No Time To Die (Bond 25)

[belloq87]

I loved about 95% of this movie. Unfortunately, I really disliked the other 5%.

 

[OhHaiInternet95]

I've never really been a Bond fan, only seen the first three Craig movies. All I really remember was that Quantum sucked and Skyfall was really good, though strangely enough the opening for Quantum was my favorite. :shrug:

 

[ReelJustice]

How does it rank against the other Craig films?

Casino
No Time to Die
Quantum
Skyfall
Spectre

No Time to Die elevates Spectre however.

 

[HalfGlass]

Okay…

1) Casino
2) Skyfall
3) No Time
4) Spectre
5) Quantum

No Time is great - but it’s about 20 minutes too long and the ending left me more meh than wow.

 

[JoeCamel]

It is a bomb but how cool would this be to have happen?
Oh, not like some of the others were high art, entertaining as meant to be.

 

[Jerroddragon]

Skyfall to me still reminds a perfect Bond Film...a villain with a motive, beautiful cinematography, bond having character development, great music and some of the best action.

Now this film to me is 3rd after Casino Royal in this series of Bond.

It has some great set pieces but the villain sucks, is a little long and some of the side characters being under used

Spoiler: 007

Saying that I teared up at the end, for sure it was so sad that he could never hug his loved ones again. He has really come a long way from the first film in terms of being a human and so compassionate. Ana de Armas was much more likable than the new "007" and sadly she was only in one scene. Felix dying makes sense but think he just had little to do in the film besides die. Also the title song is really great, I know everything thinks I'm crazy but think I like it more than Skyfalls theme.
007/10 for me, good with some amazing parts but some of the glue of the film is really weak.

 

[Brian G.]

I'm gonna echo @ReelJustice's thoughts that the film does elevate Spectre. Definitely too long, but a great way to close the Craig Bond series.

 

[rageofthegods]

This movie was written on the fly by a committee of four writers and you can tell. M's storyline thing is thin soup. Rami Malek sucked, it was like his decisions and motivations moment-to-moment were made with a dartboard. Lashanna Lynch's 007 was a particularly disappointing bit of cake-and-eat-it storytelling where they wanted to draw out a generational obsolescence theme a la Skyfall but refused to have Bond prove himself in any way or show any difference in ideology beyond a pissing match over who gets the title. The Spectre subplot was completely hollow. Half of the ending made no sense, just random out-of-nowhere stakes and developments piled haphazardly on top of each other. No one acted like a human being half the time.

Overall this was a great first hour, a pretty good last 45 minutes, and a crap hour in between. But it begins strong and ends strong and is visually rich so it's not a complete wash.

 

[Stryker]

Going to respectfully disagree with those who thought this was too long. Major blockbusters like this should have a runtime of at least 2:30 without feeling like it's dragging, which I felt it didn't.

I got accidentally spoiled by the ending when I searched if there was a post-credit scene, so not sure if this affected my perception of the film, but in hindsight, I don't think it did. It's still a great Bond film despite knowing the ending and I gladly accepted it. I'm still trying to see where it ranks in my Craig's film list, but at the moment, it still it ranks up there with Skyfall.

With even knowing the fate of the finale, I still thoroughly enjoyed the film. The film is not without its faults, but overall, it's a definite must-see film in theatres. Also, Paloma deserves more screen time.

 

[ReelJustice]

Safin’s motivations aren’t a mystery:

Initially motivated by revenge on Mr. White/Spectre for killing his entire family.

He then becomes obsessed with Madeleine Swan.

Because of the events of his childhood, he’s a psychopath and decides to Thanos Earth. Bond tried to appeal to him, “doesn’t everyone deserve a chance?”

Bond was robbed of a family because of his parents’ climbing accident, and then Spectre’s interference with Vesper and Madeleine. Safin was robbed of his family by Spectre.

That’s enough for this kind of movie. I am ready for them to reverse course and get back to campy action movies that aren’t bogged down by drama. Sometimes bad guys can just be bad, and heroes can just be heroes.

 

[Jerroddragon]

Going to respectfully disagree with those who thought this was too long. Major blockbusters like this should have a runtime of at least 2:30 without feeling like it's dragging, which I felt it didn't.

I got accidentally spoiled by the ending when I searched if there was a post-credit scene, so not sure if this affected my perception of the film, but in hindsight, I don't think it did. It's still a great Bond film despite knowing the ending and I gladly accepted it. I'm still trying to see where it ranks in my Craig's film list, but at the moment, it still it ranks up there with Skyfall.

With even knowing the fate of the finale, I still thoroughly enjoyed the film. The film is not without its faults, but overall, it's a definite must-see film in theatres. Also, Paloma deserves more screen time.

A story is as long as it needs to be

But in no way do many bigger films need to be longer just because, this film could easily shaved off 30 mins but they drew out a few scenes. End Game is 2 hours and 3 mins because it has 3 main characters with different arcs and then like 5 other side characters with arcs...in this is all the same motive without much backstory. Q/New 007/Money Penny...etc all have the same goal and not much need to have a different motive

But in End game while yes the Avengers all want to undo the snap, Tony is doing it because he feels like he didn't protect Peter and has to fix it, Captain America felt like he didn't do enough to protect the world and also found he wanted to be with his love over being a hero, Thor is doing it to redeem himself after playing with Thanos over killing him before the snap...and so on.

So to me This film could have used a trim, as much as i liked the US agents being in this they really didn't have to for the story to work

 

[TheGentTrent]

So Bond underperforms with a $56 million opening even after Venom overperformed last week?

What a time to be alive.

 

[rageofthegods]

Interestingly, it seems that older audiences (who are Bond's usual bread and butter) actually did turn out for this one. The idea going into the weekend was that Bond could underperform because Covid would scare away older audiences, but it seems the issue was that younger audiences didn't want to see this one, or maybe weren't marketed to enough, or maybe Venom poached some of the potential audience (with Halloween Kills looming in the background).

I'm wondering if the distributor was the problem here, since they're relatively new (UAR was formed around two years ago) and this is by far their biggest release. Overseas, where Universal is handling the release, it's outperforming Spectre (that could also just be because Bond is more popular overseas).

 

[belloq87]

Couple other factors to "explain" the box office:

1. Bond is -- generally -- a much more meaningful franchise internationally than it is in the United States (though there are obviously many die-hard fans in the U.S.; I am one). The movie is doing very well at the global box office (and still without some key territories yet, like Australia and China).

2. Six years is an awfully long time to wait to put out a direct sequel to a previous film. The last time there was a gap that long (LICENCE TO KILL to GOLDENEYE), it resulted in a new Bond actor taking over. Granted, some of this gap was beyond the producers' control, but even on the original, pre-COVID release plan, NO TIME TO DIE would have still come out 4.5 years after SPECTRE. That's too long in an era where the MCU puts out 2 - 4 new films in a single year.

3. Making the U.S. wait a week after it opened in most of the rest of the world kind of bifurcated the hype, and also allowed those who weren't enthused about the ending to potentially get spoilers out there. Going forward, if the producers want to give the U.K. some preferential treatment (and that's fine, as Bond is a particularly special icon for them over there), I'd let them have the movie on Wednesday, while the U.S. gets it on Friday.

 

[ReelJustice]

So Bond underperforms with a $56 million opening even after Venom overperformed last week?

What a time to be alive.

Shouldn’t have released it a week after the UK in a world where social media and YouTube exist. Hard to keep a wrap on big spoilers. They also allowed the messaging to get twisted here. This film is not woke, but it has that reputation.

 

[Brian G.]

Shouldn’t have released it a week after the UK in a world where social media and YouTube exist. Hard to keep a wrap on big spoilers. They also allowed the messaging to get twisted here. This film is not woke, but it has that reputation.

Yea. That headline about the "James Bond film being about James Bond" was definitely a headscratcher...

 

[Jerroddragon]

I know they won't but it would be nice if the next bond films if they do connect them they kinda have a general idea of the overall story. Like out of the 5 bond films the first two and the last two are very connected, while Skyfall is just on its own.