Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
It’s taken longer than expected, no thanks to the COVID pandemic, but James Bond is back, finally in the 25th official Bond film No Time To Die, which marks Daniel Craig’s last outing as suave, but rough around the edges, British agent 007. And let me tell you, it is a full rollercoaster of emotions.
No Time To Die picks right up from where Spectre left off, so if you haven’t seen the previous film, I truly believe it is of great importance to do so. That film ended with Bond essentially retiring, hoping to begin his new life with his new love Madeleine (Léa Seydoux). Things are going swimmingly but she knows there is something, someone, still weighing on James’ mind — Vesper Lynd, who died at the end of Casino Royale. Madeleine says they can never truly be together until he makes his peace with her, so they travel to Greece where she buried, but Bond is surprised when her crypt explodes. Who knew he was there? The finger points to just one person, Madeleine, and without any question whatsoever, he puts her on a train and says she’ll never see him again.
Five years later, Bond is living his life in the Caribbean when he’s contacted by an old friend, Felix Leiter (Jeffrey Wright), who has a proposition for him to team with the CIA to track down a mysterious villain with dangerous new technology. Bond decides the island life may not be for him after all and he agrees to help Felix and the CIA agent Logan Ash (Billy Magnussen). But the mission becomes complicated as crosses are doubled and all roads seem to lead to … Blofeld (Christophe Waltz), who is somehow still in control of SPECTRE from his maximum security prison cell. Re-teaming with MI6, Bond needs access to Blofeld but he’s told he will only speak to his therapist so Bond must enter the facility with … Madeleine, who has her own connection to the prisoner, as well as the man Bond is chasing, Lyutsifer Safin (Rami Malek), whose technology may be the end of the world as we know it. Can Bond put all the pieces of this puzzle together before it’s too late?
Well, that is a rather Cliffs Notes version of the plot of No Time To Die, but it is a very labyrinthine story that I refuse to divulge further for fear of spoiling any surprises along the way. It may be complicated, and some characters may come and go a bit too swiftly — like Ana de Armas’ agent assisting bong after just three weeks of training (she claims) — but it all comes together beautifully in a cohesive, thrilling, emotional film (let me tell you, the pre-credits chase through the streets of Greece gave me major anxiety). Writers Neal Purvis, Robert Wade and Cary Joji Fukanaga have crafted this complicated story of love, betrayal and duty so well, with so much reverence for not just the Daniel Craig films but the Bond series as a whole that you can’t help but admire their craftsmanship. Whether it was intentional or not when Craig first took on the role of 007 in Casino Royale, each film since has had a throughline that links one to the other, making this a true fifth and final chapter of this particular James Bond’s story. You must see Spectre, which also counts Purvis and Wade among its writers, but you should also see the other three films before that as well (also co-written by Purvis and Wade so perhaps it was intentional) — Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace and Skyfall. In the history of the Bond franchise, nowhere in the previous twenty films has there been such connective tissue between any of them. And No Time To Die even pays homage to On Her Majesty’s Secret Service when early in the relationship Bond tells Madeleine they ‘have all the time in the world’, while the film includes music cues from the Louis Armstrong song ‘We Have All the Time in the World’ from that film (and the song plays over the end credits). It really is quite brilliant how this film pulls all of that together cohesively. And Fukanaga’s direction is tight, the action scenes are brilliant and brutal at times, and the ending packs a hard emotional punch.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Daniel Craig gives probably his best performance as Bond, and he’s been good in all of them, but here he gets to be tender and tough, he gets to show Bond’s heart as well as his determination. Every generation has their 007, but I believe Craig’s five film run is really the definitive interpretation of James Bond, and I am a long-time fan of the series, even liking Moonraker more than most people in the world do. Daniel Craig has put his stamp on the role and he will be a tough act to follow.
Léa Seydoux is also wonderful as Madeleine, and you know she truly loves James and is so deeply hurt when he won’t believe that it wasn’t she who revealed their location. As he puts her on that train, pay attention to one little gesture she makes that will have a very important implication later in the film. And when they meet again five years later, you can tell through Seydoux’s performance that Madeleine still loves James but is still hurt and doesn’t want to let her heart betray her tough exterior. Newcomer Lashana Lynch is also great, and it’s no secret at this point that once Bond retired in Spectre that the 007 designation was going to be up for grabs. And her character Nomi got it, and she takes great pleasure in letting him know she’s 007 now and did he expect they’d retire the designation to honor him? She also has some great moments when Bond is reinstated as a 00 which leads Nomi to keep asking ’00 what?’ If nothing else though, she proves she’s as tough as Bond and we can only hope she carries on into future films, whatever her 00 designation may be. Ralph Fiennes is also great as M, and I love Naomi Harris’ Moneypenny, no longer just a lovelorn secretary sitting outside of M’s office, but now willing to go around her boss to help James, even roping in Q in a delightful performance by out actor Ben Whishaw. It’s just a lovely and fun moment when Bond and Moneypenny show up at his flat while he’s trying to prepare a carefully timed dinner for a date, casually telling that “he” will be there any minute. Bravo for including that. Jeffrey Wright is great as always, Billy Magnussen gives many layers to his CIA agent, and as mentioned, Ana de Armas is just terrific in her one scene, putting on the wide-eyed innocent facade while showing Bond that she learned quite a lot in those three weeks (he begins to believe she’s not telling the truth about that). Christophe Waltz is also great in his one-on-one with Bond, revealing all of his dirty little secrets — and those of others around Bond. The only weak link is Rami Malek’s villain who appears briefly in the pre-credits sequence and then disappears until much later in the film. He’s really just a standard Bond villain and whatever he’s up to still doesn’t make a heck of a lot of sense to me (he apparently does not age either since a couple of decades pass between his first appearance and his return later in the film).
Weak villain aside, No Time To Die is a brilliant, breathtaking, thrilling, funny and emotional journey that allows us to say a final farewell to Daniel Craig’s James Bond. It’s been a great ride but fear not — a final end title card assures us ‘James Bond will return.’
No Time To Die has a run time of 2 hours 43 minutes and is rated PG-13 for sequences of violence and action, some disturbing images, brief strong language and some suggestive material.
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