Paloma (Ana de Armas) is critically underutilized in No Time To Die (2021) and this 1 minute scene proves it!
Aside from the great chemistry between Paloma (Ana de Armas) and James Bond (Daniel Craig), this ass-kicking fight sequence was awesome! That amazing dress paired with those amazing legs made for an effective visual in the fight in Cuba after the Spectre party. Why on earth didn’t we see more of Paloma?! However, I do concede that the salud/booze shot sequence was a bit contrived and forced – not really sure why that made the final cut…
But despite her short on-screen time, I’d argue that Paloma and Bond’s chemistry rivaled or bested that between Bond and Madeleine Swann. Maybe it’s the dress, her naivete, cuteness, humor or a combination of it all that made Paloma stand out. Dare I say it’d be cool to see her return in a future Bond movie to further develop the Bond/Paloma work/personal relationship? It’d be more interesting than the tired and dreary Swann/child plotline we got from NTTD – Bond (and the audience) wasn’t enthused at the prospect!
Maybe in an alternate timeline as well – Swann is murdered, Mathilde doesn’t exist, Bond seeks his revenge with a Paloma assist and they get together. Kind of like the Vesper plot from Casino Royale (2006) without the backstabbing and the suicide, and a little more meaningful than the Anya Amasova/Tiple X relationship from The Spy Who Loved Me (1977). One can dream…
Paloma (Ana de Armas) and her legs in an awesome fight sequence from No Time To Die (2021)
Don’t get distracted with all of the next James Bond actor rumors!
In this short, dialogue-free sequence from No Time To Die (2021), James Bond (Daniel Craig) hops back on the double-oh saddle in style after getting lost at sea. In London, and on his way back to MI6, he visits a garage and dusts off an old Aston Martin V8 Vantage (hat-tip to Dalton’s Bond who drives it in The Living Daylights (1987) with the same license plate number, “B549 WUU”). We also see where he stores M’s infamous Jack the Bulldog figurine (“the whole office goes up in smoke and that bloody thing survives”) – obviously not in a prominent place and seemingly halfway in the trash.
In an oddly-edited shot, we see Bond turn on his invisibility superpowers and magically hop in the car, only to deftly spin his wheels on the way to the office. No offense to the Aston Martin DB5, but I was glad to see the unveiled automobile wasn’t the DB5. Overall, I think we are at capacity with the DB5’s onscreen time, and any more exposure or throwbacks to it in future movies would be overkill. I love the DB5, of course, and I get that it’s iconic and it deserved the exposure it has gotten, but now I think it’s time to move on.
In typical Craig Bond fashion, his car and any subsequent gadgets are tragically underutilized, and here we see it serve the minimal auto purpose – getting from point A to B in a commute. What a bummer! But at least we get to hear the Bond theme and we get an awesome shot of him exiting the vehicle in one of the most memorable shots from NTTD promo materials and arguably the coolest Craig has looked in his entire 007 career.
James Bond (Daniel Craig) looking suave AF in No Time To Die (2021)
