Review: Daniel Craig's last stand in "No Time To Die"
Sunday, October 10, 2021 at 8:30PM
by Deborah Lipp
No Time To Die explicitly advertises itself as “the conclusion” of a series that began with Casino Royale (2006), so there’s no spoiler in talking about No Time to Die (2021) as the conclusion of Daniel Craig’s James Bond series. I will keep major spoilers out, but I will certainly talk about this film in a way that understands it in the context of the Bond franchise, and as a “conclusion” of sorts. Fair warning and all that.
As we have come to expect from the Bond films of the last twenty or so years, No Time to Die is lavishly produced, has an A-list cast, and is beautiful to look at. As a standalone film, it’s good, perhaps very good, but the whole point of No Time to Die is that it isn't a standalone film. As a “conclusion,” it makes you ask questions: About James Bond and his future, about Daniel Craig and his legacy, about what a Bond film ultimately is...
Let’s deal with the standalone movie first. For the longest movie in Bond history, the pacing is excellent, and rarely feels bloated. The writing and directing, despite the sturm und drang of musical chairs in both those jobs, is strong. Cary Fukunaga directs in a clean, readable style that is refreshing for those of us who sat through Quantum of Solace. He isn’t creating visual masterpieces like Sam Mendes, but he doesn’t get in the way, either. Similarly, Linus Sandgren is no Roger Deakins, but the film is often quite beautiful, and never muddy or murky. The action sequences—especially some of the chases—are thrilling. The opening pre-titles is a mini-movie, a journey with a lot of mystery, thrills, and a strong payoff. It just works.
As a villain, Rami Malek’s Safin is creepy in exactly the right ways. His megalomania and world-shattering plot is actually quite welcome. It’s been many years since a Bond villain was after anything but a petty pile of money. Ultimately, Safin’s motivations are confusing, though, and a little more exposition wouldn’t have hurt. He was doing what now? Because why? By the time he explained himself, you'll be ready for a real mic drop moment, and it didn’t happen. Shortly thereafter, Bond lets us know that the movie was never really about Safin, and that’s nicely symbolic and all, but Safin is the villain, so yes, it matters.
Also, with Phoebe Waller-Bridges on board, we finally learn that Daniel Craig just isn’t very good at clever Bond quips, even when well-written.
In the course of three hours, we get thrills, chills, romance, surprise explosions, fatal confrontations, boats, helicopters, cars, three continents, a new 00 agent, an exquisite soundtrack, and a dramatic, breathtaking finale. So sure, go see it.
But what does it all mean?
CASINO ROYALE (2006)
When Casino Royale rebooted James Bond, it was a good idea. It didn’t hurt that it was a magnificent movie, nearly perfect in its execution, but it also made sense. Why should Bond have a canonical marriage to a woman whose grave states she died when the current star was still a baby? Why carry all that around? A reboot clears the playing field and allows the character and the writers some breathing room. Even Quantum of Solace, unforgivable as that trainwreck is, made its own kind of sense. Allow the dramatic Vesper Lynd story to be a two-parter, clean up the previous film’s loose ends while moving forward. Quantum of Solace gave us a new story (albeit a bad one) while sweeping up the previous film’s leavings.
But then we get to Skyfall, and now there are questions. Like, in his third film, why are we still on Craig’s origin story? But again, Skyfall was a good movie, if sometimes a silly one, so maybe we can set aside the whole Freudian childhood home thing. By Spectre, though, it’s clear that EON Productions wants to double down on all the “Bond’s past” stuff. You could have looked past it, for the most part, in the prior three movies. Skyfall gave fans pause, but mostly we were getting Bond, James Bond, agent 007. Only in Spectre is it genuinely important that it’s always been about Daniel Craig’s specific Bond, his childhood, and his story. This is all new to the franchise, and it’s disturbing. First, it’s not exactly well done—Blofeld is diminished by making his story a fight between brothers, and the retconning is transparently dumb. But more than that—why are they doing this and where does it lead? Bond is not made more interesting by this, but he’s clearly made more limited. As the ad campaign for No Time to Die indicates, that which begins must end. You can’t just spin this out forever, can you? Previously, Tracy’s death was canonical—Moore grieved her, Dalton grieved her. Is Vesper’s death now canonical? Is Blofeld still Bond’s brother, regardless of who plays Bond? What do we do with all this history.
With No Time to Die, the franchise makes the decision for us. They conclude the pentalogy of Craig Bond films. Whatever happens next is not this.
The producers are telling us we can and should view Craig’s pentalogy as a single story. What next? Is it just, oh, those five films were a story and now we’re back to basically disconnected one-off films? Or do we have to endure another reboot? Does a new Bond earn his 00 again, and have a new childhood and—God help us—a new brother? I don’t think I could stand that.
The thing that’s so frustrating is none of this was necessary. None of it genuinely enhanced James Bond as a character or as a film series. Imagine a different group of five movies:
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Casino Royale: We start with the absolutely perfect reboot. Necessary and delightful.
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Quantum of Solace: Unforgiveable and irredeemable. Throw it away and start over.
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Skyfall: A really good movie. Excise everything about Bond’s childhood home, parents, and groundskeeper, film your exciting conclusion some other way, and you have a classic Bond film, great villain, silly plot holes, and all.
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Spectre: Requires a lot more rewrites. Bring back Blofeld (yay!) and SPECTRE (yay!) but not as Bond’s brother (boo!) or with a retcon of Bond’s past (boo!). The plot is dumb enough that we’ll still complain, but it’s the bones of a good movie and the first twenty minutes remain magnificent.
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No Time to Die now needs a complete rewrite. Okay, you can bring back Madeline Swan if you must, love interests are nice, and Safin is potentially a great villain. Trash everything else.
For Daniel Craig, this is a sad legacy, compared to what might have been.
Deborah Lipp is the author of The Ultimate James Bond Fan Book
Bond James Bond, Daniel Craig, No Time to Die, Reviews
Reader Comments (13)
This is the end
Hold your breath and count to ten
Feel the Earth move and then
Hear my heart burst again
For this is the end
I've drowned and dreamt this moment
So overdue I owe them
Swept away I'm stolen...
I haven't seen it yet, which is weird. I had like a 20 year span where I saw every Bond movie the day it opened. But although I appreciate the idea of a larger narrative, and thought both CASINO ROYALE and SKYFALL were great, it would be really nice if they went back and did a few modest, stand alone films, the way they followed up the insanely huge SPY WHO LOVED ME and MOONRAKER with FOR YOUR EYES ONLY.
If it were me, I'd go period and set the next round of films in the 1950s and early 60s, when Fleming wrote them. Take out the racism, the homophobia, and make the films an auto-critique of colonialism. Of course that's not likely to happen.
No 6 Get more legends to sing Bond themes not who is in at the moment.
Thanks Deborah. I was trying to write a review but the only thing that was coming out was an ode to Daniel Craig with a sidebar of "how about that Ana de Armas?" and I can do that in other ways.
agree that it started spectacularly with CASINO ROYALE but I dont personally go to Bond films for continuity of story and given the franchise's 50 year history it would be impossible to do that well unless you also wanted a "multiverse" situation and that's not good for anyone. Bring back the stand-alone stories (and the Bond girls!)
Nat, I agree! When you tweeted that the movies used to be fun, I hadn't seen it yet, and I sure don't want a return to the Roger Moore era. But Craig's legacy is gloomy, and I'd be happy for a Pierce Brosnan-type to take over. Brosnan's James Bond enjoyed being James Bond.
Mr. Ripley -- there is nothing wrong with the Bond producers wanting to make money. In retrospect, everything seems like a legend, but Matt Munro certainly was not, and Carly Simon, who is, was definitely in at the moment.
Endless.
Ana de Armas - MVP
Malek & Waltz, insufferable actors, are very well used here.
Seydoux - bad
Craig - tired
I didn't like the end at all. I don't expect closure in a Bond movie. I would a prefered a shot of Craig walking into the sunset with a Martini in his hand.
*I would have preferred
I've seen a lot of complaints about the continuity issues and what it means for the Bond franchise. While that's important, I don't think it's going to matter that much to the type of viewers Bond courts - people who love well-made and expensive action-spy films. I do hate that it feels shoehorned in with this iteration, but that happens. I also suspect most viewers don't really link the Bonds across time - they're reboots every time and that's fine.
I also think that the Bond films have always been of their time. In the 60s, they were stand alone action films with a dash of humor. In the 70s, they were practically spy comedies, and in the 1990s they were films with endless set pieces, but very little emotional pull. It makes sense, that during the era where series television has increasingly serialized and where the MCU dominates, that we would get a more serialized Bond. It matches the current film moment, and I expect the next iteration of Bond to do the same.
@Peggy Sue -- agree about the ending.
@Joe G. -- No Time to Die certainly doesn't cater to the kind of audience you're assuming. There's no way to understand it without having seen the previous Craig films. Agree about the movies being of their time, though, this has always been true.
Thank you, this is a terrifically written review. I love the alternate strategy list for the Craig films.
I have never been a big Bond fan. But I was really taken with Skyfall. I felt it really delivered a Shakespearean view of the character and his story.
And as much as I agree with most of this review, I have to disagree with pruning the groundskeeper from the nearly perfect Skyfall--Albert Finney is just too good as that bad-ass landscaper! HE is the real Constant Gardener.
"Welcome to Scotland." Incredible.
brookesboy, in my fantasy Skyfall, Finney still has a role, he just isn't from Bond's childhood. ALL THE ALBERT FINNEY!
Deborah, love it! Now I'm thinking Albert the Great woulda killed as a Bond villain.