No Time To Die

 

Score: A-

Directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga

Starring Daniel Craig, Lea Seydoux, Rami Malek, Lashana Lynch, Ralph Fiennes

Running time:

Rated PG-13

Long Story Short:  Delayed a eighteen months by the pandemic, Daniel Craig's fifth Bond movie finally hits theaters, and I'm glad they resisted the urge to just put it on streaming.  It isn't Craig's best, but the first half makes a trip to the theater well worth it.  No Time To Die follows through on Craig's previous outings, so not only do you get the usual spectacular action and locales, but also an emotional payoff.

In the aftermath of James Bond's (Craig) defeat of Blofeld, leader of the terrorist organization Spectre, he takes Madeline (Seydoux) on an Italian getaway but soon finds that he cannot escape his life as a spy so easily.  Years later, with Bond out of the picture, a team of commandos raids a biological weapon facility in London and makes off with a dangerous prize.  Bond begrudgingly gets back into the "game", but much has changed since he last fired his Walther pistol.  Although Blofeld is in prison, Spectre is alive and well but no longer the only gang threatening the world.  Bond will need all his allies, both new - including the agent who took his place as 007 - and old - like tech expert Q - to prevent catastrophe.

No Time To Die is a very good, if uneven, entry in the James Bond action/spy film franchise.  The first half or so of the movie is especially good; if it had kept it up, it might have been the best Bond yet.  It's no secret that this is Daniel Craig's last time in the 007 tux, and the first part of the film combines both action and, unusual for a Bond film, emotional elements in a rollicking start.  Before getting to the present day, an extended prologue includes an intimate, mysterious (and chilling) Bond-less intro followed by a more typical pre-credits action set that leaves you shaken and stirred.  After an intriguing, quieter setup of the main plot, the film lets Craig's Bond indulge in the kind of showy, slightly winking action set that was more common for his predecessors - but it works for Craig, too, as kind of a last hurrah.  Craig himself is upstaged here, though, by a brilliant CIA agent in Ana de Armas (Craig's co-star from Knives Out).  She is a traditionally gorgeous female counterpart yet is also cheerfully nonplussed by her famous partner and drops baddies shot-for-shot with him; it's a scene of pure, fun adrenaline.  The new 007, played by Lashana Lynch, is much more restrained (perhaps too much the quiet, well-trained agent) but she also has her moments and, like de Armas, ensures this is not a one-agent show.

While the second half of the film is not bad, it falls back on a more predictable path with less creative energy.  There are some missed opportunities, or moments that should have been better, particularly between Bond and an old flame.  The main villain, played by Rami Malek, is disappointingly bland (though his henchmen, including a rogue scientist and a traitor, are fun), and the inevitable assault on his secret island base feels too obligatory with not enough variation.  Still, the film's status as the finale for Craig's Bond helps keep the stakes high, and it's much more personal here than in most Bond endings.  There are a good number of franchise callbacks, particularly in the music, throughout, which helps maintain the feeling of the film's place in Bond's history.  It's quite long at over two-and-a-half hours but it has very good pacing, and the focus on Bond's fate makes it feel more like a regular length film.  Just as 007 would have it, though, there's no wasted time at the end; just a nice final shot that both circles back to the beginning for Craig and (hopefully) launches into the next era for Bond.

Bucking franchise history, Daniel Craig's Bond, over the course of five films, established and concluded a satisfying narrative and emotional arc.  Casino Royale is still my favorite - not just of Craig's films, but of all Bond movies.  And Skyfall is also a more consistently excellent film; I need to rewatch the others, Quantum of Solace and Spectre, to decide how they fit in.  Craig himself made an excellent James Bond, and the unifying arc turned out to benefit each individual film.  Going forward - certainly, I hope that we'll get more Bond! - there are things I'd like to see carried forward and others changed.  I do like having connections between the movies but it doesn't have to be anything major; the Craig arc is a good model for how much to do there.  But I would also like to see more of an emphasis on Bond's spycraft and the relationships - both with his allies and his enemies - in the next iteration.  Partly, this is because Casino Royale proved this model can work brilliantly - and partly because the action genre is becoming both overcrowded and, in the case of a few films like John Wick and its sequels, doing it better than Bond.  So much more could be mined from examining the tensions between Bond's traditional attitudes - toward women, booze, violence, etc. - and contemporary sensibilities, too.

***

No Time To Die is a nice, entertaining way to kick off the fall movie season; I got to it a little late.  I have been a Bond fan since 1995's GoldenEye (and I'm still partial to Pierce Brosnan), and many franchises in general, from Star Wars to Harry Potter.  Among other reasons, I find it enjoyable getting to know these characters that we get to come back to again and again; yet also see the evolution or variations by different actors and/or eras of filmmaking.  Next up for me will be Denis Villeneuve's adaptation of Dune; I'm looking forward to this sci-fi classic by one of today's most talented directors.  And as the pandemic hopefully continues to recede, I'm looking forward to a more normal rhythm of movie theater-going.  Bring on both the familiar characters and worlds, and the exciting new ones!

* By Official James Bond 007 Website, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=61977088