I see, I definitely can agree with how you see it.
I do feel that the Craig era has captured Fleming really well, they completed a whole arc and looking at it from a quasi realistic sense Bond does the job because he can, has issues with it and really could not escape his fate can only cheat death one so many times.
Previously he did not have all these traits, he was more of someone who seemed to enjoy living on the edge and drank to maybe unwind and same with casual sex. I think the producers had interpreted some of Fleming’s meaning in different ways and it plays differently. And the changes can be startling . But I think now that the era of realism has ended, perhaps the next project will be a return to larger than life devil may care types of a dashing man on a mission.
Sir MilesThe Wrong Side Of The WardrobePosts: 27,749Chief of Staff
I laughed. I cried. It moves along at a fast pace - Safin’s story is underplayed and just not explained well enough, Malik is basically wasted…he looks the same age at the start as at the finish 🤔
Fukunaga’s direction is excellent, the cinematography is great…I enjoyed it immensely 🍸
Craig will be a tough act to follow.
Looking forward to seeing it on Saturday again too - but happier seeing you 😉
As a movie it flew by (seen it twice today) and definitely enjoyed it overall more the second time around.
I may be old school but the end, as some have said, would have been so much "happier" and completely acceptable if we'd seen the missiles hit with Bond not vapourised.... But seeming so. Then M and M get "home" and Dou Dou is there. Nice ambiguous obvious ending.
My wife attended the second showing and is in a very saddened state. She hates sad endings. And it did just that, made us all feel just a bit sad.
so.....Bond really does die.......interesting....maybe in the next one James wakes up and realizes it was all a bad dream....in fact, he's still chasing after LeChiffre and the movies can just pick up from there.
Been perusing several sites and no one seems to have produced a lengthy review yet, so I'll dip my oar in the mustard.
As time goes by, my attitudes may change...
BE WARNED THIS IS IN THE SPOILER ZONE
NO TIME TO DIE
30/9/2021
It’s taken almost six years for Daniel Craig’s final outing as OO7 to reach the screen. There are several well-documented reasons, including Covid, reshoots and backroom bickering. The eventual return is welcome. It’s always good to have a James Bond film to watch. We used to get them in the summer when Roger Moore’s bright and breezy interpretation leant itself to popcorn blockbusters. Recently, they’ve come in the winter and are shrouded in shadows of death and clouds of doom. No Time To Die sticks rigidly to the format first proposed in Craig’s debut outing: this new, lonely James Bond makes impulsive decisions which effect those all around him and ultimately affect his career. In this case terminally.
There. That’s let the cat out of the bag early.
Daniel Craig is definitely a Bond for the 21st Century. He comes loaded with more baggage than an Aston Martin DBS. He’s weary of his work: he retires twice. He feels duty bound to return when his own errors mean his country’s security is threatened. He dislikes authority, butts heads against it, then doggedly does the least he’s been instructed and the most he can to be destructive. He’s an orphan with mother issues, brother issues and an enormous chip on his shoulder about being from the wrong kind of class. He’s associated with many women, some beautiful, others headstrong, all opinionated of him, but they either die or he abandons them. He drinks too much. He's rather good at killing people and seems remarkably indestructible. He survives three point blank explosions in this adventure alone, before, well…
We know something grim is going to happen as we follow Bond and Madeleine Swann zipping along the Amalfi coast in his Aston Martin. “We have all the time in the world,” he tells her. We all know how it ends when Bond uses that line. The pair are struggling with their romance. He won’t let go of his past great love, Vesper Lynd; she won’t open up about her complicated traumatic past. They join the suspicious locals at Matera by burning their secrets, which they promise to reveal to each other. Not before Spectre interferes and tries to assassinate them both. Bond duly shovels his love onto a train and turns his back on his future. Next, we’re five years on and he’s drinking hard in Jamaica and being tempted to return to the fold by a new female OO7 as well as his old mate Felix Leiter from the CIA. This decision, like many earlier ones, is taken without thought and plunges Bond back into a deadly game of death which this time he struggles to escape from. When those secrets are finally revealed, it’s all come too late for Madeleine and our James.
Craig lets us see the suffering, but that doesn’t make his performance particularly noteworthy. It might be provocative for a Bond film, but the dark stuff, the introspective dialogue and long glances, slows down the cat’s cradle storyline and overloads it with supposed emotional insight. Bond isn’t growing as an individual here, he’s regressing: regretting everything he’s done and the death he’s caused or dispatched. There’s an alarming moment when he makes breakfast for a young child and he appears stunned by this act of simplicity, that peeling and slicing an apple is the most delicate task he’s ever performed in the last few years. His treatment of Lea Seydoux’s Madeleine is pretty rough, mind. Love inhabits strange places in Bond’s mind. Convinced she’s betrayed him as Vesper did, he disowns her; convinced she didn’t, he rapidly falls head over heels in, well, something, let’s call it love, but it might be need. Seydoux does the best she can in an underwritten pivotal role. Sadly, Madeleine is still harbouring secrets right until the final line of the movie.
More alarming even than Bond’s emotional growing pains is the body count, not only from his hand, but from many others. The gun battles are relentless. Annoyingly, some important dialogue is threaded through these exchanges and, like a similarly important scene set in a nightclub, it’s impossible to hear what anyone is saying. A terrible editing oversight. Still, back to the running and shooting and killing: like Raoul Silva said in Skyfall, “It’s exhausting.” I could say the same about this epic whose bullet count is astronomical.
No Time To Die starts with a flashback sequence where the chief villain pays a visit to Mr White’s house in Norway, for revenge, to kill him for exterminating his family on Spectre’s orders. For no reason other than it’s creepy, he wears a Japanese Noh mask. A pre-teen Madeleine Swann shoots him point blank, but he lives to save the youngster’s life, pulling her from an ice lake. The sequence made no sense action-wise, or plot-wise, contributes to the narrative only by contrivance and sets us up for a film full of long winded battle royales in Matera, Cuba, Norway [again] and an armoured island lurking off the Russian coast. Every sequence is stretched for no reason to its optimum length: the chase in Norway could have been written out in a thrice, the repetitive Matera action could have been half the length and wouldn’t have lost impact. Even the fairly staid mid-section where we’re meant to learn about the plot and decipher character’s motivations feels needlessly extensive.
Here, I was intrigued by the premise that Mallory, whose been heading up MI6 for five years now without the aid of the organisation’s best ever agent, has made a judgemental error and allowed the pathetic, snivelling scientist Valdo Obruchev to continue to develop Heracles nanotechnology, which in the wrong hands will lead to the eradication of whole strains of human life, exterminating in seconds anyone touched by a virus which attacks only after recognising an individual’s signature DNA. It was all a bit sci-fi for me. The writers worked it effectively to kill off a few important characters, but it made their whispery villain very one-dimensional. Hacked off at having his family killed, he’s decided to slaughter half the world’s gangsters, oligarchs, politicians, spies, etc. as well as all their DNA relations. That’s a seriously messed up head. No wonder he needs therapy. Dr Swann isn’t the one to help him though; he only wants to use her to assassinate Blofeld. She doesn’t, but the nanobots are smart enough to transmit death via intermediaries and Bond has the honour, without even realising it. Know-it-all Q explains it much better than I do. Nobody meanwhile takes time to examine what’s going on in M’s head; a mere insert regarding heroes and villains doesn’t really cut the mustard. Ralph Fiennes is curiously static.
Bond is given plenty of assistance to cause chaos even if the MI6 Scooby Gang are kept in the background. Blofeld, deprived of his own terror organisation, drops handy hints before his premature exit. Lashana Lynch is miscast as Nomi, the new female OO7; her role is badly written. She achieves very little; Bond does all her work for her. I didn’t like her arrogant attitude. She isn’t sophisticated or smart, she’s simply stroppy and rather rude. Far more successful was scatter-brained Paloma, played by Ana de Armas who rips up a storm in Cuba with Bond, fighting baddies in the skimpiest of dresses and swapping sexy banter with Bond with every bullet, martini and right hook. It’s shameful to waste such an accomplished character who provides all the fun dialogue, enthusiasm and lightheartedness we’ve been missing during Craig’s tenure. He responds in kind and their pairing is by far the most fetching his version of Bond has ever had. You feel the sparks of their attraction, even if it’s unfulfilled. Where has this been for the past four movies? I ask.
Safin is a poor villain. He might have a bonkers plot and be completely bonkers, but he lacks depth and a powerful presence. He has no decent heavies. He speaks in a whispery monotone which I could barely pick. Rami Malek’s profundities never even cross the cinema floor. He’s even out-acted by Christoph Waltz as Blofeld who’s only in one scene. Safin’s chased to his island kingdom between Russia and Japan [nicked from Raymond Benson’s The Man With The Red Tattoo] where he’s planted a Garden of Death [nicked from Fleming’s You Only Live Twice] and has a huge repository full of DNA just waiting for Heracles to unleash worldwide. Bond and Nomi glide to the rescue, save the world, Dr Swann and her daughter but for once OO7 can’t save himself. It’s a bleak conclusion, not made any more palatable by a repeat of George Lazenby’s final words from On Her Majesty’s Secret Service and a short solemn epilogue.
I could be very angry and bitter about the finale. I’m not. I’m just very disappointed. I ought to be happy because the producers declare “James Bond Will Return,” suggesting the “Many Bonds One Number” theory I always took to might have legs. The problem with the conclusion is our hero becomes a tragic figure; he may well have saved the world, but he hasn’t found happiness and lasting satisfaction. His world is as empty at the end of No Time To Die as it was at the start of Casino Royale, even if his heart’s in a better place. Self-sacrifice is all well and good, but we’re not used to this sort of thing in the world and personage of James Bond; he was always the spy game’s answer to Houdini and this rather cuts his legacy short, at the knee, as Nomi might put it.
Enough.
Cary Joji Fukunaga directs with some fearlessness. The film doesn’t feel its length. When it’s good, it’s very good. The piece is well shot. Linus Sandgren’s landscapes sparkle, especially during the pre-credit scenes, a snowy Norway and a sun-bleached Matera. The relatively unexciting sets are certainly on point. Hans Zimmer’s music is as insignificant as the non-entity of a title song, a few melodic nods to past Bond films inhabit the flow. The script, which needed four contributors, dips and swoops, rises and dips again, constantly. Some of the support performances are dreadful, which unbalances the sturdy ones at the front.
Overall, despite my reservations, I didn’t dislike No Time To Die, but it isn’t the swansong I wanted for our James: he seems too confused, uncertain of everything and everyone around him. Once more, as Mr White so eruditely put it, he’s a kite blowing in the wind. The best that can be said for Daniel Craig’s lease on the character is this five film series can now stand alone and outside the other movies. Maybe next time around we can all get on with some less serious soul-searching espionage.
I dunno, I liked several part of it - Bond buddying with Moneypenny and Q, Bond being jokier, seeing Letter again, the pre-title opening - but a lot of it fell flat and did not move me as it has some others here. I feel like this was not quite the best cap to the era, honestly.
Can someone please tell me - did they at least have a dedication to Sirs Sean and Roger?
I sure hope so!
scaramanga1The English RivieraPosts: 845Chief of Staff
I am still processing it. I need to see it again. Many great homages throughout. I really do feel like that was the end of an era. I can only imagine prequels and spin offs after that ending. I really enjoyed the film but somehow left the theatre feeling quite sad, and that isn't a feeling I am used to when I finish watching a James Bond film.
I think I’m actually in mourning. I’m devastated. In short, the film was superb. I did a DC Bondathon prior to refresh which served me well but….I think that’s it for me. Bond is dead. I will watch the replays of the past 25, but I don’t think I will ever watch another new Bond again.
This was a long film and it really felt it - the direction was tedious as times. Safin was a very poor villain and Malik should have been used much better as should Waltz whose cameo was a disservice to such a fine actor
Seydouz was fine as was Lynch and the MI6 crowd. I’d have liked to have seen a little more of de Armas as I think her character had more to offer but I get why they went with what they did
the plot was a bit meh - seen it before
I’m fine with Bond having a daughter
the ending - terrible. How did that get past the Broccolis?
Did all of you guys feel the floor drop out when the end came? Were there audible gasps or anything?
SeanIsTheOnlyOne - I haven't seen it yet but agree with you that for a long time I wasn't excited about this one either. I guessed that they were going to do what they did with the ending and since it's been confirmed I really have no interest. I won't be there opening night here in the U.S. which is a first for me! IMHO I think it's a cheap shot what they did. They took a shortcut by going for shock value. Can the producers finally dump Purvis and Wade? I thought from the jump that Malek would be a WEAK villain and that's been pretty much confirmed.
Thankful as always for the forum - you guys saved me from having a depressing night at the theatre! After what the world has been and continues to go through I'll seek my escapism elsewhere!
I'm glad others enjoyed it; I've just grown tired of the heavy drama. Seeing Han Solo killed was enough of a gut-punch for this kid from the 70's! Fool me once...
Sounds like the scenes with Paloma are great; unfortunate that they couldn't just stretch it out for the entire film!
The problem with doing something as unflinchingly bold as killing off Bond is not the act itself, but the fact the franchise will go on undeterred by the act.
If the next iteration of the series is a total reboot and Bond is alive as normal, then it will render Craig's tenure a strange and ultimately pointless footnote in the series' history.
The emotional impact of No Time to Die will mean absolutely nothing in just a few years, and that itself is tragic.
i hope to get over the idea of leaving the cinema with a Bond dead. It will certainly happen, but it now added a new challenge to the next actor to portray Bond and opened the doors to all kind of crazy theories to explain Craig’s era, or something like an alternative universe.
really, Bond should be linear. He uses a PPK, wear suits, is a womanizer and a drinker, and loved sports cars specially the Aston Martin, has a dead wife. That wasn’t an issue until today. Now we have a lot of past Ms portraits and a dead Bond to explain.
Daniel Craig's series is exactly an Alternate Universe. Although a very, very, lazy alternate universe. Not given the cheap yet at least understandable reasons like in movies such as the reboot Star Trek or last Terminator. Both of which are borderline dead movie series now.
Personally I thought it was an epic . And the tragedy of the story made me quite emotional.
The subtle homage to OHMSS adding to the poignancy of the tragic love affair with Madeline. Lea Seydoux surely now goes down as the ultimate Bond girl for that reason alone.
I think for a causal movie goer who didn’t know the back story to the characters it’s different but seen as a whole the Craig era has surely been the best and added a different dimension to the Bond character. This was one for the aficionado.
I’m finding it difficult to compute what I saw today from purely an emotional point of view and come to terms with it.
This was the story of Madeleine from start to end and I actually liked that
They made a big play of how NTTD tied up all 5 films but I don’t see how. Bond visiting the grave of English MI6 treasury officer Vesper Lynd in Matera, Italy. There were more references to OHMSS than CR.
Spectre’s attempt to link the previous DC films was a big mistake in my opinion, absolutely no need for it. That was a dreadful film and they should have learned from it. There was nothing to be tied up as Spectre ended up with Bond driving off into he sunset anyway.
NTTD should have been a new stand alone movie with a good plot and villain. They got plenty right though. The Jamaican scenes were excellent. In our dreams plenty of us would love a retirement setup like that. Matera was stunning. Paloma had the potential of being a great kick ass character if given more to do. The whole 007 code name thing was a big turn off and everyone knew about it last year. The ending was just bad. Seen it done before so absolutely no shock value or breaking any new ground.
Looking back CR was just too good. The films that followed had their moments but all fell way short in comparison.
I agree. It's how they continue that fascinates me. I dont think we can/should stomach another reboot origin story.
A bold move would be just to send a mid career Bond out on a mission that doesn't look back and ignores the past. No more 'personal 'revenge gigs for a while I beg of you.
Of that of which we cannot speak we must pass over in silence- Ludwig Wittgenstein.
Casino Royale was a luck film. The origin of the reboot / alternate universe Bond. I said it before back then and people didn't get or want to believe what I was saying. The previous incredibly bad Die Another Day made Casino Royale seem even better. But after Casino Royale the movies kept getting worse. Although I like Spectre for various reasons.
The ending to No Time to Die was obvious after Spectre which is why I was very concerned. You didn't have to be some top literature expert to see it. They weren't going to have the same ending as Spectre with Bond saving Madeleine and driving off into the sunset again.
Oh dear God, yes please. Just a stand alone mission, no personal stuff. No mother subtext, no unexpected family members, no digging into Bond's past. Just a good villain (if that's not a contradiction in terms), loads of stunts, and some witty lines (ok, and some not so witty) like we used to get. It used to be not too much to ask for.
Please don't tell me times have changed- I know that. Good writing is what's needed here- I suggest Mark Gatiss & Steven Moffat.
Absolutely gutted with the ending, Bond giving up, completely against why everyone loves the character (the same in the books) the rest I really enjoyed - but the ending means I'm not sure I want to see again - the endings are supposed to be Bond surviving however badly beaten up. Not sure how they come back from this now? A reboot - but then what about the old movies?
I said yesterday I could wait for the home release but I now think I will see it again at the cinema. There was so much to take in that I think another viewing is in order.
Despite all the things I've said I hope the film is a massive success. The world needs hero's and Bond has always been that.
Comments
I see, I definitely can agree with how you see it.
I do feel that the Craig era has captured Fleming really well, they completed a whole arc and looking at it from a quasi realistic sense Bond does the job because he can, has issues with it and really could not escape his fate can only cheat death one so many times.
Previously he did not have all these traits, he was more of someone who seemed to enjoy living on the edge and drank to maybe unwind and same with casual sex. I think the producers had interpreted some of Fleming’s meaning in different ways and it plays differently. And the changes can be startling . But I think now that the era of realism has ended, perhaps the next project will be a return to larger than life devil may care types of a dashing man on a mission.
I laughed. I cried. It moves along at a fast pace - Safin’s story is underplayed and just not explained well enough, Malik is basically wasted…he looks the same age at the start as at the finish 🤔
Fukunaga’s direction is excellent, the cinematography is great…I enjoyed it immensely 🍸
Craig will be a tough act to follow.
Looking forward to seeing it on Saturday again too - but happier seeing you 😉
Mind still blown. Haven't processed it all yet. Music was better than I expected. More later, possibly after second viewing.
Agree with all points above.
As a movie it flew by (seen it twice today) and definitely enjoyed it overall more the second time around.
I may be old school but the end, as some have said, would have been so much "happier" and completely acceptable if we'd seen the missiles hit with Bond not vapourised.... But seeming so. Then M and M get "home" and Dou Dou is there. Nice ambiguous obvious ending.
My wife attended the second showing and is in a very saddened state. She hates sad endings. And it did just that, made us all feel just a bit sad.
Shame as rest was good overall...
1. CR. 2. TSWLM. 3. LTK. 4. GF. 5. SF.
Honestly think people are too sensitive about the ending.
Films reboot all the time. James Bond effectively rebooted with Craig and arguably Bronson. It’s not a continuation series.
I loved, loved, loved the paintings of previous Ms.
so.....Bond really does die.......interesting....maybe in the next one James wakes up and realizes it was all a bad dream....in fact, he's still chasing after LeChiffre and the movies can just pick up from there.
Okaaaay...
Whole of Spectre gone and Bond.
Well....end of an era.
Yes, thought that was a lovely touch 🍸
Been perusing several sites and no one seems to have produced a lengthy review yet, so I'll dip my oar in the mustard.
As time goes by, my attitudes may change...
BE WARNED THIS IS IN THE SPOILER ZONE
NO TIME TO DIE
30/9/2021
It’s taken almost six years for Daniel Craig’s final outing as OO7 to reach the screen. There are several well-documented reasons, including Covid, reshoots and backroom bickering. The eventual return is welcome. It’s always good to have a James Bond film to watch. We used to get them in the summer when Roger Moore’s bright and breezy interpretation leant itself to popcorn blockbusters. Recently, they’ve come in the winter and are shrouded in shadows of death and clouds of doom. No Time To Die sticks rigidly to the format first proposed in Craig’s debut outing: this new, lonely James Bond makes impulsive decisions which effect those all around him and ultimately affect his career. In this case terminally.
There. That’s let the cat out of the bag early.
Daniel Craig is definitely a Bond for the 21st Century. He comes loaded with more baggage than an Aston Martin DBS. He’s weary of his work: he retires twice. He feels duty bound to return when his own errors mean his country’s security is threatened. He dislikes authority, butts heads against it, then doggedly does the least he’s been instructed and the most he can to be destructive. He’s an orphan with mother issues, brother issues and an enormous chip on his shoulder about being from the wrong kind of class. He’s associated with many women, some beautiful, others headstrong, all opinionated of him, but they either die or he abandons them. He drinks too much. He's rather good at killing people and seems remarkably indestructible. He survives three point blank explosions in this adventure alone, before, well…
We know something grim is going to happen as we follow Bond and Madeleine Swann zipping along the Amalfi coast in his Aston Martin. “We have all the time in the world,” he tells her. We all know how it ends when Bond uses that line. The pair are struggling with their romance. He won’t let go of his past great love, Vesper Lynd; she won’t open up about her complicated traumatic past. They join the suspicious locals at Matera by burning their secrets, which they promise to reveal to each other. Not before Spectre interferes and tries to assassinate them both. Bond duly shovels his love onto a train and turns his back on his future. Next, we’re five years on and he’s drinking hard in Jamaica and being tempted to return to the fold by a new female OO7 as well as his old mate Felix Leiter from the CIA. This decision, like many earlier ones, is taken without thought and plunges Bond back into a deadly game of death which this time he struggles to escape from. When those secrets are finally revealed, it’s all come too late for Madeleine and our James.
Craig lets us see the suffering, but that doesn’t make his performance particularly noteworthy. It might be provocative for a Bond film, but the dark stuff, the introspective dialogue and long glances, slows down the cat’s cradle storyline and overloads it with supposed emotional insight. Bond isn’t growing as an individual here, he’s regressing: regretting everything he’s done and the death he’s caused or dispatched. There’s an alarming moment when he makes breakfast for a young child and he appears stunned by this act of simplicity, that peeling and slicing an apple is the most delicate task he’s ever performed in the last few years. His treatment of Lea Seydoux’s Madeleine is pretty rough, mind. Love inhabits strange places in Bond’s mind. Convinced she’s betrayed him as Vesper did, he disowns her; convinced she didn’t, he rapidly falls head over heels in, well, something, let’s call it love, but it might be need. Seydoux does the best she can in an underwritten pivotal role. Sadly, Madeleine is still harbouring secrets right until the final line of the movie.
More alarming even than Bond’s emotional growing pains is the body count, not only from his hand, but from many others. The gun battles are relentless. Annoyingly, some important dialogue is threaded through these exchanges and, like a similarly important scene set in a nightclub, it’s impossible to hear what anyone is saying. A terrible editing oversight. Still, back to the running and shooting and killing: like Raoul Silva said in Skyfall, “It’s exhausting.” I could say the same about this epic whose bullet count is astronomical.
No Time To Die starts with a flashback sequence where the chief villain pays a visit to Mr White’s house in Norway, for revenge, to kill him for exterminating his family on Spectre’s orders. For no reason other than it’s creepy, he wears a Japanese Noh mask. A pre-teen Madeleine Swann shoots him point blank, but he lives to save the youngster’s life, pulling her from an ice lake. The sequence made no sense action-wise, or plot-wise, contributes to the narrative only by contrivance and sets us up for a film full of long winded battle royales in Matera, Cuba, Norway [again] and an armoured island lurking off the Russian coast. Every sequence is stretched for no reason to its optimum length: the chase in Norway could have been written out in a thrice, the repetitive Matera action could have been half the length and wouldn’t have lost impact. Even the fairly staid mid-section where we’re meant to learn about the plot and decipher character’s motivations feels needlessly extensive.
Here, I was intrigued by the premise that Mallory, whose been heading up MI6 for five years now without the aid of the organisation’s best ever agent, has made a judgemental error and allowed the pathetic, snivelling scientist Valdo Obruchev to continue to develop Heracles nanotechnology, which in the wrong hands will lead to the eradication of whole strains of human life, exterminating in seconds anyone touched by a virus which attacks only after recognising an individual’s signature DNA. It was all a bit sci-fi for me. The writers worked it effectively to kill off a few important characters, but it made their whispery villain very one-dimensional. Hacked off at having his family killed, he’s decided to slaughter half the world’s gangsters, oligarchs, politicians, spies, etc. as well as all their DNA relations. That’s a seriously messed up head. No wonder he needs therapy. Dr Swann isn’t the one to help him though; he only wants to use her to assassinate Blofeld. She doesn’t, but the nanobots are smart enough to transmit death via intermediaries and Bond has the honour, without even realising it. Know-it-all Q explains it much better than I do. Nobody meanwhile takes time to examine what’s going on in M’s head; a mere insert regarding heroes and villains doesn’t really cut the mustard. Ralph Fiennes is curiously static.
Bond is given plenty of assistance to cause chaos even if the MI6 Scooby Gang are kept in the background. Blofeld, deprived of his own terror organisation, drops handy hints before his premature exit. Lashana Lynch is miscast as Nomi, the new female OO7; her role is badly written. She achieves very little; Bond does all her work for her. I didn’t like her arrogant attitude. She isn’t sophisticated or smart, she’s simply stroppy and rather rude. Far more successful was scatter-brained Paloma, played by Ana de Armas who rips up a storm in Cuba with Bond, fighting baddies in the skimpiest of dresses and swapping sexy banter with Bond with every bullet, martini and right hook. It’s shameful to waste such an accomplished character who provides all the fun dialogue, enthusiasm and lightheartedness we’ve been missing during Craig’s tenure. He responds in kind and their pairing is by far the most fetching his version of Bond has ever had. You feel the sparks of their attraction, even if it’s unfulfilled. Where has this been for the past four movies? I ask.
Safin is a poor villain. He might have a bonkers plot and be completely bonkers, but he lacks depth and a powerful presence. He has no decent heavies. He speaks in a whispery monotone which I could barely pick. Rami Malek’s profundities never even cross the cinema floor. He’s even out-acted by Christoph Waltz as Blofeld who’s only in one scene. Safin’s chased to his island kingdom between Russia and Japan [nicked from Raymond Benson’s The Man With The Red Tattoo] where he’s planted a Garden of Death [nicked from Fleming’s You Only Live Twice] and has a huge repository full of DNA just waiting for Heracles to unleash worldwide. Bond and Nomi glide to the rescue, save the world, Dr Swann and her daughter but for once OO7 can’t save himself. It’s a bleak conclusion, not made any more palatable by a repeat of George Lazenby’s final words from On Her Majesty’s Secret Service and a short solemn epilogue.
I could be very angry and bitter about the finale. I’m not. I’m just very disappointed. I ought to be happy because the producers declare “James Bond Will Return,” suggesting the “Many Bonds One Number” theory I always took to might have legs. The problem with the conclusion is our hero becomes a tragic figure; he may well have saved the world, but he hasn’t found happiness and lasting satisfaction. His world is as empty at the end of No Time To Die as it was at the start of Casino Royale, even if his heart’s in a better place. Self-sacrifice is all well and good, but we’re not used to this sort of thing in the world and personage of James Bond; he was always the spy game’s answer to Houdini and this rather cuts his legacy short, at the knee, as Nomi might put it.
Enough.
Cary Joji Fukunaga directs with some fearlessness. The film doesn’t feel its length. When it’s good, it’s very good. The piece is well shot. Linus Sandgren’s landscapes sparkle, especially during the pre-credit scenes, a snowy Norway and a sun-bleached Matera. The relatively unexciting sets are certainly on point. Hans Zimmer’s music is as insignificant as the non-entity of a title song, a few melodic nods to past Bond films inhabit the flow. The script, which needed four contributors, dips and swoops, rises and dips again, constantly. Some of the support performances are dreadful, which unbalances the sturdy ones at the front.
Overall, despite my reservations, I didn’t dislike No Time To Die, but it isn’t the swansong I wanted for our James: he seems too confused, uncertain of everything and everyone around him. Once more, as Mr White so eruditely put it, he’s a kite blowing in the wind. The best that can be said for Daniel Craig’s lease on the character is this five film series can now stand alone and outside the other movies. Maybe next time around we can all get on with some less serious soul-searching espionage.
I dunno, I liked several part of it - Bond buddying with Moneypenny and Q, Bond being jokier, seeing Letter again, the pre-title opening - but a lot of it fell flat and did not move me as it has some others here. I feel like this was not quite the best cap to the era, honestly.
Can someone please tell me - did they at least have a dedication to Sirs Sean and Roger?
I sure hope so!
I am still processing it. I need to see it again. Many great homages throughout. I really do feel like that was the end of an era. I can only imagine prequels and spin offs after that ending. I really enjoyed the film but somehow left the theatre feeling quite sad, and that isn't a feeling I am used to when I finish watching a James Bond film.
Not that I noticed, and I stayed to the very end of the credits to make sure that "James Bond Will Return" was there.
I think I’m actually in mourning. I’m devastated. In short, the film was superb. I did a DC Bondathon prior to refresh which served me well but….I think that’s it for me. Bond is dead. I will watch the replays of the past 25, but I don’t think I will ever watch another new Bond again.
I’ve just got back and I’m massively disappointed
This was a long film and it really felt it - the direction was tedious as times. Safin was a very poor villain and Malik should have been used much better as should Waltz whose cameo was a disservice to such a fine actor
Seydouz was fine as was Lynch and the MI6 crowd. I’d have liked to have seen a little more of de Armas as I think her character had more to offer but I get why they went with what they did
the plot was a bit meh - seen it before
I’m fine with Bond having a daughter
the ending - terrible. How did that get past the Broccolis?
4/10
Thanks Barbel! That's a shame...
Did all of you guys feel the floor drop out when the end came? Were there audible gasps or anything?
SeanIsTheOnlyOne - I haven't seen it yet but agree with you that for a long time I wasn't excited about this one either. I guessed that they were going to do what they did with the ending and since it's been confirmed I really have no interest. I won't be there opening night here in the U.S. which is a first for me! IMHO I think it's a cheap shot what they did. They took a shortcut by going for shock value. Can the producers finally dump Purvis and Wade? I thought from the jump that Malek would be a WEAK villain and that's been pretty much confirmed.
Thankful as always for the forum - you guys saved me from having a depressing night at the theatre! After what the world has been and continues to go through I'll seek my escapism elsewhere!
I'm glad others enjoyed it; I've just grown tired of the heavy drama. Seeing Han Solo killed was enough of a gut-punch for this kid from the 70's! Fool me once...
Sounds like the scenes with Paloma are great; unfortunate that they couldn't just stretch it out for the entire film!
The problem with doing something as unflinchingly bold as killing off Bond is not the act itself, but the fact the franchise will go on undeterred by the act.
If the next iteration of the series is a total reboot and Bond is alive as normal, then it will render Craig's tenure a strange and ultimately pointless footnote in the series' history.
The emotional impact of No Time to Die will mean absolutely nothing in just a few years, and that itself is tragic.
You make an excellent point kristopherm3!!!
I also agree with kristopherm3.
i hope to get over the idea of leaving the cinema with a Bond dead. It will certainly happen, but it now added a new challenge to the next actor to portray Bond and opened the doors to all kind of crazy theories to explain Craig’s era, or something like an alternative universe.
really, Bond should be linear. He uses a PPK, wear suits, is a womanizer and a drinker, and loved sports cars specially the Aston Martin, has a dead wife. That wasn’t an issue until today. Now we have a lot of past Ms portraits and a dead Bond to explain.
Daniel Craig's series is exactly an Alternate Universe. Although a very, very, lazy alternate universe. Not given the cheap yet at least understandable reasons like in movies such as the reboot Star Trek or last Terminator. Both of which are borderline dead movie series now.
I can't believe he's gone. I'm DEVASTATED. How could they?????
Re Ferinstal's comment above somewhere: Yes, "language Timothy!" Shocking.
I might get the DVD in 2 years (secondhand), but I don't think I'll ever get over this. Ever. Ever.
😪😡
The worst Bond movie made…
They manage to eliminate Felix, SPECTRE, Blofeld and Bond….
Cubby must rotate in his grave
www.007jamesbond.dk
http://thedangermen.com/
Personally I thought it was an epic . And the tragedy of the story made me quite emotional.
The subtle homage to OHMSS adding to the poignancy of the tragic love affair with Madeline. Lea Seydoux surely now goes down as the ultimate Bond girl for that reason alone.
I think for a causal movie goer who didn’t know the back story to the characters it’s different but seen as a whole the Craig era has surely been the best and added a different dimension to the Bond character. This was one for the aficionado.
I’m finding it difficult to compute what I saw today from purely an emotional point of view and come to terms with it.
This was the story of Madeleine from start to end and I actually liked that
Where can the movies go now ?
They made a big play of how NTTD tied up all 5 films but I don’t see how. Bond visiting the grave of English MI6 treasury officer Vesper Lynd in Matera, Italy. There were more references to OHMSS than CR.
Spectre’s attempt to link the previous DC films was a big mistake in my opinion, absolutely no need for it. That was a dreadful film and they should have learned from it. There was nothing to be tied up as Spectre ended up with Bond driving off into he sunset anyway.
NTTD should have been a new stand alone movie with a good plot and villain. They got plenty right though. The Jamaican scenes were excellent. In our dreams plenty of us would love a retirement setup like that. Matera was stunning. Paloma had the potential of being a great kick ass character if given more to do. The whole 007 code name thing was a big turn off and everyone knew about it last year. The ending was just bad. Seen it done before so absolutely no shock value or breaking any new ground.
Looking back CR was just too good. The films that followed had their moments but all fell way short in comparison.
I agree. It's how they continue that fascinates me. I dont think we can/should stomach another reboot origin story.
A bold move would be just to send a mid career Bond out on a mission that doesn't look back and ignores the past. No more 'personal 'revenge gigs for a while I beg of you.
Casino Royale was a luck film. The origin of the reboot / alternate universe Bond. I said it before back then and people didn't get or want to believe what I was saying. The previous incredibly bad Die Another Day made Casino Royale seem even better. But after Casino Royale the movies kept getting worse. Although I like Spectre for various reasons.
The ending to No Time to Die was obvious after Spectre which is why I was very concerned. You didn't have to be some top literature expert to see it. They weren't going to have the same ending as Spectre with Bond saving Madeleine and driving off into the sunset again.
Oh dear God, yes please. Just a stand alone mission, no personal stuff. No mother subtext, no unexpected family members, no digging into Bond's past. Just a good villain (if that's not a contradiction in terms), loads of stunts, and some witty lines (ok, and some not so witty) like we used to get. It used to be not too much to ask for.
Please don't tell me times have changed- I know that. Good writing is what's needed here- I suggest Mark Gatiss & Steven Moffat.
Absolutely gutted with the ending, Bond giving up, completely against why everyone loves the character (the same in the books) the rest I really enjoyed - but the ending means I'm not sure I want to see again - the endings are supposed to be Bond surviving however badly beaten up. Not sure how they come back from this now? A reboot - but then what about the old movies?
I said yesterday I could wait for the home release but I now think I will see it again at the cinema. There was so much to take in that I think another viewing is in order.
Despite all the things I've said I hope the film is a massive success. The world needs hero's and Bond has always been that.