License To Print Money

 When I first started formulating this entry, it was a review of the film No Time To Die. My family and I went out to the moving picture show and that was the title we chose from among several. All three of us had been anticipating this event movie for several months. Delays in release caused by a global pandemic and its complications heightened the thrill of seeing James Bond on the big screen. This wait compounded the fever surrounding what had been announced as Daniel Craig's last turn as 007. 

I will expect that if you were born, as I was, during the Cold War and grew up with the regular installment of Ian Fleming's superspy adventures, then you won't care a lot about what I might have to say about this final installment. Final installment featuring the only blonde Bond. And here is where I encourage those of you who are prone to fits of rage when bits of pop culture are discussed without your prior consent. There will be discussion of the beginning, middle and end of the film. So spoil it at your own risk, because in the next few lines you will hear how James Bond dies.

Dies. Yes, it was somehow important to the producers of this big budget blockbuster to kill off their cash cow. Shortly after they revealed that James Bond was a daddy. Not that the potential for many children scattered across the globe wouldn't be possible given decades of sleeping around with fortune tellers and other spies and everyone except Miss Moneypenny. Which wasn't really the part that disappointed me about this episode. It went on for more than two and a half hours, and just barely had time to explain itself as it moved from one set piece to another, and somewhere in there we were asked to believe that Mister License To Kill had finally decided to settle down. 

But first, of course, he would have to save the world. From that guy who played Freddie Mercury with a case of varicose face. Not gold, or nuclear missiles, this time. A super virus that can be targeted to kill via DNA. Or something like that. Which may have been another element in the delay of the film's release. Deadly viruses? What's so thrilling about that? We've got one just like it in the living room. 

Along the way, there were plenty of car chases and explosions. And gunfire. It wasn't until the next morning that I woke up and realized that I may have had my fill of gunplay. There was a time when it was thrilling to watch the good guy dodge bullets before putting a piece of lead between the eyes of the bad guy. Now I can't look at those moments when crowds of henchmen are mowed down without wondering what sort of death and dismemberment clause their evil employer must have for them. Does their insurance pay off double when they are shot up by 007? What about if they get a quip tossed in on top for good measure? How about the guy whose family is waiting at home for daddy, who got his job because a friend recommended him after he lost his spot at the local hardware store? Not to mention all those minions clad in color-coded coveralls who were just stirring the big vat of poison when the place started exploding? That's no kind of life. 

And neither is being a "double naught spy." At the moment that James Bond was ready to ride off into the sunset, he was infected with the disease that would make him unable to contact the love of his life and their toddler daughter. Which is just as well, since the scene in which James uncomfortably makes breakfast for his newly discovered little girl is not the reason people flock to the cinema to see Bond. James Bond. 

Then there's this: After M and Q and assorted other members of the alphabet have toasted our fallen hero, the credits roll. He's gone. Farewell. Adieu. Then we read "James Bond Will Return." My question at this point was not "How" but "Why?"