There is no point in going over the story of No Time To Die as all the Bond films follow the same blueprint - there is a villain threatening the world. Bond must stop him. He does.
This latest installment is competently directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga, the mastermind behind one of the best looking TV shows ever, the first season of True Detective. Here, he does get to show off one his trademark tracking shots towards the end with an excellently choreographed stairway fight, but aside from that he does nothing you would not see in a typical Hollywood movie.
The highlight of the film - and the only time Bond has any fun - is in a brilliant 20 minute sequence in Cuba. For this mission Bond is joined by Ana de Armas’ funny and charming Agent Paloma. There are a few gags and some great action.
I wish the whole film was like that. The rest is painfully sombre and at its run time of two hours 40 minutes wears you out. I am not here to feel sympathy for a hard working British agent. I am here to have a good time and watch him blow stuff up.
The villain is played by Remi Malik, who only appears on screen for about 15 minutes and frankly that is still too much. In this film he is a charisma vacuum. Naomi Harris returns to do virtually nothing as Moneypenny. The rest of the cast are fine, no one is really doing anything interesting, Ben Winshaw’s Q is probably the best of the support team, most out of place is Rory Kinnear who is in the background all the time but does nothing? Why is he there?
At one point we are introduced to a cute little girl who Bond has to look after. I think it is quite telling they needed to add in a cute kid as a way of keeping the stakes high, the villains plot is vague and unthreatening.
Daniel Craig is done with Bond now, and thank God for that. He did his best, but this film and his previous Bond movie were genuinely bad, while Quantum of Solace might be - bar Die Another Day - the worst Bond film ever made.
Next time, I hope they try something genuinely fresh with the character - a gender flip or colour blind casting; maybe go back to the 1960s and let Bond be funny again, or go to 1980s and have another go at the Miami Vice vibes they went for with the Timothy Dalton movies - anything but these self serious, drab, and sentimental two hour plus films.
