“No Time to Die” is consistently entertaining but lacks originality. With so many similarities to previous Daniel Craig 007 movies, “No Time to Die” is good, but not great.

“No Time to Die” is the newest installation in the action-packed James Bond series. 

Many James Bond films share similar plots and nearly identical endings and “No Time to Die” seems to follow in previous installations’ footsteps.

“No Time to Die” starts with a flashback where we are introduced to this Bond movie’s love interest, Madeleine, and its villain, Safin. The scene is intense and provides the audience with Safin’s backstory.

The use of music in this film when characters are introduced provides insight into the character. The music is used to create tension whenever Safin and Madeleine are near each other.

Because of this opening scene, the characters in the film have a backstory. It gives a lot of the relationships in the movie context and leaves very little guesswork for where characters stand with each other.

Throughout “No Time to Die,” new characters are introduced, and it’s never hard to keep track of who is who. 

The plot follows the same blueprint that almost every James Bond movie does. There’s a love interest, a villain trying to destroy the world and James Bond using gadgets to save everybody. Although you can guess what will happen next most of the time, it doesn’t detract from the film at all.

The main plot point of the movie is Safin trying to use a stolen bioweapon to kill as many people as possible. The action is set up in a way that James Bond is the only person who can save the world.

Safin captures Madeleine and her and Bond’s daughter. This creates some extra conflict because Bond has to get them off of Safin’s island safely while destroying the bioweapon.

“No Time to Die” has a satisfying ending, especially for a Bond film. The closure that this ending brings is even more reason to watch it.

After 15 years and Bond installations, it has been rumored for years that Daniel Craig’s time as the character may be coming to an end, and Craig recently confirmed this. Craig is regarded as one of the best Bond actors, and “No Time to Die” accentuates that. Craig’s demeanor made 007 serious again after some Bond films that could be considered silly.

Although a lot of the film is cliche, it works perfectly for something like this. Throughout the movie, there was the perfect amount of new characters introduced, plot twists, and action to keep viewers interested. 

“No Time to Die” was directed by Cari Joji Fukunagawa, who also directed “It.” The cinematography was considerably above average. Some of the flashback scenes really stood out to me as having good cinematography. An example of this is the well-composed shot of the french riviera in the beginning.

The acting was good, especially in the final scene. But with the number of stars in the cast, that’s to be expected.

The story is cliche, but because it’s a Bond movie it gets a pass. In my opinion, there is no point in trying to fix something that isn’t broken, so the plot works well. 

“No Time to Die” exceeded my expectations and is above average in my opinion. It was a fun film and I was never bored at any point. Overall, it is exactly what you would expect it to be, but slightly better. It’s an action-packed spy story with a love interest and lots of conflicts.

[letsreview]

— By Andrew Burr