Since 1962, six actors have officially portrayed author Ian
Fleming’s suave secret agent James Bond AKA 007 in Eon Productions’ long-running
franchise of films based on Fleming’s work, with each of them bringing their
own unique spin to the title role. Up until this year, however, arguably the
one thing that most of them had in common was that, unfortunately, their
tenures in the role didn’t exactly end on a good note as their final films tended
to be some of the franchise’s worst-received installments, sometimes for
reasons that extend beyond the film’s quality. Sean Connery, for example, may
have been the first and quite arguably most iconic James Bond, but his run
ended in a rather bizarre way where he temporarily left the franchise after
1967’s You Only Live Twice, returned for 1971’s Diamonds Are Forever,
then left again, and then proceeded to star in an unofficial Bond film, 1983’s Never
Say Never Again, which was just a remake of his fourth Bond film, 1964’s Thunderball.
During Connery’s temporary hiatus, George Lazenby took up the role, and while
1969’s On Her Majesty’s Secret Service is often seen as one of the
franchise’s best films, Lazenby infamously stepped away from the role after
just a single film on the advice of his agent. Thus, Roger Moore ended up
becoming the first ‘proper’ successor to Connery and notably appeared in a
franchise-record 7 films. However, many felt that he had stayed in the role for
too long to the point where, by the time that he had starred in 1985’s A
View to a Kill at the age of 57, he was older than lead Bond Girl Tanya
Roberts’ mother.
After Moore’s departure, Timothy Dalton was cast; like
Lazenby, his tenure was another notoriously short one although, in his defense,
this was mainly because the series ended up in some major legal issues after
only his second film, 1989’s Licence to Kill. After that, Pierce Brosnan
helped revive the franchise in the mid-’90s, with his final film, Die
Another Day, notably being released in 2002, which coincided with the
series’ 40th anniversary… it also ended up being one of its
worst-received outings. Thus, we now cut to Daniel Craig, the man who
successfully managed to defy his biggest critics who heavily crucified his
casting in 2005 because they felt that he didn’t fit the character’s
long-standing image as it was both described in the books and portrayed by his
five predecessors. And yet, once his first film, 2006’s Casino Royale,
hit theaters, he quickly became a fan-favorite amongst critics and audiences as
the series effectively rebooted itself, eschewing many of its campier elements
to be more in line with the grounded spy thrillers of recent years such as the Jason
Bourne franchise. In the years since, Craig has arguably maintained one of the
most consistent runs of any of the Bond leads to date. Sure, his first four
films were an even mix of critically-acclaimed outings (Casino Royale
and 2012’s Skyfall) and incredibly polarizing affairs (2008’s Quantum
of Solace and 2015’s Spectre), but overall, Craig has managed to muster
a strongly positive reputation amongst Bond fans. However, by the time that Spectre
was released, it was unclear if Craig was going to return for another film,
especially after an infamous comment that he had made during an interview where
he noted that he’d rather “slash his wrists” than do another one. Granted, he
did later admit that this was simply a poor way of responding to the question in
the immediate wake of Spectre’s production, but nevertheless, it did
cause a bit of a scandal. Ultimately, though, Craig confirmed that he would
return for one more film which, as you’ll see, ended up going through quite a
lot.
After it was confirmed that Skyfall and Spectre director
Sam Mendes would not return to direct a third Bond film, it was announced
that visionary director Danny Boyle was tapped to direct Eon’s 25th
official Bond film with a screenplay that he had co-written with his longtime
collaborator John Hodge. Had this gone through, Boyle would’ve quite arguably
been the most prominent director to ever be attached to the franchise given
Eon’s tendency to not rely on big-name directors, having notably turned down
the likes of Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson in the past. Unfortunately,
Boyle ended up dropping out of the project in August 2018 due to creative
differences over his and Hodge’s script. Luckily for Eon, the search for a new
director didn’t end up taking too long as they ultimately hired Cary Joji Fukunaga.
Over the past few years, Fukunaga has made quite a name for himself as a
director thanks to his work on the likes of the 2015 Netflix film Beasts of
No Nation and the first season of HBO’s True Detective. With his
hiring, Fukunaga notably became the first American-born director to helm a Bond
film as well as the first to also have a writing credit on the film, which he
shares with series regulars Neal Purvis and Robert Wade and, by Daniel Craig’s
own request, Fleabag creator Phoebe Waller-Bridge. And apart from an
ankle injury that Craig sustained during filming, everything seemed to be going
well for what would eventually be titled No Time to Die as the film was primed
for an April 2020 domestic release… and then the COVID-19 pandemic happened.
With theaters closing around the world due to the impact of
the pandemic, MGM and Eon promptly decided to push No Time to Die’s
release date back, effectively making it the first film that had to bow to the
pressure of a COVID-forced delay. And sure enough, other big-name blockbusters
like F9, Black Widow, and Wonder Woman 1984 were forced to
move back to a later date as well. As for No Time to Die, it was clear
that this was for the best to ensure a strong financial performance at the
worldwide box office as it was estimated that the film would’ve lost about $300
million had it stayed in its April 2020 slot. First poised for a November 2020
release, it was then pushed back again to April 2021, a full year after its
initially planned release, when it was clear that theaters wouldn’t be back in
full operation by that time. But when the new year rolled around, it was pushed
back again to October 2021; thankfully, though, that release date was
officially locked in back in August, and thus, more than one and a half years
after it was originally set to hit theaters, the grand finale to Daniel Craig’s
tenure as James Bond is finally here. Obviously, this one’s been a long time
coming, but thanks to Cary Joji Fukunaga’s brilliant direction and its many
moments of powerful emotional poignancy, No Time to Die achieves a
genuine first in franchise history by giving its lead actor the send-off that
he damn well deserves.
In the wake of MI6’s successful capture of Ernst Stavro
Blofeld (Christoph Waltz), the leader of the sinister criminal organization known
as Spectre, James Bond AKA Agent 007 (Daniel Craig) has begun to settle down
with his lover, psychiatrist Madeleine Swann (Lea Seydoux). However, their
peaceful lives are tragically upended when a run-in with Spectre agents leaves
Bond to believe that Madeleine has betrayed him, thus resulting in him abandoning
her and retiring from MI6. Five years later, Bond is approached by his old
friend, CIA agent Felix Leiter (Jeffrey Wright), who requests his help in
locating a kidnapped scientist, Valdo Obruchev (David Dencik). Bond soon
discovers that Obruchev has been working with MI6 on an advanced nanobot
bioweapon known as ‘Project Heracles’ that can eliminate any target by coding
itself to their DNA. This immediately compels Bond to return to active duty,
where he finds himself reuniting with his old MI6 associates (MI6 head Gareth
Mallory AKA M (Ralph Fiennes), his secretary Eve Moneypenny (Naomie Harris), chief
of staff Bill Tanner (Rory Kinnear), and Quartermaster Q (Ben Whishaw)) while
also meeting his successor as 007, Nomi (Lashana Lynch). Eventually, Bond comes
face to face with the true perpetrator behind Obruchev’s kidnapping, terrorist
Lyutsifer Safin (Rami Malek), who happens to have a notable connection to Madeleine
due to a previous encounter with her when she was younger. Thus, Bond finds
himself having to reunite with Madeleine for the first time in years as he and
MI6 work to stop Safin before he can unleash ‘Project Heracles’ upon the world
and cause the deaths of millions.
As of 2021, No Time to Die is, officially, the
longest film of the franchise with a near 3-hour runtime of 163 minutes.
Admittedly, there are a few instances where you do feel the brunt of that hefty
run-time, like when the film reaches its finale and it’s clear that there’s at
least a half-hour left to go. Still, that doesn’t mean that the film is a slog
or anything as the main plot is solidly engaging as far as premises from this
franchise are concerned. And just like how Daniel Craig’s previous odd-numbered
Bond films did a great job of recontextualizing the Bond franchise for the
times in which they were released, No Time to Die wholly succeeds at
being another attempt at modernizing James Bond. In this instance, being that
this was the first Bond film released in the wake of the #MeToo movement, it
goes above and beyond to combat the series’ long-standing habit of objectifying
its female characters, mainly by giving them some of the most significant roles
that any ‘Bond Girl’ has ever had in these films. And while I know that there
are some old-school fans out there who are viciously decrying this film for
being ‘too woke’, this is all just very much in line with how Daniel Craig’s
Bond films have been handled. It has also helped to give them some of the most
emotional narrative moments in the history of the franchise, and sure enough, No
Time to Die is arguably the most emotionally driven Bond film to date,
which is a fitting development seeing how it does, indeed, serve as the end of
an era.
Given how many actors have portrayed James Bond over the
years, there’s been plenty of debate over the question of which of Eon’s 6
official leads is the ‘best’ of the bunch. And while many Bond fans usually
tend to give Sean Connery that honor due to him being the first and most iconic
Bond, it could be argued that Daniel Craig has managed to legitimately
challenge Connery’s spot for that vaunted position. Regardless of the quality
of his films, Craig has arguably been the best ‘acted’ James Bond as each of
his five Bond films has done a great job of highlighting his deeply raw and emotionally
vulnerable take on Bond, with his more recent outings also allowing him the opportunity
to flex his comedic talents via Bond’s trademark quips. And as I noted earlier,
No Time to Die pairs him with some of the franchise’s best female leads
which, of course, all starts with a returning Léa Seydoux in a significantly improved turn as Madeleine
Swann. Madeleine’s role (and, for that matter, Seydoux’s performance) in Spectre
was one of the more polarizing aspects of what was quite frankly the
franchise’s most polarizing installment in recent memory, with several critics
and fans feeling that her chemistry with Craig was mediocre and that the
romantic relationship between Bond and Madeleine wasn’t exactly developed
properly. It’s a much different story here as Seydoux’s chemistry with Craig is
much stronger and their relationship is far more pivotal to the plot, thus
making it a nice bookend to Craig’s tenure as Bond as it matches up nicely with
a lot of the big narrative beats that defined Bond’s similarly strong yet
ultimately tragic relationship with Vesper Lynd in Casino Royale.
As for the film’s other Bond girls (a term that, full disclosure,
isn’t exactly a fitting way of describing these characters nowadays), despite
some initial fears of her potentially being underutilized, Lashana Lynch’s Nomi
is properly established as Bond’s equal as his successor for the position of
007. It also helps that Lynch has a terrific back-and-forth camaraderie with
Craig whenever they’re on-screen together. And while she only appears in a
single sequence in this nearly three-hour film, Ana de Armas is, as has been the
case with a lot of her recent work, a major standout as Bond’s CIA ally Paloma.
Then, of course, you have all the Bond franchise’s regulars, from Bond’s MI6
allies (Ralph Fiennes’ dry-witted M, Ben Whishaw’s lovably dorky Q, Naomie
Harris’ spunky Moneypenny, etc.) to Jeffrey Wright’s first appearance as Felix
Leiter since Quantum of Solace. Finally, we come to the latest main
antagonist of the Bond series, Rami Malek’s Safin, whose role in the story has
been one of the more polarizing elements of the film. From what I can tell, this
is mainly because some feel that he isn’t in it that much which, admittedly, has
sort of been a recent trend with Bond villains as both Javier Bardem’s Silva
and even Christoph Waltz’s Blofeld had rather limited screentime in Skyfall and
Spectre, respectively. For what it’s worth, though, Malek does succeed
in making Safin a legitimately sinister antagonist, especially thanks to the
appropriately oft-kilter vibe that Malek gives him.
For the longest time, none of the actors who have played
James Bond have ever had a great final film… with No Time to Die, Daniel
Craig officially breaks that curse. Aside from just being another great example
of this franchise’s penchant for top-notch action set-pieces and thrilling globe-trotting
adventures, No Time to Die also does a beautiful job of maintaining one
of the strongest elements of the Craig-era Bond films, their strong sense of
emotional poignancy. While this era of the franchise may have started with
James Bond being subjected to all the character beats that made him… well,
James Bond, this Bond has also undergone a noticeable evolution for a character
who was once described by Judi Dench’s M (albeit back in the Brosnan era, but
the point still stands) as a “sexist, misogynist dinosaur” and a “relic of the
Cold War”. In other words, regardless of how much it will inevitably piss off
longtime fans of the franchise, No Time to Die effectively updates its
main protagonist for the current cinematic landscape, thus resulting in a James
Bond that no longer beds every single woman that he comes across but is still
very much the coolest guy in the room. And since the Craig era was the first time
in franchise history where subsequent follow-ups were true direct sequels, this
allows No Time to Die the chance to effectively tie up any loose ends
from the previous four films which, as a result, gives Daniel Craig’s Bond the
best kind of send-off that any cinematic protagonist could possibly get.
Rating: 5/5!
