James Bond is going to be more obnoxiously woke and preachy than ever before in the upcoming No Time to Die.
Not only will a black woman be introduced as the new 007, Bond himself will drive an electric car and be married to a bossy feminist who refuses to take his name.
The Daily Mail reports the latest Bond film, number 25, which hits the big screen in April, will have “Bond marrying Dr Madeleine Swann – the psychologist played by French actress Lea Seydoux who first appeared in 2015’s Spectre. But she refuses to take her new husband’s name.”
Dr. Madeleine Swan?
What kind of stupid name is that?
What happened to Dr. Goodhead? And if you can’t bring her back, why not Dr. Getaloadofmytatas?
Anyway, while James Cuck is being bossed around by his insufferable wife, he’ll also be driving an electric Aston Martin, the $250,000 Rapide E model, that comes with a bumper sticker that reads “I Heart Obamacare,” at least according to my sources that don’t exist.
You will also be heartened to know that no water bottles were killed during filming.
“Crew members were given reusable water bottles which they filled from taps, saving an estimated 230,000 single-use plastic water bottles,” which I’m sure offset at least one-millionth of one-percent of the carbon burned to fly hundreds of people all around the world to film this $200 million sequel.
What’s so annoying about this is the Year Zero bullshit. Just like Black Panther attempted to pretend it was the first big budget comic book movie with a black superhero (not even close), No Time to Die is pretending to be the first Bond woman with strong female characters.
That is such a lie.
A quarter of a century ago Judi Dench showed up as M in Goldeneye to attack Bond as “a misogynist dinosaur.” There was Octopussy in Octopussy 36 years ago. Mayday in A View to a Kill (1985), a strong, black woman. Michelle Yeoh was every inch Bond’s equal in Tomorrow Never Dies (1997). Sophie Marceu was a terrific villain in The World Is Not Enough (1999). Vesper Lynde (Eva Green) in Casino Royale (2006)… Come on, y’all… Stop treating us like idiots.
The idea of strong women in a James Bond movies is old enough to graduate from law school, but here we are again with this woke crap, this insufferable propaganda, where the only thing new is an off-putting, anti-male stridency that has already killed a number of franchises, including Terminator, Ghostbusters, and Men In Black.
American audiences have accepted strong, independent-minded, female protagonists going back 80 years to the era of Katharine Hepburn, Bette Davis, Barbara Stanwyck, and countless others. American audience have accepted women as action heroes going back nearly 50 years to Pam Grier, and 30 years to Aliens and Terminator 2, and on and on and on…
What audiences cannot stand are these sanctimonious the future is female lectures that are not “inclusive,” but instead divisive in how they insult and demean men, how they talk down to us, how they hector us as bigoted and unenlightened for believing electric cars are “gay” and our instinctual understanding that anyone — male of female — who runs around with an “empowerment” chip on their shoulder is in reality a humorless, stuffy neurotic begging to be taken down a notch or two by a real man – – a John Wayne or a Robert Mitchum, not a walking vagina who drives an electric car.
And this is just bad storytelling. These moments are going to take us out of the movie and break the spell by annoying us. It’s all so off-putting, and Craig’s run as James bond is already spotty. Casino Royale and Skyfall were superb, but Quantum of Suck and Spectre were dreadful. And here’s why…
In the past, even the worst Bond movies — A View to a Kill, Die Another Day, Never Say Never Again — are still James Bond movies: all the trappings are still there. Craig’s bad James Bond movies are not James Bond movies, they are bad Jason Bourne movies, and a bad Jason Bourne movie is just a bad movie.
The Daily Mail reports Bond will still hurl some double entendres, which, I guess, is supposed to comfort us. But double entendres coming from a guy who drives an electric car is like a “Live Free or Die” sticker on a moped. Lemme guess, he murmurs them while washing dishes so his wife won’t hear.
This is supposed to be Craig’s final go-around as 007, and he will be no big loss. He has none of the effortless charm, panache, and wit the role requires. Brooding heroes are a dime a dozen. But when you look at the downward spiral this franchise has been in, we may look back on the Craig era as the good old days.
Forty-eight years ago, I saw Diamonds are Forever in the theater. That was 16 movies ago, and this is the first time I’ve dreaded the next one.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.
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