The plot is basically:
spoiler
Lab leak virus used by Russian scientist and evil Egyptian man (I guess) to do white genocide (literally, but it's only mentioned in a couple second graphic and one sentence from the Russian) from Soviet communist bunker. Thwarted by James Bond and British government violating international law, also saving Bond's girlfriend and blue-eyed (this is mentioned a bunch) blonde haired aryan daughter.
Bond movies (specifically Craig movies) are kind of my guilty pleasure despite all the obviously problematic stuff. I mostly enjoyed it even though it's extremely messy and chauvanist and the ending is so hilarious I couldn't take it seriously at all.
spoilers for ending
He has his big final showdown with the [boring, awful] villain who infects Bond with the Virus(TM) which makes it so if he ever touches his gf or his daughter, they will instantly die a horrific death. The Virus(TM) is actually nanobots that target DNA, so in theory if the nanobots are destroyed/disabled somehow he'd be cured. Conveniently, Q gives him an EMP watch earlier in the movie that should do the trick, right? Nope, instead he decides he must stay on the island as it's blown up and die for no fucking reason. It's a super drawn out, overdramatic death scene too, and the shot where he's just standing there watching 20 missiles slowly come at him while swelling orchestral music plays is so fucking funny that I couldn't stop laughing. What a shit way to send off that character.
I liked most of the rest of the movie though barring the weird lab-leak shit. The cinematography in particular is fantastic in pretty much all the Craig films.
Also Ana de Armas' scene is really cool and Bond actually doesn't sleep with her which is :halal:
Yeah the cinematography for these movies is always great. The villain "lair" on the island, although kinda empty, was pretty interesting looking too. And yeah thankfully they got the sex scene out of the way with at the beginning and teased another one at least 3 other times but it never happened xD.
spoiler
Conveniently, Q gives him an EMP watch earlier in the movie that should do the trick, right? Nope, instead he decides he must stay on the island as it’s blown up and die for no fucking reason.
Well conveniently earlier Q also tells him there is no way to get rid of the nanobots (really, there's no possible vaccine!?)
I agree completely though, the ending was hilariously bad. The worst possible way for Bond to die. LITERALLY FROM FRIENDLY FIRE FROM BOMBS THEY DIDN'T EVEN NEED TO USE. Why was there so much urgency to carpet bomb an island?!?! And all they needed to do was fire into the missile silos or use a bunker-buster or just do nothing. Bond could have died fighting some ruthless villain in a Sherlock Holmes waterfall type scene. It could have been anything. But he dies just standing there, doesn't even get a good ending line! And the movie isn't even over at that point.
And the closing quote:
"The function of man is to live, not to exist.
I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them.
I shall use my time."
sounds like they're anti-lock down boomers or something xD
"The function of man is to live, not to exist.
I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them.
I shall use my time."
And the subconscious suicide cult of capitalism marches on.
"Having a sense of self-preservation? Pretty sus, bro."
And the movie isn’t even over at that point.
Oh god I actually forgot about the very end
spoiler
"I want to tell you about a man named...Bond.........James Bond" um uh she knows him. They just met and he saved her life like 5 times! And the MI6 people randomly standing around dressed in black, it didn't even seem like they missed him at all and just wanted to get back to work :michael-laugh:
They have major flaws (one of them being the length of the movie, could use some trimming down) but I really liked the last two Bond movies. Casino Royale and skyfall were great movies, but felt very different from usual Bond campiness. I liked that the last two bond movies tried to find a synthesis between the new and old bond styles.
The rather short scenes with Ana de Armas were the only ones which drew my attention. Everything else, basically entire movie, was boring, dumb and trashy.
Lol you can tell that it was originally just nanobots and they reshot parts of it to make it a nanobot virus so it's topical. They rarely refer to it as a virus outside of like the first scene where they break into that lab.
Yeah good point. The lab stuff was definitely added in later. The whole DNA-targeter trope has been around for a long time as I saw pointed out by I think Yasha Levine. So it was probably a pretty generic story without much real world connection until they made it a virus lab-leak dealio. But the plot otherwise is still basically Metal Gear Solid 5.
I don't even think they were doing a lab leak theory thing. As you said DNA triggered nanobots is just something you'd expect a Bond villain to do, and breaking into virology lab and making it a virus is basically just a marketing gimmick. It's about what you'd expect when an industry offloads creative decisions to spreadsheets and focus groups.
I'm watching it rn wtf is this Cuba scene it's like they think Cuba is still under Batista. Like the club is straight out of the club in Soy Cuba with a bunch of bourgeoisie walking around like gods being tended to by working Cubans
Yeah not sure what the deal with the Cuba stuff is. But it's far less offensive than it easily could have been. They didn't even hurt the cops that show up at the end of the scene.
I fell asleep half way through and I'm not usually a movie sleeper
It was definitely a much worse movie than the first three Craig movies. It feels like they
rewrote the entire movieadded the lab-theft part just to take advantage of COVID-19 to do a super sus lab leak plot. The ending was so so bad. Extremely anti-climactic and made no sense.Guess it did get a bunch of rewrites and the director was changed (but the director change was before the pandemic) https://movieweb.com/no-time-to-die-script-changes-during-production/
I hated the big bad weapon so much in this movie, when I found out it was
spoiler
Fucking nanobots, I stopped enjoying it because that's something that mission impossible might have done, but in a better way and they would have found a cure for it. Not tell us repeatedly nothing can be done about them. What the fuck are the stakes at that point.
Otherwise it has great cinematography, it was sort of enjoyable except they make it seem like there are still rich perverts at a club in Cuba.
yeah lol nanobots are so overdone.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhMsboqMMzs
Can we go back to the James Bond who disarms a bomb while wearing a clown costume again?
I watch Bond movies to see a cartoonish villain drown in a pool of acid while the "danger level" meter rises and Bond gets dangled over a tank full of hungry sharks, not some dark and brooding half-assed story desperately trying to be some sort of commentary.
Basically anything that isn't explicitly a comedy tries to do this now. James Bond is an international superspy with sci-fi gadgets for fucks sake. This is second only to any Marvel movie trying to be deep.
Meanwhile MI6 in Cambridge is like. 😙 :stalin-shining: :hammer-sickle: :lenin-heart:
Also the shoehorned references to OHMSS, at least that movie wasn't trashfire
I watched this movie when it came out and I have literally no recollection of what happened other than some virus shit and Cuba was in it lmao
The intro was good with a kinetic chase scene and some good old Bond misogyny, Ana de Armas was awesome, rest was eh.
