DEAD ON ARRIVAL

I had been looking forward to seeing the new Bond flick – “No Time to Die,” over the festive season. Like many Scots my age, I had grown up with a genuine love of films. In the 1980s, there had been no smart televisions or internet access to a billion trillion movie re-runs 24/7, so the local video store was often the only option. Bond however, as per the World Cup, seemed somewhat more special to me as it only turned up every few years and I can vividly recall walking past a long queue going down Lothian Road for Octopussy. I can also recall Sean Connery returning with a wig to play Ian Fleming’s spy in “Never Say Never Again,” and the buzz I had when going to see the film with a relative one Saturday matinee. At Christmas time in those days, there had always been a Bond movie on council television after the Queen’s speech too, which was regarded as a rare festive treat. Sadly today things have changed somewhat though – Cubby Broccoli has sadly passed on and his daughter – Barbara has run the franchise for a while now. Under her watch, gone are the foot-tapping theme tunes, replaced now by whining vocals, sung by average singers, who all appear to be trying to sound like choir boys on the verge of falling asleep. When I saw seventy-three-year-old Lulu putting Ed Sheeran and Rag’n’Bone Man in her back pocket on Jools Holland’s Hootenanny, at New Year, I was reminded of just how undramatic the modern Bond themes really are. This is perhaps highlighted by Barbara’s use of the unforgettable Louis Armstrong and John Barry epic – “We have all the time in the world” theme from 1968’s “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service,” three times in “No Time to Die.”
For too long now we have also had to endure a blond, wrinkly Bond, who even when younger, had looked more nightclub bouncer than former Fettesian. Perhaps Craig does it for Barbara, but I’m not entirely convinced that Fleming and Cubby didn’t turn in their graves at his casting. Babs has also developed the role emotionally too, her Bond is no longer the unattached womaniser, and has been in love a few times recently as well as married. In the recent movie he is so much in love that he doesn’t even consider looking twice at Ana de Armas in her evening number, as he is apparently in love with someone called Madeleine. Not only that, but our geriatric loved-up Bond has a daughter now too? A kid who features in the film, and who might well be getting introduced to us as a future replacement for the now loved-up Bond. If Babs hadn’t strayed enough away from Fleming’s character with her new informal Bond, it is not for a want of trying. Previously we witnessed attempts to go all Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, on us with some of the fight scenes, as well as an invisible car? Not to mention visits to a childhood home in Skyfall and reunion with an old family gamekeeper in the Scottish Highlands? This gradual emotional development, and the formalisation of the new character, doesn’t work for me.
I get there is a demand by some libertarians to change the male jack-the-lad Martini addict, who kills for a living, into a perfect husband and father type, but why change a decades old and highly successful format? So, this film starts with a song I forget, and apart from regular reminders that Craig himself should have walked away from the role when he first promised to do so, the plot was not quite what I had hoped for either. Yes it grossed well, but that is down to the fact that everyone still goes to the cinema, or is prepared to fork out for a Bond thrill on their smart boxes. I am just not sure that we will be saying the same in three films time, judging by the recent plot? Barbara’s Bond is now flat sharing with the new gay Q behind M’s back? Prior to this he also had a habit of visiting Miss Moneypenny’s flat? Moneypenny and Q are now part of a new girlie-esq squad who are hanging out in the senior echelons of Mi6 with their feet up around M’s desk. At one stage Moneypenny walks into a crisis scenario in M’s room and stands there, arms casually folded, as if she is the Foreign Secretary. She no longer types memos but jointly runs operations with M and Q. Then we have a new 007 too, a female who drops from the sky in Cuba like Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible? What on earth is happening? It’s now as if the characters of TV series Friends are running Fleming’s secret service. I remember when Moneypenny didn’t step foot in a meeting, but now I’m supposed to believe that both her and Q are involved in directing missions?
So, mix all this up together, chuck in an average baddie who looks and sounds like a lizard, and who wants to take over the world from an island hideaway, then you will be forgiven for slowly walking away to make a cup of tea. Why wasn’t there a little bit of a more realistic plot? Bond isn’t Marvel now surely? There are various ongoing scenarios across the globe that are better suited plot-wise surely? If however, you did make it to the ending, then you will have witnessed our hero being shot, poisoned, and blown up by the Royal Navy. Now if they reincarnate him after all that, all credibility will be out the window as it will surely be as unconvincing as the return of Bobby Ewing on Dallas. Stick to the previous formula please, or its Jason Borne for me every time.

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