Today I Watched No Time To Die Starring Bond... James Bond

Did you see it, or did you no time to die before it came out?

Somebody is going to die… That person is James Bond and the thousands of people he kills leading up to it.

Today, I turned on the last James Bond movie they made since 2021 - No Time To Die (2021). I'd only watched the latter third of the movie the first time. All I'd manage to glean from that was that James Bond had retired, “007” was replaced by the gorgeous Lashana Lynch, James Bond had a daughter he didn’t know about, and James Bond dies at the end... finally. I just wanted to know how we got there.

No Love For James Bond

I never cared about James Bond growing up. This was not essential viewing at my house. I asked my father about the James Bond movies today. He shrugged and said, "James Bond is white.”

I completely understood.

I once caught License to Kill on television and all I could think was how square all the 80's cars looked. There was also a cartoon about James Bond that came out in 1991 for one 65-episode season. It wasn’t about James Bond though. It was about James Bond’s nephew, James Bond Jr. Despite its bitchin theme song, why would anyone name their kid after their brother? Plus cartoon characters aren’t allowed to kill anyone so what was the point? It came out, no one watched it, then it disappeared forever.

To me, James Bond was a guy who traveled to far-off places and committed violence as soon as he got there. It didn't matter if he was in the UK, Haiti, or the Moon. I knew what would happen, and never learned to care about any of it. 

As an 80s/90's kid, I didn't start to appreciate James Bond movies until Goldeneye came out. I mean the Goldeneye game, not the movie. It was a 4-player Nintendo 64 classic. Shortly after it came out, my friends and I skipped school and rented a copy of the game from Blockbuster Video. It was normally unavailable. Unfortunately, we didn't have enough controllers for sweet 4-player action.

We drove all over town to every mom we could find trying to borrow their son’s controllers. They asked why we weren’t in school and we’d tell them we only had a half day due to jobs we didn’t have. Obviously, they didn’t believe us, but we eventually got the extra controllers we needed, drove to Lee's house, and started to play. Unfortunately, I didn't call the school or the coaches to say we wouldn't be there. I had never skipped school before so we all got caught, but that's a story to Die Another Day. 

The Miracle Cartridge

It was also at my friend Lee's house where I got to watch the Goldeneye (1995) movie. I found out I was completely correct about Bond flying around the world doing violence to people, but Pierce Brosnan made it look cool. He’d just become the new James Bond, Sean Bean made a great villain, and Famke Janssen killed men with her thighs. What's not to enjoy? 

While the next three of the Brosnan Bond movies weren't as good as Goldeneye, Brosnan was good in particular because he could say some godawful lines with a whole lot of panache. In The World Is Not Enough (1999) they make Denise Richards a doctor (weird) and name her "Christmas Jones (even weirder)." At the end of the movie during sexy time, Brosnan is lying on top of Denise at a hotel and says to her, "I thought Christmas only comes once a year." The audacity! Only someone like Pierce Brosnan could deliver a line like that and it not being considered weird or gross. Still, I think that's what may have ended his time as James Bond. 

The New (Old) James Bond

When Daniel Craig stepped into the role, I started paying more attention to James Bond. I was a little older, I had some previous information, and I’d watched all of the Austin Powers movies about a time-traveling 60’s spy that lampooned the hell out of James Bond movies. Those Mike Myers movies were funny at the time but are too 90s topical to watch now. At least Beyoncé got a start for her acting career there.

It took the producers four years to bring James Bond back to theatres with more everything. More gunplay, more ridiculous titles (what is a Quantum of Solace), more characters crying tears made of glass.,and more martial arts than Michelle Yeoh (who was in Tomorrow Never Dies with Pierce Brosnan). 

This time, they didn't bother with wacky lines about Christmas coming. These new movies jumped fully on the violence train and never looked back. That's why Daniel Craig, in my opinion, is the best James Bond actor. I am aware that Sean Connery played James Bond in 6 movies, but as director Cary Fukunaga described, “Sean Connery's version of Bond as 'basically a rapist'.” Plus Connery blurted out how it was cool to give your wife an open-handed slap cause women always want the last word AND Connery also was in Zardoz (here’s a trailer). That movie was so bad Connery flew right off my list. 

If I have to watch James Bond, I'd prefer they take it seriously. The first Casino Royale was a comedy. The Casino Royale remake with Daniel Craig 40 years later is all about that James Bond shit. That means running around the world and murdering people with your license to kill. Even if they do the films correctly, I couldn’t care why or where James Bond was going. He just shows up somewhere new and plays the pow-pow game with his PP7 or whatever guns were lying around. I also started to recognize tropes from other James Bond and Austin Powers films. They've made 27 James Bond movies and three Austin Powers films. James Bond is one of the only film franchises that can trope itself over and over again. 

The Non-Bond Fan's Review of No Time To Die

If we've learned anything from this post, it's that I have little respect for James Bond and the host of movies he’s been in. I don't know what's happening and I don't care what's happening. James Bond was this weird, racist, sexist man my friend's dads seemed to like. I’m not saying they’ve internalized that sexism, I’m just saying watch your back whenever they’re around. Watch this video to get a taste of what the James Bond movies were like before Daniel Craig stepped onto the scene.

No Time To Die is a James Bond that doesn't do any of this, and it’s the last one Daniel Craig would make before moving over to be the Foghorn Leghorn-sounding detective, Benoit Blanc. Blanc is a gay detective that loves to solve a good crime as seen in Knives Out and Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery. Definitely check those out if you haven’t seen them yet.

This No Time To Die rewatch gave me questions I wanted answers to. It gave me stakes I could appreciate. It gave me all the drama for both me and my mama. Not that she would watch this film especially after Jeffery Wright dies from his new partner's bullet. Luckily, Lashana Lynch was there to give Bond her smart mouth and make him feel like shit for half the movie. I love when James Bond feels like shit.

Daniel Craig as Benoit Blanc, the most important character he’s ever played.

No Time To Die was fun at the beginning and kind of sad at the end. It's divorced from much of that sexism and racism the pre-Daniel Craig movies had. I expected to check it out for 20 to 30 minutes while drinking a smoothie, but I stayed until the end. Yes, James Bond dies at the end... Finally.

There was this theory people used to have that “James Bond” was the title given to the best and most murderous MI6 agents. Each person taking over “007” would also take on the title of “James Bond.” This movie threw that out the window. If that were the case, we'd be into Lashana Lynch's second James Bond movie by now. 

Lashana looking hotter than your mama.

Since we haven't seen any sign of the James Bond franchise in the last few years, and they (thankfully) killed their lead, we can assume they're taking another break. So there have been talks about the next man to play James Bond, and a bunch of people got mad when they brought up Idris Elba as a contender. I wonder why that was (no I'm kidding... I know exactly why). To fix this problem they should make the next James Bond an Arab woman. I’m sure Momtaz (Lucie Shorthouse) from We Are Lady Parts, would be honored to take on such a coveted role. Don’t forget the niqab! I’m putting this whole movie together in my head right now!

Hopefully, the owners of this James Bond thing have learned from their time in the Daniel Craig era. I don't like James Bond so much, but many people do. Movie audiences love violence when it matters. At least I love violence when it matters. James may have overworked that license to kill in No Time To Die, but nothing should stop him when he's got his own family to save. Interestingly, the death of James Bond is the only thing that could make me want more James Bond.

It's funny how that works.

Thanks for reading! As always, if you like it share it. If you love it, throw dollars at it!