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No Time to Die (No spoilers in the review at least…)

by 52 Comments

Year: 2021
Director: Cary Joji Fukunaga

Mmmm. I went to the new Bond with high hopes after a few friends had warmly recommended it, especially after its predecessor, Spectre, which I thought was a damp squib. I’ve found Daniel Craig to be a good Bond, tough and convincing if a little humourless. Incidentally I’m a book Bond fan and that Bond isn’t remotely humorous. Roger Moore was maybe too daft at times, but in a 2 hour film a bit of humour is a nice lightener. Anyway, to this film. Being careful to avoid spoliers, I can say that I didn’t really enjoy it. It’s very long, big, impressive, loud, complicated…but like an ELP triple album, not in a good way. Possibly an overdue correction, possibly a reflection of Craig’s age, but lothario Bond is gone, along with his wise cracking jokey twin. There is one dry quip and a pretty good visual gag. This is grim, resolute Bond. As does the audience need to be. Maybe I was in the wrong mood but I was waiting for it to end and felt a distinct lift as I realised we were in the final 5 minutes.

It has call backs to earlier stories, notably “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service” which is cool, both visually and in the script. A retired Bond is hooked back into dealing with a villain trying to perpetrate a massive crime on the world and only Bond can deal with him. There’s violence, lots of fighting, car chases, heartbreak and lots of death. As you might expect, really.

I’m not sure where Bond goes next, and it’s the end of Craig as we all know. But I think grim Bond can’t go any further. This is as grim as it gets.

Might appeal to people who enjoyed:

Well, Bond films of course, though not necessarily. Action movies etc.

3

Comments

  1. I’m with your friends. We both loved it, and even at 2:40 or so it didn’t feel too long. I agree that Spectre was poor, but have been recommending people see it as a reminder because No Time to Die pretty much follows on from it. I didn’t find it too grim either, but the outlandishness of Bond creates its own comic relief.

      • Casino Royale is the best Bond film, bar none. It’s a genuinely great film by any standard.

        Bond films are a bit like The Beatles: lots of people can’t separate how they made them feel as a kid from how good they actually are (understandable – I’m like that with Tiffany). Most of the Connery Bonds are pretty ropey, and don’t stand up at all well as films IMO. The only Bond films which I think are actually great on their own merits are Goldeneye and CR. Soft spot for The Living Daylights too.

        I’ve generally enjoyed Craig’s outings, despite not being a Bond maven. CR top, but Skyfall is really enjoyable too. Then Spectre (poor) and bottom of the pile is Quantum of Solace – a weak Brosnan-throwback excuse for a film.

        I’m looking forward to No Time To Die, though I’m worried it’ll be too long. What is it with directors thinking they get to make 3-hour films all the time? The new Batman is apparently the thick end of 3 as well, and everyone’s on about how “dark” it is. Well. How original and edgy. It’ll have to be monumentally good for me to want to pay money for that kind of ordeal.

  5. I really enjoyed it up to a certain point, but I can’t really expand on that without major spoilers. Me and the boy booked tickets for the opening night. Being such a major film series with obsessive fans, it was astonishing that the film remained on hold for 18 months without any spoilers leaking, not that I would have gone looking for that sort of information anyway, but to be on the safe side I always like to go on the opening night, even when I found myself in New York for one of them. The cinema staff were laughing at us two though, as we refused to leave our seats until we saw ‘James Bond Will Return’ at the end of the credits.

    Daniel Craig has been an excellent Bond, and after all that nonsense when he was cast. I had seen Layer Cake (great film), so I was more than happy that he’d got the gig. I don’t fancy a lot of the current favourites for the role though. I had wanted Tom Hardy to get the role, preferably with Christopher Nolan directing, and he would have been perfect after Skyfall, but I now wonder whether he’s too old. Even if they got their skates on and announced the new film this week, by the time the film came out he would be 47/48, which would make him the oldest Bond debutant of them all (no, I’m not counting David Niven).

    So unless they are going to start turning the films round every couple of years, which is unlikely, given the physical nature of the role among other things, my choice would be Dan Stevens. I thought he was just yet another posho public school actor (they all seem to be these days) when I saw him on Downton Abbey, but I changed my mind after seeing The Guest. He’s got previous too, as he narrated the Casino Royale audiobook. Whoever it is, they have a hard act to follow.

    But my son has been doing acting lessons and is dead set on becoming an actor and a future James Bond. Can’t imagine they’d be looking to cast an 11 year old who’s still afraid of the dark though, so he’ll have to wait his turn.

  6. I really enjoyed it and think that Daniel Craig has been an excellent Bond. I was always of the opinion that Sean Connery was the best Bond (as that’s who I grew up with), but may have revised that opinion after this.

    My only quibble with the No Time To Die was that I felt they didn’t develop the character of the villain enough – you can see his reasons on Spectre, but it didn’t really explain how / why he went from that to the ending…..

  7. Saw it Saturday. Far too long, and while I’m not against the idea of adding some new elements to Bond’s character, felt it was all bolted on in a very clumsy manner. Overall a clunker in my view.

  9. I’m surprised actually that no one has reviewed this on here until now. I was going to, but I couldn’t muster up the enthusiasm to talk about it, which kind of sums up how I feel about the film.

    I agree with hedgepig above, that Casino Royale and Goldeneye are the high watermarks of the series, both of which work as action/spy thrillers purely on their own merits. (But I disagree that Quantum of Solace was no good: I liked that one).

    I thought there were a few decent action sequences in this one: the motorbike at the start, the chase with the landrovers into the forest, and then that beautiful single-take sequence near the end where he is ascending the staircase.

    But the villain was thin and one-dimensional, even by Bond standards. If the film explained exactly why he wanted to destroy the world then I must have missed that scene. Here’s a man with a grudge and a facial disfigurement… oh and now, it’s years later and he has become a super-villain with an island lair and wants to destroy the world. Really? I understand it was maybe intended as a tribute to Bond villains past, but it approached Austin Powers levels of silliness.

    Paradoxically, Daniel Craig is still perhaps my favourite Bond, based purely on his charisma and performance alone, but sadly this film now seals the deal on the arc of his Bond career: a stellar debut followed by diminishing returns.

    • I like all the Connerys and think he’s the best Bond, but HP is probably right, that’s because they were what I saw when the whole thing was new and exciting. I can see the flaws a modern eye exposes but apart from the odd wince I still enjoy them. I even like the rival Never Say Never actually, the Connery remake of Thunderball.

      Casino Royale and Goldeneye are excellent, and I like The Living Daylights and Tomorrow Never Dies too.

    • It’s like jumping to a chapter of a novel, and reading it out of order. The ones you haven’t read are still there, or in this case, still to be written. They did the same in reverse with Casino Royale.

      But, within the canon’s own logic, a great new character can’t make a reappearance in any future films, which is a shame because she was the best thing in it.

  12. I haven’t seen many recent ones, Skyfall was ok. I think that the closest to a great Bond film is On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (despite Lazenby) and that one is also overlong, I also quite liked From Russia With Love and Goldfinger. Still waiting to actually see a great one, but I will check out some of the recent Craig efforts based on comments above before potentially venturing in to a cinema for first time in about 20 months (I did see one Drive-In film lately)

  13. Went to see it. My nuanced take: it was alright. Didn’t blow my mind. Was much better than Spectre. Waltz still has all the brooding menace of Eoin McLove. Him out of Freddie Mercury was a fairly cookie-cutter Bond Villain TM, complete with island.

    Fortunately I got to spend most of the three hours making odd noises at every appearance of Léa Seydoux, and Craig will be missed. He was a great Bond.

    I think the only place to go now is surely Bond Begins, isn’t it? Unless they’re setting up the other 007…

    • It was okay. I enjoyed it, but wouldn’t want to see it again.

      I was disappointed it didn’t begin with him waking up at the point in Spectre where he’s in Bloefeld’s torture chair as they pull the needles out, and saying: “I’ve just had this crazy dream where I escape from this high-security guard-infested lair, blow it up, go to London where my girlfriend is kidnapped and MINUTES LATER I have to rescue her from an elaborately pre-planned time-bomb trap in a different part of the city, which is festooned with photos of my previous foes, then I shoot down a moving helicopter from a moving boat, with a pistol, and then I retire.”

      • That’s the silliest part in a whole orchestra of silly parts in that film. (Other than making the villain just kind of… friendly?)

        Did nobody in the writing team stop and ask “Um. When did Blofeld set all this up? And why bother getting Bond out to the desert if the denouement was all planned for various far-flung bits of London which are now apparently in walking distance of each other?”

        Clearly not.

        • Well, since no-one ever asks “Why doesn’t Villain X shoot Bond and be done with it?”, it probably follows that they wouldn’t ask any of those other questions either.

          • This is true of course. The old ‘tie Bond to an elaborate death laser, tell him all your secret plans, and leave the room’ tactic beloved of supervillians with hectic lifestyles. No Time To Watch You Die.

            Skyfall, which is a pretty good film, has Bond protecting M from imminent death by taking her to an undefended house miles from any outside help, where the are discovered a few hours after they arrive. You’ve got to question his judgement.

            • To be honest, given that trope came originally from Goldfinger, I think it has to be acknowledged that Goldfinger itself actually handles that scene rather well! It’s not over-egged and although it’s a bit silly it’s still within the realms of possibility. Auric G doesn’t walk away and leave Bond… he is ABOUT to, true, but as a last minute desperate attempt to save his life (and his genitals) Bond shouts out to him and persuades him that he knows more than he thinks. It’s quite a genius scene actually, quite tense. And it matches Mr G’s sense of drama and extravagance, already signalled by the gold bodypaint scene earlier in the film.

              Compare to Spectre, where, yes, the baddie literally says “get out of that, Bond” and WALKS AWAY. Ridiculous, and a real insult to the audience’s intelligence.

  14. Overlong and with an overcomplicated plot. Full of characters with not enough to do. A cookie cutter bad guy (facial disfigurement, island lair, army of minions) whose motivation to destroy the world was vague at best. Zero chemistry between Craig & Seydoux. Child actor who behaved like an automaton.

    I walked out thinking it perhaps the worst Bond film I had ever seen. Two weeks later and I would like to see it again just to be sure, as I don’t now think it was as rotten as Spectre or some of the later Moore efforts. It did have some good moments; the scene in Q’s flat, Bond in a shootout whilst ascending the stairs (a great single take but nowhere near as enervating as that scene in True Detective when McConaughey gets embroiled in a fake drug raid), Lashana Lynch was wonderful as the new 00 agent. But there really was not enough to fill nearly 3 hours.

    Casino Royale was great and I enjoyed QoS. Skyfall was brilliant up until they crashed a tube train onto Bond’s head but Spectre was cold and flat and dull. Craig was a decent Bond and I wonder what they’ll do with the franchise now. Personally I’d set it in the 50s, cast a young chap as Bond, and set him loose.

  15. SPOILERS AHEAD — SPOILERS AHEAD

    At the beginning of the novel The Man with the Golden Gun, Bond, having been brainwashed by Blofeld in the previous book, You Only Live Twice, makes an attempt on M’s life. As a result he’s given what’s considered to be a suicide mission: assassinating Scaramanga, which makes up the main action of the novel.

    For me, that’s what should have happened at the end of Skyfall / beginning of Spectre. Bond didn’t kill or even attempt to kill M, but his shockingly poor decision-making led to her death. When by rights he should have been arrested and/or carpeted and then subject to some kind of punishment for his incompetence, he was instead greeted like a returning hero.

    What’s doubly frustrating about this loss of nerve is that the Bond filmmakers, while usually suffering from a case of ‘too many chefs’ syndrome, are clearly in agreement about one thing: they love this particular arc of the novels. They dig the fact that that his wife is killed in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, and that he spends the whole of You Only Live Twice mourning her loss, suffers amnesia, lives off-grid and then loses it completely in The Man With the Golden Gun. They love it so much that they’ve been pushing at the door of this arc for the whole of Daniel Craig’s patchy tenure: he’s gutted about losing Vesper, he gets shot, he goes off-grid not once but twice, he resigns, he’s all kinds of messed-up-inside. They hint at it. But they’ve always slightly bottled it.

    Until now! Because for me it feels like No Time to Die (which is stuffed with references to both OHMSS and You Only Live Twice) finds the Bond hive mind speaking with one voice at last. Certainly it’s the most successful blending of all the elements that made the books so great. i.e mixing gravitas, tradecraft and realism with OTT, escapist elements; having Bond as human being motivated by personal reasons, as well as Bond as an agent on a mission, ‘the blunt instrument’ serving Queen and country; a feeling of aspiration contrasted with a queasy sense of the high life underpinned by violence and corruption.

    None of the previous DC-era films has nailed that balance. Instead the elements have competed rather than working together. Casino Royale is objectively a great film, but I’m not sure it’s a great Bond film. It’s very close to Fleming’s original but then Fleming hadn’t quite nailed the formula himself at that stage. Quantum of Solace I think is unfairly treated but lacks sparkle; Skyfall is pretty good as a spectacle but slowly unravels to the point of being nonsensical by the end; Spectre is a mess, brilliantly eviscerated by Chiz above, one of the worst-ever Bond movies.

    But No Time To Die gets the confection correct. Admittedly I went in with severely lowered expectations after the shitfest of Spectre — I virtually had to be dragged to the cinema — and it’s not without its flaws. But mainly I had a ball with it and left feeling that after On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, it is the most *complete* Bond film, the one that best fulfils the criteria above, the most involving. Which means that right now I’m saying that No Time To Die is my second-favourite Bond. The worthy sequel to OHMSS that it never had. Put it this way, I’ve only cried at a Bond film twice. The first time was in 1980, a TV showing of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. The second time was last night.

    Bravo, Bond people. I even forgive you for the invisible car.

  16. (Lifelong Bond fan, grew up with them)

    I thought it was really good. I can see why people don’t like the ending, but I accept it. And I thought it was really well done.

    Mr Craig has been wonderful, even when his film entries haven’t been up to that level. His era has been this strange kind of bubble outside of all the other Bonds. But I have enjoyed it and he has been great.

    So, thank you. I and many others will miss you, Mr Craig.

  17. What has stuck me about the Daniel Craig’s is that he seems to have played the role dramatically straight. His Bond has been cold, yet made vulnerable by his affair with Vesper Lynd. Some silly dialogue, epic visual stunt work and unremarked lack of fatal injuries aside, hes played him as a serious character. No light comedy, tongue in cheek innuendoes and fucking stupid gadgetry (some impossible and daft cars though)

    This seriousness jars against the interchangeable ridiculous megalomaniac villainy that clogs up every Bond. Everyone has been a curates egg because of this. His go at Casino Royale is still the best one because the card game scenario was so low key. It was almost believable.

    If only his Bond could have been pitted against something or someone that didn’t have an island and a grievance. Just a grievance.

    • Re the light comedy: there was the “fall off building onto a sofa” gag at the start of Spectre which caused palm to meet face and made me think that the next couple of hours were going to be tough, and reflect sadly on the downward arc DC’s Bond films have followed.

      I’m still in two minds about seeing this latest one after vowing not to see another one whilst watching Spectre.

    • Yes. I don’t agree that Bond needs more realistic villains. The megalomaniacs, their islands and bases have always been part of the formula from the novels onwards. But I do think that it only really works when it’s played straight. Camp-Bond? Tongue-in-cheek Bond? Non merci.

  18. I really wanted to like this film, and fully expected to, but I came away feeling a bit disappointed. For a start, I found that I’d seemed to have seen all the best bits in various trailers, and the bits I hadn’t were mostly long drawn out conversations. Like a lot of Bond movies, this started out really well, and I liked the little nods to previous movies, but it sags badly in the middle, and some characters are criminally underused, e.g. the excellent Ramona, considering the thing is so damn long. The Hericles maguffin is absolute twaddle, and I didn’t get the villain’s motivations at all. The ending is what it was, but I am wondering where the whole franchise goes now.

    I’m old enough to have seen every film at the cinema, and Connery remains my favourite Bond, although Craig runs him very close – a different take for different times. Goldfinger is my favourite film – a tight, believable plot, classic scenes, the start of the Aston Martin obsession, the best villain and henchman. Casino Royale is the best Craig outing of course, although I really like Spectre and Skyfall (except for the bit in Scotland), Quantum of Solace is weak, but is really Casino Royale Pt 2, and sort of works if you watch it straight after.

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