REVIEW: ‘No Time to Die’ shoots for the heart of James Bond
Daniel Craig in his fifth and final outing as James Bond in No Time to Die.
From the first time he appeared in the role of James Bond, Daniel Craig has ruffled feathers. A lot of pixels were wasted on snarky comments when Craig - the so-called “Blond Bond” - was cast, but the movies that followed routinely challenged us to engage with who or what Bond is. Casino Royale showed us a Bond who can actually fall in love, and Skyfall showed us one who can age and be physically broken. Now, No Time to Die has arrived after over a year of pandemic-related delays to pose a new question: how does Bond end?
Bear in mind: that last question isn’t a spoiler. I’ll try to let as few of those as possible creep in. The series will obviously continue, and the search is on for a new lead. But anyone who has watched and enjoyed a lot of Bond adventures, across multiple actors’ runs in the role, will go into No Time to Die wondering what kind of bow Eon Productions is putting on the Craig era. Will Bond remain the callous, womanizing assassin he’s known to be, or is there potential for character growth in between the necessary shootouts, car chases, and slithering villains?
In the hands of director Cary Joji Fukunaga and a writing team that includes Phoebe Waller-Bridge, No Time to Die proves to be one of the most surprising turns for the franchise since Casino Royale itself. And while it deconstructs and redefines the Bond character in notable ways, it also retains many of the touchstones we crave: cool vehicles, over-the-top villain lairs, and just enough witty one-liners. And it provokes plenty of questions for Bond obsessives as we track where the series goes next, and even every movie we’ve seen up to this point.
The film opens with a flashback: the home of a young Madeleine Swann (played as an adult by Léa Seydoux) is invaded by a mysterious assassin named Lyutsifer Safin (Rami Malek). Safin murders Swann’s mother in an act of revenge against her father Mr. White, a ranking member of the criminal organization SPECTRE. But Safin spares Swann for unknown reasons, and Swann keeps that secret until she falls in love with Bond, decades later. Swann’s mysterious past makes it hard for Bond to trust her, and when they’re ambushed by SPECTRE in Italy, Bond painfully decides to part ways with her.
Five years later, SPECTRE breaks into a British military lab and steals a nanobot-powered weapon that spreads like a virus (maybe the pandemic delays were a good idea for multiple reasons). Bond is happily (?) retired in Jamaica, but his CIA contact Felix Leiter (Jeffrey Wright) believes he’s the only man who can track down the scientist responsible for the weapon and stop it from being deployed. Naturally, Bond’s initial resistance gives way, and he jumps into action, leading him to reunite with Swann and investigate how the shadowy Safin is connected to everything.
Lashana Lynch as the new 007, Nomi.
The film introduces a couple new characters who I hope will continue to appear alongside Ralph Fiennes’s M, Ben Whishaw’s Q, and Naomie Harris’s Moneypenny. Firstly, Ana de Armas appears for a relatively short time as a Cuba-based operative with “three weeks of training” who makes a swift impression on both Bond and the audience. Secondly, we meet Lashana Lynch as the new MI6 agent Nomi, who took on the 007 moniker after Bond retired at the end of Spectre. All five of these characters make the case for ensemble-style sequels; maybe the future of the series is in taking some of the weight off the Bond actor’s shoulders.
The recognizable Bond components are all expertly done; action and comedy beats are well-balanced, and despite clocking in at a whopping 2 hours and 43 minutes, the runtime doesn’t detract from the experience. But where the movie really distinguishes itself are the scenes between Craig and Seydoux. Unlike his predecessors, and even unlike some of his earlier appearances, Craig allows Bond to meaningfully connect with Seydoux’s Swann. Bond is seen stumbling over his words at times, attempting to explain his thinking and actions to Swann. The suave secret agent melts away, and the movie challenges us to figure out what it means for Bond to hang up his pistol and perhaps have a “normal” life.
Seeing the sensitive side of Bond is a path that the series started down in Casino Royale, though we got plenty of characteristically brutish behaviour throughout Craig’s appearances. So the filmmakers clearly wanted to use this final time with Craig to reflect on the character - more than I can recall any other Bond movie doing. This builds to a climax that I won’t ruin for those who haven’t seen it, but suffice it to say that the next Bond film will have a lot of work to do. The filmmakers may have to make some definitive decisions on how the messy business of the 60-year old series’ continuity actually works, on top of introducing a new lead actor. I’m anticipating a spirited time on film Twitter.
Rami Malek as the villainous Lyutsifer Safin.
The only area where No Time to Die let me down was with Safin himself. That may seem to be a fatal flaw, since villains are often the centrepiece of any Bond story. To the filmmakers’ credit, everything around Safin looked and felt like series high points: the visual design of the lair, the peons in matching industrial outfits, even a somewhat goofy escape mechanism. But the script splits its focus between Safin and Bond’s archnemesis Blofeld (Christoph Waltz), making it hard to understand the connections between Safin, Swann, and Bond. As a result, Safin doesn’t feel like a dramatically satisfying challenge for Bond to overcome.
Where does the series go from here? The possibilities have never seemed so open. No Time to Die is proof that the lead character doesn’t have to be a Cold War relic, and that change doesn’t have to be quite as hard as some fans make it out to be. As the movie reminds us multiple times, 007 is just a number. Similarly, James Bond is just a name, and somehow I’m still ready to see it rolled out for a 26th time.
No Time to Die gets three and a half stars out of four.
Stray thoughts
This movie doesn’t skimp on henchmen: both the weapons scientist and the cyclops guy were very fun.
The movie also grapples with M’s decision-making more than almost any other Bond story.
Billie Eilish’s title song is fine, but it doesn’t stand out amongst the other well-known tracks.