No Time to Die (2021)

Composed by Hans Zimmer

Daniel Craig’s tenure as James Bond came to a close with No Time To Die. The film was supposed to come out two years ago, but thanks to the lockdowns and restrictions it has taken two years to finally see the light of day. Ironically the movie concerns a manufactured virus, albeit a much deadlier one that can be designed to target certain genetics. Was the wait worth it? Well, not really. Like its predecessor, Spectre, it starts off strong and gradually flounders under the weight of current movie franchise trends and clichés. Bond is caught up in weepy melodrama, most of the action is pedestrian, and we once again have to endure uncovered secret pasts about established characters. The movie also relies on audiences watching Craig’s entire run instead of just offering a self-contained thrill ride. Hopefully with Craig’s departure we can finally get more standalone Bond films. Hans Zimmer came on board for music and thanks to a heavily delayed release had two extra years to fine tune his score, so perhaps he would succeed on his front.

The song this time around is Billie Eilish’s “No Time to Die” (placed at the end of the album). It’s got the right tone and even hints of the James Bond theme, but Eilish sings like she’s drowsy so a lot of the lyrics are very hard to distinguish. It also lacks a particularly strong melody. After the last two films the composer finally has a chance to incorporate it into the score. However, thanks to the aforementioned lack of strong melody, Zimmer’s incorporation of it is piecemeal and often not very distinguishable despite adding further emotional punch to moments such as the end of “Matera,” the middle of “Lovely to See You Again,” and pieces of “Home” and “Final Ascent.” To be fair to the composer he had no hand in crafting the song and thus did not ensure that he had a more identifiable theme to work with. In terms of other new themes the only one I could really pick out was a motif for the new villain Lyutsifer Safin (Rami Malek). It’s too simple to really make a strong impression and is more of an ambient soundscape as heard in the opening act of “What Have You Done” and “Lovely to See You Again.”

Soundtrack Review: Spectre

Composed and Conducted by: Thomas Newman

Spectre, as the title suggests, reintroduces the evil organization led by the cat-stroking Ernst Stavro Blofeld. Daniel Craig’s performance as 007 is even better, but the film is a mixed bag. It’s good for the first two-thirds, but gets mired by an attempt to link all of the Craig films together. It also tries to tie his origins to Blofeld and Spectre’s creation, an unnecessary move that wastes time and adds nothing. It’s not a terrible film, just an underwhelming and bland one

With Sam Mendes staying on for this film, it was inevitable that Thomas Newman would return too, making him only the third recurring composer after John Barry and David Arnold. Unfortunately, entire passages of music are recycled from Skyfall, though the album does focus on the more original material. For the third time the title song is not included on the soundtrack! This time it’s Sam Smith’s “Writing’s on the Wall”, which has good lyrics and fantastic music. Its main downfall is Smith’s singing voice, which just didn’t do it for me. I feel he gets way too high-pitched at points. Also, as with Adele’s “Skyfall”, Newman only uses the song once in his score, in an instrumental version that doesn’t even make full use of the melody. Perhaps there were production issues as with Skyfall that hindered him from utilizing it more.

Soundtrack Review: Skyfall

Composed and Conducted by: Thomas Newman

The 50^th anniversary for the James Bond film was marked by Skyfall, a rather good film that successfully meshed some of the old school tropes of the franchise with more recent sensibilities. It’s probably the most artistic entry in the franchise, especially when it comes to the lighting work. As it’s a Sam Mendes film, David Arnold was replaced by Mendes’ choice composer, Thomas Newman, a move which irked a few fans who had really been enjoying Arnold’s run.

Skyfall’s soundtrack has its fair share of difficulties regarding the song of the same name by Adele. First of all, it’s not on the actual soundtrack thanks to contractual issues, as was the case with “You Know My Name” from Casino Royale. Also, it was not completed in time for Newman to incorporate it into his score, which is a real shame because it’s one of the best songs, and features a strong, powerful tune. Newman did hold off on scoring one scene, just so there could be at least one reference. The track is “Komodo Dragon”, which plays the theme wonderfully before atmospheric material and some Asian string music. It’s one of the best tracks and shows what could have been if there was more coordination in the music department.

Soundtrack Review: Quantum of Solace

Composed by: David Arnold

Conducted by: Nicholas Dodd

Following the successfully realistic take on James Bond in Casino Royale, Ian Craig found himself the star of a rejuvenated series. Quantum of Solace serves as a second half to Bond’s origin story and continues the grittier style of its predecessor. It’s possibly my least favorite film in the series. It’s enslaved by modern action film conventions, the worst being the shaky cam and quick cuts which make the action scenes unwatchable. The plot and the villains are uninspiring as well. There’s little to no memorability to the whole film.

Scoring Bond for the fifth time, David Arnold faced a similar obstacle when once again, as with Die Another Day, the title song was created without any input from him. “Another Way to Die” is a duet by Alicia Keys and Jack White. It’s a so-so song, and I personally don’t find it as horrible as nearly everyone else seems to believe. Unlike Madonna’s song from Die Another Day, there is at least some melody, but it features un-Bondish wailing and voices that come across as a tad whiny at times. That being said, David Arnold does use pieces of it in his score, most notably towards the end of “Greene and Camille”, and the brief, but sexy “Field Trip”. However, while using bits of the song, Arnold also has his own six-note main theme (derived from the opening of a proposed song he made with none other than Shirley Bassey), a short piece introduced towards the end of “Time to Get Out”. As a result, his score has plenty of themes, but they don’t work as cohesively as they might have if Arnold only referenced one song.

Soundtrack Review: Casino Royale

Composed by: David Arnold

Conducted by: Nicholas Dodd

After numerous complaints from James Bond fans regarding Die Another Day, the producers spent a couple extra years on the next film, ultimately deciding to go with a reboot that toned down the camp elements. Martin Campbell, director of the well-loved Goldeneye, came on to create this more realistic take on 007. Pierce Brosnan’s suave character was replaced with a more hard-edged and less quippy performance by Daniel Craig. Casino Royale is probably my favorite James Bond movie. I didn’t think I could ever be so engrossed by watching people play cards.

Coming over from the Brosnan years was David Arnold. His score for Casino Royale proves to be noticeably different from his previous scores, especially Die Another Day. For the third time he was allowed to help create the title song, and the result is one of the best Bond songs yet, and my favorite. Sung by Chris Cornell, “You Know My Name” is relentlessly energetic with awesome bad-ass lyrics. Unlike most of the previous songs, it doesn’t talk about romance or sleaze, but focuses on the dangerous life of a secret agent. Unfortunately, some legal issues prevented this wonderful piece of music from getting on album, and its absence is very frustrating since the CD now lacks its appropriate opener.

Soundtrack Review: Die Another Day

Composed by: David Arnold

Conducted by: Nicholas Dodd

After a good start in 1995 with Goldeneye, the James Bond movies starring Pierce Brosnan were already losing steam by 2002’s Die Another Day. Released on the 40^th anniversary of the franchise, it met with commercial success, but was panned by critics and most Bond fans for heightening the levels of camp and throwing in a lot of CGI. The lousiness of the critical reception caused the producers to reboot the series with the far more grounded Casino Royale.

Also receiving some criticism was the music. Despite his proven successes with “Surrender” and “The World is Not Enough,” David Arnold had no involvement with this flick’s opening number. One of the worst atrocities of the film is the opening song, “Die Anther Day” performed by Madonna. It’s the worst song ever to grace the main titles of a Bond movie. It’s greatest sin is the lack of an actual melody to incorporate into the score. It is instead a bunch of repetitive electronics frequently interrupted by distortions. The lyrics themselves are heavily auto-tuned and pretty atrocious. The song appears to be about shutting down your body and denying sex, with a random utterance of “Sigmund Freud” that has no place in any Bond song. Making matters worse is that the album version runs about five minutes long. Amazingly, the Prague Philharmonic Orchestra managed to make a cool instrumental of this song, so check that out.

Soundtrack Review: The World is Not Enough

Composed by: David Arnold

Conducted by: Nicholas Dodd

The World is Not Enough is generally considered to be a flawed gem. It has a pretty good and unique storyline, but thanks to some questionable choices (Denise Richards as a twenty-something nuclear physicist in hot pants is the film’s greatest error) a good number of fans don’t care much for it. Thanks to the smashing success of his music for Tomorrow Never Dies, David Arnold returned. After a great score for the aforementioned film, David Arnold was officially the new musician for James Bond, and was the first after John Barry to actually get to a second outing.

This time Arnold was able to provide the opening title song, which of course shares its title with the movie. Sung by Shirley Manson of the band Garbage, It’s a good song, and weaves in a bit of the James Bond theme at the end. Usually only three notes, the “not enough” portion of the song, is used, with the following melody distinguishing its use in certain scenes. There’s a soaring romantic version in “Snow Business” which regrettably was originally only available via David Arnold’s website instead of the actual album. This romantic version returns on piano in “Christmas in Turkey.” There’s an action variation that appears in “Come in, 007, Your Time is Up,” most notably in “Ice Bandits,” and amidst heavy electronics in “Caviar Factory.”

Soundtrack Review: Tomorrow Never Dies

Composed by: David Arnold

Conducted by: Nicholas Dodd

After the critical failure of Eric Serra’s Goldeneye score, the producers brought in David Arnold, who had just released his James Bond tribute Shaken Not Stirred, a collection of title songs and a few instrumentals redone by artists (regrettably this was in the 90s). John Barry was impressed with some of the re-orchestrations Arnold did for the songs and recommended him. This turned out to a popular choice with Bond fans, and Arnold has the second most Bond scores under his belt. The film itself is a light remake of The Spy Who Loved Me. This time Bond eventually pairs up with a Chinese agent to foil World War III. The villainous mastermind is Elliot Carver, a media mogul who wants to boost his circulation by creating a massive war.

David Arnold has been lauded for his ability to pay homage to John Barry while having his own style. Tomorrow Never Dies is singled out for its successful merging of orchestral and electronic elements. Arnold has received criticism for scoring most of the action cues with loud, multi-layered music, whereas most previous composers would take a more restrained approach, often leaving scenes unscored for the purposes of suspense or so that the sound effects team could take have the limelight. This criticism of Arnold is true to a point. Some of the more basic fist fights could do with less noise instead of being scored like climatic battles. But at least his music is highly enjoyable.

Soundtrack Review: Goldeneye

Composed by: Eric Serra

Conducted by: Erica Serra & John Altman

After a six-year hiatus, the James Bond franchise was revived with Pierce Brosnan in the lead role. Goldeneye centers on radical Russians plotting to use an orbiting pulse weapon for their own evil ends, with James Bond of course trying to stop them. It was a tremendous hit, and spawned a famously successful video game spin-off. John Barry unfortunately declined to return, and French song-writer and musician Eric Serra took over.

This is one of the most infamous movie scores in history, mainly because it’s a James Bond score. There are almost no lush romantic themes and the none of the jazzy orchestral style associated with the series. Instead there is a load of electronics interspersed by odd choral bursts and a cold, mechanical gong (which does sound pretty cool). While failing to fit in with the James Bond franchise, this style of music does convey the atmosphere of a collapsed Soviet Union. There are purely orchestral moments, but not very often and never to the depth of Serra’s predecessor John Barry or successor David Arnold.

Soundtrack Review: Licence to Kill

Composed and Conducted by: Michael Kamen

After cold war thrillers and super-weapon plots, James Bond took a break to battle criminals in Licence to Kill. After drug lord Sanchez (played by Robert Davi), feeds Bond’s CIA friend Felix Leiter to the sharks, 007 goes on a hunt for revenge. A radical, dark departure, the movie did not necessarily bomb, but underperformed in America. Not helping was some tough summer competition from Batman and the latest installments of Star Trek and Indiana Jones. The James Bond series would go hiatus for six years, the longest break between entries it would ever experience, while the producers at Eon tried to take a step back and figure out a way to rejuvenate the franchise.

John Barry was going to score Licence to Kill, but had to step out due to throat surgery. Stepping in was Michael Kamen, who had scored many of the latest big-hit action films such as Lethal Weapon and Die Hard. The result is far from satisfying.