No Time To Die (spoilery reviews thread)

I have now seen NTTD and I have thoughts. I've also had much alcohol and am ruminating on these thoughts.

Stay tuned.

CJB wrote:

I have now seen NTTD and I have thoughts. I've also had much alcohol and am ruminating on these thoughts.

Stay tuned.

Curious to hear them!

Perilagu Khan wrote:

Ms. Sheedy has such sharp and pointy fangs.

walking on my fightin side, Joe

Alright, here are my initial thoughts. Pour yourself a strong cup of Q's famous earl grey, unless you've got no time to chai.

I agree with those critics who say the film sags in the middle after a strong opening half-hour or so. In saying that, it didn't feel like it dragged for 2hrs40mins, though I'm still unsure whether that runtime was really justified. Let's press on with the details.

We begin with yet another bastardised gunbarrel sequence. I blame Tamawhore and his dorky CGI bullet for starting this now irrevocable trend.

The Safin stalking Lil' Maddie sequence was OK and creepy enough I guess but, like much else in this film, I felt like any suspense or foreboding was ruined because we've been saturated with trailer footage for the last 2.5 years. Therefore I knew Safin would survive his gunshots and Maddie would get trapped under the ice and Safin would blast the ice with his gun etc. etc.

Fast forward to Italy. We get the first callback to OHMSS with the 'We Have All The Time in the World' tune playing and Bond even saying the line. I liked it at first. If the film had come out in '19 as originally planned it would've been the 50th anniversary of Laz's sole caper after all. Then later on we have Bond and Tanner having a dull conversation and the OHMSS theme is playing for some reason. Then of course the ending. Frankly, I associate that music with a particular film and a particular relationship (Bond and Tracy) and this just cheapens the whole thing.

OK back to Italy. Is there a particular reason Vesper is buried in Italy other than that's where she died? Anyway, not important I guess. The action sequence that follows is pretty good, up there with Craig's other chase scenes and whatnot. Yes, it's a shame we've all watched the rope stunt a million times before. Motorbike stunt was cool. The bullets pounding against the DB5's increasingly fragile glass was genuinely tense.

Then it's bye bye Maddie for now. I tried to avoid spoilers but I did accidentally see a screencap of Bond holding a little girl so as soon as Maddie touched her belly on the train I knew a Bond-Baby was coming.

Title sequence. I liked the visuals with the Britannia statue and PPKs forming a DNA sequence (I'm no scientist so apologies if my terminology is off) but yes, of course, I did miss the naked ladies. I think it's fair to say they will never return to a Bond title sequence. The more "enlightened" we become, the more puritanical it seems.

This is my first time hearing the song and I found it almost instantly forgettable. Though I can be a bit of a young fogey, as it were, I don't actually mind Billie Eilish generally but I don't she's right for Bond and this song just didn't tickle.

5 years later. The goons offing the lab coats was pretty brutal stuff, reminiscent of Zorin massacring the miners and Xenia murdering the programmers. We're introduced to the film's terrible comic relief/MacGuffin Professor Aubergine or something like that. More on him later.

A lab creating some sort of viral bio-weaopns... prescient for a film written pre-Covid and, ironically, delayed for nearly two years thanks to it.

Bond is in Jamaica living a lifestyle that appears to be a nod to Fleming himself. Maybe would've been too on the nose to have him clacking away at typewriter with a cigarette holder in his teeth. Felix is back and it's nice to see him having a fun time with Bond, given Wright is typically the most dour and boring Felix we've seen. The Logan Ash character is appropriately irritating.

The "Book of Mormon" quip is a good segue for me to give my thoughts on the humour in this movie. For me, it mostly sucks. Bond used to be dry, sardonic, often clever. In NTTD the humour is very contemporary, i.e. largely infantile, deliberately awkward, and reminiscent of something out of Marvel or a Netflix Original. I don't know if this is Phoebe Two-Dads' influence. For me, James Bond here doesn't feel like the man in Casino Royale, let alone the preceding 20 films, and the dorky humour is part of why I feel that way. No offence to anyone who liked the "did your desk get bigger?" gag but can you imagine Connery or Moore or even Brosnan acting like a man-child?

Anyway, we meet Nomi. I don't like her character and I don't see the point of the character beyond making a woke statement. Call me whatever -ism label you like.

The Cuba stuff with the shootout is fun enough. Paloma is sexy but, naturally, immune to Bond's charms because it's Current Year. The Blofeld birthday party with the smallpox or whatever is, err, interesting. Just as Quantum as an organisation disappears, in one fell swoop the all-powerful SPECTRE organisation is destroyed. Yeah, cool.

Logan is a traitor of course and Babs or whoever took it upon themselves to kill off a character nobody - least of all Fleming - killed off, namely Felix Leiter. Did he need to be killed off? I don't think so, to be honest. It was a surprise to me that Felix died, but I was unaffected as I never found Wright's portrayal to be particularly engaging. Anyway, R.I.P. Not the first sacred cow to be killed in this film...

I liked the return of Dalton's car with the Bond Theme accompanying.

As I said earlier, this is where the film sags for me and many others. Nanobots, Safin returning to stalk Maddie etc. etc. Bond has dinner at Q's house and, of course, there was the mention of an impending man-date. Naturally if the Q character was going to remain a white cis-male he needed to be progressive-ised in some manner (yes, I know Whishaw is himself of that orientation, not that there's anything wrong with that etc etc.)

M is now angrier, balder, and fatter. I liked the Robert Brown portrait.

We get our first nod to the YOLT novel with "die, Blofeld, die!" It's completely out of place and ridiculous. Then Bro-feld is suddenly dead from nanobot smallpox. The point of this being? Are they just willy nilly killing off longstanding characters for fun now?

Bond meets the Bond-Baby in Norway. I'm not sure how I feel about Bond becoming a family man... probably negatively, but I still haven't quite processed it. There's some cheesy romantic dialogue between Bond and Maddie, whose relationship I'm still not buying. This is the fundamental weakness of the "emotional" angle for me because, I'm sorry, I just don't believe Bond is head over heels for this broad. "Show don't tell" is storytelling 101, but we just keep getting told how smitten they are. It makes the Craig-Green romance look Shakespearian.

The forest battle was pretty good. Did enjoy Smiley's comeuppance with the Locque/car redux. When Bond said "I had a brother..." I was cringing and waiting for him to mention Bro-feld, but I'm glad it was Felix he named.

'Course, I would've had the following callback to classic Bondom:

Smiley: "I got a brudder."

Bond: "Small world."

*squish*

Now we're on Safin's island of doom. I like it as a concept but extensive CGI is a very poor substitute for the likes of Ken Adam. It just looks - because it is - fake and cartoonish. Build more sets. Another poorly handled reference to Fleming's YOLT is here: the Garden of Death... except it's more like a little Vege Patch of Death. If they were going to put it to screen, they should've done it properly, i.e. a large and terrifying obstacle course Bond must navigate in the dead of night, not a mere decoration of no relevance.

On the plane trip over, we're treated to some JJ Abrams lens flare. The film, visually, is a mixed bag for me. The drone shot of Safin approaching Maddie's house is nice, for example, but too much of the film looks artificial, for lack of a better world. It's as if modern viewers have some form of ADD where they need to be visually stimulated ceaselessly so we need bright, glaring flashes of light all the time.

Professor Aubergine is a good reminder that in this age of woke, where the wrong Halloween costume is racist, Russians/Slavs are one ethno-cultural group you can still reduce to a Borat-esque stereotype. Of course, he doesn't meet his demise for his complicity in mass murder, but rather because he makes a racially insensitive remark to Nomi. Speech is violence etc. Can you imagine even trigger-happy James Bond murdering an unarmed prisoner over hurt feelings?

Bond confronts Safin. Good time to talk about Safin. Terrible villain. Malek continues the Craig era tradition of nonsensical accents (certainly didn't sound Russian). Could barely understand half of what he's saying, but worse than that, his motivation is for his grand plan is never really covered. It doesn't need to be particularly complex, but even Drax had his whole Space Hitler schtick covered in a few seconds and that's all you really need. Safin is just a terrible, dull villain.

In addition to Safin's island looking fake and video game-y, I'm really of two minds about the whole feel of the thing. I do like the callback to the zanier vibes of the late-Connery and Moore eras but it just doesn't gel with the deep n' gritty tone. To me, it doesn't feel like the same "world" established in Casino Royale, rather it feels like fan service.

Then we have the Bond family reunion after Safin, err, lets the Bond-Baby go for some reason.

I've heard a lot of praise for the gunplay in this sequence and perhaps it was fairly well done, particularly that stairway scene. To be honest, having Bond be a one-man Seal Team Six, effortlessly taking down goon after goon doesn't excite me nor does it strike me as particularly credible. I used to consider Brosnan the "Rambo" Bond but perhaps that mantle is now Craig's. In hindsight, for example, Broz-Bond in the archives shootout in GE seems like he's desperately trying to get the hell out and is just manically spraying bullets as he's running and sliding. Almost feels "real" in comparison to Bond in NTTD being a super-precise commando in the vein of the Terminator.

I didn't initially understand what happened with Bond and Safin and the nanobot/DNA vial (had to ask the missus afterwards) because, as I alluded to before, couldn't understand a thing Malek was mumbling. Then he gets shot. Who cares? Boring character.

OK let's talk about The Big One. I was scrolling through some non-Bond stuff on Twatter and some prick spoiled the fact that Bond dies. So I went in knowing this would happen, though managed to avoid reading about the specific circumstances, so at least that was "fresh" to me.

I know some forum members mentioned tears in their eyes at this and I wish I could've joined them in feeling emotional, but I didn't quite get there. Firstly, because I knew it was coming. Secondly, because I know James Bond is (in one form or another) coming back and this isn't final. Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, I thought Craig's performance (and the writing is a major factor) felt off-key. I didn't feel like I was watching the James Bond of CR-SP, let alone the Bond of DN-DAD. I don't feel like this is the conclusion of the story arc that began in CR because, as I've mentioned, it feels like I'm watching a totally different person in a totally different world. Fourthly, again, it's a very CGI-heavy sequence that looked like it was a video game. If I did feel the lips quivering, it wasn't because I was watching the impending death of this bloke who's allegedly James Bond, but because of the powerful music playing during the scene. Well done, Hans Zimmer.

I'm sure we'll be discussing this for some time going forward, but if you're going to kill off James Bond then he should stay dead. Without that finality, the emotional aspect is nullified for me.

The MI6 crew hold their mini wake. Again, how can I feel emotional for a character I know isn't staying dead? The inclusion of Fleming's "... I will use my time" was a nice touch but, and sorry I'm a broken record, it feels flat if the character is back at it in a couple years as if none of this ever happened.

Maddie and the Bond-Baby drive off to the sounds of Louis Armstrong. I mean it's nice in a way, but NTTD is no OHMSS.

OK that was a long rant, I'll summarise:

I thought the film was decent in and of itself and I liked many aspects. The action sequences were done well, if nothing else. The score was good, despite my mixed feelings about the constant OHMSS shoe-horning. Despite the saggy middle, the film doesn't feel as long as it is. The OTT villainy is fun, but tonally inconsistent in my view. As far as the Craig era goes, NTTD beats out QOS and Spectre for me.

Craig is a fine actor, but it felt like he was playing himself, not James Bond. The writing was hokey and the humour was frequently infantile, missing the dry wit of old. Consequently, I didn't feel much of an emotional gut punch when he was CGI'd to death, which is disappointing when you consider he's been playing my favourite literary/cinematic character for about half my life.

I think when these rumours that Bond would die first came out when Boyle left the production, I opined that the only man who had the privilege of deciding Bond's ultimate fate had himself passed away in 1964. I still largely feel that way. It doesn't feel right that Babs, in typical Boomer style, has taken it upon herself to crap on an institution carefully crafted by the Greatest Generation for her own ego. I believe Craig was pushing for Bond to die too. They've both put their own egos above the institution just so they could masrurbatorily make "the Bond movie where Bond dies."

So all in all, an inconsistent but fairly entertaining film. I suspect, in taking the turn it took, we will not be looking at NTTD as a net positive for the series and the character. It will all be downhill from here, folks.

Great write up CJB. Firstly, agree without Safin. I dare suggest he's in the Stromberg vein of villain. He's there but you forget about him and then...he's there.

I can't say I cared for NTTD entirely. But I find myself wishing that I was there when you finished so we could share a good scotch :)

Thanks, Hilly. Yes, I'd have happily shared a dram or ten of Islay's finest drop with your good self!

NTTD really does drive one to drink. I felt like I needed to mourn the institution of James Bond, not so much the incinerated fella calling himself James Bond in the film.

I'm wondering if the next movie is to be another reboot (I hope not, would prefer Bond to just be an established agent in it) seeing as NTTD's ending makes even loose continuity impossible.

Well done, CJB. Well done, indeed. As always with your posts, I enjoyed a few chuckles and found myself impressed with several of your observations.

Dammit! I really need to write my review, if for no other reason, to dialogue with yours. As the pomos say, intertextuality.

Does anybody know when the early PPV 20 buck price drops about 75 percent? Am really itching to see this now (in a dread filled way) and weigh in (or should that be 'wade in' about it.

I don't know if I commented on Safin yet. My main takeaway was that I don't think he'll prove to be a very memorable Bond villain and that Rami Malek, whilst a fine actor when he gets to play within his wheelhouse, isn't perhaps the best or most obvious choice to ham it up as a Bond villain.

The Cuba section of the film is the only sequence in which the director and writers feel okay with allowing a Bond movie to be fun and sexy instead of dour and serious. I would love to see an entire Bond film made in that spirit (if at all still possible in 2021).

Perilagu Khan wrote:

Well done, CJB. Well done, indeed. As always with your posts, I enjoyed a few chuckles and found myself impressed with several of your observations.

Dammit! I really need to write my review, if for no other reason, to dialogue with yours. As the pomos say, intertextuality.

Thank you kindly, PK. Your insights are always excellent, so I look forward to your review!

Salomé wrote:

I don't know if I commented on Safin yet. My main takeaway was that I don't think he'll prove to be a very memorable Bond villain and that Rami Malek, whilst a fine actor when he gets to play within his wheelhouse, isn't perhaps the best or most obvious choice to ham it up as a Bond villain.

A completely lifeless performance, though I'm told he shot to stardom playing a robot. A real Tatar avenging his family would be full of fire and fury, while this bloke just pranced about in a kimono while sucking on a lemon.

Salomé wrote:

The Cuba section of the film is the only sequence in which the director and writers feel okay with allowing a Bond movie to be fun and sexy instead of dour and serious. I would love to see an entire Bond film made in that spirit (if at all still possible in 2021).

The Cuba scene almost felt like an extended Heineken commercial in a good way. Remains to be seen whether the positive response is taken onboard.

What they'll definitely keep is stuff like Paloma's rejection of Bond, because we can't be having Bond seducing the females anymore.

CJB wrote:

Is there a particular reason Vesper is buried in Italy other than that's where she died?

That's where her family had been buried. Also interesting to note that her mom apparently died when Vesper was five and she died a widow, indicating that Vesper was an orphan at a very young age.

Reminds me of the start of FYEO, when we discover that Tracy is buried in England for some reason.

That was a terrific write up, CJB. You touched on several things (set design vs. CGI, humor style, potted plant collection of death) that are not getting widely mentioned — I really think the debate around the ending itself has a kind of gravitational pull that is detracting from these sorts of more fundamental observations.

CJB wrote:

What they'll definitely keep is stuff like Paloma's rejection of Bond, because we can't be having Bond seducing the females anymore.

I get that they didn’t want Bond sleeping with or seducing Paloma. OK, fine. Expected. But going the extra mile there and having her display the sort of disgusted look that a cheerleader in a Hollywood high school movie might to a nerd when Bond intimates the idea...Then having Bond ask her to turn around as he was undressing? And then have her parting words to him be a flirtatious invitation? It doesn’t gel at all. Some very odd choices in the making of this.

Good points re Vesper and Tracy's respective graves. With the latter, I just assumed Draco had deferred to Bond as the husband and had her buried in his hometown.

Somerset wrote:

That was a terrific write up, CJB. You touched on several things (set design vs. CGI, humor style, potted plant collection of death) that are not getting widely mentioned — I really think the debate around the ending itself has a kind of gravitational pull that is detracting from these sorts of more fundamental observations.

Thanks, Somerset. In a way, Craig/Babs were smart in that NTTD will be remembered as "the one where James Bond dies" because without that ending, people may have started to pick at the very many mediocre elements throughout and the rushed script etc. Take away the hero's demise and the Bond-Baby and you're basically left with Craig's DAD.

Somerset wrote:

I get that they didn’t want Bond sleeping with or seducing Paloma. OK, fine. Expected. But going the extra mile there and having her display the sort of disgusted look that a cheerleader in a Hollywood high school movie might to a nerd when Bond intimates the idea...Then having Bond ask her to turn around as he was undressing? And then have her parting words to him be a flirtatious invitation? It doesn’t gel at all. Some very odd choices in the making of this.

Yes indeed. Didn't expect her to drop her panties there and then (but wouldn't complain) but making Bond the butt of all the jokes takes away from the character's aura somewhat. Not even the comic Moore movies did that.

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https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/movies/new-movies/no-time-to-dies-ending-was-planned-15-years-ago/news-story/5f42c16a32e6303b5009541e9790e048

May have been discussed already, but Craig confirms Babs wanted his Bond to be offed from the get-go. Ego over institution, as I said before. Would've been better for all concerned if Craig's Bond drove off into the sunset with Madeline at the end of SPECTRE. Then a "fresh face" could've waltzed into M's office in B25 with a passing remark about being back in active service and things haven't panned out with "the girl." Bit easier to explain then "I had a cruise missile up my arse but now I'm alive."

CJB wrote:

Good points re Vesper and Tracy's respective graves. With the latter, I just assumed Draco had deferred to Bond as the husband and had her buried in his hometown.

Somerset wrote:

That was a terrific write up, CJB. You touched on several things (set design vs. CGI, humor style, potted plant collection of death) that are not getting widely mentioned — I really think the debate around the ending itself has a kind of gravitational pull that is detracting from these sorts of more fundamental observations.

Thanks, Somerset. In a way, Craig/Babs were smart in that NTTD will be remembered as "the one where James Bond dies" because without that ending, people may have started to pick at the very many mediocre elements throughout and the rushed script etc. Take away the hero's demise and the Bond-Baby and you're basically left with Craig's DAD.

Somerset wrote:

I get that they didn’t want Bond sleeping with or seducing Paloma. OK, fine. Expected. But going the extra mile there and having her display the sort of disgusted look that a cheerleader in a Hollywood high school movie might to a nerd when Bond intimates the idea...Then having Bond ask her to turn around as he was undressing? And then have her parting words to him be a flirtatious invitation? It doesn’t gel at all. Some very odd choices in the making of this.

Yes indeed. Didn't expect her to drop her panties there and then (but wouldn't complain) but making Bond the butt of all the jokes takes away from the character's aura somewhat. Not even the comic Moore movies did that.

-

"now James, put that back in your pants this instant! Then I might let you buy me an ice cream cone."

trevanian wrote:

CJB wrote:

Good points re Vesper and Tracy's respective graves. With the latter, I just assumed Draco had deferred to Bond as the husband and had her buried in his hometown.

Somerset wrote:

That was a terrific write up, CJB. You touched on several things (set design vs. CGI, humor style, potted plant collection of death) that are not getting widely mentioned — I really think the debate around the ending itself has a kind of gravitational pull that is detracting from these sorts of more fundamental observations.

Thanks, Somerset. In a way, Craig/Babs were smart in that NTTD will be remembered as "the one where James Bond dies" because without that ending, people may have started to pick at the very many mediocre elements throughout and the rushed script etc. Take away the hero's demise and the Bond-Baby and you're basically left with Craig's DAD.

Somerset wrote:

I get that they didn’t want Bond sleeping with or seducing Paloma. OK, fine. Expected. But going the extra mile there and having her display the sort of disgusted look that a cheerleader in a Hollywood high school movie might to a nerd when Bond intimates the idea...Then having Bond ask her to turn around as he was undressing? And then have her parting words to him be a flirtatious invitation? It doesn’t gel at all. Some very odd choices in the making of this.

Yes indeed. Didn't expect her to drop her panties there and then (but wouldn't complain) but making Bond the butt of all the jokes takes away from the character's aura somewhat. Not even the comic Moore movies did that.

-

"now James, put that back in your pants this instant! Then I might let you buy me an ice cream cone."

Ha. Paloma as the anti-Bibi.

CJB wrote:

A completely lifeless performance, though I'm told he shot to stardom playing a robot. A real Tatar avenging his family would be full of fire and fury, while this bloke just pranced about in a kimono while sucking on a lemon.

Malek is very good in Mr. Robot but the nature of that performance is about as far removed from a Bond villain as I can imagine.
And it's become clear to me that Malek does not have the greatest range, his best two performances (Elliot on Mr. Robot and Private SNAFU on The Pacific) are very similar in that he is essentially playing super-intense weird guys in both series.

I did a basic rewrite pitch of NTTD bringing it closer in line to the YOLT novel and at least it is much more Bondian in feeling that way.

Salomé wrote:

CJB wrote:

A completely lifeless performance, though I'm told he shot to stardom playing a robot. A real Tatar avenging his family would be full of fire and fury, while this bloke just pranced about in a kimono while sucking on a lemon.

Malek is very good in Mr. Robot but the nature of that performance is about as far removed from a Bond villain as I can imagine.
And it's become clear to me that Malek does not have the greatest range, his best two performances (Elliot on Mr. Robot and Private SNAFU on The Pacific) are very similar in that he is essentially playing super-intense weird guys in both series.

All down to personal opinion of course, but I thought he was excellent as Freddie Mercury (and would do even without the Oscar) in Bohemian Rhapsody.

Malek is a fine actor, but the Safin character was dull and unnecessary. Rather than killing off Blofeld and the entire SPECTRE organisation, if this was gonna be "The One Where James Bond Dies" (not that it should've been) then Blofeld and SPECTRE should've been the main antagonists, not some instantly forgettable lemon-sucker with unclear motives. Granted, they really did muddy the waters with the dumb step-brother shit in the previous film. This is why the Fleming shoehorns are grating, as if this movie is worthy of them.

CJB wrote:

Malek is a fine actor, but the Safin character was dull and unnecessary. Rather than killing off Blofeld and the entire SPECTRE organisation, if this was gonna be "The One Where James Bond Dies" (not that it should've been) then Blofeld and SPECTRE should've been the main antagonists, not some instantly forgettable lemon-sucker with unclear motives. Granted, they really did muddy the waters with the dumb step-brother shit in the previous film. This is why the Fleming shoehorns are grating, as if this movie is worthy of them.

Agreed. I wish Blofeld and SPECTRE had used Heracles to get Ernst out of jail so that they were the movie's antagonists.

I did a final ramble plus my closer to YOLT novel rewrite ideas.

I finally figured out what NTTD is: spoiled bad Phuyuck.

Unvarnished thoughts, before engaging with all of yours - I have seen it 1.5 times, once sober and once after about half a bottle of wine at an event held by the High Commission. I snuck out of that one after Cuba as it was a work night and I was pretty knackered to stick around for the rest.

- Overall, I liked it. I thought it was better than Quantum of Solace and probably even with Spectre. My first impression was better than Skyfall, but I don't think a single scene rose to Skyfall's best ones.
- The ending was terrible and really ruined it though. I don't have an issue with them killing off Bond, but it was done without a hint of ambiguity that Fleming had at least retained in YOLT. We had enough of a reason already in the script as to why he would continue on as is, without his wife or child. It felt like overkill. I also think a big part of the cinematic Bond's appeal - as opposed to the literary one - is the loose idea of a continuity but most importantly that he always survives to fight another day, whatever the cost.
- Second, the execution of the post death scenes was extraordinarily poor, and the last few lines quite cringeworthy.
- The pre-titles sequence through to Cuba, I found to be terrific.
- I thought the sequence in the forest was probably one of the best action sequences in a Bond film in several years.
- The garden of death ending I really liked - it had a perfect blend of the cinematic Bond (Dr No, Goldeneye) and the literary. I thought Saffin was a pretty sinister villain whose weirdness worked well without being over explained. I really liked the part in the climax where the workers realised how toxic the water was and fled.
- I liked the idea of the CIA and MI6 having conflicting objectives - though I am glad the film wound up released in a post-Trump world so it didn't feel as targetted a comment on current politics. I liked the idea of M trying to cover his tracks not because he was corrupt, but because in trying to do something good he created a mess.
- I thought the inclusion of 007 was a little overplayed (I bet you thought they'd retire it etc) but I thought the character herself, and Q being gay, were integrated in subtle ways that didn't really upset the brand and the world and were rather deft nods to diversity.
- I thought the relationship between Bond and Madeleine was quite well developed and didn't grate me. I also thought they handled the concept of Bond having a child about as un-irritatingly as they could and it introduced a nice bit of tension.
- Call me old fashioned, but I thought some of the swearing a bit much - if only because I imagine 8-12 year olds still get taken to see these.

Overall, I have more issues with what this sets up for the franchise than the film itself. I don't look forward to a comic book approach to continuity with explicit reboots and retellings of the same story. OTOH, maybe this opens up more creative opportunities (eg a revisit of period Bond). I thought the score was one of the worst of the Craig era - though the Billie song was good.

3.5/5

I just miss the fun - but for what it's worth, Babs did an interview in Australian media where she more or less poo-pooed the idea that they would make Bond a woman etc. She is at the end of the day a businesswoman.