Colm Currie

Hey there, avid readers. It’s been a while. I hope you’ve managed to find some five-line poetry or other alternative reading material to keep you going in the meantime. But Bond is back, and that means that Project Bond is back as well, despite mass protests in the streets.

It’s not a spoiler that this is Daniel Craig’s final outing as Bond; in fact, it’s a very well-known fact. He’s done five of them now, which seems a reasonable haul, and now he can sail off into the sunset and make the arthouse films he’s always wanted to make, such as Knives Out 2 and Knives Out 3. We start off with Bond and Madeleine (from before, remember?) on holiday in I’m fairly sure Italy. For some reason, Bond and his current girlfriend are on holiday right near the grave of Bond’s ex-girlfriend Vesper (from before, remember?). Madeleine tells Bond that he should go to Vesper’s grave, so he does, but it’s a bomb, so he jumps out of the way right before it explodes. Then some Spectre dudes in cars and on bikes chase him, but he grabs onto a rope and swings under a bridge to get away from them. Back at the hotel, Madeleine claims she doesn’t know what Bond’s on about, and she had nothing to do with it, but that doesn’t stop him getting real mad. Off they go in the car, but the dudes in cars and on bikes track them down somehow. Eventually, cornered in the town square, bulletproof glass surely about to give way, Bond fires some car guns and they bust their way to freedom. It looks like he believes Madeleine now and they’re going to run off and start their life together, but instead he puts her on a train and tells her they’re done.

Cut to the future, and these guys are climbing down the side of a skyscraper lab so they can break into it. Inside, the boy off Mock The Week is making smallpox soup as a classic office jape, but he’s not laughing two minutes later when he’s shot dead, is he? Anyway, the guys get away with this bioweapon, and also a Russian mad scientist who would probably be more at home in the Sean Connery era. Moneypenny tells Voldemort that something’s happened in their secret lab, and she knows it’s bad, but not how bad. Voldemort knows how bad, though, hence he’s balder than ever due to stress, presumably.

Meanwhile, Bond is on holiday (again? still? unclear) in what appears to be the Caribbean. He’s apparently retired from active service, and will therefore play no further part in the film. Haha, kidding on! Can you imagine? Anyway, he seems to have settled in well to island life. But then Felix turns up and tells him he needs his help finding aforementioned Russian scientist, who appears to be in Cuba, which is just up the road. Bond says no, he’s enjoying island life too much, but then he meets a young woman who turns out to be an MI6 agent, and not only that, they call her 007. Bond tells her/us/himself that it’s just a number, but the next morning he’s straight on the horn to Voldemort, so you know it obviously didn’t wind him up at all. Voldemort tells him to keep his retired neb out, but Bond decides that he won’t, and instead goes to Cuba to meet Felix’s pal Paloma. Bit of a Honey Mitchell type, but decent with a shooter. They find the Russian boy at what turns out to be Blofeld’s birthday bash, but Blofeld isn’t there due to being imprisoned, locked up and incarcerated in jail back in Blighty. Instead, he’s watching through a fancy fake eye on a cushion being held by a bald henchman. A gas(?) is released from above, and it’s meant to kill Bond, but instead it kills all the members of Spectre (I forgot, all the members of Spectre were there, except Blofeld), except Blofeld. So Bond and Paloma and 007 escape with the Russian boy, except for 007 who gets left behind in all the confusion. Paloma goes back to whatever she does the rest of the time, while Bond and the Russian boy get on 007’s seaplane and fly to Felix’s boat. Felix is there with a pure shifty-looking CIA guy, who turns out to be a pure traitor and shoots Felix in the belly. He and the Russian boy run off, leaving Bond and Felix to drown to death/bleed to death in this boat, but Bond decides that this is no time to die and busts his way to freedom. Not Felix, though, he dies either by being drowned or running out of blood. But if it hadn’t been that, he would have surely died from smoking too many cigars, so swingy roundabouts.

Back in London, 007 is real mad at Bond, and Bond and Voldemort are real mad at each other. Bond says Voldemort has a drink problem and Voldemort tells Bond to leave everything alone. Bond and Moneypenny and Q then get further involved and discover that Voldemort’s been involved in making this weapon which can kill folk as long as you have their DNA, while being harmless to others. Heavy stuff! So Bond goes back to Voldemort and gets back on the team so he can go and see Blofeld in the jail, but Blofeld will only talk to one person, and that person is…

Madeleine! From before, remember? Anyway, she’s got her own problems, because Freddie Mercury has turned up and told her to wear this fancy perfume next time she goes to visit Blofeld and it’ll kill him. She has to listen to him because he’s a dangerous lunatic who killed her maw years and years ago. So off she goes to the jail, but then she chickens out and runs away, but she gets some of her “perfume” on Bond and Bond gets it on Blofeld and Blofeld dies. So now Spectre’s been totally wiped out, but they need to stop Freddie Mercury from murdering millions of people. He and the Russian boy and loads of other maddies are hiding out on an island (because where else you gonna hide out?), and also they’ve kidnapped Madeleine and her daughter, who definitely isn’t Bond’s daughter at all. Also, Bond and Madeleine are somehow back together by now, despite all the lingering resentment. So off Bond and 007 and Q go to the island, but they are unable to reason with the mass-murdering maniacs for some reason. 007 (who’s no longer 007 at this point) gets real mad and kills the Russian boy, while Bond manages to get Madeleine and her daughter off the island. Then it’s a simple matter of opening some doors so that some missiles can get in and blow up the island, but before Bond can bust his way to freedom, Freddie Mercury gets some of the bioweapon with Madeleine’s DNA all over Bond which means that Bond can never touch Madeleine or her daughter ever again. (I forgot, you can’t ever get this stuff off, not even with Cillit Bang. It’s totally harmless as long as you don’t get it on the person whose DNA’s in it, so in this case, bit of a bummer.) After shooting Freddie Mercury so hard he dies, Bond climbs up to the top bit of the island to wait for the missiles. He gets on the horn to Q who gets on the horn to 007 (who’s no longer 007 at this point) who gets on the horn to Madeleine so that Bond can say goodbye to her. She tells him that her daughter who has his eyes is also his daughter, and then the missiles show up and kill him, and then there’s a soppy bit, and that’s more or less the end.

I thought this was a pretty good Bond film, and I should know, because I’ve seen all the Bond films, including this one. Bit long, but otherwise pretty good. Not only that, but the various nods throughout to it being the 21st century will annoy all the worst kind of Bond fans, which is smashing. As I’ve previously observed, despite many valid criticisms of the Bond franchise’s sexism, racism and various other isms, it is moving forward, and has been doing so for quite a while now. Plenty still to do, but this is the most progressive installment yet, which is a clear positive. As far as the main story goes, it’s an interesting one in that the main villain doesn’t emerge until relatively late on. I do feel that there’s less variety with the villains these days, though; Safin, Blofeld and Silva all have a similar energy to them, even though all of their goals are quite different. I’d like to see a radically different character as the main baddie in the next film.

Anyway, the main issue to be resolved will of course be what comes next for Bond. Will we see a full reboot, like when Craig took up the mantle, a soft reboot like when Brosnan began, or will Bond simply show up in London one day, completely unexploded, four years younger, and black? The options are literally endless. Whatever’s next, I’m sure it’ll be exciting and fun and spectacular and full of classic British values. No Time To Die serves as a well-balanced finale to Daniel Craig’s excellent era, in this reporter’s view, and gives us all plenty to think about, not least who we allow to access our toothbrushes. (Teethbrushes? Unclear. Yet more to ponder.)