No Time to Die

After 15 years in the role, No Time to Die marks Daniel Craig’s final outing as James Bond with a finale that’s as original and engaging as his debut was in 2006’s Casino Royale. It’s a fitting swansong for the end of his tenure, during which the character of Bond has benefited from more emotional depth and character development than in the rest of the franchise combined.

Premise: Five years after resigning from MI6 to start a new life with Madeleine Swann (Léa Seydoux), James Bond (Daniel Craig) is approached by Felix Leiter (Jeffrey Wright) who asks for his help with tracking down a scientist who’s been kidnapped by SPECTRE, the criminal organisation whose leader, Ernst Stavro Blofeld (Christoph Waltz), Bond captured previously. But in the shadows, Lyutsifer Safin’s (Rami Malek) secret plan is already in motion.

Review:

I’ve been a huge fan of Daniel Craig’s take on James Bond ever since he burst onto the big screen (and through the drywall) in the opening of Casino Royale. In fact, I was so impressed with how they’d managed to reinvigorate the 50-year-old character, that Casino Royale was my Film of the Year for 2006. I’ve enjoyed the whole of Daniel Craig’s 15-year tenure as Bond since then, with Casino Royale and 2012’s Skyfall both standing out as my two favourites from the 24 Bond films made up to No Time to Die.

I say this because, coming into No Time to Die, my expectations were sky high, and if I’m being honest, not all of the Daniel Craig films have lived up to those expectations. Quantum of Solace has some great ideas, but felt much more like “Bond by the numbers” after the mould-breaking Casino Royale (although in fairness, it was badly affected by the 2008 screenwriters’ strike), and 2015’s Spectre was enjoyable enough but fell short of the heights of Casino Royale and Skyfall. With the knowledge that this would be Daniel Craig’s final film as Bond, I was desperately hoping that No Time to Die would give him the send-off that he so clearly deserved.

“…delivers all of the emotional closure that I was hoping for…”

Because unlike any of the earlier incarnations of James Bond, Craig’s Bond has told one, unified story across the course of the five movies, which meant that it deserved a “proper” conclusion. The emotional fallout from Vesper’s actions in Casino Royale has echoed throughout Daniel Craig’s run, as has the impact of M’s death in Skyfall, and it’s the emotional baggage that Craig’s Bond carries that has been the key to the success of his more continuity-focused tenure, more so even than the plot-driven elements like Mr White, Quantum, Spectre and Blofeld. And so it was emotional closure, as much as tying up loose plot threads, that I hoped No Time to Die would provide.

And, I’m happy to confirm, No Time to Die certainly delivered all of the emotional closure that I was hoping for. Picking up almost immediately after the end of Spectre, we get to see Bond and Madeleine Swann dealing with the emotional fallout from the previous film, and the story itself not only pulls together plot threads from all of Craig’s earlier films, but also brings his Bond’s emotional arc to a satisfying conclusion from the naïve and emotionally repressed newly promoted 00 agent we saw in Casino Royale a decade and a half ago.

“…Daniel Craig gives his best performance yet as Bond…”

Daniel Craig is fantastic in No Time to Die, giving arguably his best performance yet as Bond. Part of that may simply be because he gets so much more to do in this film, and is therefore able to show off a bit more range. Whereas his Bond in Casino Royale was putting up a cocksure front to hide his own insecurities (the “emotional armour” that Vesper called him on), and his Bond in Skyfall felt like he was jaded from carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders, in No Time to Die, Craig gets to explore what Bond is like after having left MI6 behind him. And while it’s not exactly a spoiler to say that Bond and the MI6-based characters are eventually reunited, it arguably doesn’t happen as quickly as you might expect. In this film, Craig even gets to inject more humour into his Bond – not in an overt Roger Moore way, but in a more subtle way that shows that his Bond is now much more comfortable in his own skin than he ever was in the earlier films.

The rest of the cast are also great, and the script finds a decent amount for M/Mallory (Ralph Fiennes), Q (Ben Whishaw), Moneypenny (Naomie Harris) and Felix Leiter (Jeffrey Wright) to do, and each of them get to chance to bring a little more depth and development to their characters even with their limited screen time. Léa Seydoux and Christoph Waltz also return from Spectre as Madeleine Swann and Ernst Stavro Blofeld respectively, continuing their characters’ arcs from the previous film, and even the ever-reliable Tanner, played Rory Kinnear in every Bond film since Quantum of Solace, gets a bit more screen time.

“…the viscerally engaging action set pieces involve well-staged shootouts & inventive vehicular sequences…”

In terms of the new characters, Lashana Lynch is great as Nomi, a newly promoted 00 agent, who in many ways is an echo of how Bond was in Casino Royale, with her total confidence in her professional abilities masking some of her other insecurities. Ana de Armas (who stole the show in Blade Runner 2049 and Knives Out) effectively just has an extended cameo in one particular sequence, but manages to make a huge impact with her idiosyncratic portrayal of Paloma, and shows she’s just as capable in an action role as she is with comedic and dramatic material. Billy Magnussen (who was great in Game Night) appears as Logan Ash, a wet-behind-the-ears US agent that Felix Leiter is saddled with, and of course, we have recent Oscar-winner Rami Malek playing the main villain of the movie, Lyutsifer Safin. It can be quite tricky playing a Bond villain with just enough eccentricities to make them memorable, but not so many that they become a parody, but Malek finds a good balance. His Safin is pretty chilling at times, yet also feels like a three-dimensional character, with understandable motivations and recognisable character flaws.

In terms of the action, No Time to Die certainly delivers, but in the more grounded way that the Daniel Craig Bond films have (for the most part) done. So there may not be much in the way of big, flashy stunts (they seem happy to leave that niche to the Mission: Impossible films), with the action set pieces instead relying on well-staged shootouts and inventive vehicular sequences. Each action sequence has its own identity and tone, meaning that they’re not only very inventive, but they also never feel repetitive. The action sequences also work well because they’re not only viscerally engaging (and some are fairly brutal and hard-edged for the 12A rating), but they’re also emotionally impactful.

“…director Cary Joji Fukunaga has a great eye for elevating the action sequences…”

Anyone who’s seen director Cary Joji Fukunaga’s previous work – and in particular, his extended one-shot action sequences in True Detective and Maniac – will know that he has a great eye for elevating what could, on the page, be a fairly run-of-the mill action sequence and turning it into something special. Bond even gets his own extended one-shot action sequence at one point.

I know some have had an issue with the film’s length (about 2 hours, 40 minutes), but honestly, I thought the time flew by, and I was never clock watching. For me, the film never dragged at any point, and there’s nothing that I would have wanted to be cut out to shorten the film’s length. The additional runtime allowed room to breathe and to have the more character-based scenes, in between the action set pieces.

“…delivers the familiar elements that you want from a Bond film, alongside things you’ve never seen in the series before…”

If I’m being really nitpicky, there were a few places in the film where I thought Hans Zimmer’s score felt a little too similar to his work on The Dark Knight – but then at other times, when the classic James Bond theme kicked in, or when Zimmer incorporated melodies from We Have All the Time in the World and On Her Majesty's Secret Service, I thought the score hit all the right notes (pun intended).

Overall, No Time to Die is a great film in isolation, but it’s a fantastic film if viewed as the final chapter in Daniel Craig’s five-film arc. It’s simultaneously darker in tone than his previous films, while also incorporating more humour, and it packs an emotional punch as well as having some of the best action sequences of the series. Daniel Craig began his James Bond journey with Casino Royale, one of the best Bond films ever made and one which boldly reinvented what could be done with the character – and now he’s left the franchise with an equally strong entry that also strikes a perfect balance between delivering the familiar elements that you want from a Bond film, alongside things you’ve never seen in the series before.