NO TIME TO DIE: 4K Blu-ray (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer/Eon Productions, 2021) Universal Home Video
Daniel Craig bids Ian Fleming’s Bond…James
Bond, a discouraging farewell in director, Cary Joji Fukunaga’s No Time to
Die (2021) – the 25th Bond adventure and the 4th
highest-grossing picture of last year. Oh well, grandma used to say there is no
accounting for taste…especially if you have none! And while grandma
could hardly be counted upon as a Bond aficionado, she would otherwise certainly
have not been altogether pleased with what is here. So, good riddance to
this Mr. Bond. When it was announced back in 2005, James Bond would
return in the embodiment of Daniel Craig, I admit I had my sincere misgivings.
But then came Casino Royale (2006) – irrefutably, one of the greatest
Bond movies ever, with Craig pulling off a buff and blonde bond, right down to
the reverse sexism and homage to Ursula Andress’ Honey Rider in 62’s Dr. No;
Craig, taut and tanned, rising like a bulging Triton from the sea, biceps and
pecs glistening in the late afternoon tropical sun. It was decidedly a new
James for the post-Arnold Schwarzenegger era in action/adventure picture-making.
And the tragic death of Eva Green’s Vesper Lynd in that movie, paid tribute to
yet another Bond classic, 1969’s On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, where
the only woman to ever officially ‘land’ Bond, the Contessa Teresa di Vicenzo
(Diana Rigg), was brutally assassinated by Bond’s arch enemy, Ernst Stavro
Blofeld (Telly Savalas). Why I bring up all these Bond classics at the outset of
my review for No Time To Die is simple and deliberate, to directly draw
a comparison between what Bond films used to be, and even more tragically, to illustrate
what they have sadly become under Craig’s 5-picture reign as MI6’s most amiable
spy: joyless, darkly dampening and nihilistic examples of today’s ‘woke’
culture, taken its debilitating pickaxe to the time-honored traditions that
once earmarked this film franchise as fun and exotic make-believe par
excellence.
No Time to Die looks and
behaves nothing like a Bond movie. Nor do I choose to regard it as such. The
alterations to the formula go well beyond rechristening the ever-inscrutable
Moneypenny from Lois Maxwell’s smelling of soap ‘good girl’, pining after Bond,
to the more PC-friendly non-Caucasian, young and ‘with it’, Naomie Harris, or
rebranding MI6’s sage gadget master extraordinaire, the ever-dependable Desmond
Llewelyn’s ‘Q’ – rebirthed as Ben Wishaw’s gay, but very wet-behind-the-ears
Poindexter. This, to say nothing of making race the issue yet again by
reincarnating Bond’s CIA contact, Felix Leiter as Jeffrey Wright. And please,
for those who will instantly find something insidiously racist about my
pointing out that during Craig’s tenure, Bond’s entourage of reoccurring
cohorts has steadily skewed toward the Afro-centric, all I am doing here is analyzing
the comparatively short while it took to take Bond from his basically white-bred
enclave of international espionage into the modern sensibility of over-the-top inclusivity,
to the point where the world seemingly no longer needs a white Euro-superman to
defend its honor. This transformation is made complete in No Time to Die
with the introduction of Lashana Lynch as Nomi – the new 007 after James elected
for his early retirement. But now, the world needs the Teflon-coated original
again. Or does it?
Not according to No Time to Die’s
Fukunaga and his screenwriters, Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, Phoebe Waller-Bridge
who do everything they can to mitigate Bond’s importance. The mounting irrelevance
of a super hero in spy’s clothing began at the outset of Pierce Brosnan’s debut
as James Bond in 1995’s Goldeneye when ‘M’ – (then, played by a steely-eyed
Judi Dench) referenced him as a ‘misogynist dinosaur’ and a ‘relic of
the Cold War’. But even Dench didn’t believe it. Thus, over the evolution
of the Brosnan Bonds, a rock-steady respect for the man who had repeatedly
saved the world from annihilation over 4 decades – occasionally shaken, though
never stirred - grew between this sexy bon vivant in his gun-toting tux and the
ironside butterfly, playing butch boss. But when Dench’s dame was gunned down,
dying in Bond’s arms in 2012’s Skyfall, her replacement (Ralph Fiennes)
proved a stern, but otherwise ineffectual pencil-pusher, frequently to blunder
into decisions made in the spirit of preserving national security, only to begrudgingly
rely on Bond – James Bond, to dig him out of the proverbial dark place he had
inadvertently created by his own design. That premise is amplified in No
Time to Die as ‘M’, having sanctioned the ‘gain of function’ research on a
lethal DNA-targeting super virus, is somehow dumbfounded to have discovered it
fetching a high price on the black market. Go figure. But the very last thing I
wanted to do, two-and-a-half years into a real-life worldwide pandemic, was to sit
through 2 hrs. and 43. minutes of art imitating life, this movie eerily to
mirror the hell we have all been needlessly put through by omnipresent bureaucrats
and their need to dominate the world. Where is James Bond now?
From its thoroughly leaden, 24-minute
prologue, to include a bug-eyed and disfigured Rami Malek, in a Kabuki mask no
less, stalking a prepubescent Madeleine Swann (Coline Defaud) across a frozen
lake, to its overwrought finale, sporting a ‘kinder/gentler’ Bond, having
learned to love, only to become the self-sacrificing martyr on a remote isle of
death, No Time to Die establishes itself as a tedious, uber-violent
spectacle of the shamelessly grotesque and macabre. Gone is the fun, the witty
one-liners a la Roger Moore, the sexy Bond kittens, as Bond and his cohorts
spend far too much time merely firing oozies and pistols into an endless procession
of non-descript targets mindlessly doing the same with their assault rifles – most,
such poor shots, they take out half the scenery and all of our expectations for
a competently made action sequence, herein replaced by a road show knock-off of
John Woo meets Quentin Tarantino, anesthetizing assault on the senses. This too
might have worked, if not for the totally weird and sometimes bad play actors
who intermittently conspire to defuse even this mostly apocalyptic scenario
into a pantomime of the celebrated Bond villains and gal/pals, once hallmarks
of this film franchise. So, we get David Dencik doing a piss-poor Russian
accent as Valdo Obruchev – a total fop in scientist’s garb – and, Ana de Armas’ bright-eyed,
but sexually goofy Paloma, a CIA operative, kicking ass in a cleavage-exposing,
if ever-so-slightly reimagined knock-off of the gown Faye Dunaway sported with
more class nearly 50 years prior in The Towering Inferno (1974). No Time to Die is even disingenuous
about the deliberate tributes it tries to evoke; the briefly interpolated John
Barry orchestral cues, ripped from On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (the
only memorable bits of score herein) as well as regurgitating Louis Armstrong’s
‘We Have All the Time in The World’ – now heard over the end credits. Alas,
the main titles are accompanied by an abysmal track, co-authored by Finneas
O'Connell and Billie Eilish, the latter, who also (choke) sings this
forgettable dreck as though somewhere a sad-eyed and strung-out sex kitten is
being strangled.
For an almost 3-hrs. swan song, No
Time to Die is extremely thin on plot, subbing style for substance. In her
youth, Madeleine Swann (played as an adult by the perpetually pouty Léa Seydoux)
witnesses the murder of her mother by Lyutsifer Safin (the aforementioned Malek
who plays the uber-creepy villain like an overzealous and thoroughly kinky
child molester). Madeleine shoots Safin. Alas, he survives and, after she falls
through a nearby frozen lake, he spares her life. Fast track to the present,
with the capture of a mad-as-a-hatter, Ernst Stavro Blofeld (Christoph Waltz). In
Matera, Madeleine and Bond consummate their love. Tragically, Spectre assassins,
led by the one-eyed Primo (Dali Benssalah), whom Bond subdues, though,
ironically, does not immediately kill (is James getting soft on crime?), force
Bond off a bridge. Believing his lover has betrayed him, and despite Madeleine’s
pleas for forgiveness, Bond puts her on a train and walks away from their life
together. Tough customer, that Mr. Bond. No benefit of the doubt here! And it
takes 24-minutes to unravel this prologue too. Slow track - five years into the
future. MI6 scientist, Valdo Obruchev is kidnapped. Obruchev is the developer
of Project Heracles, a bioweapon with nanobots to infect upon touch, causing a
person’s own DNA to self-destruct, but also kill every known relative of the
intended victim. Having retired in isolation to a seedy stretch of Jamaica, Bond
is engaged by Felix Leiter and his CIA colleague, Logan Ash (Billy Magnussen) to locate and reclaim Obruchev. Aside: Magnussen, 36-years-young,
is far too fresh-faced for this part. He doesn’t even appear to be of an age to
properly shave. And thus, his perpetual boyish charm is lost on Bond, who
deliberately makes fun of it, just not in the sophisticated Roger Moore way
that might have endeared us to Craig’s scaled-down brute. This Bond rejects
Felix’s offer until the new 007 - Nomi, forewarns of a coming plague as
Heracles has fallen into the wrong hands. Rather than rescue the world for
Queen and country, Bond signs with the American CIA. So, this Bond holds a
grudge against his alma mater too.
Bond goes to Cuba, hooking up with
the scantily clad Paloma, a CIA agent. The pair infiltrate a brothel-like
Spectre birthday party where Obruchev, on Safin’s orders, sabotages Heracles so
its nanobots disseminate a lethal mist, suddenly to attack and instantly kill
every rogue agent in attendance. Still imprisoned in Belmarsh, Blofeld observes
this carnage via a bionic eye. After much tactless gunfire, Bond captures
Obruchev and rendezvouses with Leiter and Ash aboard an offshore troller, only
to discover Ash is a double agent working for Safin. Ash takes Obruchev
hostage, kills Leiter, but leaves Bond to die aboard the sinking ship.
Naturally, Bond escapes. Back in London, Moneypenny and Q arrange a meeting
between Bond, Madeleine and Blofeld. Safin strongarms Madeleine to infect
herself with a nanobot dose that will kill Blofeld on contact. But she panics
at the last possible moment and backs out. Too bad, Bond has already touched
Madeleine, thereby infecting himself with the nanobots. Attacking Blofeld, thus
spreads the virus to Blofeld and he dies. Bond tracks Madeleine to Norway and realizes
they share a 5-year-old daughter, Mathilde (Lisa-Dorah
Sonnet) who she continues to deny as his. Safin, Ash and their bloodthirsty
entourage descend on the cottage. Although Bond manages to lure away and kill
Ash, Safin takes Madeleine and Mathilde hostage.
Q enables Bond and Nomi to
infiltrate Safin's headquarters – an abandoned missile base, converted to a
nanobot factory where Obruchev is hard at work mass-producing Heracles to kill
millions of people. Bond brutally takes out Safin's hit squad while Nomi callously
kills Obruchev by drowning him in his own toxic nanobot soup. Madeleine escapes.
But Safin ironically releases Mathilde to wander the catacombs. Nomi rescues
both mother and daughter and hurries them all away from the island, leaving
Bond to open the blast-resistant silo doors for a successful missile strike. Killing
Primo, Bond is ambushed and mortally wounded by Safin whom he nevertheless
still manages to assassinate moments before the utter destruction of the island.
Realizing he has been infected with nanobots that would otherwise kill both his
lover and the daughter they share, Bond elects to sacrifice himself as missiles
rain down and wipe out everything in sight. Sometime later, M, Moneypenny,
Nomi, Q and a nearly forgotten Bond cohort, Tanner (Rory Kinnear) drink a toast
in James’ memory. As Madeleine takes Mathilde back to Matera, she begins to
tell her a story about a man named Bond.
This ought to have been a bittersweet finale. But actually, there is so little here to respect the ‘relationship’ between Madeleine and Bond, the ending is merely a foregone conclusion to all the shamelessly out-of-whack carnage preceding it. So, a woke culture, intent on silencing everything from James Stewart’s iconic turn as the enlightened George Bailey in Frank Capra’s mesmeric Christmas classic, It’s A Wonderful Life (1946) to Hattie McDaniel’s Oscar-winning turn as Mammie in 1939’s Gone with the Wind, has now managed to murder yet another of the cinema’s irrefutable pop icons of the 20th century – Bond…James Bond. Ho-hum. What else is new? The Bond franchise, arguably, the most seemingly indestructible of all film series, ends on a whimper rather than a bang. Cubby Broccoli is rolling over in his grave. Ian Fleming too. I cannot stress enough the breadth of my own displeasure as this curtain comes down prematurely on a tradition of luscious Bond girls, uber-super-villains and spectacular gadget-laden/full-scale stunt work. As it turns out, James Bond had nothing to fear from Malek’s twink-ish, disfigured ghoul herein, and everything to lose from exposing his past to this militant troop of blindsided, far- left, PC-friendly extremists who believe they know best what the rest of us should want to see, and used No Time to Die to cram their liberal agenda down the rest of our throats. Nothing, however, can make us like it!
A few years ago, in reviewing the rise of such
politically-driven mandates, geared to deprive us of our pop-u-tainment
fantasies, I offered the analysis that if a certain disenfranchised group did
not care for such light-hearted froth, they need only tune out here, and tune in
elsewhere to be satisfied. Alas, in today’s thoroughly warped pop culture, overrun
by cheaply sinister tactics to rot our collective mindset, I sincerely believe
the same holds true for me now. So, in the coming year, unless Hollywood at
large suddenly decides it has had quite enough of trying to make me over into their
‘good little soldier’ of the very liberal ‘arts’ – choosing instead to create
something fun and fantastic without all the PC rhetoric to weigh it down – I will
be reviewing a lot less of its current product as it no longer speaks to me
from a purely escapist perspective, designed to cleverly fill my leisure,
relax, and, take me out of my woes from the world at large. No Time to Die
was a movie that sought, instead, to address the present-age pandemic with an
even more apocalyptic scenario and bleaker message – “It’s much worse than you
think” – killing off a childhood hero and unraveling its parallel apocalypse in
an even more grotesquely sinister fashion than the one presently unfolding in
real time beyond my living room. As such, it will forever remain a movie I hope
to never revisit again!
Arriving in native 4K from
Universal Home Video, with a digitized MGM logo to precede it, and the absence
of the time-honored UA titles just prior to the gun-barrel opener, No Time to
Die looks about what you might expect. While I detected an ever so slight
shimmer in some finer details in two brief scenes, the rest of the image here
is rock-steady and sporting excellent tonality, showing off Linus Sandgren’s
darkly depressing cinematography in all its desaturated hues and defeatist glory.
Occasional splashes of color are crisply defined. Flesh tones are accurately
reproduced. This native 4K presentation resolves an infinitely more cinematic presentation
with textures naturally amplified in Dolby Vision. The palette here favors a
lot of steely blue/greys and earth tones. Snowy backgrounds also pop. However, I
found the Dolby Atmos track a tad problematic, with some unnecessary reverb
during a few dialogue sequences as well as the main titles. These moments just
sounded slightly ‘fuzzy’ to me. Action sequences, however, were the sonic
highlight, with gunfire emanating from all channels to thoroughly support these
discretely produced effects. Extras are plentiful, but of the garden variety ‘junket’
quality (or lack thereof) covering the movie’s creation with only superficial
snippets and sound bites, interpolated with clips excised from the film. Dull
and unnecessary – just like the movie! Bottom line: while Universal has put its
best foot forward on this 4K presentation, No Time to Die is no way to
spend a night at the movies, and certainly, not with our memories of the Mr.
Bonds of yore. Regrets.
FILM RATING (out
of 5 – 5 being the best)
0
VIDEO/AUDIO
4.5
EXTRAS
2
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