Daniel Craig's admirable departure from Bond

   Remember when we didn't take Bond movies seriously? Time was all we wanted from a Bond movie was nifty gadgets, charm, beautiful women, one-liners, and an out-sized villain, preferably working with Spectre.

  That's why the series could survive the switch from Sean Connery (still the best Bond) to Roger Moore to Pierce Brosnan to Timothy Dalton — and that's not even a complete list. The point: Fulfill the formula, add a few new wrinkles, and we were happy.

  Daniel Craig, the latest Bond, is about to pass the torch to another Bond, which greatly raises anticipation for No Time to Die, Craig's last swing at 007. We already know that Craig’s Bond has the power of a clenched fist. His is not a winking Bond, happy to let us in on the joke. 

   Craig has given us a Bond for our distraught, deracinated time, a bond minus joviality and bonhomie — but now with the capability of loving, and, thus, being hurt.

   Some of No Time To Die qualifies as old-style fun. Moreover, the movie's prologue and early scenes totally satisfy our craving for more Bond; i.e., they're full scenic glamor and incredible action.

    A quick summary of the set-up: An assassin's attempts to kill the wife and daughter of a man who slaughtered his family. The movie then leaps ahead to find Bond in love and vacationing in a rocky Italian village. His companion: the daughter (Lea Seydoux) who was spared by the killer in the movie's opening.

    The movie eventually begins unfolding a complicated plot involving a deadly biological weapon that can be tailored to target specific individuals -- or to wreak mass havoc.

   I don't mean to suggest that I didn't enjoy the rest of this overly long Bond, which clocks in at two hours and 43 minutes and ends with a sense of resignation that fits our moment of national and international fatigue.

   Director Cary Joji Fukunaga guides Craig's final bond to a noble end and provides enough of everything else that we want from a Bond movie to make the journey worth taking.

    No Bond movie is complete without seeing Bond in formal wear. He turns up in a tuxedo in Jamaica where he encounters a glamorous spy played by Ana de Armas. 

    Critics once argued that every Bond movie rises and falls with its villain. A good villain meant a good Bond -- no matter who donned  the 007 mantle.

   This time, Rami Malek upholds the banner of evil, opting to make Lyutsifer Safin a soft-spoken man with a bad complexion and an unquenchable taste for vengeance. Lyutsifer’s ambitions are big, but his personality seems small.

   Muscular and sometimes brutal, Craig receives able support from a large cast. Christoph Waltz makes a brief appearance as Blofeld. Jeffrey Wright portrays Felix Leiter,  CIA man, and friend of Bond.

    Ralph Fiennes continues to bring weight and gravity to the role of M. Naomi Harris again turns up as the ever-loyal Moneypenny, and Ben Whishaw returns as Q, the inventor of the gadgetry that gives Bond his advantage and a tech whiz who monitors Bond's moves.

   The movie even adds another 007. Because Bond has retired, MI6 has awarded his 007 designation to Nomi (Lashana Lynch), a newcomer who may gain a foothold for future Bond movies.

   The movie ultimately heads toward a remote island (where else?) from which Lyutsifer plans to launch a world-threatening attack.

    With improvements in budget and special effects, the Bond movies have been able to increase their scale with each new addition, and let's face it, scale has much to do with why we keep going to Bond movies. 

   Fukunaga doesn't shortchange us on locations -- even if we feel that Craig's last turn as Bond has more to do with what the movie is about than any threat Lyutsifer poses.

   For the record, Billie Eilish sings No Time To Die, the song that plays over the opening credits.

  No Time to Die tends to lag a bit around the three-quarter mark and it sometimes feels driven by fumes of determination, but when it's done, No Time to Die has brought Craig's tenure to a strong and worthy conclusion.

The horrific life of a kiddie killer

Beasts of No Nation makes for harrowing viewing.

Watching director Cary Joji Fukunaga's Beasts of No Nation, I was reminded of the axiom that cautions us to be careful about what we wish for. Sure, many of us want (or say we want) movies that don't short-change real-life horrors.

But when such movies arrive, they aren't always pleasant to watch.

Starring Idris Elba and newcomer Abraham Attah and based on a novel by Uzodinma Iweala, Beasts of No Nation takes place during a civil war in a fictional West African nation. The story centers on the transformation of young Attah's character from a cheerfully mischievous boy into a brutal child warrior.

Attar's Agu is enjoying a happy childhood with his family when an invading government army throws his village into chaos. In the resultant panic, Agu's mother and baby sister are sent to the capital. Agu's father and older brother are brutally murdered.

Left alone, Agu flees marauding soldiers as he tries to make his way through the bush.

Tired and hungry, Agu eventually is captured by rebel forces led by a character known only as Commandant (a scary and convincing Elba). Wide-eyed and frightened, Agu learns the ways of the rebel forces and becomes a kiddie killer.

Boys, Commandant insists, aren't useless. Why? They can pull triggers.

Agu joins with boys who've gone through similar experiences and who now are subject to brutalization and molestation within the "family'' of warriors that Commandant has created.

Agu's experiences are nothing short of horrific, and the scene in which he makes his first kill hardly could be more harrowing. Ordered by Commandant to commit murder, Agu buries the blade of a machete in a cowering man's skull. He now belongs to the gang.

Commandant certainly is capable of monstrous behavior, but he's given a human dimension by Elba. It seems entirely plausible that a character as charismatic as Commandant could hold sway over his charges through a mixture of inspiration, fear and intimidation.

To the film's credit, we also learn that Commandant may be subject to betrayals by the political puppet masters who use his brutality but who may inevitably disown it -- and him.

The film benefits from an intermittent narration provided by Agu, who is well portrayed by Attah -- a 14-year-old non-professional from Ghana. Attah embodies Agu's increasing numbness to the violence that surrounds him and which he perpetuates.

Yet, Attah never loses touch with Agu's vulnerability. You can't look at him without realizing he's still a boy, and that makes Agu's violence all the more heartbreaking.

Fukunaga (Sin Nombre and episodes of the first season of HBO's True Detective) doesn't have to raise the emotional wattage for us to realize that we're watching a story of tragic proportions.

But as I said at the outset: We need movies such as this, but that doesn't mean they go down easily. They are (and should be) disturbing as hell.

'Jane Eyre' only fitfully springs to life

Come on baby, light my fire. This Jane Eyre takes too long to spark.

Watching Jane Eyre, the umpteenth adaptation of Charlotte Bronte's, dog-eared 1847 novel, I was besieged by a single nagging thought: "Will high school English never end?"

I had approached the latest big-screen edition of Jane Eyre with more hope than usual, mostly because Cary Joji Fukunaga directed it. Fukunaga's previous work - the viscerally charged immigration drama Sin Nombre - seemed light years away from the world of Bronte, but Fukunaga could have been precisely the right man to breathe new life into a literary classic.

Did he? Not entirely.

Despite the presence of a gifted young actress - Mia Wasikowska - this Jane Eyre comes up short on urgency and passion. Even the presence of the estimable Judi Dench, as the housekeeper at the movie's principal location - Thornfield Hall - doesn't provide a totally compelling reason for us once again to trample across the moors.

Of course, it's all mostly acceptable. And, yes, I'm being something of a spoilsport. Jane Eyre is by no means a bad movie, just one that probably needn't have been made. Besides, if you can't give into your prejudices now and then, what's the point of being a critic?

For those who don't know, the story begins with Jane's mistreatment by an aunt (Sally Hawkins) after her parents die. Jane's shipped off to an orphanage where she's further abused. When she's old enough to leave, Jane lands a position as governess to a child who's being cared for by the gloomy Edward Rochester (Michael Fassbinder).

Rochester's house, we learn, harbors a secret: Jane, we learn, is forbidden from entering an attic room, and often hears strange goings-on about the house with Fukunaga cranking up the ominous atmosphere.

Fassbinder lacks the stature that Orson Welles brought to the role of Rochester, a man whose demeanor can be gruff. Fassbinder broods with the best of them, but he's probably not imposing enough.

Wasikowska - familiar to those who've seen Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland or those who saw her as the daughter of Julianne Moore and Annette Bening in The Kids Are All Right -- is a gifted young actress - but even her work can't always elevate a Jane Eyre that takes its time finding the kind chemistry between Jane and Rochester that can satisfy committed romantics.

Oh well. Enough. With movies such as Jane Eyre I'm never sure whether to write a review or a book report.

So to borrow a phrase from Bill Maher, maybe we need a new rule: Please, a moratorium on movies made from novels for which there are CliffsNotes.