No Time To Die (2021)

I am somewhat surprised to realize I don’t have a review of NO TIME TO DIE, and I can understand why. What I do have is a very nearly stream-of-consciousness conversation about my thoughts and reactions. That’s really the best I can do, and with your kind indulgence I’ll offer it.

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(WARNING: I state very little directly about the film, but it is impossible to speak honestly without giving hints.)

The Bond movies have been an important part of my life since I was 12, and my Mom and sister and I went to the Grauman’s Chinese Theater to see “Goldfinger.” My mind was blown by an image of dangerous, seductive, sophisticated masculinity the likes of which I’d never seen or imagined, and I never fully recovered after almost sixty years of watching. There are ways they are some of the last piece of my childhood remaining. And the Daniel Craig movies were, for all their human flaws…almost too good. They asked us to imagine Bond as a human being, something none of the others really did (even OHMSS’s poster had Bond skiing in a tuxedo. I mean…really?)

So Casino Royale was like a slap in the face after DIE ANOTHER DAY. Quantum of Solace was underwritten due to a writer’s strike. Skyfall was…like a Bond movie from another universe, where we were dropped directly into the heart of a deeply wounded, lethal human being with deep “mommy issues” exploited by a canny M who realized she’d found a very special weapon…a prickly relationship that became a kind of love. SPECTRE was garbage from the moment Dave…