No Time to Die (2021)
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No Time to Die Movie Review
No Time to Die is a 2021 spy film directed by Cary Fukunaga and starring Daniel Craig for the last time as James Bond. It is a messy, but mostly satisfying conclusion to this era of Bond.
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“You have all the time in the world“
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James Bond has left active service. His peace is short-lived when Felix Leiter, an old friend from the CIA, turns up asking for help, leading Bond onto the trail of a mysterious villain armed with dangerous new technology. This flick continues the tradition of odd-numbered entries in the Craig era being the good ones, though it is obviously far inferior to both ‘Casino Royale’ and ‘Skyfall’.
The film’s a strange beast. It is so odd and somber in its tone for better and for worse. I wouldn’t call it exactly lacking in action sequences as it had plenty of those, and in fact the shootouts could get excessive for my liking, but it does feature a rather less eventful and slower second half.
In terms of the action, the opening sequence set in Matera was gorgeously executed. It was both thrilling and beautiful to look at due to the charm of the Southern Italian vistas. The scene before that set in Norway also was fantastic and it provided a much needed origin story for Madeleine.
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However, that is where my praise ends as most of the rest of the film was rather boring to me. It opened so spectacularly and it quickly fizzled out after the opening credits. The entire second act was needlessly extended in order for the movie to reach that coveted two and a half hour runtime. The result is a lot of padding through boring dialogue and slow, pointless sequences where nothing of importance happened.
I also did not care all that much for the film’s ending. It was emotionally manipulative and even a bit cheesy to be honest, though it clearly made history for being the first film to kill of Bond and to give him a child. Maybe it would have had more of an impact for me if I cared more.
And I couldn’t care more due to the characters involved. Madeleine is still not all that interesting of a character. Lea Seydoux did her best, but the character still wasn’t deepened despite giving her a backstory. This entire romance made me feel nothing personally.
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Another problem was the movie’s villain. He was actually the film’s biggest undoing. Not only do I really dislike Rami Malek as an actor and he was very annoying here as he always is, but I also hate the hypocrisy of Hollywood and their horrible portrayal of Russians as villains. Perhaps I would forgive them for it if the character was better written, but he just wasn’t. This bland bitch being the one to kill Bond for the first time did not sit well with me at all.
No Time to Die also has way too many characters to properly deal with all of them, but thankfully they all make an impact even if their screen time was reduced. Lashana Lynch is quite cool as the new 007 and Ana de Armas as Paloma was so wonderful that I wish she was given more than just one sequence. Craig was excellent as usual and his arc was terrific, but again the character and the movies continue to be humorless.
The cinematography is gorgeous, the locations are all really lovely and the score is excellent. The gadgets used here made for a fun, more old-fashioned Bond movie and the same goes for most of the set pieces. Thus, the tonal disconnect in the second half was significant. The movie was solidly directed, but it needed a better script overall.
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