Spoilers: This review contains some SPOILERS. Possibly nobody cares now, but I'm warning you anyway.
Title: No Time to Die
Year: 2021
Directed by: Cary Joji Fukunaga
With: Daniel Craig, Léa Seydoux, Rami Malek, Lashana Lynch, Christoph Waltz, Ralph Fiennes, Ben Whishaw, Naomie Harris
Distributor: Universal
Country of origin: United Kingdom
English language
Rating: PG-13
Duration: 163 min.
With No Time to Die the series of Daniel Craig films closes. The four that precede it are: Casino Royale (2006), Quantum of Solace (2008), Skyfall (2012) and SPECTER (2015).
If we ordered those four according to their quality, the list would probably look like this:
- Casino Royale
- Skyfall
- SPECTER
- Quantum of Solace
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The million dollar question: if we add No Time to Die to the list, where would it rank? That's what I'll do in a moment.
A quick comment: it is a very, very long film (2 hours and 43 min.), but at least it has a lot of shots and jumps and explosions and chases and above all, "tributes" to the other films in the saga who is 60+ years old. In addition to the DB5, we've got the Aston Martin from The Living Daylights (1987), the closing theme On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969), the bungee jump from GoldenEye (1995) and much more. It's the James Bond Greatest Hits album, for pistol and silencer.
The action sequences are fine, the performances are correct, although one expected more from Rami Malek, but it is what it is and the film is not nearly as confusing as its predecessor. The problem, for me, is the climate of bitterness that runs from the first minute to the end. By comparison, License to Kill (1989) is a Monty Python skit.
As for the story, or rather, the script, it is full of surprises and twists. Most of them seem to have been included to keep the viewer awake, like a 162-minute horror movie.
Bond is tired, battered by life and by the apparent betrayal of Madeleine Swann, whom he abandons after a vicious attempt on his life. All good, but blowing up Vesper's little grave seemed like a bit much to me.
Five years pass and Félix Leiter contacts him to ask for his help on a mission. Bond is no longer 007, but it still turns on.
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Let's go to the most interesting spoilers. Usually, one already knows from the moment one settles into the cinema seat, that at the end of the film James Bond will succeed, he will not be crippled or lose an eye or lose his hair. From Dr. No (1962) until now, Bond has an immunity, because if he is killed, the series ends and money stops coming into EON's coffers.
But that immunity doesn't necessarily reach the rest of the characters. There is no worse position than being a friend or acquaintance of James Bond in one of his films. Almost certainly we will end up poisoned, stabbed or with a metal butterfly stuck in the neck. Usually some recurring characters are exempt from that rule. In the movies of yesteryear, it was unthinkable that someone would kill M, Q or Moneypenny.
But Daniel Craig's movies tend to load the recurring ones, without moving a hair. The most obvious example is M (Judy Dench) in Skyfall, but also René Mathis (Gianfranco Giannini) in Quantum. Now we must add to the list of fallen Blofeld (Christoph Waltz) and Felix Leiter (Jeffrey Wright).
The Blofeld thing was seen coming: after all, in You Only Live Twice (the novel), Bond grabs him by the neck and squeezes until his eyes bulge out of their sockets, and in For Your Eyes Only (1981) he throws it into a factory chimney from a helicopter.
But what did poor Leiter do to them? In the Craig era the guy more or less kept his physical integrity. In Live and Let Die (the novel) and in License to Kill (1989) he lost an arm and a leg, but with Bond going on the only thing he had lost so far was some hair.
So far, whoever reads this review will think something like: "It is obvious that the producers decided to clean up so that the new 007 can start from zero. Again, the only question is whether the next film will be a soft reboot or if we are doomed." to witness again the moment when agent 777 becomes 007, as often happens with the Batman or Spider-Man movies, which regularly remind us of the death of the Waynes or Uncle Ben."
But… in this movie they also kill James Bond.
Although it is a heroic death, we needed more!, and we see the dismayed faces of Q and M, but that doesn't mean that it is simply a question of removing the Alpha Male par excellence from the middle.
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This film "homages" to so many bond films, that perhaps it will also do so with You Only Live Twice (the novel), which has a similar ending but whose sequel, The Man with the Golden Gun, tells us that Bond survived and was rescued by some fishermen, although yes, without the slightest recollection of who he was.
On second thought, it would be too similar to The Bourne Identity (2002). But what does one more stripe do to the tiger? Let's not rule out that option.
Because Lashana Lynch, as the interim 007, needs to drink a lot, but a lot of soup to be able to catch up with even the worst of Bonds. It is not enough to raise your little nose and treat others as if each interlocutor should pay homage to you. Nomi is a mix of African-American heroine a la Pam Grier with Moonraker's (1979) Lois Chiles, but this isn't 70s blaxploitation. , goodness. Be careful, these types of characters have their place, and if one day they make the sequel to Undercover Brother (2002), it wouldn't hurt if Lynch auditioned for one of the supporting roles. Anyway.
Having said that, I also say: it was inevitable that, if Bond resigns and doesn't set foot in MI6 headquarters again for more than five years, the government would eventually fill that vacant position with another agent, or in this case, an agent named Nomi. And, yes, it isn't unreasonable to think that there are secret agents who are also women. (And cleaning staff, and security staff, and secretaries, and senior staff. For that matter, Bond reported to a woman for years.)
Going back to the question at the beginning, my list would look like this:
- Casino Royale
- Skyfall
- No Time to Die
- Quantum of Solace
- SPECTER
No Time to Die is an interesting movie and objectively maybe even better than Skyfall, but it goes down one position because :
a) at 162 minutes it's too long,
b) almost completely lacking in humor, and
c) maybe it has too many twists for its own good, including the well-worn resource of the little daughter who is, is not, and in the end is.
If you stay until the credits roll, you'll see the little sign that says: JAMES BOND WILL RETURN. Hopefully he comes back with better ideas.