Directed By Cary Joji Fukunaga

Starring – Daniel Craig, Rami Malek, Ana De Armas

The Plot – Bond (Craig) has left active service and is enjoying a tranquil life in Jamaica. His peace is short-lived when his old friend Felix Leiter from the CIA turns up asking for help. The mission to rescue a kidnapped scientist turns out to be far more treacherous than expected, leading Bond onto the trail of a mysterious villain armed with dangerous new technology.

Rated PG-13 for sequences of violence and action, some disturbing images, brief strong adult language and some suggestive material.

no time to die trailer – YouTube

POSITIVES

– Curtain call. “No Time To Die” had the immense responsibility of serving as Craig’s final film embodying the iconic character, and because of such gives us one of the more bittersweet goodbye’s to an actor that this series has had the privilege of articulating. The fifth film in this tier of the franchise not only ties up many the many loose ends created from a series that isn’t always sharp on continuity, but also has ingredients and aspects from those previous four films, which conveys the bigger picture in each of them. Beyond all of that, however, it’s also a responsibly progressive film that doesn’t feel desperate or heavy-handed in the ideals it’s trying to convey in its barrier-breaking casting or decades old deviation from aspects that are less than uncomfortable in a world that is currently living with their eyes open. The word “Progressive” certainly will be unnerving for many who read this review, but the essence of Bond still persists throughout, creating a respectable successor that not only plays into where this franchise has been, but also where it’s headed.

– Triumphant direction. Being a huge fan of the first season of HBO’s “True Detective”, I knew Fukunaga would bring with him the kind of emotional heft and enthralling circumstances to a franchise that up to this point was feeling a bit formulaic in its later chapters. Cary underlines Bond with the kind of human approach that takes this essence of cool, and fleshes him out as something that feels connectively human for the first time, supplanting him full of motivations and balancing stakes that makes this feel like the most personal of conflicts to Bond’s oppositions. Beyond this, it was the swan song for the many supporting characters and ensuing subplots that I felt Cary handled with superb professionalism, especially in the finality of everything, which doesn’t hint or wink to a rumored sequel somewhere off in the distance. It’s very much the rare example that lets the actions of the film be the judge, jury, and executioner of what’s to follow, or lack there of, creating a send off that is every bit satisfying as it is moving, because of the heart that Fukunaga affords it.

– Riveting action. Anyone who knows this franchise, comes for the pulse-setting sequences of intense devastation that pushes the bar of what’s physically possible in the context of fictional filmmaking. In this respect, not only are we treated to a variety of landscapes and concepts in the grip of some shifting, unrelenting circumstances within the schemes of the claustrophobic camera work, but the chorus of chaos supporting matters in the immersive sound design invigorates the frailty with an echoing albatross that audibly illustrates what little is passed by visually, as an effect of fast speeds and persistent focus. The scenes themselves are kept continuously fresh by the ability to breathe distance between them with an ambitious run time, and as to where one evidently stands out as superior in the previous four Craig films, there’s much to debate to appreciate about every single one of them for this stacked production value.

– Musical genius. What can be said about composer Hans Zimmer that hasn’t been said about the most prolific musicians of all time? Simply put, the man harvests an irreplaceable impact whose thunderous compositions and roaring orchestral plunges marry the elements of sight and sound with the rampant rampage of the movie’s visual capacities. Even with a career as decorated as Zimmer’s, this is in my opinion some of his best work since 2010’s “Inception”, materializing the notes of familiarity for past Bond era’s, but reigniting them with original interpretations in electric guitar and 808 drums that prolongs the emotional resonance of the audience engaged in such audible ecstacy. On a side note, I also thoroughly enjoyed Billie Eilish’s original song for the film, titled “No Time To Die”, which serenades the introductory credit sequence in a blanket of melodic melancholy so thick that it will undoubtedly earn Billie her first Academy Award for Best Original Song at next year’s Oscars.

– Unpredictable factor. Just when I think 24 Bond films have shaped my perception for how I see scripts and expectations going, this one completely throws me off the paved path, creating some of the most jaw-dropping moments of consequence within the entirety of the franchise. Considering this is a screenplay written by four different screenwriters, it’s amazing enough that there’s never even a disjointed essence to what follows from the movie’s storytelling, instead magnetizing as one cohesive voice that prescribes stakes to the earnestly realistic world that is especially refreshing for a Bond film. Two such occasions in this film had me roaring with applause, for not only how they’re revealed in the context of the scene, but also what lasting effect they have on the tonal capacities and aforementioned humanity that make this one of the more dramatically earned experiences in the life and times of one James Bond.

– Glowing cinematography. Linus Sandgren, the Oscar-winning cinematographer of 2016’s “La La Land”, is responsible for the most beautifully hypnotic installment of the Bond franchise, and one that brings with it no shortage of gush-worthy elements for an aesthetics fiend like myself. Opening sequences involving the introduction of Safin, the movie’s primary antagonist, incorporates clever framing and subtle coloring hue that play into the unnerving aspects of his characterization. Likewise, the scenic impulses of the Italian countryside played vividly into the European emphasis that pertains to Fukunaga’s style of camera work, but also in the geographic relevance of the story, which at times feels like a character of its persisting in the backdrop of the many high stakes engagements demolishing in the foreground. Add to it the endearing quality of some transfixing lighting luminating the stages of these three-dimensional set pieces, and you have enough style prescribed as levity during the moments when the substance feels invasive and practically inescapable.

– Team work. Not only does Craig hand in his most dramatically challenging work of the entire franchise, but his supporting cast helps to ease the load off of his shoulders in this definitive closing chapter. It starts with Lashana Lynch, who plays the first black female 007, who chews up every single scene she’s in, against a man whom we’ve had five films to grow with. Not only does she bring swagger and confidence to the demeanor of her character, but she also brought precise timing in her banter with Craig, which provided naturalistic elements of levity that worked wonders in between this consistently tense enveloping. Then there’s Ana De Armas as Paloma, a secret agent whose yearning to explore some action is then eclipsed by her careless ferocity to throw her body and caution to the wind. Armas provides another mold in the career of this unavoidable presence on-screen, and proved that she could more than hold her own against some heavyweights of the franchise. But this is Daniel Craig’s goodbye, so nobody was stealing the show from his death grip. As previously mentioned, Craig takes the character in places never before seen, exploring a visceral rage to counteract his typically composed demeanor, which articulates the magnitude of what’s at stake. On top of it, at 53-years-old, Craig still bares the brunt of every blow, matching an emotional depth with a physical grit that allowed him to give his all to the character, cementing an energy for this climactic final chapter that will be nearly impossible to follow.

NEGATIVES

– Silly conflict. I’m not above fantastical ideas and concepts in a James Bond film, but the lack of fleshing out the rules and consistencies made the nanobot technology lagging in logic throughout. Considering the preconceived rules in spreading from one person to the next didn’t even carry from scene to scene, creating a couple of moments of inconsistencies where characters should be infected but weren’t, this is really just a surface level idea in conflict whose only relevance was to provide Safin with a globally threatening menace to provide urgency to the story. Does it work? Not quite. The Nanobots are not only the weakest element of the film for me, but also the moments when the exposition in dialogue feels most heavy-handedly weighed down by off-screen influence, and not one that the movie ever commits itself to, despite a near three hour run time that could’ve helped convey the logic a little smoother.

– Overstuffed. Speaking of that ambitious run time, I can’t say that it ever felt fully justified to me, despite this being the closing chapter in the Daniel Craig era of James Bond films. For the first hour of the film, the pacing is as good as any film this year, transitioning from sequence to sequence with the kind of velocity that never bares the weight of its minutes, and instead keeps you invested to what’s transpiring on-screen. But then the second hour hits, and the movie spins itself into a tailspin, requiring committed focus to its antagonist, whose absence from the first half of the film has this second half feeling inferior, especially considering we’re asked to care about him and don’t because of the lack of exposition previously conveyed. Beyond this, there’s a few scenes that persist a bit longer than I would’ve anticipated, and delay this idea of everything being conveyed that the audience interprets long before the characters do, and you just wish you had a fast-forward button to assist them in spelling it out.

– Weak antagonist. Since winning his Oscar in 2018 for his turn as Freddy Mercury in “Bohemian Rhapsody”, Rami Malek has been saddled with some questionable roles that don’t bring out the best in his capabilities. For his role here as Safin, part of it is his problem, embodying the role with enough mundane monotony and absent personality that speaks to the soft-spoken antagonists of Lazenby’s antagonists, but does little to appeal to a movie this loudly invasive and consistently urgent throughout. The bigger problem, however, is in his characterization. There pretty much isn’t any. Instead, he’s more of an idea shoe-horned into two sentences of exposition, and not a man full of motivations and relatable humanity. Considering we’ve just come off of the cusp of Christoph Waltz’ spellbinding turn as Blofeld, during “Spectre”, Malek’s portrayal feels the cool of the shadow left behind from Waltz’ charismatic warmth and beaming energy, and because of such can never measure up to the heights in vulnerability that Bond bared during that previous film, so they have to create other characters here to do it for him. Waltz himself even cameo’s in this film to serve as reminder that a better antagonist is out there, but because we would rather relegate ourselves to a revenge narrative where the revenge has already been fulfilled, leaves us wondering what could’ve been, and keeps this good film from feeling great.

My Grade: 7/10 or B