I love Daniel Craig’s final a welcome return to the Bond movie formula of 007 tracking down a megalomaniacal villain to a secret island lair and putting an end to their plans for world domination.

I think Craig gives an Oscar-caliber performance in his final outing as Bond. Lashana Lynch is a great deadpan foil for him as Nomi, Ana de Armas steals the show with a relatively small role as Paloma, and Rami Malek’s Safin is a suitably sinister baddie. Bond’s death at the end of No Time to Die gave Craig’s tenure as 007 a bittersweet sense of finality that none of his predecessors got. The movie is well-paced, too, so it mostly holds up on a rewatch. But there’s one thing from the opening act that still bugs me.

Daniel Craig's James Bond Is Way Too Quick To Believe Madeleine Betrayed Him

All It Takes Is One Little Nudge From An Unreliable Source

No Time to Die picks up shortly after the events of Spectre. After arresting Blofeld, Bond takes a much-needed vacation to Matera with returning love interest Dr. Madeleine Swann. When the movie catches up with them, Bond and Madeleine are madly in love, enjoying each other’s company without a care in the world. While they’re there, Madeleine encourages Bond to visit his ex-girlfriend Vesper Lynd’s grave to help him move on from her ing. So, he reluctantly goes to Vesper’s grave to pay his respects, and there, he’s ambushed by a merry band of SPECTRE assassins.

Bond races back to the hotel and flees the scene with Madeleine. On their way out of town, 007 uses every gadget loaded up in his Aston Martin to fend off Primo and his goons. But as they make their escape, Madeleine’s phone receives a celebratory call from Blofeld. Bond puts two and two together and assumes that Madeleine is in cahoots with Blofeld. He thinks she encouraged him to go to Vesper’s grave so he’d walk right into SPECTRE’s ambush. But he doesn’t, even for a second, entertain the idea that his arch-nemesis might be deceiving him.

He doesn’t, even for a second, entertain the idea that his arch-nemesis might be deceiving him.

Despite Madeleine’s protests, Bond takes her to a train station, puts her on a train, and tells her she will never see him again. Five long years before Bond and Madeleine are brought back together by a case, and Madeleine is naturally reluctant to embrace the guy who abandoned her based on flimsy evidence. 007 had a lot of time to reflect over the course of his retirement, and it never occurred to him that he may have been too hasty in blaming Madeleine for the attack and cutting her out of his life completely.

A Spy Of Bond's Caliber Should Have Considered The Possibility Of A SPECTRE Trick

007 Usually Thinks Of Everything

Bond earned 00 status by becoming one of MI6’s greatest spies. He’s the elite of the elite; the smartest and most capable agent on Her Majesty’s Secret Service (now His Majesty’s Secret Service). He became so capable by maintaining a healthy skepticism. Bond doesn’t trust anyone; he second-guesses everything, and he can see trickery coming from a mile away. He can handle any danger that comes his way. Every time an assassin tries to sneak up on Bond, he’s one step ahead of them. So, why was he so quick to believe Blofeld and abandon Madeleine?

No Time to Die grossed $774.2 million worldwide, making it the third highest-grossing Bond movie.

Craig’s 007 doesn’t have the perfect batting average of his predecessors. This Bond isn’t infallible, like Sean Connery or Roger Moore; he makes mistakes. The reason Vesper died is that Bond failed to save her from a sinking building in the finale of Casino Royale. Craig is responsible for Bond’s first on-screen failure, since he failed to stop Raoul Silva’s plot in Skyfall. But even taking his fallibility into , it seems like a massive oversight for Bond to trust Blofeld over Madeleine and send her away based on one little nudge.

One Conversation Could Have Easily Resolved Bond & Swann's Breakup

All He Had To Do Was Ask

If Bond had just talked to Madeleine instead of giving her the silent treatment and ditching her at a train station, the whole thing could’ve been cleared up. If they’d just talked about it, Bond would’ve realized that it sounds more plausible that Blofeld was deceiving him than the woman who loves him. Madeleine tries to explain that she didn’t betray Bond and that Blofeld is tricking him, but he won’t hear it. He just shuts her out until it’s time to abandon her on a train and leave that chapter of his life behind.

It’s similar to the comic misunderstandings that form the basis of episodes of sitcoms like Modern Family and Everybody Loves Raymond. After something is misheard or misinterpreted, the characters could just ask each other about it and clear up the problem in two minutes rather than dragging it out for 21 minutes of hijinks. It feels out of character for Bond to trust Blofeld and ignore Madeleine’s pleas for reason. It seems more like something the screenwriters needed to happen than something the character would actually do.

The Flimsy Nature Of Bond & Swann's Breakup Hurts Daniel Craig's Final Chapter

The Whole Movie Is Built On This Contrivance

On the whole, I think No Time to Die is a great movie, and a fitting swansong for Craig’s Bond. But I don’t think it’s a Bond movie masterpiece on par with Casino Royale and On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, because it’s far from a perfect movie. This contrived opening act is one of the film’s biggest flaws. A plot contrivance is one thing — almost every big action blockbuster has them, because they go through rewrites during shooting — but this one is particularly egregious, because the entire movie is built on it.

Billie Eilish and Finneas O'Connell won the Academy Award for Best Original Song for their No Time to Die theme.

If Bond had just trusted Madeleine and figured out that Blofeld was messing with him, he wouldn’t have abandoned her and retired, and he could’ve been around to raise his daughter. I can see how the writers justified having Bond believe Blofeld’s lie — it points to how difficult it is for Bond to trust people — but the fact that this five-year conflict could’ve been resolved with a two-minute conversation makes it feel like a plot hole. No Time to Die isn’t a bad movie, but the whole plot is built on flawed logic.