Film review: No Time to Die is the end of an era
«No Time to Die» isn’t just the longest ever Bond film; it’s Daniel Craig’s fitting farewell to the iconic secret agent. Goodbye, Mr Bond.
First thing’s first: this film critic’s motto is: No Time for Spoilers. I’m not going to talk about anything that isn’t mentioned in the trailers.
What can you say when all’s said and done? How can you describe the end of an era? After all, «No Time to Die» isn’t just any old Bond film. It’s the end of Daniel Craig’s tenure. Forever. Craig could change his mind again,
but that’s unlikely given that the storyline he and the film’s creators have told is an ending. Not forever – four words at the end of the credits give that away. But the next Bond film will tell a new story. Start a new chapter. And set off into uncharted waters, without 53-year-old Craig.
Until then, one question remains: is «No Time to Die» a fitting farewell for Daniel Craig’s James Bond?
The plot
Five years have passed since James Bond left MI6. He’s started a new, quiet life in Jamaica surrounded by palm trees, the beach and the ocean. Until his friend, CIA agent Felix Leiter (Jeffrey Wright), turns up to try and bring him out of retirement, that is.
The mission: a scientist has been kidnapped from a secret British laboratory. The threat: biowarfare technology. The next location: Cuba. And, somewhere, the terror organisation that has been in the background since «Casino Royale» could be pulling the strings.
Spectre.
We have all the time in the world
There’s a feeling of melancholy when Bond and Madeleine Swann (Lea Seydoux) are driving around against the backdrop of the picturesque Italian sunset accompanied by Louis Armstrong’s «We Have All The Time In The World» – the theme song for the George Lazenby Bond film in which his new wife was killed at the end.
Let’s recap. Holding his dead lover in his arms, Bond says, through tears: «It’s quite alright really. She’s just having a rest. We’ve got all the time in the world.»
The very fact that «No Time to Die» tries to conjure up this sense of melancholy is unusual for Bond. Unusual, but not by chance. «No Time to Die» is different.
This is clear in the first few minutes. There’s a flashback – almost in the style of a horror film – where a nefarious masked killer chases a helpless young woman over a deadly frozen lake in Norway. The connections will be uncovered. Spectre, Mr White, Swann. It’s worth at least going through a summary of «Spectre» before watching «No Time to Die» because, after the flashback, «No Time to Die» ties directly into its predecessor.
And it does so in style. Against the backdrop of Matera, a city on a rocky outcrop in southern Italy, «True Detective» director Cary Joji Fukunaga unleashes one of the most furious opening scenes of any Bond film in history. It’s a feast for the eyes and ears that belongs in cinemas and has an emotional ending, even by Daniel Craig Bond standards.
Source: Universal Pictures
Before Craig, James Bond had never gone through such consistent, traceable character development. This is because the Craig films tell interconnected stories. Before, James Bond had always been just a template: cool, hardened and quick-witted. A true all-rounder.
A superhero in a smoking jacket.
Craig’s first Bond film, «Casino Royale», changed that. In it, Bond is an unfamiliarly rough tearaway. A whippersnapper who is already the best, yet wildly overrates himself. That’s where Vesper Lynd (Eva Green) comes in. His great love – and his most bitter loss.
Vesper Lynd’s death reverberated through the other films, especially «Quantum of Solace», the least successful Bond film of the Craig era. Nothing has shaped Bond’s character more. At first, broken, cold and virtually sociopathic. Then frighteningly rational and never letting anything or anyone get close to him. A modern Bond, not like Sean Connery’s flirty, playboy, macho Bond in 1963.
Source: Universal Pictures
That’s exactly what the public loves so much about Daniel Craig’s Bond: he feels real. Genuine. But it’s these demons from the past that Daniel Craig’s Bond wants to leave behind at the start of «No Time to Die»: guilt, failure, Vesper, Spectre. Everything. Because Lea Seydoux’s Madeleine Swann is offering him a future that he could no longer see before.
«We’ve got all the time in the world,» says Bond, smiling, loved, radiant and only hours before all hell breaks loose for them both.
And, nevertheless, it’s Bond through and through
Don’t worry: despite the new-found emotional and melancholy momentum that continues through «No Time to Die»’s entire 163-minute runtime, the film is still a genuine Bond flick at its core.
Composer Hans Zimmer contributes to this. Although his music won’t win any awards for innovation, it does exactly what it should do: it takes us through the iconic Bond theme in all its possible variations. Sometimes loud, sometimes triumphant, sometimes floating, sometimes quiet and sometimes mysterious.
All the usual Bond ingredients are there: exotic locations, loosely connected by a plot that you can hardly follow at first. Jaw-dropping action sequences and stunts. Bond stoically escaping and defying death again and again. A shaken martini, Omega watches and many more product placements.
Director Fukunaga doesn’t have the same cinematic eye as Oscar-winning directing legend Sam Mendes. As a result, «No Time to Die» doesn’t look quite as good as «Skyfall» and «Spectre». But it doesn’t have to. In «Spectre», Mendes kept losing himself in the opulence of the visually stunning work by fellow Oscar winner, cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema, which meant that the story fell rather flat.
Fukunaga doesn’t make this mistake. He makes the action purposeful yet gripping, letting the characters – rather than the locations or scenery – do the talking. Probably because the script that «No Time to Die» is based on has a little more going on than the one for «Spectre». It’s certainly bolder. Especially in the third act, where Fukunaga manages to outdo his already fantastic opening action sequence.
What more could Bond fans ask for?
The film’s true strength: its cast
Like his predecessors, director Fukunaga had a stellar cast of acting heavyweights including Ralph Fiennes, Christoph Waltz and Oscar-winner Rami Malek. Malek’s villain is perfidious, evil and enigmatically calm, making him even more menacing.
Source: Universal Pictures
I view him carrying out his nefarious deeds from his own private island as Dr. No did in the very first Bond film as an homage. There are a lot of them in «No Time to Die». They’re mostly subtle enough to avoid descending into clumsy fan-pleasing.
Take the portraits of former heads of MI6 at headquarters, for example. There’s not just Judi Dench, who played «M» before Ralph Fiennes; you can also see Robert Brown and Bernard Lee, the other actors who portrayed «M» in previous films.
«No Time to Die» is also, or especially, pleasing because of newcomers Lashana Lynch and Ana de Armas. Lynch is not only Bond’s successor; she’s also the one who finds Bond in Jamaica and warns him about getting involved with Felix Leiter in secret service business again.
«I’m here to dive old wrecks,» is how she first introduces herself to Bond – not just a joke at the expense of the ageing Bond, but also a fond homage to Ursula Andress’ appearance in «Dr. No».
Source: Universal Pictures
Ana de Armas, who starred alongside Daniel Craig in «Knives Out», plays Paloma, a secret agent stationed in Cuba who’s somewhere between jolly and incredibly quick-witted. Almost like Bond. And it’s exactly these female elements in what used to be a male-dominated domain, updated by screenwriter Phoebe Waller-Bridge, that benefit the film.
Verdict: a fitting departure for Daniel Craig.
In the end, the 25th canonical Bond film feels like it’s following on from the events of its 24 predecessors and aims to get to the heart of them. That’s why it’s so long: the film’s runtime is 163 minutes.
But «No Time to Die» needs all of its two and a half hours. The story is complex, balancing numerous locations, characters and plot twists. So much so that the events of the first few minutes feel like they took place 18 months ago – which was the initial intention. Back then, the project was still being directed by Oscar-winner Danny Boyle, who left «Bond 25» when the studio wanted to replace Boyle’s regular screenwriter John Hodge but keep the director.
Be that as it may, if the pandemic hadn’t happened, the most recent instalment would have been released in cinemas in April 2020. It’s been a long wait and, thankfully, it’s been worth it. «No Time to Die» is not only action-packed; it’s an unusual, unprecedented Bond experience that makes a fitting end to the Daniel Craig Bond era.
«James Bond: No Time to Die» is available in cinemas from 30 September.
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Luca Fontana
Senior Editor
Luca.Fontana@digitecgalaxus.chI'm an outdoorsy guy and enjoy sports that push me to the limit – now that’s what I call comfort zone! But I'm also about curling up in an armchair with books about ugly intrigue and sinister kingkillers. Being an avid cinema-goer, I’ve been known to rave about film scores for hours on end. I’ve always wanted to say: «I am Groot.»
