Between his now infamous 2016 interview where he defiantly stated that he would rather slit his wrists than return to play James Bond for a fifth time and the several COVID-related delays that have impacted the real film that materialized once he backed off that unforgettable pull quote, Daniel Craig's final Bond outing feels like it's been in flux forever. Well after an eternal wait, that swan song has finally arrived in theaters and No Time to Die proves to be exactly the statement walk-off Craig deserved.
What's made Craig's portrayal of Bond standout is that he's actively subverted the suave, borderline invincible superspy archetype that the character has traditionally been over the franchise's storied history. While Bond continues to operate in an inherently silly espionage world where psychotic terrorists seek to end the world with convoluted futuristic technology and spies sometimes choose to blurt out puns before or after dispatching some poor henchmen, this iteration of 007 is otherwise treated as a real human being who endures physical and emotional wounds that follow him from film to film. Building off of the emotional apexes of the films that came before it and brought to life by a deeply commanding, subtly moving performance by Craig, No Time to Die provides the most complete portrayal of Bond's humanity to date.
Every choice Bond makes here is coming from a deeply personal place. His plight from a relaxing solitary retirement in Jamaica back to the constant danger of active duty is a journey driven by a sense of duty to the people he cares about. This is the portrait of a man putting his ego aside and realizing how his past actions and inability to trust people based on his profession have impacted the people around him and by the time this mission reaches its inevitable blockbuster conclusion, the character displays a level of vulnerability and selflessness that may have even taken the Casino Royale-era version of him by surprise. This era of Bond may have produced an erratic run of films, but considering that it ended on a note that fit Craig's vision for the character so perfectly, every bit of tedium and narrative miscalculation that popped up along the way was ultimately worth it.
For those who may think that this means 007 has suddenly become some kind of understated drama, fear not because this intricate character journey just happens to include a lot of massive action setpieces and generally wild espionage shit. Director Cary Joji Fukunaga brings the same level of visceral, ever-present danger to the sweeping shootouts and chase scenes here that he did to the widely celebrated projects shootout scene in season 1 of True Detective, the gadgetry is some of the craziest that's ever appeared in the series and the vehicle stuntwork from the car wrecks to motorcycle jumps reinforces why Bond is one of the industry leaders in the field.
These sequences also surprisingly deliver a further examination of the film's themes as the bits of rust Bond is trying to shake off after several years of retirement facilitates the need for more characters to get involved in the action. Lashana Lynch does some great work as the snarky hardass agent whose taken over Bond's 007 tag following his retirement that reluctantly shadows him once he returns to the field and Ana de Armas makes a show-stopping extended cameo as a charismatic CIA agent who aides Bond in an early leg of his mission that should help drum up a ton of excitement for her more significant role in next year's Netflix spy tentpole The Gray Man. Acknowledging that Bond actually benefits from having other capable agents around him is a huge step forward for the franchise and is absolutely a practice that should continue in 007's next iteration.
Underneath all the glory, there are a few key areas where No Time to Die could've been better in. While Rami Malek does a pretty good job of delivering sinister monologues and being a generally imposing presence, Safin is a relatively underutilized and not overly well developed villain, the whole global annihilation plot that forces Bond back into action is very absurd for a movie that is mostly deadly serious and the middle chunk of the film just doesn't have the same level of energy and emotion behind it as the bookend acts do. However, No Time to Die gives Craig's Bond the rewarding and emotionally challenging sendoff his Bond deserved and no amount of secondary issues are a match for a finale that does justice to its hero.
Grade: B+
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