No Time to Die Part II

Back at Mi6, Bond protects Madeleine, looking uncomfortable, claiming he doesn't know her and then drives straight to her house in northern Norway.    

Bond's approach at Madeleine's home mirrors several shots from Safin's from the opening (overhead, a  from the right showing the gun out but Bond is walking much faster than Safin who has a limp, and a shot from behind him as he comes up to the lake in front of the house but the music, different season (it looks like early fall whereas the opening was winter) tells us that this is going to be different.  

The scene inside the house is one of the best in the film and is helped by my favorite cue.  Zimmer's "Home" goes from the warmer theme outside to more suspenseful inside.  Bond has his gun out, probably because he is not sure if he can trust her or what he will find there.  Madeleine appears, challenging Bond to trust her, by referencing the gun.  Bond uncomfortably puts it away, seeing there is no threat and the music softens to a sad tone as the dialogue and the moods express the loss between them.  Bond surprised me when he prioritized expressing both his love and regret to Madeleine above the mission and his delivery is similar to the scene he told Vesper he was giving her his heart in Casino Royale.  He tries to speaks without much emotion, but his efforts to do so make his eyes water and the score, using the title theme, has a haunting chorus, sung by Billie Eilish.  Madeleine's hair in a bun reflects her guarded nature and she tries to keep him at a distance but when she says "You know the worst thing about you?" Bond senses that she is opening up and the score changes to a more wistful version of the title theme played by a flute.  Madeleine tries to not let herself give in but she loves Bond too much and he is there ready to be with her again.  We never find out what the worst thing is because they start kissing in a beautiful close shot with the sunset right behind them.  

I had not necessarily expected a reconciliation between them but was really glad it came.  It turns out this is to set up the final act.  Little kids have a way of interrupting plans, or romantic moments.  Bond's reaction to the sound, is to spin around and stand in front of Madeleine to protect her and his awkward look with his eyes back to Madeleine as his life changes in an instant is priceless.  The slinky going down the steps is a perfect punctuation.

The development of Mathilde is one of the many bold steps of this film.  People against the idea will say that this is not true to the Bond character to give him a child.  I disagree completely.  The key is in how Bond reacts to it which is completely in character.  Bond is shocked but also touched.  He never interacts with children so to come across a child so young (Mathilde would have to be four) and to know that it might be his, gives him an appreciation for her and a desire to care for this child.  The addition of Mathilde works with Daniel Craig's Bond because the films have further developed his character.  Adding a daughter to one of the other Bonds (Connery, Moore, etc.) who were all shown as playboys would have been jarring but not with Craig.  

Madeleine is unsurprisingly a fantastic mother, loving but also makes sure Mathilde has good manners and knows how to hide if threatened.  Madeleine speaks to Mathilde in her native French.  She says "She's not yours." with an expression that suggests Bond has no obligation.  She also never says that Mathilde is not his daughter, just that she is not his.  We never learn why but there is plenty of subtext.

Bond has just reentered the picture and while she still has romantic feelings for him Bond had abandoned her before.  If he were to leave she would not want her daughter to feel the loss of a parent that Madeleine had to suffer herself.  Earlier Madeleine had wanted Bond to close the door on his old issues before telling him she was pregnant.

Bond respectfully does not argue the point and understands that if he is going to be with Madeleine now he will need to be a father figure to Mathilde that Madeleine can trust.  

Madeleine has taken a chance bringing Mathilde here since Safin knows where the house is.  When she tells Bond about Safin it must be the latest into a film that Bond learns who his opponent is.   Bond's line "There are a thousand reasons why we need to find this man.  You've just given me a reason to kill him." is dramatic but a little over the top.  In Spectre Madeleine did not want to be with Bond if he was still active.  Here, she needs him and all his Mi6 resources to end this threat against her specifically.

Some people may see scenes like Ralph Fiennes sitting with portraits of Judi Dench and Robert Brown's Ms as fan service.  I enjoy them as long as they are work within the story they are telling.  I believe Mallory is looking for guidance from people who have held him job in the past.  The fact that Robert Brown's M was not M in this continuity to me is easily explained in that he was M prior to Dench's M.  

I feel the same about the cars.  Bond can use cars from the old series and it does not need to link up exactly, but just work in the story they are in.  The Vantage which appears here was blown up in The Living Daylights anyway.  The series can acknowledge its past but must stay in the present and I feel this film, and the recent ones, have done that.

Bond gets just a few moments where he does fatherly stuff in his own way.  He fixes Mathilde breakfast by giving her an apple slice.  Madeleine is happily watching and sees that Bond is trying.     

Craig plays the line where he realizes Ash is near as annoyed then becomes more serious as it dawns on him.  Fukunaga cuts to Madeleine and Mathilde, the targets, and then everyone outside getting in the car, moving things along quickly.

One typical element of this type of film is a hero's family will be targeted by the bad guys.  The subsequent chase has further stakes because of the young girl who is now involved.  Bond never says so out loud but all his body language indicates he is determined to protect her.  They get in the Land Rover, instead of the Vantage which surprised me as a character choice since the Vantage would presumably have a lot of weapons that Bond might need.  

However they look like a family in the SUV and are trying to remain calm for Mathilde's benefit which gives the scene extra layers as opposed to just being a chase with fun stuntwork.  Seydoux is excellent in trying to cover up her fear in talking to the oblivious Mathilde.  Fukunaga builds the suspense, with them driving for a couple of moments on the beautiful Atlantic Highway before Safin's men identify them and give chase.  The scenery changes to a Scottish location as the cars the leave the highway.  Madeleine moves into the backseat to protect and comfort Mathilde when the situation gets dangerous.  Whereas in the previous chase Bond and Madeleine were falling apart, here they are working together to protect their daughter.  If your dad is going to be a secret agent it's good to have one who can outdrive a whole army of villains.  

Bond takes the fight to the country road since he cannot outrun the Ranger Rovers pursuing them and has to force them off the road, which he manages to do in a series of impressive moves using the landscape.  My favorite is when he forces the pursing car to flip over him by pushing it into the side of the mountain.  The trailers showed a few shots of the chase but never an interior shot of the car which might have revealed Mathilde.  The music has a nice suspenseful use of the Bond theme.  Bond has to move into a forest environment for the first time in the series when he realizes he needs to hide from the helicopter.  I like the detail of him handing Madeleine his Walther PPK, by the barrel for safety, so he can carry Mathilde.    

Bond is confident he can outfight Safin's men if he is alone and empties an entire clip to draw the henchmen toward him.  Safin seems to read the plan and keeps one henchman with him and sends the others after Bond.  The scenery is foggy and the plants are grown high as Bond takes out Rovers and a motorcycle before executing Logan Ash by dropping a Range Rover on him.  While Bond savors his revenge it is nowhere near as single-minded a reaction that he had to Leiter merely being hurt in Licence to Kill.  

Fukunaga gives Bond a nice long shot as Bond futilely runs after the helicopter.  Despite his heroics he has failed to protect his new family and he looks exhausted and distraught.  Nomi's repeats her first line to him from earlier but she does not realize what has happened.  Why is Bond walking though?  The Land Rover was not damaged unless there is a cut scene of Safin slashing the tires.

Nomi gives Bond his number back perhaps because she wants to make up for not finding Ash.  Bond has not hesitated to refer to her as 007 throughout the film up to this point.  The revival of the smartblood (and the painful injection associated with it) is a nice callback from Spectre and helps Mi6 confirm Bond's death later.  Bond's demeanor has him focused and trying to use light humor to cover up his concern.  

The third act finally lets Safin be a presence in the film to fairly effective results.  Safin is creepy but his fixation on Madeleine feels forced, despite Malek's best efforts.  Safin using Madeleine to poison Blofeld is one thing but kidnapping her to start his own family is only going to bring Bond after him which is foolish.   

Production designer Mark Tildsley created an impressive looking base with huge glass vials and vials  with water in the middle and Linus Sandgren lit it through a blue light, that matches Safin's blue kimono jacket, appropriate the for the location, an island between Japan and eastern Russia.  I am not sure why they would need water to farm nanobots but it stands as an unexplained detail.

One of the set pieces from the books that was never used in the films until now was the Garden of Death, on a Japanese island, which Blofeld had in the book "You Only Live Twice" as a place full of poison plants where people could commit suicide.  In this film Safin's family originally were Spectre's poisoners and developed the garden. Safin was disfigured by the poison attack initiated by Mr. White on Blofeld's orders that killed the rest of Safin's family.  I imagined from the book a much bigger garden with taller plants but the tour through the garden is suspenseful because Safin is holding Mathilde.  

Safin's goal is a little unclear as well.  Does he want to poison most of the world to reshape it or sell the technology?  His behavior and monologue suggests the former but the arrival of the ships suggests the latter.  

Madeleine's escape from Primo is slick, and a little reminiscent of Tracy fighting Gunther in OHMSS.  Her dialogue to Mathilde in French where she told Mathilde she would come for her, which Safin could not understand, starts to pay off though I am not sure how she plans to get off the island.  

Bond meets Safin in a room reminiscent of the Brazilian base in Moonraker.  Mathilde is silent in the scene.  The staging is carefully planned with two guards behind Bond, but who never search him, and one in front and Safin and Mathilde in between over a platform.  Because Safin is holding Mathilde Bond complies more than he might otherwise and even shows a little empathy for Safin.  Bond's line "History isn't kind to men who play God" is delivered with much less anger than the take shown in the trailer.  Bond surely knows know that either Mathilde is his daughter or Safin thinks she is.  However, I think he at least suspected he was the father all along.   

The end of the scene has a shocking moment when Bond kneels before Safin and seemingly begs but he uses it to grab his Walther and measure the distance before quickly outshooting the three guards.  But Safin has anticipated this and lowers the platform as Bond starts to shoot.  Fukunaga ends the scene with Madeleine unexpectedly charging into the room.  The editing here is tight yet easy to follow because the camerawork is steady.  Bond looks ashamed when Madeleine asks where Mathilde is since he did not free her.

A weak moment occurs when Safin lets Mathilde go in the next scene after she bites him.  Safin has a soft spot for little girls but she has just been proven to be useful collateral with Bond after him.  A better escape might have been if Safin had been forced to let Mathilde to get away because Nomi somehow appeared and caused confusion.  However the individual moment where Bond and Madeleine find Mathilde is beautiful.  Madeleine is relieved and tearful.  Bond has conflicting emotions.  He is touched but wants to get them to safety so he can finish the job.  He has a funny moment when he cannot quite say "family" out loud when introducing Nomi to Mathilde and Madeleine.  This is just as strange for him as it is for the audience.  Zimmer's score recalls one of his Batman themes.

The scene in which Nomi executes Obruchev is a weakly staged and contrived.  Lynch plays it well and Obruchev is a repulsive character but Nomi has been set up as a character who is "by the book" and for her to execute an unarmed man who makes a racist remark feels out of character.  There is some meta revenge here though since when the trailer for this film was released in Russia all footage of Lashanna Lynch was removed.  Nomi's killing of a nasty Russian character is a fitting response nonetheless.

When Bond says goodbye to his family its gets me each time.  Bond cares deeply for Mathilde but does not know to be affectionate yet.  When he kisses Madeleine it is similar to his last kiss with Vesper in Casino Royale, a big enough kiss and embrace that it feels final.  Nomi looks away to give them a moment of privacy.  Bond says "I'll just be a minute" in as strong a tone as he can muster because he does not want Madeleine to worry.  Madeleine and Mathilde go off into a sunset which looks like a heavenly light.  Madeleine and Bond trade a light smile as they leave.  The No Time to Die instrumental theme with Billie Eilish's haunting chorus again, giving the scene an extra poignancy.

Why doesn't Nomi stay instead or why does Madeleine not drive the boat so Nomi can stay too?  Bond is the more experienced agent and when I first saw the film I did not even think of it.  Nomi maybe stayed with them to be ready for any threats they faced outside.  Alternatively if M had ordered Nomi to go with Madeleine and Mathilde Nomi would not have resisted.

Bond talking to M and Q while fighting off Safin's men demonstrates his ruthless efficiency.  I doubt that the missiles which can destroy an island would really not be able to get through blast doors but it is probably the best way to confirm Heracles is destroyed.

The moment when Bond blows up the control room, casually tosses the detonator away and then spins to shoot an unseen assailant from the hip in a shot that looks like the Bond gunbarrel, is about as cool as this Bond gets.  He looks to be wearing the same shirt as in the early Matera scenes.  The stairwell sequence, which appears to be a single shot lasting over a minute gives Bond a fabulous last battle.  Bond fights off over half a dozen bad guys surviving by the skin of his teeth.  The use of the watch to finally kill Primo (and Bond's confused look afterwards) and Q's offscreen line about a rugby scrum gives the scene a cute ending.  

When Bond sees the doors closing, he pays dearly for his habit of running into the open without checking for opposition and is wounded by Safin.  In the fight, Bond on pure adrenaline, manages to break Safin's arm and the soundtrack provides the crack taking a slight edge off the violence.   

When I first saw it Safin's dialogue explaining what the vial contained was a little unclear.  The delivery is so soft and with Safin's accent and heavy breathing I was not sure what was happening since I had missed that Safin had broken the vial on Bond's cheek, which means that he is infected with nanobots that could kill Madeleine and Mathilde if he touches them.  While I usually like colorful lines here it would have helped if the lines were more straightforward.  As Bond touched his cheek, I felt that might mean he was infected but was not utterly sure until he spoke to Q a moment later.

Craig plays it as Bond at first is not really listening to Safin and then focuses in as it dawns on him slowly as Safin delivers his "curse" line.  His lip trembles as he realizes he has probably lost his family and then his expression just changes to bleak hopelessness.  Safin smiles at him and Bond just executes him without looking.  

Hans Zimmer's beautiful seven minute piece Final Ascent begins to play after the fight.  Bond quickly goes through the stages of grief.  Shock, when he realizes he has lost his family.  He briefly tries to bargain with Q, but he really is just confirming the truth.  Depression, when his lip trembles in front of Safin, anger when he executes Safin, and the acceptance as he tells Madeleine and literally ascends to the top of the island so the missiles will kill him quickly.  

Bond says "It's alright" which is what Bond says to the police officer right after Tracy's death in OHMSS.  He is badly hurt but could probably make it off the island but would immediately put Madeleine and Mathilde at risk since they are nearby.

Bond and Madeleine's final conversation via radio (and heard by the Mi6 crew) is heartbreaking yet satisfying.  Madeleine realizes he has been poisoned by the vial and goes through her own grief.  Bond tells her he wants her to go on "You have all the time in the world" and expresses his love for his child and her.  I think Bond would love Mathilde just because she is Madeleine's child which in it's own way is even sweeter.  Madeleine's last words are telling Bond that he is Mathilde's father, so he knows she feels he has earned it.  Both actors are give moving performances in this scene as the music builds to a crescendo.  

Bond dies bravely on his feet.  We see the missile hit and an explosion encapsulate him but mercifully not his body being destroyed or him in any more pain.    

How do I feel about Bond's death?  It was done well and as such, devastating.  I would have rather he lived and gotten to be with his family but this character throughout his literary and cinematic life has only been allowed to be happy sporadically.  At the end of Spectre I was happy for him because he had a chance for it.  Craig's story in particular seemed to point to an onscreen death when he mentioned double 0s have a short life expectancy in Casino Royale.  I also preferred that he die instead of Madeleine because I knew Bond would handle the loss of another love in a self destructive way whereas she could process it and move on.  Madeleine is much better positioned to be Mathilde's caregiver but it does hurt that this burgeoning family was ripped apart.

M's office gives Bond a brief memorial (a big funeral like the fake one in You Only Live Twice would have felt wrong) and M reads a Jack London line quoted by Fleming in "You Only Live Twice".  The scene switches, according to the script, to a month later.  The score for "We Have All The Time in the World" comes up as Madeleine, now driving the Vantage, back in Matera on the same road as in the beginning, starts to tell Mathilde in English the story of her father.  Mathilde is sitting in the front which works for the scene but is the kind of detail that seems off, since she had a car seat in the back of the SUV earlier.  Madeleine closes the film with the line "His name was Bond, James Bond".  Madeleine and Mathilde appear to be at peace.  It is a poignant ending but Bond's sacrifice has given life to his family and he would be happy for it.  Louis Armstrong's "We Have All the Time In The World" plays over the end titles and feels earned.  

As such Craig leaves the series and a reset will occur.  Honestly this film gave me all the emotion and thrills I could have asked for and at this point if the producers decided to just put Bond to bed I feel like I would be ok with it.  I think the love story is more powerful than the one in Casino Royale as Madeleine is more fully developed and is a better companion to Bond.  The supporting cast, including a scene of Q in his pajamas, referenced in Skyfall, is fantastic.  There was no MCU when Craig first started playing Bond and even though there have only been five films, the time between them has allowed Craig to age from a young impulsive agent to an older one who finally gives his life but not for Queen and Country, but for his family.  

I rate this film below Casino Royale but right on par with Skyfall, making it my co-second favorite Bond film.  *****