"No Time to Die"
Years after murdering the shit out of Spectre, James Bond (Benoit Blanc) is chilling with Dr Madeline Swan (Lea Seydoux), when their somewhat peaceful idyll is interrupted by the bombastic return of Spectre. Facing down secrets from their past, Bond is called into action once again to plots involving a Russian scientist (David Dencik), his old CIA chum Felix Leiter (gold mine owner Jeffrey Wright) and a plot by a mysterious figure named Safin (Rami Malek) to do some jolly dastardly deeds...
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Minor Spoilers henceforth
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| It's not for the boobs, I swear. |
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If you're a fan of Bond movies, you will enjoy this.
It is a mash up of the camp (E.G the villain's plans to fuck a Frenchwoman and nuke the planet from his poison island) with some of the grit (some of the fight scenes, the general "fuck you, I'll just shoot you" of Bond himself); some much-missed rapport between Q and Bond; more for M to do (here a morally compromised pillar, but still a pillar of Britishness and authority, and here given some of the strongest acted scenes); some classic Bond one-liners, exotic locales (complete with lingering shots for the tourist board) and big bombastic set-pieces; and a rollicking-gadget-fuelled good time. There are call backs and gags to the film series (a porcelain dog, some portraits of previous Ms, and a rather revealing line at the start of the film...) and it's fun.
Tonally, this mish mash has its ups and downs (there is a fantastically shot opening sequence involving a laboratory that is genuinely kind of horrifying and stark in its bleakness, punctuated by wacky Russian scientist shenanigans and a cameo by Hugh Dennis of all people) but stand out sequences keep it going, and the pacing (despite it being a two hour forty minute movie) is fine, personally.
The highlight for me was Paloma (Ana De Armas), the irresponsible socially awkward murder machine CIA honeypot new to all of this and whom I want an entire movie about:
"Damn it Paloma! I sent you to get documents and you burned an embassy down!"
"I called a waiter 'Dad' and left in a hurry, I must have knocked over the flambee."
"At least tell me you found the documents!"
"I found a cute puppy!"
"Damn it Paloma! You're off the case!"
"Aww! But I'm sorry!"
"Damn it Paloma, I can't stay mad at you! You're back on the case!"
"Yay! I promise I won't let you down!
As a side note: A lot of double sided tape went into Ana De Armas' dress in this movie.
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