Anthony's Film Review - No Time to Die (2021)

The 25th official James Bond movie will no doubt leave you emotionally shaken and stirred, in a very good way...

No Time to Die, the 25th official James Bond movie from EON Productions, was released under extraordinary circumstances. It was already newsworthy that production of the film had delays because of changes in the director and composer for the film, such that the film would come out in 2020, five years after the previous film Spectre. But then the emergence of COVID-19 (novel coronavirus disease 2019) and the ensuing pandemic resulted in the release of No Time to Die being pushed back a total of four times, ultimately settling for a fall 2021 premiere. The COVID-19 pandemic truly caused shakeups in all aspects of society and life, including the functions of the entertainment industry, and the Bond film series was no exception. Bond fans like myself rejoiced at the opportunity to see No Time to Die after a long one-and-a-half-year wait.

Now that I have seen it, I have observed something unexpected. The notion of a shakeup doesn't just apply to the real-life worldwide consequences of COVID-19. It also applies to the film No Time to Die itself. What we have here is a Bond movie that seriously shakes up the series as we know it. It's not only a bittersweet finale to the Daniel Craig era of the Bond movies. It is also, in a way, a tribute to the enduring power of Agent 007 over 25 movies that also lays the groundwork for the series to head in a dramatically new direction, whatever it may be. I am still feeling quite emotional as I am writing this, but let me be clear. No Time to Die is a very good movie as expected, while the reasons that it's very good are pleasantly not what I expected.

To help me describe the 25th Bond film better, let me first do a quick retrospective look on certain past Bond movies.

The first time a James Bond movie noticeably deviated from its predecessors, at least somewhat, occurred with On Her Majesty's Secret Service in 1969. Never mind that it featured Australian actor George Lazenby in his one and only outing as Bond, following five Bond movies with Sean Connery. The main Bond girl in On Her Majesty's Secret Service isn't a woman whom Bond merely has a fling with, but rather someone Bond genuinely experiences true love with. For the first time in the series, there is an element of real romance and human drama, even as Bond is conducting his mission to stop a supervillain's plot. The ending of the film is quite memorable to say the least.

Following the Bond movies of the 1970s that were more comedic and campy, For Your Eyes Only in 1981 took a different approach, by being more realistic as well as suspenseful. This may be Roger Moore's fifth Bond movie, but unlike his first four, For Your Eyes Only features moments where you worry about Bond's safety. There's nothing wrong with a suspense-oriented Bond movie. If anything, that's the way it should be, because Ian Fleming's original Bond novels were thriller novels.

One can identify other Bond movies that attempt to do something different for the sake of freshness. Licence to Kill in 1989 featured Bond on a mission for personal reasons, after his friend, CIA agent Felix Leiter, is horribly mutilated in the hands of a drug kingpin. Goldeneye in 1995 presented the first female M. Die Another Day in 2002 forced Bond to undergo torture and showed him with a lot of hair grown on his face. Although such Bond movies did try to be original, they wouldn't qualify as shakeups for the series. On the other hand, Skyfall in 2012 could qualify as a shakeup Bond film because of the emotional intensity and highly original plot.

That brings us to the 25th film, No Time to Die. Imagine playing around with the Bond Formula the following way: ignoring the classic Bond Formula and instead taking the formula for Skyfall, modifying it further, and adding in sizable doses of suspense (more than that seen in For Your Eyes Only) and drama (more than that seen in On Her Majesty's Secret Service). The result is that No Time to Die is not only a James Bond spy action thriller but also a James Bond suspense drama. With Cary Joji Fukunaga as director and co-writer, the audience is not only experiencing the excitement of action scenes that we come to expect from a Bond film, but also the emotional tension of dialogue that we normally expect in other movies, outside the world of James Bond.

Consequently, this is a Bond film that is mostly like no other. It feels familiar because of the core elements of the Bond Formula, but it's also a wholly refreshing one because you actually care about the human stakes. I'll give you an example. There's a scene in No Time to Die involving a vehicle chase with SUVs and motorcycles that gave me a uniquely different experience from past Bond movie vehicle chases. Instead of smiling with excitement, I was holding my breath in fear. That's because in this particular chase scene, Bond is driving a vehicle with a precious passenger whose safety is vital. Sometimes, I wondered if I was even watching a Bond movie, only to remember that I still was. Not that I'm complaining. If anything, I welcome this style of suspense that is done right for a Bond movie.

Ultimately, the focus of this movie is three principal characters. Daniel Craig plays James Bond for the fifth and final time in a performance that no doubt exceeds his previous four performances as 007. He is serious and tough as usual, yet also more emotionally fragile than before. Léa Seydoux returns as Madeleine, a psychiatrist and the daughter of the Spectre agent known as Mr. White. She genuinely loves Bond, but also harbors secrets that threaten both her emotional stability and her relationship with Bond. Then there is the villain, a cold-hearted killer named Safin, played by Rami Malek. This character has a thirst for revenge against those who destroyed his family and plots for global destruction of humanity. When these characters are on screen together, their dialogue makes us listen and we end up waiting to see who will soon have the upper hand over the other. The performances of the three actors are so good that, in my opinion, they also deserve nominations for major acting awards, like the BAFTAs, Oscars, and Golden Globes.

I barely talked about the other elements of this movie because that's how much they are secondary to the characters, drama, and suspense. Still, let me provide a rundown. As expected, the film opens with the 007 gun barrel sequence and scenes before the opening credits. However, two things are quite new here: the gun barrel sequence does NOT end with red blood flowing down the screen after Bond shoots at the camera, and the pre-credits sequence includes a childhood flashback scene, something a Bond film has never featured. The opening credits sequence features the title song by Billie Eilish, the youngest-ever Bond title song performer at age 18, who delivers a memorably sad and somber tune that fits with how the pre-credits scene ends. Then you have introduction of familiar characters, like M (Ralph Fiennes), Moneypenny (Naomie Harris), Q (Ben Whishaw), Chief of Staff Tanner (Rory Kinnear), and Felix Leiter (Jeffrey Wright), as well as new characters like Leiter's partner Logan Ash (Billy Magnussen), a CIA agent named Paloma (Ana de Armas), a scientist named Valdo Obruchev (David Dencik), and the new Agent 007 named Nomi (Lashana Lynch) who inherited Bond's 00 number after he retired years earlier. Then you have the villain's grand plot, which I won't mention here, carried out from an elaborate headquarters, which kind of reminds me of the villain headquarters in Dr. No, the first James Bond movie in 1962.

No Time to Die is, to date, the Bond film with the longest running time, at 2 hours and 43 minutes, but it was so engrossing for me that I never felt it was too long at all. There is much human emotion with many scenes in the movie, so there was not a single dull moment. This is especially true with all the scenes that are real shakeups from beginning to end, disrupting what we've always believed about Bond and his world. As a longtime Bond fan, I don't think I have ever been close to shedding tears after seeing No Time to Die. The cast and crew have gone all out with making this Bond movie a very unforgettable one. The end credits of No Time to Die even includes a musical piece from the soundtrack of On Her Majesty's Secret Service, because it happens to be also meaningful for this 25th Bond film, not just for the sixth Bond film released 52 years earlier.

This Bond movie is just like all of its predecessors, in that it's a reflection of realities at the time of the film's development and release. For me, I definitely noticed the issues of racial and gender diversity that have increasingly become topics of serious discussion. They come to mind as I look back on No Time to Die and think about what is next for the James Bond franchise. At this point, it is time for a serious reboot of the series, one that is even more drastic than Casino Royale in 2006, meaning a 100% clean slate. Anything is possible, and it will be interesting to see where it goes. James Bond will return, no doubt about it. The question is what form the character will take.

Even as I am writing this on Sunday, October 10, 2021, at the end of No Time to Die's opening weekend in the United States, I am still deciding which Bond film is better: Skyfall, which has been my new favorite Bond film for the past decade, or No Time to Die, which is incredibly satisfying because it dares to push the envelope even more than Skyfall did. The two films are so close in quality that, if I do decide one is better than the other, the difference between the #1 and #2 best Bond film will be subtle at best. Or I might just say they are tied at #1 in my list, especially as both are milestone films: Skyfall marking the 50th anniversary and No Time to Die being the 25th film. In any event, No Time to Die is a very good James Bond movie because it's so original.

With that, let me conclude this lengthy review with a tribute to Daniel Craig. In the beginning, I wasn't terribly enthusiastic about him being chosen as the new James Bond after Pierce Brosnan, but of course I had to accept. Over the years, he did grow on me, portraying a tough and ruthless Bond that harkens back to Ian Fleming's creation in the Bond novels, and also to the fourth Bond actor in the late 1980s, Timothy Dalton. Skyfall was the film that solidified my appreciation for Daniel Craig and allowed me to really enjoy his performances in Spectre and No Time to Die. Now, I am happy that, on October 6, 2021, he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in Los Angeles, California, next to the star of the late Bond actor Roger Moore. If I were to say something to Daniel Craig himself, I would say, "Thank you for making James Bond a hero who is still exciting to root for, the same way your five predecessors did. And thank you for marking the 25th film of the series with a memorable on-screen farewell."

Anthony's Rating:

For more information about No Time to Die, visit the Internet Movie Database.

In addition, check out my reviews of the following:

Official James Bond Films

Unofficial James Bond Films

Casino Royale (1967)
Never Say Never Again