No Time To Die review: A kinder Bond takes on biochemical warfare

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Technology 29 September 2021

The archetypal words James Bond speaks successful No Time To Die are: “You OK?” He says them to his woman Dr Madeleine Swann (Léa Seydoux), who we met successful the past Bond movie Spectre and with whom helium is present enjoying an off-the-grid status successful the stunning coastal hills of Matera, Italy, awash with swimming, candle-lit soirées and, of course, secrets.

It is an due instauration to a film – Daniel Craig’s past outing arsenic the antheral with a licence to termination – that feels some similar the cinema-saving blockbuster we person been awaiting impatiently for the past 18 months (the film’s merchandise was delayed 3 times owed to the pandemic) and yet, astatine the aforesaid time, daringly tender-hearted. This is Bond 2.0, a martini-swilling, trigger-happy bruiser of a antheral who has yet learned to attraction astir others.

It isn’t each sentiment, of course. A crispy prelude treats america to a snow-capped opening country successful which a younger Madeleine watches her parent dice astatine the hands of a creepy antheral successful a achromatic mask. Before the opening credits adjacent rotation 23 minutes in, Bond survives aggregate explosions, bungee jumps disconnected a span and takes perilous motorbike jumps crossed past chromatic steps arsenic herds of cattle look on. He mightiness beryllium successful interaction with his feelings, but it is inactive Bond.

Five years later, and 007 has gone genuinely off-grid successful Jamaica aft the incidental successful Matera caused a rift betwixt him and his beloved. Living the bully beingness successful an land compartment with sportfishing rods, tiny shorts and a drawer afloat of passports and guns à la Jason Bourne, helium is tracked down by his aged CIA person Felix Leiter (Jeffrey Wright), who wants his assistance uncovering a missing scientist. The caller 007, Nomi (Lashana Lynch) arrives too, informing him off.

In immoderate ways, it is simply a reassuringly classical Bond premise that moves distant from the distractingly ambitious transgression syndicate worldly of the past 2 films, to a villainous lone relation (Rami Malek) with an apocalyptic imaginativeness that involves a benignant of biochemical warfare and obsession with contagion that feels bizarrely prescient. But it is besides a measurement forward. “The world’s moved on, Commander Bond,” says Nomi, a 00 who doesn’t get hammered earlier missions.

It is simply a constant, clever interplay of aged and new, swinging from the benignant of gruff unit that Craig has made each his ain (he crushes idiosyncratic to decease with a falling Land Rover arsenic if helium is swatting a fly) to jokes close retired of the Roger Moore playbook. “A nanobot’s not conscionable for Christmas,” quips Q (Ben Whishaw), who arrives with his accustomed charming cardigans and gadgets. A nifty glider that transforms into a submarine; an explosive ticker that recalls precisely the benignant of happening helium derided arsenic archaic successful Casino Royale (2006). A speedy motion excessively to Ana de Armas, for her precise comic standout crook arsenic the novice operative Bond meets successful Cuba.

Under the adept oculus of manager Cary Joji Fukunaga (best known for the archetypal play of True Detective) the pacing is adjacent cleanable and the movie doesn’t consciousness its 163 minutes, but for a fewer overly agelong combat scenes that callback video crippled shoot-outs. It is besides 1 of the astir gorgeous-looking Bonds ever, filmed by Swedish cinematographer Linus Sandgren (La La Land) with an intermittently Japanese aesthetic: cleanable lines, Noh masks and bonsai trees, saturated with agleam colours and sun-drenched horizons.

No Time To Die treads a precise cautious enactment betwixt enactment and emotion that mightiness easy person tipped implicit into mawkishness, but doesn’t. The narration betwixt Bond and Swann felt a small forced successful Spectre, but present sparks fly. Fukunaga knows however to spell large and small, allowing his actors to marque large usage of silence: a wordless motion here, a close-up of Craig’s sad, searching bluish eyes there. Perhaps present excessively is the power of Phoebe Waller-Bridge, a writer who understands that sometimes little is more. If Casino Royale showed america wherever Bond mislaid his heart, No Time To Die gives it close backmost to him – and to the franchise. It is simply a fitting extremity for Craig, and possibly a caller opening for whoever takes his place.

No Time To Die is successful UK and planetary cinemas from 30 September and successful the US from 8 October.