The Herald - The Herald Magazine
Parting with Bond is rarely such sweet sorrow
NO TIME TO DIE (12A)
IN 1969, George Lazenby’s brief fling with agent 007 in the swooningly romantic On Her Majesty’s Secret Service delivered the most heartbreaking denouement of any mission – “It’s alright... she’s having a rest” – perfectly underscored by composer John Barry’s melancholic strings. Two years later, Sean Connery returned to MI6 for Diamonds Are Forever and promptly exited, beginning the swansong rot with an overtly camp caper involving stolen gems on a weaponised satellite that is best remembered for a red Ford Mustang balanced on two wheels and Shirley Bassey’s soaring theme song.
Roger Moore’s 1985 farewell in A View To A Kill flatlined with inert sexual chemistry between Bond and Grace Jones’ henchwoman and the gleeful scenery-chewing of Christopher Walken’s archvillain.
No Time To Die, which concludes Daniel Craig’s muscular tour of duty as novelist Ian Fleming’s dapper spy, ends the losing streak in spectacular and moving fashion by repeatedly harking back to On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, beginning with a sun-kissed drive along winding
Italian roads where Bond turns to his sweetheart Dr Madeleine Swann (Lea Seydoux) and tells her, “We don’t need to go faster. We have all the time in the world.”
The manner of the English actor’s departure after more than two and a half hours of intrigue and dizzying stunt work is for your eyes only but please take a quantum of solace from knowing that it’s entirely fitting.
Craig’s sure-footed tenure as
Bond has been moulded heavily on the Jason Bourne saga, jettisoning any vestiges of charm or emotional warmth from the MI6 operative to fixate on bone-crunching handto-hand combat, turbo-charged automobile carnage and a steady tightening of narrative screws.
Director Cary Joji Fukunaga wrings the living daylights out of action sequences including a showdown at sea and screeching car chases that barely touch the brakes.
MI6’s head of research and development, Q (Ben Whishaw), was missing in action from Casino Royale and Quantum Of Solace. Subsequently, he’s only been permitted to sneak a biometricallyencoded pistol and radio transmitter out of his gadget cupboard. He’s gifted a much meatier role and provides some subtle LGBTQ visibility as the hi-tech wizardry comes thick and fast: a bionic eyeball, nanobots, a prototype glider with retractable wings that can fold in mid-air to become a torpedolike submersible, a wristwatch with an explosive secret.
In many ways, there’s a back to Bond basics approach to storytelling with wry one-liners as Bond despatches a foe, a grandiose villain’s lair and a gizmo-laden silver Aston Martin with a nifty arsenal of miniature mines, smoke jets and Gatling guns mounted behind its headlights. Every female character is well rounded, proactive, self-sufficient and serves a purpose beyond simply furthering the plot. Ana de Armas reunites with Craig from Knives
Out as a rookie agent with sass and fizzing humour, while Lashana Lynch is playfully antagonistic as the least MI6 rising star to inherit the 007 code name.
It’s surely no coincidence that a richness of female characterisation, coupled with a far more emotionally satisfying storyline for Bond, coincide with Phoebe Waller-Bridge becoming only the second female screenwriter in the franchise’s almost 60-year history.
The ambiguous title of the franchise’s delayed 25th chapter, manifested as a whispered cri de coeur in Billie Eilish’s haunting theme song, makes more sense after an unusually restrained and sombre opening sequence in Norway which introduces Safin (Rami Malek), a worthy adversary with a diabolical masterplan involving biowarfare that is spookily prescient given the experience of the past 18 months.
Bond has bid adieu to active service at MI6 under M (Ralph Fiennes) following the capture of arch-nemesis Ernst Stavro Blofeld (Christoph Waltz), who is safely incarcerated in Belmarsh. A tranquil new life in Jamaica, nursing a broken heart, is threatened by the arrival of dear friend Felix Leiter (Jeffrey Wright) from the CIA.
He needs Bond’s help to track down scientist Valdo Obruchev (David Dencik). The mission pits Bond against MI6 agent Nomi (Lynch) but fractious inter-agency rivalries are quickly put to one side when it becomes clear that the fate of the human race hangs in the balance. With an excessive running time of 163 minutes, there’s plenty of time to die in Fukunaga’s picture and the body rapidly increases once the wheels of a well-oiled plot begin to turn.
No Time To Die is the most emotionally satisfying chapter under Craig’s guardianship and the subtle nods to the past 20 years sever some ties to the past and provide exciting opportunities for reinvention in the future. Bond will return and he or she will be a better person for it.
9/10
THE GREEN KNIGHT (15)
DAVID Lowery’s reinvention of the 14th-century alliterative poem Sir Gawain And The Green Knight, is equal parts beautiful, beguiling and befuddling, It’s a fantastical odyssey torn from Arthurian legend that casts Dev Patel as a booze-soaked disappointment to himself, who yearns to be regarded in reverence by the rowdy royal court. Lowery’s script bookmarks Gawain’s quest into chapters in keeping with chivalric storytelling tradition, incorporating key motifs from the 2,500-word poem, which was translated into English by JRR Tolkien. 7.5/10
THE MANY SAINTS OF NEWARK (15)
BRUISED egos and torn muscles set in motion the predictable events of The Many Saints Of Newark, which detonates racial tensions in 1960s
New Jersey as a vivid backdrop to the awkward rites-of-passage of the series’ lead character, Anthony Soprano, played on the small screen by James Gandolfini.
The actor’s son Michael portrays a socially awkward younger incarnation of the sociopathic mob boss in director Alan Taylor’s film, which punctuates a tangled tale of sibling rivalry and marital fidelity with graphic violence, including a winceinducing torture sequence using a car mechanic’s drill. 7/10