NO TIME TO DIE - JAMES BOND 25 (2021) MOVIE NEWS & REVIEW

james bond 25 (2021) movie

Genre              |   Spy-Fi Action

Classification   |   M

Running time   |   164 minutes

Released         |   11 November 2021

cast

Daniel Craig ... James Bond
Léa Seydoux ... Madeleine Swann
Rami Malek ... Lyutsifer Safin
Ralph Fiennes ... M
Naomie Harris ... Eve Moneypenny
Ben Whishaw ... Q
​Rory Kinnear ... Tanner
Lashana Lynch ... Nomi
Jeffrey Wright ... Felix Leiter
Ana de Armas ... Paloma
Christoph Waltz ... Blofeld
Billy Magnussen ... Logan Ash
Dali Benssalah ... Primo (Cyclops)
​David Dencik ... Valdo Obruchev

director

Cary Joji Fukunaga

writer

​Neal Purvis ... (written by) &
Robert Wade ... (written by) and
Cary Joji Fukunaga ... (written by) and
Phoebe Waller-Bridge ... (written by)
 
Ian Fleming ... (based on characters created by)

cinematographer

​Linus Sandgren

music

Hans Zimmer

film editor

​Elliot Graham
​Tom Cross

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box office result

Worldwide               $? million

Australia                 $? million

North America        $? million

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movie minutiae

On August 21, 2018, Michael G. Wilson, Barbara Broccoli and Daniel Craig announced on the James Bond's official Twitter, that due to creative differences Danny Boyle has decided to no longer direct BOND 25.

This film will be Daniel Craig's fifth and likely final appearance as James Bond. Scheduled to be released in 2020, the movie will also be Craig's fourteenth year in tenure as James Bond since his first in CASINO ROYALE (2006). This will, by tenure, make Craig the longest running actor playing James Bond in the official series since the late Roger Moore's era between the early 1970s to the mid 1980s, which ran for twelve years, between LIVE AND LET DIE (1973) and A VIEW TO A KILL (1985). By film count Craig will come third, after Sean Connery with six and Roger Moore with seven (though Connery also has seven if unofficial film NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN (1983) is counted).

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NO TIME TO DIE - JAMES BOND 25 (2021) MOVIE IMAGES

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NO TIME TO DIE - JAMES BOND 25 (2021) STORY SYNOPSIS

Recruited to rescue a kidnapped scientist, globe-trotting spy James Bond finds himself hot on the trail of a mysterious villain, who's armed with a dangerous new technology.

NO TIME TO DIE - JAMES BOND 25 (2021) MOVIE REVIEW

Reviewed by Mark Geraghty   |   Review date 10 November 2021

Pop ​Movee Rating

​Daniel Craig’s final outing as James Bond treads a fine line between honouring the escapist fantasy that has become the hallmark of the character’s cinematic escapades over his five official incarnations (Connery, Moore, Dalton, Brosnan & Craig) whilst paying tribute to the desperate realism that Craig’s casting brought to the franchise when he first appeared as 007 in CASINO ROYALE back in 2006.

One of the hardest things to accept about NO TIME TO DIE is how long it has taken to see the light of day.

The last film, SPECTRE, was released in 2015.

Surely, it hasn’t been six years since the last Bond film...

Unfortunately, it has, so, to some extent, NO TIME TO DIE is irrelevant as a Bond outing in terms of maintaining the character’s presence as a mythic figure in the immediate pop culture zeitgeist. The film is subject to the same pandemic dilemma that so many other big-budget, tentpole productions have suffered since March 2020; namely the absence of large-scale audience engagement to drive box office business, expanding franchise appeal.

Yep, it’s a James Bond film, but does that really mean anything when the world has been confronted by a genuine danger?

When there’s so much real peril in the world, does the imaginary “End of the World” schemes Bond regularly confronts have the power to engage viewer’s anywhere near like the real-world calamity of COVID has?

As if anticipating outrageous scenery-chewing megalomania may a little too on-the-nose for audiences, Bond’s guardians use Craig’s final outing as an opportunity to reset James Bond, using little of the plot points from the last film and, instead, revisiting what we learned of Bond in SKYFALL; exploring more of what it means to be James Bond and less of what it takes for him to be 007.

No easy task...

SPECTRE was a problematic film.

It failed to build anything significant from the opportunity presented by SKYFALL. 

Instead, the 24th Bond outing attempted to weave together plot threads from the previous three films (CASINO ROYALE, QUANTUM OF SOLACE & SKYFALL) using the Blofeld character as a totem for just about the entire life experience of Craig’s version of Bond. It didn’t work and the film became a jumble of ideas amidst a never-ending series of set pieces that seemed to stretch on far too long.

Daniel Craig knew that something was amiss with SPECTRE (and possibly the franchise). His public comments about his experience making his fourth film were less than enthusiastic. Even taking the pandemic into account, getting him to commit and film his last Bond outing was fraught with tedium. Daniel Craig had been harsh in his immediate post-release assessment of SPECTRE, declaring that all kinds of self-harm were preferential to having to undertake another Bond outing. 

With no real alternative available, Bond Producers Barbara Broccoli & Michael G. Wilson waited for Craig to calm down and re-evaluate his position.

Perhaps the opportunity to revisit the themes introduced in SKYFALL was the carrot that was dangled before Craig. An opportunity for NO TIME TO DIE to expand upon the mythology created by SKYFALL was perhaps the clincher. A chance to explore the drama of Bond’s life and examine the reason why he has arrived at the point he has in NO TIME TO DIE.

The question that has to be asked is, has this film been worth the wait?

Yes, NO TIME TO DIE has been worth the wait.

At 164 minutes, it’s far too long, but the film takes steps to address the problems created by SPECTRE and fashion a story that plays as an extension to the opportunities presented by SKYFALL. Some critics felt that SKYFALL diminished James Bond because it made it seem like it was M’s manipulation of the angry orphan boy that made him such an effective, blunt-force instrument of action. Setting aside the misstep of SPECTRE the decision to lay Bond’s soul bare seems, in the context of NO TIME TO DIE, a great launching pad to finally expand the character into someone more than just an authorised assassin.

As much as NO TIME TO DIE is a James Bond film, it is also the story of a man who finally begins to find some meaning in his life. This point is no more obvious than when Bond, no longer an active MI6 “00” Agent, refers to his former moniker as “just a number”.

In the post-MI6 world of James Bond, he is no longer defined by 007. 

He is very much defined by the regret of all that was lost with Vesper Lynd and, try as he might, he still finds it hard to forgive either her or himself. It’s a pain point that prevents him from moving on with his life, enjoying the present with Lea Seydoux’s Madeleine. 

After a longer-than-typical prologue, it is at this point in time NO TIME TO DIE picks up from the conclusion of SPECTRE, but it’s a double-bluff. As part of the film’s first major set-piece, Bond and Madeleine are pursued by a SPECTRE assassination squad. The action is frenetic and amidst it all, Bond is forced to make a terrible choice. It is a choice that turns out to be ill-informed...

Anyone who feared handing the reins of this quintessential British production to American Cary Joji Fukunaga should not be concerned. While NO TIME TO DIE is only his third feature film as Director, his film-making capability is well & truly on display and the decision by Broccoli & Wilson, with Daniel Craig’s blessing, to hire for the first time ever a non-Brit for the job pays off.

Fukunaga and Director of Photography, Academy Award winner Linus Sandgren deliver an amazing array of images throughout the film, from the atmospheric vistas of Norway, the ragged mountain scapes of regional Italy, the almost derelict frontages of downtown Havana to the Ken Adams’ inspired spaces that are the setting for its finale, NO TIME TO DIE is as memorable for its scope and grandeur as any Bond film before it.

It’s also one of the most intimate 007 films because Bond himself is the most human he’s ever been. For perhaps only the fourth time, NO TIME TO DIE is a Bond film that is as emotionally accessible & affecting as it is a Spy-Fi Action Thriller.

The closest Cubby Broccoli ever came to humanising Bond was when George Lazenby took over as Bond after Sean Connery, appearing in ON HER MAJESTY’S SECRET SECRET. 

At the time Lazenby’s Bond was not what audiences were expecting. While it wasn’t a box office failure, the film did not have the same success as the Connery Bond movies. 

NO TIME TO DIE shares a lot of DNA with ON HER MAJESTY’S SECRET SERVICE.

It’s pretty clear that ongoing series scribes Neal Purvis & Robert Wade built NO TIME TO DIE on the same framework that long-time Bond writer Richard Maibum used for that earlier film. And, like ON HER MAJESTY’S SECRET SERVICE, where the esteemed British writer Simon Raven was brought in to write additional dialogue & scenes, Cary Joji Fukunaga brought the supremely talented Phoebe Waller-Bridge on board  to build upon the Purvis & Wade story.

Central to all of this is Daniel Craig.

Is he the best 007?

No.

Is he the best James Bond?

Yes.

If Craig’s tenure as Bond had continued down the path established in CASINO ROYALE (2006), then he may well have been dubbed both the best 007 and the best James Bond, but that would have been too predictable a journey. (Sean Connery became a worldwide superstar doing just that over the course of five movies between 1963 and 1967 but the character of James Bond didn’t move forward until the release of ON HER MAJESTY’S SECRET SERVICE.)

Craig has brought more to Bond because, more often than not, he has been able to deliver the desperate realism that was lacking in both the Roger Moore & Pierce Brosnan eras and audiences only ever got a fleeting glimpse of in the Connery films. (Timothy Dalton was headed down the Craig path but audiences weren’t ready for him.)

Craig’s five-film tenure as Bond has seen him referred to throughout as a relic from a bygone era of espionage. Unlike the characterisation of Bond provided by both friend & foe throughout those films, Daniel Craig made Bond relevant again. Had it not been for the ill-considered ideas thrown about in SPECTRE and the near two-year hiatus forced upon cinema-going by the pandemic, NO TIME TO DIE would have been here sooner and Craig’s legacy as James Bond “007” would have seen him all but secure the mantle as the best yet to bring life to Ian Fleming’s creation.

NO TIME TO DIE is an impressive film. 

It will leave you awe-struck.

It will remind you why you go to the movies.

After fifty-eight years, there’s still nobody who does it better than Commander James Bond, MI6 Agent 007.

NO TIME TO DIE - JAMES BOND 25 MOVIE (2021) USEFUL LINKS

No Time to Die - Wikipedia​
No Time to Die (2020) - IMDb
No Time To Die (2020) - Rotten Tomatoes
​The Official James Bond 007 Website | Bond 25 update

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