Is It Just Me Or Does No Time To Die Not Look Very Good?

Let me start off by saying that I am a huge James Bond fan. My love of cinema comes from my love of James Bond, and I’ve been very much looking forward to seeing James Bond return in No Time To Die.

I used to collect the Bond films on VHS growing up, and it was always a huge deal when I got a new one to watch and I would sit in front of the television and watch whichever Bond film it was over and over again.

I still have that collection of Bond films on VHS and I’ll treasure it for as long as I live, just as I’ll treasure the Bond franchise. However, I’ve had some issues with the recent Bond movies, and it seems as though they haven’t really sorted them out in the upcoming Bond movie, No Time To Die.

However, before embarking on this rant after having just seen the No Time To Die trailer, I will say that I believe Daniel Craig is the best iteration of Bond.

Some people may disagree with that statement and cry out that Sean Connery was the best Bond ever, or even Peirce Brosan (although, both versions of the double 0 agents are problematic).

I would argue that they are most definitely of their time, and Craig has been the perfect Bond for our time, and I was hoping that No Time To Die would see him gracefully leave the role and enter it into a new and possibly even better era for the franchise.

Is James Bond falling back into old bad habits in No Time To Die?

Ernst Stavro Blofeld is back in No Time To Die (Credit: Universal Pictures)

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Yet, after having watched No Time To Die’s trailer, I’m a bit worried. First off, despite Craig’s excellent performances as Bond, the franchise isn’t in the best of shape after Spectre, which really saw the British secret agent revert back into old habits.

Bringing back Earnst Stavro Blofeld for instance. The way he and the franchise treat women (I’m talking specifically of the Monica Bellucci scene in Spectre, which is a complete disgrace in my eyes). There’s also the film’s convoluted plot, which makes no sense and harkens back to films like Quantum of Solace, which is something they should avoid.

Unfortunately, after having watched the trailer for No Time To Die, I think they’re on the cusp of repeating the same mistakes.

Bring back Christophe Waltz’s Blofeld, for instance. They don’t need to bring him back at all. Moreover, the scene seems to be mimicking the great scene in Skyfall where Bond questions Javier Bardem’s Raoul Silva.

Can’t they not try and come up with something slightly more original than that? They’ve already done this scene and it was perfect.

I understand bringing the likes of Léa Seydoux back. I even understand having Waltz’s Blofeld in the movie, but all these Craig Bond films have felt like one villain telling 007 that there’s an even scarier villain lurking just behind the corner.

Do we really want to have to rewatch Spectre before seeing No Time To Die?

Daniel Craig as James Bond in No Time To Die (Credit: Universal Pictures)

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I do wonder whether their attempt to make all these Bond films connected is the issue here, because people just cannot remember, and in Spectre’s case, do not want to remember what happened before.

Bond’s never been about the continuation of a story. They’ve each been individual, self-contained stories, and I feel that No Time To Die is going to fall into the trap that Spectre did.

It feels like it wants to bring in all the loose threads of story which have been kind of left all over the place after four movies, and tie it all up in a big nice bow.

But we all know what happens when we’re dealing with too much thread. Everything ends up becoming a horribly tangled mess and it takes days to untangle it all.

That’s what I think is happening here, and might be one of the reasons why Danny Boyle and MGM fell out over this Bond movie.

Then we have Rami Malek’s villain. His character’s been described by producer Barbara Broccoli as “the one that really gets under Bond’s skin. He’s a nasty piece of work”.

Didn’t they say the same exactly the same thing about Christophe Waltz’s Blofeld? I’m pretty sure they did.

Do all Bond villains have to be hideously scarred or disfigured?

Rami Malek in No Time To Die (Credit: Universal Pictures)

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I’ve said this before, I’m not the biggest fan of Malek, so maybe I’m biased, but his villain does look like The Phantom Of The Opera, and what’s up with Bond villains all being hideous scarred or disfigured?

Is this really the message they want to put out there?

That said, there’s a lot to like about this trailer. I’m really looking forward to seeing Lashana Lynch as the ‘new 007’, and I really can’t wait to hear the film’s dialogue after it was revealed Daniel Craig brought in Phoebe Waller-Bridge to work on the script.

There’s also the inclusion of some shots which I believe will become iconic. Shots like the masked face seen through the misted glass. I really like that shot. And I also think No Time To Die will feature a grandstanding performance from Daniel Craig as Bond.

I also enjoyed the return of the iconic Bond Aston Martin. The DB5 just screams James Bond, it looks great in this movie, and has some pretty cool machine guns behind its front lights.

They do say never judge a film by it’s trailer, and maybe I’m being a tad harsh on a movie I haven’t seen yet, but I couldn’t help having these thoughts run through my head whilst watching No Time To Die’s first trailer.

What do you make of No Time To Die’s trailer? Let me know in the comments below.

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