NO TIME TO DIE (2021) 163 Minutes! Dir By Cary Joji Fukunaga. Daniel Craig, Ana de Armas, Rami Malek, Lea Seydoux.
ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY THREE MINUTES.
Am I supposed to quit my job to watch these marathon films?
The 25th entry in the Official James Bond franchise was delayed several times over and finally found a release date in the Fall of 2021.
Overall it’s a better movie than our last visit with Bond in 2015’s SPECTRE which featured Christoph Waltz as the evil head of the secret organization Ernst Blofeld.
Blofeld returns after having been captured by Bond and he’s in a high security prison cell reminiscent of Hannibal Lector in SILENCE OF THE LAMBS. Where the movies stumbles for me is in the return of Lea Seydoux as the psychiatrist from SPECTRE, she had zero chemistry with Daniel Craig in that one and it’s only multiplied here because of her importance to the plot.
Bond has decided to settle down with Seydoux and give up the 00 life, but then things lead him to believe that she’s betrayed him so they split and he retires from the lifestyle living comfortably as a fishing hermit in Jamaica. Movie should have ended right there.
Along comes Bond’s old pal, Felix Leiter played to perfection (again) by Jeffrey Wright, and he needs Bond’s help in an upcoming CIA mission.
Rami Malek is our villain this time around, and he’s developed a virus that will attack and kill certain DNA profiles, and he plans on mass producing it and wiping out much of the world’s population— so typical Bond villain stuff. He even gives us a “we’re the same, you and I…” because we haven’t heard that enough times. Malek is suitably creepy and gives us a Bond villain who seems a combination of Michael Jackson and Prince. I half expected him to moon-walk out of a scene.
Worse still is Lashana Lynch as the agent who replaced Bond as the new 007— it comes across as a gimmick and the character is flat and lifeless with no glimmer of why she was given the classic agent number.
A quick note about “wokeness” here, because I was told by several sources this film was loaded with it— it was absolutely not. Special Agent Q is casually revealed to be gay and if that upsets you then you seriously need to re-evaluate your trigger mechanism because he’s a great character and it’s equally great to see him given some depth. Lynch’s 007 is not an angry feminist out to prove how male agents are useless, she’s portrayed as serious and competent (and sadly kind of boring).
The big stand out is Ana de Armas as CIA Agent Paloma who is featured so prominently in the poster art and even billed second on IMDB that you would expect her to have a large role in the movie. She’s in it for all of 10 minutes but she’s brilliant- I would have watched a whole movie with her character in it (provided Craig’s Bond was there as well). She adds the right amount of humor and escapism that has been missing from all the Craig films.
Other highlights in the film are larger parts for M, Q and Miss Moneypenny (Ralph Fiennes, Ben WInshaw and Naomie Harris who have all defined their roles— although no one could ever replace Dame Judi Dench as M, Fiennes character is a literal replacement for the character so it works).
NO TIME TO DIE also suffers from a been there done that (and done better) type of syndrome as well as the Chris Nolan Batman Trilogy reverence that all of these Craig films seem to have.
How about Daniel Craig, Bond himself? He remains the best actor to have ever played the character and we can’t fault him that his version of the character seems to be in a constant state of melancholy- its a running joke in these films that “Bond has gone rogue” over and over again. Craig is still a gem.
Overlong but it seldom drags, Craig’s final Bond outing is a disappointment if you go in with high expectations, I had ZERO so it lands as not the worst of the Craig Bond’s but a far shake from CASINO ROYALE. Craig definitively ended his tenure as Bond, rumors abounded that Idris Elba would be taking over the role—and I was ALL IN with that idea. It’s since been decided he’s too old for the role so they’re leaning towards a thirty something who played Loki or someone else in the Marvel Universe— yawn. I’m out 007 it’s been a good ride, for me if I feel the Bond itch coming I’ll stick with what’s been done before.
BOND RATING: ***½