For the 25th James Bond film, Daniel Craig slips into the role of the famous secret agent for the last time. The star-studded thriller is more emotional drama than action blast.
London – “You’re too late,” complains Agent Paloma when she first met James Bond. Almost a year and a half too late to be precise. “No Time to Die” was to celebrate its premiere in April 2020.
The film was finished, the advertising campaign started, then Corona came. Releasing the 25th James Bond film as a stream was out of the question for the producers. After several postponements, the agent thriller is finally coming to the screen. This not only pleases 007 fans, but also cinema operators who associate the box office magnet Bond with the hope of recovery from the corona pandemic.
At the end of the somewhat disappointing predecessor “Specter” (2015), James Bond and his lover Madelaine Swann (Léa Seydoux) drove towards the sunrise. But as in the novels by Ian Fleming, this romantic idyll only lasts for a short time in the new film. After a spectacular action sequence in picturesque Italian Matera – with the famous Aston Martin DB5 – Bond is once again alone.
Years later, the retired agent lives a relaxed life in Jamaica when his old friend Felix (Jeffrey Wright) visits him. The CIA man asks him for help in rescuing a kidnapped scientist. And soon Bond is back in Her Majesty’s service, where Chef M (Ralph Fiennes) is on the verge of slipping. At first, however, it looks like double-zero agent Nomi (Lashana Lynch) has outstripped James Bond at MI6.
The common enemy in this case is Safin (Oscar winner Rami Malek, “Bohemian Rhapsody”) and is an insane criminal with a weakness for biological weapons – and his own island. “We don’t really know where he’s from,” said Malek of the German press agency about his role. “The less you know about someone, the more it can scare you.” What we know: Safin has something in common with Madelaine. And even Bond’s arch-rival Blofeld (Christoph Waltz), who is in prison, is not safe from Safin.
For the 53-year-old Daniel Craig it is definitely the last mission as a secret agent. After 15 years and five films, an era that began in 2006 with “Casino Royale” comes to an end. In the first reboot of the series, the audience saw James Bond become 007, the agent licensed to kill. And after the colorful, humorous Pierce Brosnan films, it experienced a serious agent who had to take a lot, above all the death of his beloved Vespers, which is also a topic in the new film.
James Bond’s path, which was continued in “A Quantum of Solace” (2008), “Skyfall” (2012) and “Specter” (2015), now gets its extended finale with “No Time to Die”. At 163 minutes, it is by far the longest James Bond film. “We had a strong story that we wanted to finish,” said Craig of his farewell film, “a lot of loose ends had to be tied up.”
Even in “No Time to Die”, Bond does not have an easy time of it. And the audience has a lot to process in this sometimes overwhelming agent epic by US director Cary Joji Fukunaga (“True Detective”) with wonderful pictures by cinematographer Linus Sandgren (Oscar for “La La Land”). Some surprising and controversial details of the plot should make for a lot to talk about.
The 25th James Bond film is the most emotional since “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service” (1969). This is probably one of the reasons why the composers Hans Zimmer and Steve Mazzaro have incorporated elements of the old film music by Bond guru John Barry into their soundtrack. Fans and connoisseurs of the series should be delighted with allusions of this kind and look forward to other small 007 reminiscences.
The cast around Malek and returnees Seydoux is excellent. Lashana Lynch as Nomi and Ana De Armas as Paloma actually embody a slightly different type of woman in the 007 films. Where Bond girls used to end up in bed with Bond, the agents now deliver sharp-tongued and funny dialogues with their male colleagues. Perhaps thanks to “Fleabag” star Phoebe Waller-Bridge, who put the finishing touches to the script by long-time Bond writers Neal Purvis and Robert Wade. One thing is certain: this James Bond film will be talked about for a long time.
It remains to be seen which direction the long-time Bond producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson will take after Daniel Craig’s parting with the next actor. The search for his successor has not yet begun, despite all the rumors and the sometimes absurd speculations about possible successors, as the producer duo has now made clear. But there is one thing you can rely on even after “No time to die”: James Bond wants to return. dpa
