No Time to Die (2021) Review

 "We have all the time in the world."

-James Bond

Ok, stop what you are doing and go see No Time to Die.  This is going to be a spoiler heavy review once you get past this paragraph.  This is a really good movie, even if it doesn't hit the heights of Casino Royale and Skyfall, it's a blast.  If you have any interest at all, go and see it.  Spoilers below!  You've been warned.

James Bond (Daniel Craig) has gotten out of the spy business and looks forward to a long and loving life with Madeleine Swann (Léa Seydoux), but it doesn't take long for SPECTRE to rear it's ugly tentacles and a mysterious figure from Madeleine's past makes things more complicated.  Unable to tell who to trust, James is back in the game one last time.

What Works:

As per usual in this series, the action is top notch.  We get a wide variety of action sequences and all of them are a lot of fun, especially the shootout in Cuba.  Craig and the supporting cast all get plenty to do, which makes these sequences an absolute blast.

This is a shockingly funny film with some excellent zingers.  It's subdued and dry humor, but it works incredibly well.  Craig has a few of course, but some of the new characters are also hilarious.  Ana de Armas plays Paloma, Bond's contact in Cuba, who is just wonderful.  She's my favorite of the new characters and makes her limited screen time extremely memorable.  We also have the funniest henchmen since Boris from Goldeneye in Valdo Obruchev (David Dencik).  He's constantly in over his head and babbles endlessly when he gets nervous.  I think he's hands-down the best henchman of the Craig era.

I've seen a lot of people complaining about the runtime of this movie.  It is a beast, clocking in at 163 minutes.  It never bothered me once.  In fact, the movie flew by.  As we got into the 3rd act, I was thinking there was no way we could be getting to the end already.

This movie has a lot of connection to On Her Majesty's Secret Service, which I was not expecting.  There are some thematic similarities, and some matching dialogue and music.  The second half of On Her Majesty's Secret Service is basically perfect, so having that connection between the two movies is very powerful, especially in hindsight.

Ok, let's get into the big stuff.  This movie emotionally wrecked me.  More than any other Bond movie has.  This is my favorite movie series of all time, so I was blown out of the water with what this movie did.  I was already beyond shocked when they killed off Felix Leiter (Jeffrey Wright).  The man is a Bond staple, having been around since Dr. No.  Sure, he's had his leg bitten off by a shark before, but he's always made it through.  Seeing him go down for good in this film shook me to my core.

And then we have the grand finale.  They did it.  They killed off James Bond.  As the 3rd act went along, I was starting to suspect that might happening, but truthfully I was expecting them to come close, but at the last minute find a way to save him.  Nope.  Didn't happen.  Tears were shed as we see the real end of Craig's James Bond.  Sure, the end credits say James Bond will return, but that doesn't make the death of Craig's Bond any less impactful.  His stretch of movies are clearly their own thing.  It was shocking, emotional, and left a massive impact.  It's been a long time since I've been so emotionally impacted by a movie character's death.  I have to give credit to the filmmakers for having the balls to do this and to absolutely nail it.

What Sucks:

The biggest problem in the movie is actually somewhat residual from Spectre, which was a movie I enjoyed, but recognized as very flawed.  I never bought into the relationship between Bond and Madeleine in the previous film, and while it's better here, it still never fully clicked.  I look back at other key women Bond has fallen for in Tracy and Vesper and I felt the connection there, but it never reaches those heights with Madeleine.

Finally, we have our villain, Safin (Rami Malek).  Malek does a good job with what he is given and I have no problem with his performance.  He's very creepy and has an awesome introduction.  It's just his plan and motivation aren't fully fleshed out, especially in the 3rd act.  There were times where I didn't know what he was doing, where he was going, or really why he was doing it.  The character wasn't as fully developed as he could have been.

Verdict:

Of the Craig movies, No Time to Die ends up being my 3rd favorite.  It's got great action, hilarious and emotional moments, and is one hell of a way to end the Craig era.  I wish the character development for Madeleine and Safin had been stronger, but this movie has definitely got it going on.

 8/10: Really Good