Time enough for love
(Plot twists and story discussed in explicit detail)
Latest of a longrunning franchise, last to feature latest Bond Daniel Craig. Best of the lot tho I'm not a fan of of the series from Roger Moore onwards. Craig I'll admit is one of the better actors in the role, second to Connery (who didn't do his best work in this series). I trust I make myself clear as mud.
Prefer Fukunaga to previous director Mendes (who most folks thought hit big with Skyfall, missed big with Spectre; I thought it was the other way around)--Fukunaga has a sleek sidling camera style that follows the action nicely, either to drink in the exotic locale (the dark jungles of Jamaica, the ghostly forests of Windsor Great Park) or pursue Bond through the pockmarked roads of Matera.
Fukunaga even has a nice little visual motif going--first at Vesper Lynd's tomb, later at Lyutsifer Safin's lair: Bond blown backwards by a hidden bomb or tossed grenade. Bang puff of smoke insistent ringing in the ear--almost a metaphor if you like of the traumas inflicted on Craig's Bond over five movies, from betrayal and death of a beloved to betrayal and death of a mother figure, and the grievous consequences on mind and body (You wonder: if he didn't die how effective could he still be? The cumulative impact of all those concussions can't be good for his brain). And yes the villain despite his outlandishly spelled moniker is a tad diminutive (not the fault of Rami Malek I think, it's how the character was conceived and written) the threat a tad tame (we're not talking nuclear armageddon here) but the stakes couldn't be higher--he's fighting for family now, the desperation plain on his face.
Side note on Project Heracles--nicely resonant gimmick in these lockdown times, the resonance likely coincidental (the production finished principal photography late 2019). England enjoys a reputation (likely exaggerated) for developing plague weapons (see The Satan Bug)--but these are nanobots not genetically engineered microbes, critters that have already been exploited in Dr. Who (check out Steven Moffat's The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances for what a brilliant writer can do with the concept--the thought of blood seeping out of every orifice sounds horrifying, but so does the sound of skull reforming into a gas mask).
The action climaxes with Bond battling his way up a stairwell to face ultimate henchman Primo, and I can't help thinking of Goldfinger (still my favorite Bond if anyone cares to ask). All that fury means we barely get to know each new character, and while Primo does have one memorable moment--eyepopping, literally--he doesn't enjoy the same understated buildup granted to Oddjob, who decapitates a statue with one hand, crushes a golf ball with the other (Bond responds to the golf ball by looking appropriately uncomfortable). Primo seems deadly but Oddjob is as implacable as a tank; when Bond finally confronts him in the fabulous gold vaults of Fort Knox (thank you Ken Adams) it's like a kitten confronting an elephant--you know someone's getting stomped.
As for that ending--Fukunaga opts for an operatic finale but I prefer the brute suddenness of On Her Majesty's Secret Service with Blofeld roaring past spraying rifle fire and Bond climbing into his Aston to give chase, not realizing he's already lost.
Helps that Bond's love Tracy is played by Diana Rigg, who in The Avengers proved to be a master of light flirtatious banter. The lightness is important--not so much a sign of unseriousness as a determined decision to defy the burden of seriousness, to keep an even keel despite her anguish and despair. It's what draws Bond to her that determination that strength, the wit that keeps that strength supple.
Folks have dunked on George Lazenby for his Aussie accent and lazy non-performance, but I'd argue he was a fine Bond who when asked to deliver on the big dramatic scene found himself in over his head--exactly the way I imagine Bond would act when confronted with tragedy.
Is On Her Majesty's Secret Service the better Bond flick? I think so and so I suspect do the filmmakers--John Barry's music (some of his best) is quoted liberally, along with Louis Armstrong's languorous song that pretends we have all the time in the world when really we have none (exit Tracy stage right). No Time to Die is basically a bigger more elaborate On Her Majesty's, with the tragic death reassigned.
But what about the 2006 Casino Royale which so many consider the best? Wasn't enough for the filmmakers to dramatize Vesper's quiet demise in Fleming's novel (perhaps his most sincere attempt at literature), they had to pull an entire building down round the lovers, the girl trapped in an elevator cage. Bond's last words ("the bitch is dead") rang with cruel finality on paper; onscreen, Judi Dench's M softens the blow by suggesting Vesper did love him after all. I don't know; I suppose I prefer Bond stirred, not shaken.
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