No Time To Die
An Emotional Goodbye to the Daniel Craig Era of James Bond
What started with Casino Royale in 2006, as a reboot of the James Bond series, comes to an end with this movie. It marks the conclusion of the grand era of Daniel Craig’s stint as the most realistic and humane version of the titular character of James Bond 007 with a lot of emotional moments and some goodbyes. The movie has seen a lot of ups and downs in its production right from Daniel Craig’s dilemma to reprise the role to finalizing the director after Sam Mendes refused to come back. And after the pandemic delayed the release of the movie thrice since early 2020, it finally hit the screens last month.
The story revolves around a bioweapon stolen by Spectre the criminal organization controlled by the previous movie’s villain Blofeld which then lands in the hands of Stafin, an enemy of Spectre, and how James Bond comes out of retirement trying to save the world while dealing with his complicated relationship with Madeleine Swann and her past involving Safin. The script has a mix of both some unexpected twists and some very predictable events. The cinematography is excellent with picturesque locations captured beautifully. The screenplay is also great. The sphere in which the movie excels the most is its action sequences. The camerawork, screenplay and fantastic performances by the actors and the stunt crew together make the action scenes exhilarating and fun especially the opening chase sequence a signature of almost every Bond movie. It sets the stage for what is going to follow. The opening credits is another sequence that is beautifully created and composed to give you easter eggs for the premise and the theme of the movie. The dialogues are well written with a mix of fun banter and hard-hitting ones as well.
The movie has a very talented star cast. Everyone including Daniel Craig as James Bond, Léa Seydoux as Madeleine Swann, Ralph Fiennes as M, Ben Whishaw as Q, Jeffrey Wright as Felix Leiter, Naomie Harris as Moneypenny and Christoph Waltz as Ernst Blofeld did a fantastic job reprising their roles. Lashana Lynch did a good job playing Nomi, an MI6 field agent who is assigned the title of 007 after James Bond retires at the end of Spectre. Ana de Armas stands out in this movie playing the character of Paloma, a CIA agent assigned to assist James Bond for just 1 mission. Rami Malek plays the menacing villain of this movie Lyutsifer Safin very well and with full conviction.
I was waiting for this movie ever since I saw the 1st trailer back in December 2019 and it didn’t disappoint me. It's the longest James Bond movie and slow-paced too. Personally, I think it has a good balance of story build-up, emotional drama, exhilarating action, and startling horror moments. The movie both starts and ends on an emotional note and it will make you shed a tear or 2 at least during its runtime. I loved the progression of the whole series exploring the humane side of James Bond through Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace, Skyfall, Spectre and concluding in No Time To Die losing his closest people on the way. Casino Royale was the first James Bond movie I watched. Then before Quantum of Solace was released I watched most of the James Bond Movies from Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton and Pierce Brosnan eras. With every release in Daniel Graig’s era, I found the movies a class apart from the other eras. They rely heavily on story and human behavior than gadgetry or gimmicks. But even after a definite end to the storyline of the series, the creators have added the classic post-credit slide at the end saying “James Bond Will Return”. More like a promise… It will be interesting to see who will reprise this role for the next reboot.
The Bottom Line: It is a great movie and fitting conclusion to the golden era of Daniel Craig’s James Bond. Most of the people might have already seen the movie in the theatres and it must have been taken off-screen at most places by now. But if you haven’t watched it yet, please watch it on whatever platform it ends up. It is worth a watch at least once. If you haven't watched any James Bond movies yet, please watch the movies from Casino Royale onwards before watching No Time To Die.
