CONTRIBUTED: After spending some much-needed time to catch up on the current James Bond arch starring Daniel Craig, I found myself excited to walk into the film on Friday evening to see where and how the film was going to put this nice little bow around what has been a tremendous tenure for the latest Bond.
While the film has some captivating moments and offers a nice and complete action story that finalizes this series of the current Bond, I left wanting much more.
This is not to say that this film is not one of the better in the series. But when put next to its predecessors, mainly Casino Royale and Skyfall the film falls short. When compared to both Specter and Quantum of Solace it holds up nicely in both story and action and even improved on those two films.
Within the film itself the story takes place right after the previous film left off. We see Bond and Madeline taking a trip to an exotic part of Italy but not before we are shown some much needed flash backs to help us get a sense of more of the woman that Bond has easily put his newfound trust in.
After some quick action and a nice nod to potentially the best Bond film in this series, Casino Royale and that first love that pushed him to fully commit to his life and his distrust of love we are right back to the normal formula that this arch has come to grasp.
He goes off alone, disappears and retires. Lots of time passes and slowly his and MI6’s past catch up to him in the greatest way possible with another nod to Casino, with Felix, needing help once again.
Now this is where the film has potentially its greatest moments. While following the story to Cuba, we are introduced to a sub plot involving that organization that has been established in the previous films and introduced to a myriad of new characters.
A new OO7, who after all the backlash of the studio never saying it could be a woman, is a woman. A CIA agent, played by Ana de Amras, who is the most memorable part of the film and makes you want more than the time she is given. And finally, a villain played by Rami Malek, who unlike his predecessors left me feeling like “wow, here is your stereotypical villain” within these films, Bond even references this in a few fash- ionable lines within the film.
The returning cast of M, Q and Moneypenny stay within their established characters and roles from the previous films which helps to make the film seem stagnate.
There is a nice moment with Christopher Waltz’s Blofeld. The chemistry between him and Craig is magical, but this again makes Malek’s villain seem uninteresting.
Without going into too much detail pertaining to the plot and the endgame on this one, Craig has his nice finale and is in a way fitting for his portrayal of Bond, plus it finally makes us feel that this character has a soul, and not just the killing machine that has been hinted at in every film.
The sentiment with this film has been lost with so much time passing between releases and might have more of an impact to me and the audience around me if this had not been the case. But the pandemic happened and creating hype around a move delayed for almost two full years creates a whole other magnitude of problems, this is not the powerhouse that is Marvel so with time comes lack of interest.
No Time to Die is a fitting title since the film clearly has the legs to run the box-office and potentially make its money back, even after so much time.
Personally, I was left wanting more, but that was more likely due to great Casino and Skyfall were, not only Bond adventures but also as pieces of cinema.
Last thing I would like to say, is that the scoring is knocked out of the park. Hans Zimmer does what he is great at, portraying emotion while running established themes throughout and helps to really sell these films emotional context within those moment that seem the most important.
Overall, I personally would say it is worth the watch if you are a fan of the current arch, it delivers the nice little bow to the audience that has stuck it through this film series since Craig took over. But as an individual film and Bond film, it might leave you wanting more overall. I would rate it at three and a half stars, worth the time, but maybe not worth the money.
Categories: Art & Life, Movie Reviews
