Sunday, January 23, 2022

No Time to Die (2021)

The latest James Bond film is a reworking of the novel version of You Only Live Twice (YOLT) with some aspects of On Her Majesty's Secret Service (OHMSS).  Let's take a look at those two books, which the movies are not always faithful in adapting.

In OHMSS, Bond is searching for Blofeld in the wake of Thunderball but has come up empty.  However, he has saved Tracy from committing suicide.  It turns out that Tracy's father is a mobster who offers Bond a fortune to marry his daughter.  She had been suicidal since the death of her daughter, but she wrote highly of Bond in her suicide letter.  Despite his attraction to Tracy, he declines.  He does ask for one favor: does he know where to find Blofeld?  Indeed, he does.  Bond infiltrates Blofeld's Swiss fortress and discovers that Blofled has infected a number of British women with specific viruses that will spread when they return to England.  One has a virus that will ruin the wheat harvest and another to wipe out poultry.  If all of them return, England is going to suffer a famine.  His cover blown, Bond flees and encounters Tracy!  Fleeing together, Bond realizes just how attracted to her he is.  He decides he will marry her and asks her father for a wedding gift: an assault force for Blofeld's stronghold.  Though the plagues are averted, Blofeld escaped.  Bond and Tracy are married but she is killed by Blofeld later that very day.  The movie is surprisingly faithful.

In the YOLT novel, Bond had fallen in depression after the death of his wife and was on the brink of being tossed from the service.  Instead, M gave him an assignment in Japan.  His code number was changed to 7777 and his mission was to acquire intelligence from Taiga Tanaka, head of Japanese Intelligence.  Taiga is willing but he wants something in return.  With the approval of the Japanese government, a foreigner named Shatterhand purchased a castle and its grounds.  He has planted all sorts of deadly plant species around the property.  As such, the castle has become an oasis for the suicide-prone Japanese.  If Bond eliminates Shatterhand, Taiga will share intel.  Though Shatterhand normally appears in full Samuri regalia - including a mask, there is a picture when he is without the mask: it is Ernst Blofeld!  Bond accepted the offer and, as far as the Secret Service was aware, died during his successful effort to destroy Blofeld's lair.  Unbeknownst to them, Bond survived but had amnesia.  A local fishing girl, Kissy Suzuki, had fallen for him and took advantage of his amnesia.  She was also pregnant though Bond is unaware of that when he leaves.  The movie uses the characters and setting but an entirely different plot.

No Time to Die uses many of the parts but reorders them and assigns them to different characters.  The movie picks up immediately after Spectre with Bond (Daniel Craig) and Madeleine (Lea Seydoux) driving in Italy.  In the wake of an assassination attempt on him, Bond leaves Madeleine, believing she had betrayed him.  She is pregnant but he does not know that.  Years pass.  Introduced wearing a Japanese mask, Lyutsifer Safin (Rami Malek) has developed some toxins that only harm specific DNAs; it is safe for most people but lethal to the chosen target.  Bond is no longer in the Secret Service and his code number has been given to another agent, Nomi (Lashana Lynch).  Safin has a grudge against Spectre and uses his designer toxins to kill every member, including the incarcerated Blofeld (Christoph Waltz).  Bond discovers that Safin's base is an island between Japan and Russia.  He and Nomi infiltrate the base, rescue the captured Madeleine and Mathilde (Bond's daughter), and make sure the blast doors are open for an incoming missile strike.  As Bond has been infected with a toxin that is lethal to Madeleine and Mathilde, he stays behind to protect them.  James Bond is dead.

The movie sweeps the field.  Felix Leiter?  Dead.  Ernst Stavro Blofeld?  Dead.  James Bond?  Dead.  How do you move on from here?  Though Nomi was the new 007 in Bond's absence, he regained the number on his final mission.  Well, it's available again and she can have it back.  Even so, I don't see her carrying on the series.  It was always a given that the role would be recast soon, but how does that work?  Is EON embracing the idea that James Bond is just an alias for MI-6's top operative?  Maybe they are going with the Bond multiverse.  In the Daniel Craig-verse, Bond dies.  Sherlock Holmes has been played by many actors but, so far as I know, he's never been killed and there has never been an issue with the Basil Rathbone Holmes vs. the Robert Downey Holmes.  Both are different interpretations of the same character.  The same should be true of Bond.

Not a bad movie, but a real problem for an ongoing series.

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