No Time to Die

 

No Time to Die marks Daniel Craig's fifth and final outing as James Bond and I can say with great relief that he is going out on a high note. The film fires on all cylinders to give us one last, epic outing with Craig as James Bond, with an intriguing plot that brings the era full circle, spectacular stunts and just the right amount of humor to make this a very satisfying film. 

James Bond (played by Daniel Craig) is vacationing in Southern Italy with Madeleine Swann (played by Lea Seydoux) when they are ambushed by Spectre assassins. Realizing there was no one else who knew they were there besides him and Madeleine, he leaves her at a train station and the two part ways. Five years later, Bond is pulled back into action when an MI-6 scientist Valdo Obruchev (played by David Dencik) is kidnapped. He was working on a cutting edge bio-weapon called Project Heracles, which contains Nanobots and is spread like a virus but is harmless except to the person or people that strain is specifically programmed to kill. Bond meets up with Felix Leiter (played by Jeffrey Wright) and his associate Logan Ash (played by Billy Magnusson) who ask for Bond to help them to try and retrieve Obruchev and the weapon.  They track them to a SPECTRE meeting in Cuba for Blofeld's (played by Christoph Waltz) birthday, where Bond meets up with another CIA agent, Paloma (played by Ana de Armas). Blofeld leads the meeting using a remote "bionic eye" device and orders his agents to kill Bond with the bionic mist from Project Heracles. However, to everyone's surprise, the mist kills the SPECTRE agents instead. Turns out Obruchev was working with a mysterious new villain who has his own vendetta against SPECTRE, Lyutsifer Safin (played by Rami Malek), and reprogrammed the virus. Pulled back into MI6 duty by M (played by Ralph Fiennes) and Moneypenny (played by Naomie Harris) sets out to stop Safin and destroy this dangerous new weapon with the new 007, Nomi (played by Lashana Lynch) only to find his path once again crossing with Madeleine, who has her own connections to both Safin and Blofeld.

The film was directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga from a script he co-wrote with Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, and Phoebe Waller-Bridge. The film is a wonderful return to form for Bond and a fitting final outing for the Daniel Craig era. Fukunaga and his crew create a epic film, filled with globe trotting adventure, just the right amount of humor, genuinely impressive action sequences and some genuinely shocking plot twists too. The film is a long one, clocking in at roughly 2 hours and 45 minutes, but they keep the pace up so I didn't really feel that it was that long. The filmmakers manage to pull off some inventive action sequences, including a truly impressive motorcycle jump and a sequence of people repelling down a elevator shaft not using ropes but rather a special harness and intricately placed electromagnets. Who knows if that's actually possible but it was very cool and certainly something I had never seen before. Still, the filmmakers give the film room to breathe, giving us such wonderful character moments throughout the film. Not only does it give time to properly play out the complicated relationship between James and Madeleine, but we also get some wonderful character moments with the other series mainstays, including a glimpse of Q's home life when Bond and Moneypenny accidentally interrupt him at home as Q (played by Ben Whishaw) is getting ready for a dinner date. For all the humorous moments and all the action sequences, it's the fact that they took the time for scenes like this, while also being integral to the plot that really made this entry shine for me. It's all capped off nicely with a fantastic Hans Zimmer score. I loved the way that he not only integrated the classic Bond theme, but also some pieces of John Barry's score from one of my favorite Bond movies, On Her Majesty's Secret Service.  

Daniel Craig gives it his all for his final outing as Bond. This is an older James Bond, begrudgingly dragged back into service after thinking he had retired. It's a fantastic performance and you can really get a sense that all the events of the previous films have really taken their toll on him. Lea Seydoux does well again in the role Madeleine Swann and has more to play in this outing as the film reveals far more about her character's past as well as her connections to both SPECTRE and our new villain Safin. She does a magnificent job showing her character's inner turmoil without saying a word. Rami Malek makes for a very interesting Bond villain. He's not physically imposing but he is very smart and cunning which he uses to great effect against Bond. Malek hits the right note to make Safin a very creepy villain who you can tell is always thinking, always several steps ahead of everyone else. Lashana Lynch really impresses as Nomi and I wouldn't mind seeing her get a spin-off series of her own. She plays off Daniel Craig quite well as there is some animosity between the two since she inherited his 007 moniker. Christoph Waltz makes the most of his near cameo appearance in the film, giving the character the same charming menace he did in SPECTRE. Ben Whishaw continues to be a joy to watch as Q and it was fun to see him outside the lab and see a little bit of his personal life. Likewise, as someone who enjoyed her turn with Daniel Craig in Knives Out, it was fun to see Ana de Armas show up to briefly assist James Bond in Cuba and participate in a surprisingly amusing gunfight. Ralph Fiennes is reliably good as M, who we get a sense all these years later is feeling the toll the job has had on him and the countless hard decisions he has made are having their effect, especially since one of them sets the plot in motion.

Overall, No Time to Die is a worthy finale for the Daniel Craig era and is certainly one of the best of his series of films. It is epic and scope, but thrilling, exciting, and frequently actually pretty humorous too. Craig finishes his time as James Bond on a high note and that's all I could have hoped for. Still, at the end of the film as that ever present final credit, "James Bond Will Return" comes up I found myself wondering where will they go from here? I, for one, can't wait to find out.