NO TIME TO DIE Review
As with anything faced with its own impending demise, the Daniel Craig-era of the 007 franchise appeared to fight and gnaw at its determined fate. Of course, that probably wasn’t by design as I’m sure the producers at MGM and Craig himself were more than ready to put an end to a pretty successful and well-renowned era of James Bond shenanigans. Thanks to rewrites, injuries, and the COVID-19 pandemic, the final film of Craig’s moody and brutal Bond, NO TIME TO DIE, was continuously pushed back from its intended premiere date. But finally, the film found the light at the end of tunnel and in that, despite everything, arrives a pretty damn good finale.
Throughout its just under 2 hour and 45 minute runtime, Bond’s latest adventure ultimately feels like something of a B-story given an epic running time. Of course, as things play out, writers Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, Cary Joji Fukunaga and Phoebe Waller-Bridge intentionally or not, unveil a disarming deadliness to this thought as Bond’s dealings with a shadowy (when are they not?) bad guy (Rami Malek, effortlessly off-putting) morphs into a concrete finale for our blonde haired Bond. Strangely, the villains and their goals in NO TIME TO DIE hardly have much to do with Bond (as SKYFALL and SPECTRE more or less accomplished that) as it instead focuses on the backstory of his new love, Madeleine (Lea Seydoux), whose past violently returns in the form of Malek’s aptly named Lyutsifer Safin, a random big bad with a lightly developed tragic backstory of his own who, refreshingly, kind of just wants to give a bunch of bad people around the world access to dangerous weapons. Indeed, NO TIME TO DIE walks the line between grandiose and underdeveloped in regards to its narrative aspects but surprisingly, this unevenness isn’t too bad thanks to the fact that this movie is just plain fun!
Even as it starts off with an effectively tense (and even horror-tinged) opening that introduces Madeleine’s and Lyutsifer’s connection, NO TIME TO DIE, for every moment of dourness that arrives is offset by a good handful (probably the most of this era) of pretty fun sequences that let Bond and Craig have some fun. As is expected with other Bond films, we get a rad opening credits scene (backed by a slow grower of a Billie Eilish song), the usual meeting (and thankfully non-romantic this time around) team up with some new female colleagues — in the forms of the scene stealing Lashana Lynch, who has replaced Bond at MI6 as the new 007, and Ana de Armas, who reigns over her solitary sequence with Bond as a wet behind the ears agent — the picturesque globe-trotting and finally, the reemergence of Bond as a cheeky little scamp. Evoking the great cheesiness of those Brosnan years, Bond (and Craig) finally some straight up fun, delivering sly smiles and puns with a cheekiness so powerful it should be weaponized by Lyutsifer himself. In his last cinematic hurrah, Craig’s Bond seems to have finally found his fun side and it’s a joy to witness even if it doesn’t always mesh naturally with this film’s dips into its well-known vats of dourness.
As with other entries, NO TIME TO DIE displays the icy yet eye-catching visual aesthetic that I’ve always enjoyed throughout this particular era of Bond. With Mr. Fukunaga behind the camera this go round (a hire that had this writer pretty damn stoked), the visual width of Bond’s latest outing effectively juggles between wide, awe-inspiring landscapes and on-the-ground, “being there” settings such as a moodily fog-drenched forest or the brutalist abandoned island barracks that Malek’s baddie calls home. Each setting is effectively realized, elevating the otherwise workmanlike direction Fukunaga brings to this entry, save for an effective if very quick hunt in the aforementioned foggy forest or an entertaining “one take” fight scene set on a staircase. To his credit, the filmmaker does good work making a 2 hour and 30+ minute movie move by rather quickly, even as it introduces new characters and minor side plots with some more effectively realized (like Lynch’s genuinely engrossing 007 agent) than others (such as the disappointingly slim use of Billy Magnussen’s rookie CIA agent). Otherwise, Fukunaga’s penchant for injecting his narratives with a little more humanistic flair lies low in NO TIME TO DIE, only coming to play in the film’s noticeably melodramatic if still emotionally effective final moment.
While the film kind of rushes to bring Craig’s Bond to an effectively concrete end, there’s a power to the history that Craig and the producers at MGM studios have built throughout the years that bolsters NO TIME TO DIE’s obviously calculated tear-jerking conclusion. It took me a bit to get used to this non-Brosnan Bond, but thanks to the efforts of a variety of directors and writers and Craig’s own winning take on the character, this era of Bond created enough unique tones and narrative turns to have this era stand out on its own. And thanks to the final director and his stable of writers and crew, Craig’s Bond achieves an earned and assured finale. With brutality, some overbearing somberness, and the occasional moments of cheeky humor, NO TIME TO DIE lets Craig’s Bond go out on his own stylish terms. Here’s to the next go round.
4/5
