Review: No Time To Die

Image courtesy of MGM.

 

Daniel Craig's James Bond goes out with a bang in the slightly overlong, but mostly enjoyable, "No Time to Die," which features a smorgasbord of great actors in supporting roles, the most memorable theme song and opener in some time and a lot of breathtaking locations. In other words, another day's work for this series, which has almost existed for 60 years onscreen.

When we catch up with Bond at the film's beginning, he is living a retired life in Jamaica, five years after he believed that his lover, Madeleine (Lea Seydoux) sold him out. She has disappeared and when she resurfaces late in the film, she has a young daughter (his?) in tow. Bond is pulled out of retirement by his pal Felix Leiter (Jeffrey Wright, always a pleasure) to track down a villain who appears to being hunting Spectre, the rogues gallery of villains of previous Bond films.

At the center of this conspiracy is a shadowy figure named Lyutsifer Satin (Rami Malek), which sounds close enough to "Lucifer Satan" to make the eyes roll a bit, whom we first meet in a flashback as he murders a mother and nearly kills a young girl, who will grow up to be one of the film's characters. In the present, he is tending to a poison garden - the concept of the diabolical plot that puts the world at risk in this film is a little too threadbare - that he will use to... well, do something bad.

Once back on the job, Bond is amused to find that there's a new 007 agent, Nomi (Lashana Lynch), and the two do a whole lot of stepping on each other's toes. The weapon being developed by Malek's character was apparently stolen from a top secret lab, where a corrupt Russian scientist had helped to develop it. Apparently, M (Ralph Fiennes) had been overseeing the development of the weapon with better intentions than those who steal it.

The plot of "No Time to Die" is a bit labyrinthine, at least in terms of what Satin's plan is, who exactly he is seeking revenge upon, what the weapon he has will exactly do, etc. I'm sure some explanations are given that I missed, but this is a long film with a lot of action sequences, a fair amount of exposition and at least one shocking plot development, so some of the details might have been lost in the mix.

Regardless of these issues, "No Time to Die" is a fairly fast paced Bond picture, better than "Spectre" and "Quantum of Solace," about equal to "Casino Royale," but not as good as "Skyfall." It's either the second or the middle-of-the-pack in the Craig series. Craig is steely as ever and brings pathos to the role, while the supporting cast is pretty solid, especially Ana de Armas as an agent who gives an assist to Bond during a mission in Cuba. I would have been happy to spend much more time with her character.

So, while much has been made of this being the final Daniel Craig Bond film, it's surely not the last. Craig has left his stamp on the role, and the films in which he has been involved have tried to evolve the character somewhat, whereas the older Bond films, fun as they could often be, were mostly a lot of shootouts, scenes of Bond bedding women and double entendres. By making Bond more of an actual character, the Craig era has made a franchise that had grown a little stale become more engaging, even if all of the entries didn't succeed. "No Time to Die" is a pretty decent sendoff for the actor's portrayal of the iconic character.