The Lesser Of Two Evils

I went on holiday recently to the South of France, and because I was flying into Nice Airport and I'm incredibly James Bond obsessed, I watched Never Say Never Again on the plane there.  (Nice Airport, by the way, has been redeveloped so it's entirely unrecognisable from the film; I may as well have watched Alien for its relevance).  On the plane back, I watched Thunderball, and this meant that I was able to do a pretty accurate compare and contrast between the two films.  This means that I can now, with the help of SCIENCE, do a definitive run down of which of the films based on a story by Ian Fleming, Kevin McClory and Jack Whittingham is actually the best film based on a story by Ian Fleming, Kevin McClory and Jack Whittingham.  I should make it clear that neither film is one of my favourites, so when we find which is "best", this is still very much relative.  We will be ranking based on a series of categories which will be exhaustive and exhausting and this will enable a score based total at the end.

TITLE

Considering it doesn't come from the twisted mind of Fleming, Never Say Never Again is actually pretty good.  It's not got "die" in it, it sounds like it should be a proper phrase, it has a meta significance.  It's sort of said in the film.  But Thunderball is a really, really exciting title, and became so legendary they named a lottery game after it.

WINNER: Thunderball

JAMES BOND

Obviously this is the same James Bond, Sir Sean Connery, only with eighteen years between appearances.  The Bond of Never Say Never Again is far more relaxed and casual than the cruel and less, shall we say, reconstructed Bond of Thunderball.  But therein lies one of the faults; the Connery-Bond in 1983 is arriving after ten years of Roger Moore-Bond (and actually, Diamonds Are Forever just before that), so he's been reshaped to reflect what audiences of 1983 expected 007 to be.  He's quippy and suave, but not as interesting as Thunderball Bond.  Also Sean Connery in a cut off wetsuit over tiny white shorts?  HOT.

WINNER: Thunderball

PRE-TITLE SEQUENCE

Obviously I'm including the training exercise as NSNA's pre-titles, because that's clearly what it's intended to be.  Thunderball's got the jet pack and the assassin in drag, both of which are legendary, but I'm going to give it to NSNA.  The later sequence is just more fun to watch; the various different ways the men are killed, the exotic location, the Wendy Leech cameo.  It ends with a moment of genuine surprise, too, with our 007 getting murdered.  Thunderball's sequence is more bitty, more fractured, and the fight is no great shakes either.  Also I hate all that orange dust over the Aston Martin - it looks like it's gone rusty.

WINNER: Never Say Never Again

TITLE SONG

Not even a competition.

WINNER: Thunderball

STORY

Both films are about stealing nuclear weapons and holding the world to ransom, but I'd say that Thunderball hangs together that little bit better.  We really get the sense that this is a crisis in Thunderball, with the conference room full of 00s, the cuts back to the British Government officials, the reminders about how much time they have left.  In NSNA, we get the message from Blofeld being announced to NATO, but after that there only seems to be one person actually looking for the missiles: James Bond.  The Americans seem to only assign Felix Leiter as Bond's assistant, and none of the other countries appear to be doing anything about it at all.  It feels a bit languid.

WINNER: Thunderball

VILLAIN

Emilio Largo looks like a proper villain, of course, with that eyepatch and silver hair and Roman nose.  He also looks like he could properly smack you about - he's a massive beast of a man.  Maximillian Largo, though, is an actual psychopath.  The way he giggles then threatens to cut Domino's throat; the smashing up of the dance studio; the little tune he whistles as he leads his love off to be sold.  Klaus Maria Brandauer's performance is head and shoulders above Adolfo Celi's, and it's not even close.

WINNER: Never Say Never Again

DOMINO

This is a tough one.  Both are played by extremely beautiful women.  Both have an interesting character arc, going from bored mistress to vengeful killer.  Both are, in terms of acting... let's just say Kim Basinger was never going to win her Oscar for this performance.  Claudine Auger's Domino gets more to do - I swear for the first hour of the film all Kim does is wobble her bottom lip and look like she's about to cry - but she's not overly convincing as a trapped woman, and her conversion to Bond's side seems to come out of nowhere.  1983 Domino, on the other hand, definitely grows throughout the film, and she really cares about her brother and what was done to him.

WINNER: Never Say Never Again

VILLAINESS

Fiona Volpe vs Fatima Blush; let's be honest, we'd all tune in to watch that cat fight.  Fatima is undoubtably more comic book than Fiona.  The purring, the elaborate outfits, the dancing down the steps when she gets permission to murder Bond.  She's never anything less than magnificent (which is probably why the official film series ripped off her character wholesale for Xenia in GoldenEye; tell me I'm wrong).  However good she is though, Fiona is just better.  She's sexier (that bed scene is absolute filth), she's funnier (winding Bond up as she drives him through Nassau), she's cleverer.  She commands the men beneath her and even seems to intimidate Largo.  Luciana Paluzzi is an icon.

WINNER: Thunderball

BOND GIRLS

Both films are absolutely stuffed with nubile women in various states of undress.  Bond manages to bed three women in Thunderball and four in Never Say Never Again, which is quite something.  Of the two Patricia Fearings, I'd say Prunella Gee was better than Molly Peters, because she's funnier and cleverer and their relationship is less rapey; however, when it comes to "female assistant who is murdered", Paula Caplan is an actual character, while Nicole is little more than a name.  Thunderball has Mlle LaPorte, a saucy little popsy in a great hat, but NSNA has the Lady In Bahamas, who is played by the magnificent Valerie Leon, and therefore it just squeaks the win on points.

WINNER: Never Say Never Again

MINOR VILLAINS

Vargas does not smoke, does not drink, does not make love.  What do you do, Vargas?  Hang around being a sinister presence, mainly, and doing it very well.  Maximillian Largo doesn't have any henchmen, really, unless you count his nuclear physicist, Kovacs - and even he's not as good as Kutze.  We get two Blofelds, and while NSNA gives him a face and dialogue and he's played by the legendary Max von Sydow, he can't compete with the sinister Thunderball version dispatching traitors with a flick of a switch.

WINNER: Thunderball

FELIX LEITER

Rik Van Nutter is probably one of the best Felix Leiters, which gives you an idea of just how badly the character has been treated over the years.  He's extremely bland.  Bernie Casey, on the other hand, is enormous fun, and once again Eon copied the idea of casting a Black actor in the role when Jeffrey Wright turned up in Casino Royale.

WINNER: Never Say Never Again

GADGETS

I'm not going to compare the two Qs, because that's not a fair fight; obviously Desmond Llewellyn wins that.  Thunderball still wins even if you exclude that factor.  The rebreather, the jet pack, that weird massive air tank Bond wears in the climax - these are all infinitely better than an exploding pen and a motorbike with a rocket boost on it.  Even the villains in Thunderball have better gadgets than 007 in 1983 - the Disco Volante turning out to be a hydrofoil with a heavily armed rear is amazing.

WINNER: Thunderball

SHRUBLANDS

First of all, both Shrublands are kind of grim.  Ken Adams' sets are gleaming curves of Sixties modernism, but the outside is a dump; NSNA's version is Luton Hoo on the outside, and a particularly run down inner city comp on the inside.  Both sequences introduce extremely tenuous reasons for Bond to become involved (which is actually an improvement on the novel, where the whole Shrublands sequence is pretty pointless) but I'd take a discovery of a match book with Largo's company logo over all that interminable nonsense with the bodies being swapped around.  The Lippe in NSNA is basically a thug in a boiler suit but he's still a million times more interesting than Guy Doleman who manages to have negative screen presence.  You have a character called "Count Lippe" and for some reason you cast the most boring Englishman in the world?  As for the threat to Bond's life - give me a lengthy violent fight over 007 being strapped to an aggro ironing board any day.

WINNER: Never Say Never Again

CASINO

In a battle between Monte Carlo and Nassau, you'd expect the Old World to win.  The casino in Thunderball is, however, much more glamorous and aspirational than the one in Never Say Never Again, starting with the guests arriving by speedboat and moving on to the luxurious outfits and trappings.  Thunderball also has chemin de fer rather than the truly terrible Domination game; it's a good sequence, but does it belong in a Bond film?  Absolutely not.  Kim Basinger's dance with Bond is more elaborate than Claudine Auger's, but it also loses its intimacy.

WINNER: Thunderball

ACTION SEQUENCES (ON LAND)

Never Say Never Again has a proper car chase, while Thunderball only has Bond being driven very fast by Fiona.  It's also a bit mad - I love the bit where Bond uses the closing rear of the truck as a ramp - and uses the location really well.  Both films feature a climax that's part underwater, part on land, and both of them are not very good.  The battle in the Tears of Allah cave should be exciting, with guns going off everywhere, but it's actually a little bit confusing, while the fight on the Disco Volante is sped up and oddly edited and has some absolutely terrible blue screen effects.  As previously mentioned, the fight with Lippe is interesting, but is it better than Bond smacking a man in a frock in the face?  The Junkanoo is a great locale for a foot pursuit but actually I think both Moonraker and Spectre did it better.  I think we'll have to give it to NSNA because of that car chase.

WINNER: Never Say Never Again

ACTION SEQUENCES (UNDERWATER)

There are two underwater sequences in Never Say Never Again and they are both awful.  One features a remote controlled shark - I think?  The film is maddeningly vague on this.  Is it meant to be a robot? - and the other is a lot of clattering around behind a floating missile.  Neither is very exciting or intriguing.  On the plus side, they are at least short, unlike literally every underwater sequence in Thunderball.  I'm not sure how many there are - about four hundred - but each one goes on for a minimum of twenty minutes longer than it needed to.  Oh, they're putting a net over the bomber, that's clever.  They're still putting a net over the bomber.  Are we actually going to watch them hammer in the tent pegs?  Apparently we are.  The bit where 007 ends up trapped in a cave may be the single most boring sequence in any James Bond film, ever.  And even the climax, which is a huge achievement from a technical perspective, goes on forever.  Not least because about 80% of it is composed of shots of men getting their masks ripped off or their oxygen pipe cut.  Over and over, cut the cord, rip the mask off, cut the cord, rip the mask off.  ENOUGH.  Never Say Never Again has to win this because even though its sequences are terrible, they are at least short.

WINNER: Never Say Never Again

STUFF THAT HASN'T AGED WELL, AT ALL

You'd expect Thunderball, a product of the 1960s, to be the clear winner here.  And yes, Bond blackmailing Nurse Fearing into a shag is pretty icky (until she realises she loves it really).  NSNA makes his encounter with Pat entirely consensual, but then adds in a load of other stuff that's awful.  Massaging Domino - and doing a lot of eyeballing of her naked body in the process - is not great, and when she learns that the man giving her a rubdown wasn't an employee, Domino actually looks terrified (until she realises she loves it really).  The whole sequence where she's stripped down to her undies in front of a bunch of lecherous Middle Eastern stereotypes so she can be sold to the highest bidder is horrible.  And did Thunderball ever require intervention from the actual RSPCA?  No it did not.  (Although it probably should, because I'm not convinced those sharks getting shot are special effects).  

WINNER: Thunderball

BELOW THE LINE

I'm using this to cover the technical aspects of the films, rather than cover each individually; suffice to say Thunderball wins on pretty much every one.  The production design, the costumes (that lion swimsuit Kim Basinger wears at the end is a crime against women), the sound - all are infinitely superior in the older film.  Even Connery's wig is better in 1965.  The less said about NSNA's music, the better, and Maurice Binder's got a girl getting a spear shot up her nancy in the titles, while NSNA has a load of bright red 007s.  You can see every penny of Thunderball's budget onscreen, while NSNA often looks cheap.  Bond movies should never, ever look cheap.

WINNER: Thunderball

And all that means, once the totals are in, that the winner is...

It was a lot closer than you'd think though, with Thunderball winning 10 categories and Never Say Never Again winning eight.  I think what we can conclude from all of this is that neither film is exactly the series' finest hour, but let's be honest: if it's a Sunday afternoon and you find either one of them showing on ITV3 - you're watching it.

Have No Fear, Mata Bond Is Here

Let's be honest; nobody views Casino Royale (1967)  as a searing feminist masterpiece.  This is, after all, a film that literally uses women as set dressing.  Scene after scene there are random girls loitering in the background, propping up the scenery, washing cars in skintight leather, pressing against Orson Welles' back.  They're all over the place and they very rarely have much to do.

The women with speaking parts don't fare much better.  It's been more than fifty years, so I think it's safe to say that Ursula Andress is terrible in this film.  She doesn't posses a single comic instinct, and it really makes you appreciate the work of Nikki van der Zyl in Dr No because she managed to give Honey emotions that I don't think would be there in Ursula's native voice.  Deborah Kerr has the air of a maiden aunt playing with children at a family party.  She's not entirely sure what's going on, but she's willing to join in and do what the young ones tell her to do.  Angela Scoular would turn in a much better performance as a teenage temptress with a regional accent two years later.  Barbara Bouchet is beautiful but bland as Moneypenny, and while I think Daliah Lavi is underrated - she manages to more than hold her own against a Woody Allen at the height of his scene-stealing powers - she's barely in the film.

Also they make Daliah wear this outfit, which is hands down the worst costume any Bond woman has ever worn, and yes I'm including everything Tiffany Case wears.

Joanna Pettet as Mata Bond, on the other hand?  Incredible.  This is the kind of performance that could've made Casino Royale a success - a sly, tongue in cheek, naughtily sexy performance that in any just universe would've made her a star.  Casino Royale was only her third film, after a string of guest appearances on American telly, and they threw her up against the likes of David Niven, Anna Quayle, Ronnie Corbett and Bernard Cribbins.  I'd argue that she actually outclasses all of them.  You can't take your eyes off her.

Yes, she's gorgeous, and rocking a a metal bikini sixteen years before Carrie Fisher.  Her dance sequence introduction is the kind of entrance that should've had Hollywood beating at her door, like Cameron Diaz in The Mask.  The camera and director absolutely love her.  Joanna's face seems to glow out of the screen.

It's more than that, though: Joanna/Mata is funny.  Bond Girls are very rarely allowed to be funny.  Generally 007 gets all the best lines and when they try to make a girl amusing, they tend to do things to her rather than let her be an active comic partner - think of Tiffany falling off the oil rig, or Goodnight getting locked in a boot, or Stacey thrashing around with a vase while Bond does the actual fighting.  Mata gets proper comic lines and scenes and Joanna carries them easily - Eon could've learned a lot from her.  I love that moment when Sir  James asks her if she learned that language at her fancy finishing school; "no, I taught them," she mutters, subtly, but no less hysterically.  She's in comedy scenes with Cribbins and Corbett and very much not being burnt to a crisp.  (I'm obsessed with the way she shouts "well I don't 'ave any change!" at Cribbins like she's auditioning for Nancy in Oliver!).

She's also having a ball.  The Berlin sequence descends - as with much of Casino Royale - into frenetic slapstick, with Mata spraying a collection of military personnel with a fire extinguisher.  There is a shot of Joanna on the steps, laughing, and I bet if you've seen this film you can absolutely remember that moment because it's pure joy.

Adorable.  Unfortunately, as with so much in this amazing mess of a film, she promptly vanishes from the film save for a couple of brief appearances towards the end.  I'm guessing these were a late reshoot because by now Mata's had a haircut.

Mia Farrow left gagging.  She gets kidnapped in Horseguards Parade by a guardsman (I really wanted them to repeat this sequence with Madeline in No Time To Die) and then carried away in a flying saucer.  She's reduced to being rescued and worse, sidelined, taken out the back entrance by Cooper and not getting to take part in the general insanity of the final fight.  She does still get blown up though, which implies Coop stuck her out by the bins rather than taking her and Moneypenny to safety.

Her last line is "Good heavens, Daddy, I couldn't have enjoyed it more!" and you have to agree with her.  Casino Royale gets a lot of things wrong, but everything to do with Mata is very, very right.  (Except maybe when she says she might've fancied Sir James if he wasn't her dad.  That's a bit weird).  

Angels

The recent death of Raquel Welch produced a lot of obituaries talking about her role as an iconic sex symbol; a woman whose talents and sheer beauty made her transcend being a mere actress and turned her into an icon.  Many of those obituaries also mentioned how, in an alternate universe, Raquel Welch was Domino in Thunderball, until she was released for FantasticVoyage.  

This isn't a blog post about the Domino we could have had.  Instead it's a blog post about mortality, and about how we're now facing up to a new era.

In my head, Bond villains died all the time.  When I was a kid, getting into 007 around the time of the 25th anniversary, many of the great villains were already gone.  Gert Frobe.  Robert Shaw.  Lotte Lenya.  Curt Jurgens.  It was unsurprising.  

The 007 support staff were going too.  Bernard Lee died, and so did Desmond Llewellyn, and Lois Maxwell.  But we'd watched them age and so it felt inevitable.  

Then Bonds themself passed away; Roger Moore and Sean Connery.  But again, that seemed like something that would happen eventually.

Now though?  Now we're losing Bond Girls, and that carries a sadness all of its own.  To quote the documentary, Bond Girls Are Forever, preserved.  Bond Girls are the high point of human existence: beautiful, brave, athletic, smart.  Every Bond Girl is a woman at her absolute peak.

Raquel Welch's death somehow reminded me that the girls of the sixties are now in their eighties at least and, sadly, some of them have already passed.  Honor Blackman has gone.  So has Tania Mallet, and Eunice Gayson, and Zena Marshall.  Molly Peters and Claudine Auger and Mitsouko; Karin Dor and Angela Scoular; Diana Rigg.  These iconic women of the Sixties Bond movies are slowly succumbing to age and there is a deep sadness to it - a different sadness to the loss of Tanya Roberts or Cassandra Harris, Bond Girls taken too soon.

This is a world in which these beautiful, young, lithe, happy women are quietly passing away.  There is a strange sadness to it I can't really articulate.  They were captured on film in iconic roles as a moment of astonishing beauty.  Claudine Auger is that girl in a swimsuit on a beach in the Bahamas - she is eternal.  I can't quite reconcile that with her death.  There's also the sadness of knowing that where these Bond Girls go, others will follow; as John Gardner once wrote, Nothing Lasts For Ever.  It's a strange sadness but it's one I feel profoundly.  A death of hope and beauty that will never be regained.  

Those Cats Are All Dead

The last time we saw the cat:

What happened next:

The last time we saw the cat:

What happened next:

The last time we saw the cat:

What happened next:

The last time we saw the cat:

What happened next:

Someone call the RSPCA, Blofeld is a terrible pet owner.

No Time To Live Twice

I saw No Time To Die for the third time today - Odeon again - and about the third time is when I stop just wallowing in a new Bond film and start actually processing it.  There were a bunch of things I noticed this time I hadn't seen before - though I kept forgetting to look at Nomi's name on Q's readout; does she have a surname or what? - but I also dwelled on all the bits of it that were taken from the novel of You Only Live Twice.  

As I wrote in this piece back in 2017 (wow, No Time To Die has taken forever to reach the screen, hasn't it?) You Only Live Twice is a pretty odd novel, preoccupied with death and decay and with a massive wodge of travelogue in the middle as 007 works his way through Japan.  Much of it is unlikely to ever make it to the screen, unless they can work out a way to get Bond spitting beer onto a cow's back into an action sequence, but there's still enough there to get picked over, and that's what No Time To Die does.  Here's the moments that I can think of.

• Bond is no longer 007, but is given a new number (in the book he becomes 7777, while when he first returns to MI6 and the Double O's in the film Nomi is still 007 and we're not told what number he becomes)
• The Bond Girl has James Bond's baby (within the story in the film, after it in the novel; the Raymond Benson story Blast from the Past posits that his name is James Suzuki and he's murdered by Irma Bunt.  Like a lot of Raymond Benson's writing, it is terrible).
• The villain's headquarters is on a remote island near Japan.
• The villain has a poisonous garden full of plants that can kill (this feature was particularly exciting to see onscreen, though I wish they could've found room for the piranha pool as well).
• When Bond throttles Blofeld, he hisses "Die, Blofeld, die!", although unlike in the book he doesn't strangle him to death.
• M repeats Mary Goodnight's epitaph for Bond - "I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them; I shall use my time."
• Is it stretching things to say that Safin's secret trapdoor exit is reminiscent of the oubliette in Blofeld's castle?

And then there's the ending.  I've made peace with No Time To Die's controversial finish by telling myself they're doing You Only Live Twice and the next book will start like The Man With The Golden Gun.  In the novel, Bond is hit by a bit of debris as he escapes Blofeld's exploding castle and it gives him amnesia.  Kissy Suzuki convinces him he is her husband, and they live happily together for a few months, until he sees the word Vladivostok on a bit of newspaper they use for loo roll and it rings a bell.  The novel ends on a cliffhanger with Bond heading off to Russia to find out more about himself.  At the start of the next novel, The Man With The Golden Gun, we learn he was picked up by the Russians and brainwashed into being their agent.  They send him back to London with a gas gun to murder M.

Here's how you can get out of No Time To Die's ending and into Bond 26.  One of those two ships that are headed for the island finds a battered, barely clinging to life, brain damaged Bond.  They take him away with them to Russia or wherever (the film is careful not to tell us where those two ships are actually coming from; they could be from Russia, or perhaps North Korea, or perhaps Quantum is back).  There's your pre-titles.  He's rebuilt - lots of plastic surgery, cough cough - under the title sequence (a la Die Another Day) then he arrives at MI6 and tries to kill M.  Deprogramme him (Sir James Molony!) then send 007 off to get revenge on the people who tried to turn him against Queen and Country.  This also means that he can either (a) forget all about Madeline and Mathilde because of the brain damage or (b) live with the eternal pain of never being able to see them because of the nanobots.  I'd prefer (a). 

They probably won't do any of that.  They'll probably just start all over again.  But until I see Bond 26, this is the story I've written in my head to stop me getting very annoyed indeed by the end of No Time To Die.  And I'm putting it down on the internet so when Bond is hanging out in a brothel in Sav'la'Mar with a possibly homosexual assassin and a girl with a pet bird you'll all know I was right.   

Roughly Everything That Went Through My Head During No Time To Die

This is a very rough, off the top of my head, not necessarily entirely accurate, not necessarily in the right order, run down of my thought processes while watching the first IMAX showing of No Time To Die at the Liverpool Odeon yesterday morning.  Spoilers abound, obviously.

1. You know, MGM might not be in such a terrible financial state all the time if they didn't keep changing their logo.
2. Get off the screen Universal, this isn't about you!
3. No blood in the gunbarrel?
4. Tamagotchi!
5. This is like some dark French drama that has wandered into a Bond film.
6. It's the Wrong Trousers, Gromit!
7. How old is Madeline meant to be?  And how old is Safin meant to be?
8. Was he wearing a bulletproof vest or did she just miss anything important?
9. Let her drown.
10. That Italian coast looks an awful lot like Jamaica.
11. You take we all the time in the world out of your mouth, that belongs to George Lazenby.
12. This is very pretty.
13. I was going on holiday close to here in 2020.  Sigh.
14. "He had come a long way since then, dodged many bullets and much death and loved many girls, but there had been a drama and poignancy about that particular adventure that every year drew him back to Royale and to its casino and to the small granite cross in the churchyard that simply said 'Vesper Lynd. RIP.'"
15. Although that's a bit more than a granite cross.
16. That made me jump.
17. James Bond's ears must be fucked if this happens every time he's near an explosion.
18. Is that henchman hot?
19. Didn't expect that.  Is his eyeball on a spring?
20. Are we getting the title sequence at any point?
21. This is a properly good car chase.
22. Fuck, didn't expect that crash.
23. It feels a bit weird that Bond is allowed to drive around Europe with this lethal arsenal now he's not a spy any more.
24. That spin shoot thing was good.
25. Yeah, dump her on the train, stuff her.
26. Finally the titles.  Not as bonkers as usual.
27. They cut it off after the big note.  Good.
28. Hugh Dennis!
29. It's a 21st century Kutze.
30. I'm not entirely sure what's going on.
31. There's a lot of people dying.
32. Magnets!  Ok that's delightfully bonkers.
33. Moneypenny!
34. OK, those shorts are a bit tight.
35. Who is paying for this Jamaican bolt hole?  Does MI6 really pay that much that you can retire on it?
36. Someone's been in your house James, are you not more bothered?
37. Billy Magnussen is very pretty.
38. Aw, I like that they're having a good time.  Although I don't understand the game.
39. This is the wildest nightclub in the history of the Bond films.
40. Are they line dancing?
41. Nomi's doing an accent!
42. I love that she's wearing fake hair.
43. Of course she's 007.
44. I like the little wave.  Cocky.
45. Paloma missing picking up her handbag continues to annoy me.
46. Oh she's new.
47. Oh she's amazing.
48. I love Paloma completely.
49. There's the sex traffic woman!
50. Don't they recognise James Bond?
51. An eye on a cushion?  Is this the Addams Family?
52. Those sores are pretty grisly.
53. No, I really, really love Paloma.
54. Where are all these men coming from?
55. Pushing him out the car made me laugh.
56. Surely they're not going to just arrest Nomi?
57. Clever girl.
58. No Paloma, stay!  Come back!
59. No!  Not Billy Magnussen!
60. Did he just shoot Felix?
61. This is a bit brutal.
62. Fuck you, scientist man.
63. They're not going to kill Felix, surely?  Is this their version of feeding him to the sharks?
64. They killed Felix! 
65. Oh there just happens to be a lifeboat nearby.  That's handy.
66. But does he have a Vantage because he used to be Timothy Dalton, or did he just buy one?  Actually that car got blown up, never mind.
67. James Bond with a Visitor pass.
68. "I can see why you shot him."
69. Blofeld's in Belmarsh.  I love that they say Belmarsh like everyone should know what it is.
70. Q's flat is lovely.
71. Q IS A GAY!  OFFICIALLY!
72. Never mind all this, tell your date you can't make it.
73. They're drinking Q's romance wine.
74. The Albert Bridge, the only bridge in London.
75. Is that On Her Majesty's Secret Service in the background?
76. How have I been so thick not to realise who Blofeld's psychiatrist was going to be?
77. She just takes on a new patient without knowing his name, his background, nothing.
78. Are they going to explain that face?
79. She's going to poison Blofeld then.
80. Shake his hand you miserable cow.
81. I like Blofeld's little train.
82. Is Blofeld better or worse this time around?
83. Fuck off with the cuckoo.
84. "Die Blofeld! Die!"
85. Oh, he did.  Good.
86. Really underlines how pointless it was bringing back SPECTRE and Blofeld.  Fucking John Logan.
87. At least they twigged Madeline was responsible.
88. Nanobots?!?!
89. Bond is always three degrees away from sci-fi and it's at its best when it is.
90. So has Madeline kept this place all this time as a summer home and just not mentioned it? 
91. Oh no.
92. Please don't give a shit about the little girl.
93. "She's not yours" - yes, maintain this mystery, so Bond can fuck her off.
94. Although Kissy Suzuki had a baby, didn't she?
95. Mathilde is perfectly fine with Mummy shagging some new bloke then.
96. Why does Mathilde only speak French when she was presumably brought up in London?  Does everyone know Madeline has a child or has she kept her in a cupboard somewhere?
97. Secret islands.  Lovely.
98. There's something wonderful about knowing that a massive car chase is about to start.
99. That didn't take long.
100. More cars!  And a helicopter!  This is glorious.
101. It's turned into Jurassic Park.
102. This is really good.
103. That's a great way to kill him.  Proper nasty.
104. She's not going to drop her toy and leave it behind is she?
105. What was Nomi doing all this time?  Was she having lunch?  Poor show.  She's far too competent to be half an hour behind everyone else.
106. Is she going to drive the car onto the plane?
107. At least this means they're not going to kill Nomi so Bond gets the 007 back.  But what number is she?  Make her 008!  She can replace Bond all the time!
108. A poison garden!  They are doing You Only Live Twice!
109. Let Mathilde touch the poison flowers, whatever.
110. I love this glider thing.
111. Handy they had a secret underground dock that nobody was looking at.
112. Wasn't this electromagnetic watch in one of the computer games?
113. This island base is wonderful.  Ken Adam bonkersness plus plain weirdness.
114. Yes Nomi, smack him one!
115. Why is he putting the mask on the screen, that means nothing to anyone except Madeline.
116. He's not going to just leave Nomi there, is he?
117. Oooh, very zen.
118. So is he just going to wipe people out?  Is there a pattern to it?  Is there a reason?  DID SAFIN DO COVID?!?!
119. This bowing down is a bit much.
120. Comedy trapdoor!
121. So that's it, one bite and you send her running off on her own?  I hope she's full of nanobots.
122. She was under the table!  Fuck off.
123. Go Nomi!  Kill the racist!
124. Has anyone actually said "No Time To Die"?
125. So they're going to just send all the girls off in a boat?  Even Nomi?  Wouldn't she be a great help?
126. Ah those blast doors.
127. There are literally millions of goons in this place.
128. Exploding eye!  Amazing.
129. And a quip!  I miss quips.
130. It's closing again.
131. Those gunshots looked a bit close.
132. Broken arm!  Fucking hell.
133. Ah, so Bond is now infected with the nanobots, so he can never see Madeline or Mathilde again!  Good.
134. He just shot Safin?  Oh.  I thought he was going to drown him in that pool.
135. No, he should've laid in the pool, still alive but unable to move, then when the blast doors opened he'd fall through into the poison pool and disintegrate. 
136. Bond is properly hurt.
137. Oh whatever, Madeline's rubbish anyway.
138. Trying to imagine what Nomi is saying to Mathilde in the background.
139. That rooftop looks very close to the blast site.
140. Fuck off.
141. They can't kill Bond.
142. He'll come back right?
143. Fuck off.
144. "I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them; I shall use my time."  Wonderful.  If wrong.
145. Fuck off Madeline.
146. Is this the original or have they got someone modern to sing it?
147. It's the original!  No!  THIS BELONGS TO BOND AND TRACY.
148. Fuck off.
149. I hate that ending.
150. And where's James Bond Will Return?
151. Fuck off.
152. Although thinking about it, if they are doing You Only Live Twice, then that ends with Bond off to Russia.  And this island is close to Russia.  Maybe they're doing that.
153. Maybe the next one will start with 007 returning brainwashed and trying to kill M.  
154. I don't want them to start all over again again.
155. Maybe they should get Daniel Craig to do another one, just to untangle the mess.
156. Where's the fucking James Bond Will Return?
157. THANK FUCK FOR THAT.

One-liner

 

As I was showering this morning I had my phone on shuffle, and it randomly played Helicopter Ride from Tomorrow Never Dies.  As so often happens I heard the dialogue in my head as it played.

Another Carver building.  If I didn't know better I'd say he'd developed an edifice complex.

It's a stupid, throwaway little joke.  Just a single line for a quick gag.  But as I towelled off, it occurred to me: that doesn't happen any more.  Jokes in the Daniel Craig era - when they occur - are placed very deliberately within the film.  There's a kind of "here's the funny bit!" deliberateness; it's Q, so it'll be funny.  It's this one car chase through Rome, so there will be funny bits.  Much as Cubby used to refer to the action sequences as "bumps", the set-pieces that the film is aiming towards, you get the feeling that the funny parts are marked out on a white board somewhere.

I like Bond films that are funny all the way through.  Not all out comedy but a mix.  Action, comedy, sex, that's what I want from a Bond movie, and it feels lost.  007 should be quipping and laughing and being flippant.  I want that back.