What happens when you infuse the invincibility with vulnerability, when you sprinkle the tenderness of fatherly love on top of the ruthless exterior licensed & primed to kill. What happens when he knows the only way he can be truly happy is by stepping away from those he loves. Spoiler alert for the rest of this review....
This movie experiments with these, in a manner of saying, bi-polar attributes. Its the 007 as he has always been, jumping off a bridge, taking out 3 Range Rovers almost bare handed, operating a World war II era control room only through instinct. But its also a 007 who wonders if the eggs he made are good enough for his daughter and whether the blue eyes she has is indeed something she gets from him, and the best scene of them all - when, after taking out a dozen of so baddies with his Uzi, he finds a doll his daughter had dropped while running away from Safin's layer, he is the villain btw, and grins and tugs this into his belt; grin not smirk. Its strangely satisfying, to see the invincible becoming human, to see the indestructible showing tenderness, to find the common threads of responsibility a father needs to live upto and recognition every father craves. Its a master stroke from the director and the writers. And the ending, wouldn't be fair to spoil that, but its at the same time heartbreaking and soul cleansing!
As for the plot, Safin, one of the disappointments of the film, has a bio weapon (surprise, surprise) that is programmable to target certain DNA types. So you can carry it and not be infected by it till you pass it onto someone who will die from it, and no none of the writers or production crew ever worked in the Wuhan virology lab, apparently......007 must do what he has always done, save the world, destroy the virus/nanobot and take home the blond. Only this time the blond is his own flesh and blood and he is not as successful as he normally is. And that is where the films opposite ends come together, like pieces of a massive jigsaw puzzle, and just click!
As for the other characters Lashana Lynch as the new 007 is a hoot and she can kick, hard. Ralph Fienes is reliable as M, Leya Seydoux is charming as the damaged but caring Madellene, Q is gay. But its Rami Malek's Safin who disappoints. we are not really sure what his abilities are and how he can command an army that beats MI6 agents hands down, even at the end.
But those who say we cannot have a great 007 without a memorable villain are plainly wrong. In its 163 minutes no interval running time, I only looked at my phone once and that too as a call was incoming, I promptly declined. That is the best complement I can pay this movie.
As for the parallels with MR9, we have only ever seen him become human in one of the books, agnipurush, but only briefly, before he turns into the usual avenging angel. Never has anyone dared exploring the depths of his emotions, and never was it done for a Bond franchise movie, before this.
As the intro from Kazida goes for the books, 'sobaike tane, kintu karo sathe badhon e joraina' was an apt description for both the alpha males. But this time one of them fell for the human trap - hook, line and sinker - and the result is a deliciously 7 course meal of a movie.
Go on now, watch it!