No Time To Die (2021)
The best of the reboot James Bonds. If you like the reboot, possibly the best ever.
~ Aristotle Sabouni
Created: 2021-10-10 |
Just got back from seeing A Time to Die. (Melissa loves them and wanted to go). Not bad… long, but I could tell they were trying to do more backstory to get you bonded (pun intended) to all the characters as this is not a secret that it was Daniel Craig’s last (as he'd said so many times on late-night TV and in all the Hollywood tabloids).
There were rumors of replacing James Blonde with a Black Chick, them going woke, and they were true (hopefully not a big spoiler as it's been talked about for years). But if it had gotten too bad, this would have been our last Bond, and it won't be.
| 🗒️ Note: |
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| I really don't care that Q is gay, it's just that Ian Flemming's originals were more 1950's sexist and thus this feels out of place/time with the original spirit. It's like a black woman is fine for a lead... but as a british spy that could seduce all the women and blend in with Europeans or Russians? |
While there were undertones of wokeness, it didn't feel TOO overpowering to me:
- His replacement is a black female, that gets testy about race
- Q is gay: that's sort of new and seemed completely superfluous information to add -- but it was just more in passing (and checking a box)
- Bond was a retired has-been anachronism trying to hold on to an older way of life (when good and bad were more clear)
...and so on.
Yet, the old guard wasn't all that bad, the central authority was still a bit of fuck-ups (the individual agents were wiser than the bureaucratic collective). And the most progressive was not the good guys.
They probably could have tightened it up a bit (2 hours and 43 minutes). But overall, I’ve liked the reboot (and preferred it to the originals), and it was one of the best ones of this series... and I didn't feel it dragged, though my wife thought it was a bit longer. There was plenty of action interspersed, and it was less campy/over-the-top than the 80's Bond films. So if you liked the darker and broodier reboots with more backstory? It will probably be one of your favorites, if for nothing else than closure to this story arc. If you thought the reboots were slow and broody, this one will probably be fingernails on a cheese grater. For me? Worth the price of admission.
In a few ways I could feel the motivation behind it... make room for the next generation, and get you tied to enough of the characters that you want to see where it goes. But overall the writing, directing, filming was good. There were also some really good tributes to older Bond films in there, to keep the legacy audience placated enough that they'll give the next film a shot. I think they earned a chance at holding my interest...
| 🗒️ Note: |
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| Nolte@Breibart had a much harsher take, pointing out that it only made $56M on it's opening weekend as compared to Skyfall's 88M opening, and Venom 2 opened a couple weeks ago, on fewer screens and with a smaller promotional budget to a $90 million take (this isn't COVID's fault). He's using the "get woke - go broke" as the reason of the dismal start. And I can believe that a black female James Bond and Gay Q both cooled off the enthusiasm for some of the old time fans. And how many new teens are going to get excited about a broody incel 50 something James Bond and his black butch replacement? |
| Tatometer | Summary |
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No Time To Die (2021) - "Get woke, go broke" has exceptions. No time to die, made 3x what it cost, and was a success at the box office, despite introducing Gay-Q, Filmmaker Cary Fukunaga slandering Sean Connery's Bond, and introduction of the Black Female Replacement for James Bond. But there's an asterisk. We'll have to wait for the next isntallment to see if people just wanted to see the final chapter, or whether they bought into Fembo-Black-Bond. |
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