{"id":5621,"date":"2022-07-07T21:23:13","date_gmt":"2022-07-07T21:23:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peymantaeidi.net\/stem-cell\/?p=5621"},"modified":"2022-10-18T17:00:09","modified_gmt":"2022-10-18T17:00:09","slug":"no-time-to-die-is-garbage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peymantaeidi.net\/stem-cell\/2022\/07\/07\/no-time-to-die-is-garbage\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018No Time To Die\u2019 Is Garbage"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"image\"<\/div>\n

I know, I\u2019m very<\/em> late to this, but I need to rant.<\/p>\n

I finally watched \u201cNo Time to Die\u201d on Amazon Prime. I\u2019ve seen every Bond film multiple times<\/a> \u2014 some of my favorites, \u201cCasino Royale\u201d or \u201cThe Spy Who Loved Me,\u201d probably dozens of times. This might be my least favorite movie in the series, other than maybe the pseudo-Bond cash-in, \u201cNever Say Never Again.\u201d I\u2019m not exaggerating when I say I would prefer watching the 1967 version of \u201cCasino Royale,\u201d with Woody Allen as Jimmy Bond, to this one.<\/p>\n

(Spoilers ahead.)<\/p>\n

James Bond is in love again. Fine<\/em>. But the Vesper Lynd storyline only worked because she had seemingly betrayed him \u2014 a fantastic twist in 2006\u2019s \u201cCasino Royale\u201d \u2014 which allowed the writers to fuse his personal revenge narrative into a multi-film arch. And that arch led us to SPECTRE. Daniel Craig\u2019s movies exhumed this nefarious organization from the old movies. SPECTRE was lurking in the background. It was behind that French environmentalist madman in \u201cQuantum of Solace,\u201d and it was there when Javier Bardem was doing his thing in \u201cSkyfall.\u201d The producers even spent a couple of hundred million dollars putting together a movie called <\/em>SPECTRE, in which the great Christoph Waltz plays Blofeld<\/a>. This happened. I double checked. But \u201cNo Time to Die\u201d just dispenses with the entire<\/em> SPECTRE project in a single confusing scene that\u2019s meant to shock you. Blofeld is reduced to making a cameo. Why did they waste our time?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s worse than that. The first scene sets up a mystery, and the next sets up Bond\u2019s relationship with L\u00e9a Seydoux. Both were well done. Instead of figuring out a creative way to wrap SPECTRE into this thriller \u2014 again, a group we\u2019ve been hearing about for four<\/em> movies \u2014 the writers rid themselves of the entire storyline by pinning their movie to the most trope-y, formulaic Bad Guy. The only chance this plot twist had of working was for the new organization or character to be more compelling than the one it destroyed. That is not the case. Instead, we get a sedate Rami Malek, a fine actor, whose goofy accent and evil stare aren\u2019t nearly as interesting as the glint in Waltz\u2019s fake eye.<\/p>\n

As you still cling to the hope that something coherent will unfurl, about two-thirds into the film \u2014 which is like 10 hours long \u2014 the writers just completely give up and have Bond running up and down stairs of a parking lot, fighting off henchmen and struggling to open a door<\/em>. Now, I\u2019m not saying that it is implausible that James Bond might get bogged down trying to open a big door. I\u2019m saying it\u2019s tedious watching anyone get bogged down trying to open a door.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s talk about Bond\u2019s cute kid. This is, I believe, the first time that a child has been put into danger in a Bond movie. Maybe it\u2019s the first child ever to make an appearance in a Bond movie. For me, her presence immediately sapped any fun that might have been extracted from \u201cNo Time to Die.\u201d Mathilde was a lazy inclusion, meant to artificially ratchet up the tension in a plodding story and play on your emotions. The last thing I want to do watching 007 is feel anxiety over the welfare of a young girl who is being hunted by a sociopathic geek or worry that a nanotechnical virus carried by Bond is going to kill her, or vice versa. The entire point of Bond is escapism.<\/p>\n

And let\u2019s talk about the other<\/em> 007. It\u2019s as if the producers of \u201cNo Time to Die\u201d cast a black woman as the superspy to generate press \u2014 and Lashana Lynch seems like a fine actress, as well \u2014 but then didn\u2019t think it was important to give her character something useful to do. She is basically drafted as Bond\u2019s chauffeur and backup. Talk about privilege.<\/p>\n

Then there is the matter of Bond\u2019s death. This is supposed to be the emotional payoff. A smart Twitter follower of mine points out that, though the movie was subpar, Craig\u2019s death is \u201coblique confirmation\u201d that 007 is a transferable designation. But everyone already gets that, right? I figured that out the first time I saw George Lazenby. <\/p>\n

Anyway, it\u2019s not that I mind that he\u2019s killed \u2014 the fact that 007 would give his life to save others is unsurprising \u2014 but rather how he was killed. Craig could have jumped into the ocean and swam three miles from that dumb island in the time it took to finish up that tearful goodbye with his girlfriend. They don\u2019t have a single motorized boat or helicopter at the evil dude\u2019s giant lair? MI5 doesn\u2019t have a contingency backup escape plan? People have pointed out that by evading death Bond would have put his daughter\u2019s life in danger (another excellent reason not to have her in the movie) or potentially spread the super disease \u2026 please save it. Get Q on the phone. Quarantine the guy. He\u2019s saved the world 25 times that we know of. Surely something can be done. James Bond was marooned in space<\/a> and got back OK.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo Time to Die\u201d is, at times, beautiful to look at. Cary Joji Fukunaga is a superb technical filmmaker. Everyone in the movie is fine (Ana de Armas is fantastic.) It just would have helped tremendously if the people who wrote the movie had cared enough about viewers to finish telling a story.<\/p>\n

\n
\n David Harsanyi is a senior editor at The Federalist. Harsanyi is a nationally syndicated columnist and author of five books\u2014the most recent, Eurotrash: Why America Must Reject the Failed Ideas of a Dying Continent<\/a>. His work has appeared in National Review, the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Reason, New York Post, and numerous other publications. Follow him on Twitter, @davidharsanyi<\/a>.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I know, I\u2019m very late to this, but I need to rant. I finally watched<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5623,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peymantaeidi.net\/stem-cell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5621"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peymantaeidi.net\/stem-cell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peymantaeidi.net\/stem-cell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peymantaeidi.net\/stem-cell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peymantaeidi.net\/stem-cell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5621"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/peymantaeidi.net\/stem-cell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5621\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5624,"href":"https:\/\/peymantaeidi.net\/stem-cell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5621\/revisions\/5624"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peymantaeidi.net\/stem-cell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peymantaeidi.net\/stem-cell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peymantaeidi.net\/stem-cell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peymantaeidi.net\/stem-cell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}