Directed by:
Cary Joji FukunagaCinematography:
Linus SandgrenComposer:
Hans ZimmerCast:
Daniel Craig, Léa Seydoux, Rami Malek, Lashana Lynch, Ralph Fiennes, Ben Whishaw, Ana de Armas, Naomie Harris, David Dencik, Rory Kinnear, Jeffrey Wright (more)VOD (4)
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Daniel Craig returns one last time as James Bond, starring alongside Oscar® winner Rami Malek in No Time To Die. Bond has left active service and is enjoying a tranquil life in Jamaica. His peace is short-lived when his old friend Felix Leiter from the CIA turns up asking for help. The mission to rescue a kidnapped scientist turns out to be far more treacherous than expected, leading Bond onto the trail of a mysterious villain armed with dangerous new technology. (Universal Pictures UK)
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Reviews (20)
The enormous runtime hides one feature-length Bond film, which has great action, works on an emotional level and contains a passage that ranks among the best ever (not only) from the Craig era. The snag is that there's another feature-length Bond film in that runtime, tedious, full of wadding and lame line closures after Mendes, with a dime-a-dozen villain and no hints that lead to anything substantial. A solid farewell, but not memorable. It is absolutely true that less would be more. A lot more.
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A fitting and remarkable end to Daniel Craig’s era as James Bond — something the franchise has never quite seen before. It’s both epic and deeply personal, with action sequences that are nothing short of flawless. By the end, I even found myself tearing up — a rare occurrence for me. I’ll admit, at first, I wasn’t sure what to make of Rami Malek’s villain, but as the story unfolded, through stunning set pieces in Italy, Cuba, and Norway, it all started to click. The film’s conclusion hit me so hard that I couldn’t stop thinking about Bond for days. There’s no point in saying more until you’ve seen it yourself, but if you’re a fan of Craig’s Bond, you’re in for a treat. Also, Ana de Armas was an unexpected highlight — her role was an absolute scene-stealer.
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Less is more in the end, but I understand the effort to give the final chapter of an unrivalled era everything. Including two Bond films in one. Because this is a grueling part of the physical period – and yet there is a villain with a megalomaniacal plan that resembles long-forgotten screenplay formulae. At the same time, it is still a series with 007 – and yet dialogue comes up on topics that have never been in it before. No matter which way I look at the result, the spectacle of No Time to Die is different than I expected. And that is precisely the biggest victory and defeat at the same time. It references its own serialization, where it barely matches the finale of Skyfall or the oppressive escalation of Spectre, but even at the end, in the breathless finish on the stairs, it achieves and provides a high point of the last pentalogy. It is a pity that the final threat is Safin, who loses out to the terrifying qualities or abilities of previous villains, but thanks to Daniel Craig standing against him, it is easier to forget about it. Watching his increasingly delicate acting nuances is a joy. So much so that I would repeat this fifteen-year period any time as the most magnificent series. I have all the time in the world for that.
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This time the Broccoli party played nicely on emotions. And in the role of Bond, Craig tried out the broadest range of inner developments and facial expressions not only of his five appearances in the franchise, but all of the Bond films. As an emotional viewer, I was thoroughly moved. The relationship with Léa Seydoux was nicely deepened. But what about the faulty logic in the main villain’s (Malek) motivation and behavior and the other ill-conceived things? Is it so difficult to polish the screenplay of a much-anticipated, worldwide mega-film also in this respect? A repeat viewing of Spectre the day before was helpful, and No Time to Die follows directly from it. Zimmer is excellent in the suspenseful scenes, particularly in the encounter with Blofeld (Waltz).
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After the screening, I gave it full stars and contentedly enjoyed the reverberations of an experience overflowing with testosterone and adrenaline, only to begin to slightly waver the next day in favor of the "objective findings" that it had a rather futile villain and an often overly determined effort to tighten all the storylines from previous stints. But this is love, pure and sincere. Spectre could have been a full-on epilogue, and thankfully, it’s not. Daniel Craig came for a complex farewell in No Time to Die, brimming with big emotions that jostle for a place in the audience's good graces with an absolutely archetypal old-school Bond film, where the aforementioned villain with totally "full-retard" motivations fills his role to a tee and Q serves up the toys he mocked less than a decade earlier. Fukunaga paces it at an incredible rhythm (where is the much-mentioned mid-film tempo drop?) and keeps everything running in a completely polished and compact whole, where there is no room for peaks and valleys, but rather a thoughtful interplay of emotional outpourings and fantastic action. T. C. may be hanging under a helicopter and my jaw is dropping, but when a sweat and blood-soaked Craig climbs a staircase in one camera take, accompanied by Zimmer's thunderous music, I still know which agent with permission to replace a bulldozer will always be the most popular with me.
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