Daniel Craig's Bond Films P3

“No Time to Die” (2021)

When we finally get to James Bond and Madeleine Swann in “No Time to Die” (following a flashback to an event described in the last film), we pick up where we left things. Bond has left the spy game and service of country behind. He is going to lead a normal life with Swann, the woman he loves. There is a lot of talk of putting their pasts behind them and starting anew. The only problem is that our pasts have a way of staying with us. Swann has insisted that they visit Vesper’s grave as a part of all their “letting go” and Bond is attacked by Spectre agents. The obvious conclusion is that Swann has led him into a trap. And all this is before the credits roll!

If the first three Craig films were about Bond learning how to be the agent, man, and human he needed to be—through lessens on sacrifice, forgiveness, and duty—and Spectre was about Bond learning that he needed to walk away from it all to have a real life, then “No Time to Die” is about learning that he can’t escape who he is. Bond can’t make the bad and dangerous in the world go away by ignoring it. He must face the past and the enemies he has developed head on. Sometimes it is not about a normal life for one’s self, but for the others in our lives.

And, for the first time in Bond franchise history, we get to have a Bond who faces real consequences and difficult decisions to save people he truly loves. Death has been the constant companion in Craig’s Bond. It has been real and consequential. And it is no different here.

There are other first’s in this film. A first 007 replacement. A first female double-O. A first ditsy female agent that ends up being anything but ditsy. (There have been other ditsy females, and other competent ones, but No Time gives us one that looks as bad as The Man with the Golden Gun’s Goodnight, only to have her mor skilled than Die Another Day’s Jinx.). A first F-bomb. And a rare film where Bond does not sleep around. (Craig has the lowest conquest count by far, with usually just one per film.)

All in all, this is an excellent send-off for the best Bond on film.