No Time to Die 2021
It seems like this movie has been in the news forever. For a while there was debate about whether Daniel Craig would return, and then Covid held up the release of the movie for over a year. The thing everyone knows is that this is Daniel Craig’s last James Bond movie and the future of the franchise is up in the air (supposedly). This is a long movie at 2 hours and 43 minutes. Meanwhile it has been six years since the last James Bond movie, Spectre, which I barely remember. To make it worse, I had missed a couple of intervening Bond movies, so I went back and watched Skyfall, but I still never saw Quantum of Solace.
The beginning of the movie starts out with some characters who are not James Bond, but he soon shows up happy with a new girlfriend (not really, it turns out she is the same girl from Spectre). So it ties in to the earlier movie, but I was lost for a while. While this movie has a lot of classic Bond elements in terms of bad guys, evil schemes, gadgets, etc., the story itself seems like a mess, especially as it relates to what turns out to be the main bad guy. The evil scheme at work is never clearly laid out and is pretty disappointing in general. Despite some nice development and sentimentality for Craig’s final mission, the movie still needed a plot and it seems lacking. Some of the gunfight action seems borrowed from John Wick, but the stunts are generally subdued, especially for a Bond film, paling in comparison to something like Mission: Impossible.
One highlight, which I didn’t even realize at the time, is there is a brief reunion with Craig’s co-star from Knives Out, Ana de Armas, who plays a CIA agent in Cuba (and the actress is actually from Cuba!). It is a fun character, though kind of minor.
Anyway, looking back on my past reviews of Daniel Craig’s Bond movies, they all got B’s except Skyfall which got a B+. Maybe it is fitting that this one also gets a B. This movie is fairly entertaining and a nice way for Craig to wrap things up, but still a little disappointing.
Written: 08 Oct 2021
Owned on: Blu-ray, DVD, Digital