It’s been a relatively long time since we last saw James Bond on the big screen. While audiences at this point have been conditioned to expect a new 007 adventure to hit theaters every three or four years, the wait since the release of Sam Mendes’ Spectre has gone on nearly six years, largely because of delays due to the pandemic. Fans have been forced to be extra patient during this time, but soon all of that patience will pay off, as Cary Fukunaga’s No Time To Die is right around the corner – and today we have extra reason to be hyped thanks to extended footage that was just shown at CinemaCon.
The annual convention for movie theaters is being held in Las Vegas, Nevada this week, and this morning saw executives from MGM and United Artists take the stage at the Colosseum in Caesars Palace to deliver a preview of their upcoming slate. The big showstopper at the end of the presentation was an extended preview of the new James Bond film, as a full 10 minute sequence was shown to the crowd of exhibitors and press, featuring the central hero escaping for his life and questioning a key relationship in his life.
The sequence opens with James Bond (Daniel Craig) seemingly recovering from an explosion in an unidentified European city, laying on the ground unconscious and covered in dust. As he wakes up, he struggles to get to his feet and the audience experiences the same fuzzy hearing as the protagonist – again, as though a loud bomb has gone off close by. Not wasting any time, he reaches into his pocket for his phone so that he can call somebody, but it proves to be a fruitless exercise as he can’t communicate with who it is that he tries to reach.
Running off, James Bond arrives on a bridge and sees a young man about 50 feet in front of him - who turns as 007 arrives. It’s a quick interaction, however, as from behind Bond we see a black car pull up menacingly. Immediately clocking it as a threat, the hero ducks behind a large stone jutting out from the wall along the side of the bridge, and the vehicle barely misses hitting him as its left front tire hits the stone and continues driving momentarily at a 45 degree angle. As the car gets to the other end of the bridge and turns around, a motorcycle arrives where the car initially was, giving the British spy target no way to escape.
Thinking quickly, James Bond grabs a support cable from alongside the wall of the bridge and holds on for dear life as he leaps. The pursuers look on as the MI6 agent (not super gracefully) safely lands on the ground at the base of the bridge and continues running.
Sprinting up stairs and through ancient buildings, the hero continues to evade his enemies, and eventually comes upon the guy on the motorcycle, whom we see has a fake eyeball. James Bond runs up and tackles the guy before he can pull out his weapon, and the two men struggle –Bond successfully getting the upper hand by choking the guy with a clothesline. As the henchman fights back, he tells his opponent that Blofeld (Christoph Waltz) sends his regards, and suggests that Bond’s girlfriend, Madeleine (Léa Seydoux), is working with the supervillain.
After knocking out his opponent and sending his fake eye launching out of his head, Bond steals the motorcycle and quickly makes his way back to Madeleine, pulling off some remarkable maneuvers in the process (such as launching the bike up a 30 foot ramp so that he can avoid some kind of religious procession). He arrives at the hotel, and the concierge briefly stops him to let him know that his luggage has been brought down.
As James Bond gets to his room and confronts Madeleine, saying, “You’re right letting go is hard.” She asks him what happened, and Bond rages at her, asking how they could have possibly known where he was. She denies everything, and as the phone in the room begins to ring, they make a move for the exit. Downstairs they get to the famous silver Aston Martin, and as they get in Madeleine says, “There’s something I need to tell you,” to which Bond replies “I bet there is.”
The chase begins again almost immediately, as the Aston Martin is pursued by cars and motorcycles. Madeleine’s phone begins to ring, and after Bond demands she pick it up she pulls it out of her purse and we can see the Spectre logo on the display. Listening to the call, we hear the voice of Blofeld, who says, “Your father would be so proud of you; your sacrifice will be our glory.”
His suspicion running at extreme levels, James Bond calls an associate and tells them to let the sheep out – the hope being that it will create a kind of roadblock that will help during the chase. Madeleine asks what motivation she could possibly have to betray her lover’s trust, and he explains, “We all have our secrets, we just didn’t get to yours yet.” As he says this, he presses one of the Aston Martin’s dashboard buttons and a set of spiked caltrops are dumped out of the bumper, causing a pursuing vehicle to go boom.
After a short getaway and a ride down some stairs, Madeleine continues insisting upon her innocence, but she gets cut off as a blue jeep slams into the car, causing it to stop dead. More enemy vehicles arrive, and before long the drives and passengers are all out their doors and opening fire on James Bond. Fortunately, the Aston Martin is crazy bullet proof, meaning that the two individuals inside are perfectly safe.
Seemingly realizing this, the gunfire stops, but the henchman with the fake eye whom Bond encountered earlier steps out and starts to get closer and closer to the car. As he does, he begins to fire repeatedly into the same spot in the passenger-side window. We see the glass getting weaker and weaker, and all the while Madeleine is desperate to know that she still has 007’s trust. After a silent moment, Bond says, “Ok,” and flips a switch on the dashboard, making the front headlights shift down and exposing a set of gatling guns.
As the twin guns begin to fire, James Bond drives around in a tight circle, ensuring that all of his enemies are down before he drives off through the square.
Without any context setting up exactly what is happening plot-wise in the No Time To Die sequence, it was a bit challenging to precisely figure out everything that was going down – but what most certainly can be judged is the action and the intensity, and both were top notch. It effortlessly raised my pulse, and while it was a bit surprising to see James Bond operating with some very extreme anger, it appears that Cary Fukunaga has a sincerely thrilling 007 adventure coming our way in just a couple months.
Despite concerns about further delays, No Time To Die is still currently set to be released exclusively in theaters on October 8. Look for plenty more coverage of the film here on CinemaBlend between now and then, and keep checking back throughout the week for more updates from our time on the ground at CinemaCon.
