I have something to show you. What, another child?

Continuing my trip up The Guardian's Top 51 Movies of 2021

#13 : No Time To Die

The long-awaited 25th outing for Ian Fleming’s superspy James Bond has Daniel Craig saying goodbye to 007 in a weird and self-aware epic with audacious surprises up its sleeve.

Bond films wouldn't normally make this kind of list, but I have heard good things about this one - I was meaning to watch it, but had never got round to it.  I generally like a Bond film but have a somewhat strange relationship with Daniel Craig as Bond - I like him as an actor and think he makes a good Bond, but I've only really liked Skyfall out of his films.  Yes, all the others have good bits in them (even Quantum Of Solace) but as whole films I found they've left me cold.

And well, this certainly didn't leave me cold but I agree with The Guardian that it's a weird one.  And very, very self-aware - but more on this later.  The first thing we really want to know from a Bond film is "are the action scenes any good?" and it certainly doesn't let us down here.  The first proper action scene is a belter, even if it was slightly spoiled by being almost entirely included in the trailer.  The other one that stood out for me was the 4x4 chase scene, which was really well done and pretty brutal - this isn't a film worried about killing people.  The only other thing you really need to know about a Bond film is "is the rest of it boring?" - and generally I'd say it does OK on this front, although it does gets surprisingly talky in the middle bit - not quite boringly so, but it doesn't exactly race things along.  

One thing that does increase the levels of interest for even the most basic of Bond fans is the level of self-reference going on - I'm no aficionado but I instantly spotted the nice callback to On Her Majesty's Secret Service at the beginning, which got me on the look-out for others throughout the film.  I came up with Dr No with the suicide garden, the missile silo from that Roger Moore one (looking a lot less like Blue Peter's Tracy Island model this time around) and there were definite The World Is Not Enough vibes in the silo as well.  I imagine there are countless tedious articles on the internet listing the ones I missed (and there's got to be one for each film, hasn't there?) - feel free to read all about them, but I assure you I can live without knowing.

In terms of the acting, Daniel Craig is Daniel Craig - you either like him or you don't (and I do).  Considering the normal supporting cast, I would have liked to see a bit more Naomie Harris - I think she brings a good spin to the role of Moneypenny.  I also like Ben Whishaw's take on Q (much better than Cleese's) - but he certainly doesn't suffer from a lack of exposure in this film (he has more to do than Ralph Fiennes as M, who barely features).  It was also nice to see Jeffrey Wright back as Felix Leiter - he fills the role nicely.

Calling out the Bond girls (who aren't really the usual Bond girls), Lea Seydoux reprises her role from Spectre and plays off James nicely and Ana de Armas is a welcome addition, although it's a mystery how she manages to stay in that dress.  And Lashana Lynch is also good in her role that I shouldn't talk about, but everyone knows anyway - it's played well for both laughs and tension

And finally, the baddies - Rami Malek has the potential to be a good Bond villain, but you'd have to say he's not given a lot to do or much motivation for doing it.  The "villain with a facial disfigurement" trope didn't annoy me as much as others, but a) i can understand it annoys others and b) I do think they should maybe try a bit harder to find a way to identify the baddies.  Or maybe, here's an idea - don't feel the need to baddie-signal us quite so much.  Maybe?!?  Christoph Waltz as Blofeld was more enjoyable for me - the man does mad pretty well.  However, David Dencik as the mad scientist was annoying mad and scientist-y - I didn't see any reason for him to be quite so one-dimensional (especially since a lot of the characters were surprisingly well fleshed out, for a Bond film anyway).  I'd also say that all the baddies are TERRIBLE shots - James should have died many times over in the course of the film

The other main compliment I'd give this is that it's an extremely good-looking film - Bond films are hardly normally slouches in the looks department, but this is particularly sumptuous at times, with Italy and London coming out of it particularly well.  It also, as expected, sounds fantastic and I'd have to say I wasn't massively impressed with the theme tune (by Billie Eilish) when it came out, but it worked well within the context of the film.

It was, however, too long - there was absolutely no reason for it to be nearly three hours long (although I'd have to say it didn't drag as much as it might have done).  The level of self-reference was also jarring at times - I did enjoy the callbacks to previous Bond films but it felt a bit odd, maybe a bit end-of-an-era but I very much doubt that.  It also felt like it was perfectly aware that both James Bond and his films are absolute dinosaurs and it wanted to address that, but at the same time, it was a bit scared of offending too many of the original fans.  So it kinda didn't know quite what to do.  Having said that, there are some welcome non-Bondy elements to the film which (I think) work well.

Overall, I enjoyed it - Mrs Reed's opinion of this film was "utter drivel" and I'd struggle to argue with that, but I found it to be very entertaining utter drivel which I will certainly watch again when I come across it on the telly on a Christmas afternoon.  Which I will.

At the time of writing, it's available to rent or buy in all the usual locations - if you like a bit of Bond and haven't seen it, then I recommend you catch up with it.  If you don't like a bit of Bond, then you'll probably think it's utter drivel though...

#12 - A superbly chewy experience
#14 - A surprisingly bearable film