential yet worthless cog in a big machine. A physically shatterproof man-of-action with a pining heartache, who scuttles from world-saving adventure to adventure, without feeling, or communicating to the audience, the essence of that adventure (case in point: Christopher Nolan’s Batman and Zack Snyder’s Superman).

Although during the span of the film you have to endure it, No Time to Die will put a full-stop to this fad.

Unsegregated from the feats and the direness in the film are a series of long goodbyes; with a duration of 163 minutes, that’s quite a few goodbyes. However, think of them as a series of Blues that are playing over co-screenwriter/ director Cary Joji Fukunaga’s plot-points (this guy directed the brilliant first season of True Detective). They’re sombre, heartfelt and honest.

Bond severs ties with the world after the Italy sequence, but is called back into the fray when Felix Leiter (Jeffrey Wright) asks him to stop a biological weapon that has been snatched from a London laboratory.

It’s a likely premise with a likely villain (Remi Malek; forgettable) that is worn down by a conventional drama of revenge and familial ties (once immune to this cliché, now even Bond can’t shake-off this popular Bollywood-ish aspect from the Fast and Furious films).

In Bond’s absence, M (Ralph Fiennes) has recruited another 007 (Lashana Lynch), and while she is modeled after the accepted standard of indestructible spy-heroes who wear suave (in her case chic) expensive suits and guns, and fires off quips during shootouts, I wouldn’t hold my breath for her spin-off films (who knows, she may get a series on Amazon, who now hold partial screen rights to James Bond).

Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, Fukunaga and Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s screenplay takes the long-way round the block in finding ways for Q, Moneypenny and Blofeld to appear somewhat effective in the story. While they are notable supporting characters, their inclusion isn’t a necessity (they’re played by Ben Whishaw, Naomie Harris and Christoph Waltz; one is the gadget guy, the other M’s secretary, and then there’s Bond’s main villain).

With exception to Skyfall, I’ve personally found Craig’s Bond films to be tedious and bombastic, with one or two bits of genuinely arresting set-pieces.

The one here goes to Ana De Armas’s Paloma — a Bond girl who doesn’t conform to the accepted eligibility requirements of Bond girls. A wide-eyed, bubbly CIA agent with three weeks’ training, who is shaking at the knees, Paloma rendezvouses with Bond in Havana, Cuba, wearing an implausibly low-cut silk gown and steals the show.

A.O. Scott of the New York Times calls her the Cyd Charisse to Craig’s Gene Kelly — as in, they share the spotlight in a dazzling musical number (in this case, an action sequence) and part ways. Of the many characters in the film, Paloma, created specifically by Fukunaga as a last minute after-thought, should have her own film…if the writers don’t mess her up in the process.

No Time to Die perks up post-Paloma, with its energy dipping down fitfully between sequences.

Fukunaga, as good as he was during True Detective, finds an indelicate balance between the odd-pacing and borderline-languid action choreography. Everything looks clean to the point of sterileness, as if stripped of imperfections, enthusiasm, invention and genuine emotion. Emotions being of utmost importance.

While Craig brings an omnipresent strain of disconsolation on his face, dialogues and gait — even in moments when he is genuinely happy — the scenes themselves feel flat.

When Bond is captured during the film’s final search and rescue mission by the wheezing, disfigured bio-terrorist villain Lyutsifer Safin (Malek), he is told that they are mirror images of each other. Bond, who is meeting Safin for the first time, looks at his nemesis dumbfounded.

In a way, Safin is right. He is as inessential as Bond. A cog in the machinery. A requirement whose presence undermines the significance of the weighty overtones promised from the opening shot to the parting image of the film.

Safin is a worthless foil for a tragic hero, whose parts appear to be cut out in the edit room; a sad footnote in Ian Fleming’s rebooted creation. Bond’s future will become a hot-topic in the mass media for a few years, until a replacement actor is signed.

Until then, as his old villains used to say: Goodbye, Mr Bond…
…for now, because as we know from the past 24 movies, “James Bond will return.”

Released in cinemas worldwide, No Time to Die is rated PG-13 for brief nudity, action and a few heart-wrenching moments

Published in Dawn, ICON, October 17th, 2021

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