That film ends with the revelation that Bond’s first true love, Vesper, was being blackmailed by a villainous figure. That refusal to establish Bond film continuity changed in a big way with Casino Royale (2006), the first to star Daniel Craig in its title role. Even when Bond hunts down Blofeld, the man he presumably holds responsible for his wife’s death, he never even mentions Tracy’s name. Even when Bond’s wife was murdered on their wedding day in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969), she’s never even mentioned in the film’s sequel, Diamonds Are Forever (1971). The next movie may star the same actor or a different one, but rarely does anything of real consequence-romances, villainous encounters-carry over from film to film. Bond movies usually end with the successful destruction of a villain’s lair, and the camera panning away as the hero beds a Bond girl-on a boat, in space, on a balcony, often with his would-be rescuers looking on.

The awful truth is that M has allowed “Heracles” to be compromised by the creepy Blofeld (Christoph Waltz) who is being kept by the Brits in Lecter-ish imprisonment, but has managed to direct this new plan from his hi-tech cell, but who is now himself under attack by the new ubervillain in town – Safin, played with pouting disdain by Rami Malek, another in the endless gallery of antagonists who have conceived a personal obsession with Bond himself.In the franchise’s storied 58-year history, 007 has never actually died. The Cuban nightclub scene has something genuinely bizarre about it, bringing us a henchman with a surreal glass eye. Photograph: Dan Jaq/Nicola Dove/Allstar/MGM/Universalīut the Americans, in the form of his old buddy Felix Leiter (Jeffrey Wright) and an uptight new state department appointee Logan Ash (Billy Magnussen) persuade Bond to take on the job as a freelance, and send him to Cuba, where he liaises with an untrained operative: Paloma – a witty and unworldly turn from Ana de Armas whose rapport with Craig recalls their chemistry in Knives Out. ‘Another in the endless gallery of antagonists who have conceived a personal obsession with Bond himself’ … Rami Malek.

But a shocking act of violence destroys their idyll, as we knew it must, and Bond has some spectacular stunts as he hurls himself from a bridge. Photograph: Dan Jaq/Nicola Dove/Allstar/MGM/UniversalĪnd Craig’s final film as the diva of British intelligence is an epic barnstormer, with the script from Neal Purvis, Robert Wade and Phoebe Waller-Bridge delivering pathos, drama, camp comedy (Bond will call M “darling” in moments of tetchiness), heartbreak, macabre horror, and outrageously silly old-fashioned action in a movie which calls to mind the world of Dr No on his island.ĭirector Cary Fukunaga delivers it with terrific panache, and the film also shows us a romantic Bond, a uxorious Bond, a Bond who is unafraid of showing his feelings, like the old softie he’s turned out to be.Ī queasy and dreamlike prelude hints at a terrible formative trauma in the childhood of Dr Madeleine Swann (a gorgeously reserved Léa Seydoux), that enigmatic figure we saw in the last movie who is now enjoying a romantic getaway with James. Lashana Lynch and Lea Seydoux in No Time to Die.

James bond no time to due