So there it is, the final Craig Bond film.
I started fairly ambivalent about this movie. I still don’t know quite what to think of it, usually to me that means the movie’s bad, typically, but it’s not the case here. There are some genuinely good things in this Bond, bold narrative choices, bold characterization too. This is going to remain spoiler-free so I won’t go into details, but here goes…
Like the previous Casio Royale/Quantum of Solace diptych, NTTD serves as a direct sequel to Spectre, which in my mind is the worst of the Craig outings, and one of the worst Bond movies overall. There were production issues and delays, Danny Boyle was initially slated to direct but later dropped out and it doesn’t help that there was much hype about Fleabag‘s Phoebe Waller-Bridge being brought in for script duties after the director swap, and I really didn’t click with Fleabag… So let’s just say that I came in with low expectations.
Turns out that, in many respects, NTTD is a very respectable Bond movie, and an ambitious one at that. Comparisons abound with On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, and with reason, as it explicitly hangs over the movie with all kinds of subtle and not-so-subtle references. Bold choices, I said above, and high stakes, believable stakes that lead to realistic and shocking consequences all the way to the final scenes… This is a movie where Bond hurts, where you actually do fear for his and his companions’ lives, where the villain is pragmatic and cold and won’t hesitate to shoot you, plot armor be damned.
As a Bond movie, as the final Craig Bond movie, it works. It’s not just a sequel to Spectre, it closes an arc that was started all the way back with Casino Royale. In The World is Not Enough, Q famously told Bond, “Never let them see you bleed.” Daniel Craig’s tenure as Bond has him bleeding, literally and metaphorically, a broken man haunted by personal demons, fighting to make a broken world better.
However, the movie also suffers from several issues. It is long, and it makes you feel it, and there are several instances where some trimming could have made it tighter. If characterization as a whole improves overall, especially with everyone returning from Spectre getting much richer dialogue and scenes, the only exception to this would be with M’s badass decay from Spectre and Skyfall, as his plot-related oversights prior to the movie caused the whole mess… The movie also introduces Lashana Lynch as the new 007 (not the new James Bond) and while I have no problem with her performance, I did feel her characterization was a bit on the nose to contrast with Craig’s more “old school” approach.
Discussing specifics would lead me to spoiler territory, so I’ll just stop here. Overall, this is a spectacular Bond outing and a fitting send-off for Daniel Craig. The pacing is messy but the punches land and the movie sticks the landing in a way that both serves the story and is satisfying to me as a viewer. Like OHMSS before it, NTTD breaks the mold and goes where no Bond movie has gone before, ever. And for that, I think it deserves quite a bit of respect.
4/5