‘No Time to Die’ Review: His Word Is His Bond
The New York Times
The 25th episode in the venerable franchise — and Daniel Craig’s last as 007 — finds its hero in a somber mood.
“No Time to Die.” It’s kind of an ambiguous title. No time because we’re too busy or because now is not the right moment? The makers of the latest James Bond film have generously supplied us with 163 minutes — including a slow-moving Billie Eilish theme song — during which we can ponder this and other urgent questions. That’s in addition to the nearly 18 months of pandemic delay that we have waited for this episode (the 25th overall and Daniel Craig’s last in the role of the least secret member of Her Majesty’s Secret Service).
It arrives with a curious mixture of heaviness and insouciance. Mortality looms over the quips and car chases — not only the expected slaughter of anonymous minions, but an inky cloud of grief, loss and weariness. Near the beginning, in the midst of a high-toned Mediterranean holiday, Bond visits the grave of Vesper Lynd, the lover who died in “Casino Royale” in 2006. “I miss you,” he says, and “No Time to Die” is uncommonly preoccupied with memory and leave-taking. Tiptoeing around the spoilers, I will say that it amounts to a series of long goodbyes.
As someone who grew up in the Roger Moore era, when defiance of every kind of gravity was the hallmark of the series, I have trouble adjusting my eyes to the darkness and the possibility of tears. I don’t entirely trust the emotions that the director (Cary Joji Fukunaga) and the screenwriting committee (Fukunaga, Neal Purvis, Robert Wade and Phoebe Waller-Bridge) put into play, or the weighty themes they reach for.
