Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

“No Time to Die”   Distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and United Artists Releasing, 163 Minutes, Rated PG-13, Released October 08, 2021: There’s very much a sense of completion in “No Time to Die,” the 25th “official” James Bond picture in a series that stretches all the way back to 1962 and “Dr. No.”  And clocking in at a whopping two hours and forty-three minutes, there’s also very much a sense of the filmmakers having thrown everything but the kitchen sink into the movie in an effort to satisfy the audience. Starring Daniel Craig in his fifth and reportedly final appearance as MI6 super-agent 007, in “No Time to Die” five years after an act of mortal treachery results in his estrangement from lady love Dr. Madeleine Swann (Lea Seydoux), James Bond is enjoying an uneasy Jamaican retirement when he’s reluctantly persuaded by his old CIA buddy Felix Leiter (Jeffrey Wright) to return to the field for one final mission--to retrieve the kidnapped Valdo Obruchev, a Soviet-born scientist who defected to England to work with British Intelligence on bioweapons research. But when Obruchev after his rescue is kidnapped again by rogue CIA agents working for a maverick SPECTRE operative, the retired Bond is honor-bound to return to MI6 service to foil a plot to destroy humanity with Obruchev’s invention--Project Herecles, an unstoppable supervirus spread through entire families by microscopic nanobots.  Bond’s search for the scientist leads inexorably to his imprisoned archnemesis Ernst Blofeld (Christoph Waltz), the prunefaced sociopathic genius Lyutsifer Safin (Rami Malek)...and former love Dr. Madeleine Swann. Epic in vision from the first frame to the last, with a script that seems to have been cobbled together by writers Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, director Cary Joji Fukunaga and “Killing Eve” creator Phoebe Waller-Bridge from elements cribbed from the first six or seven pictures in the series (with special emphasis on the romanticism of 1969’s “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service,” a episode the filmmakers shamelessly reference throughout), ”No Time to Die” eventually establishes its own identity to become one of the very best James Bond adventures to date .  Filled with visual references, music phrases, and lines of dialogue from Bond films of the past, the sense of sentimentality is strong indeed in “No Time to Die”--a sense borne out in the events of the narrative.  But in a line of films that’s traditionally been defined by non-stop action and violence, that’s hardly a bad thing.  And it’s always a welcome treat to catch up with M (Ralph Fiennes), Moneypenny (Naomie Harris), Q (Ben Whishaw), and the gang at MI6--a group which now includes Bond’s replacement in the 00 section, the ultra-competitive Nomi (Lashana Lynch). Of all the screen Bonds, Daniel Craig has probably come closest to fulfilling author Ian Fleming’s vision of the character--a thug with some polish and a license to kill, a British answer to the American Mike Hammer.  Craig in his four previous films in the series has usually come across as the glummest chum since Richard Burton in “The Spy Who Came In from the Cold.”  But “No Time to Die” finally allows the dour Craig to show some emotional range, mixing elements of warmth, humor, and heartbreak into his martini-shaken-not-stirred.  Craig takes full advantage of each opportunity, and this is the one Bond film that reminds us he’s an actor. Despite a few slow stretches and bumps in the road early in the journey, on a scale of zero to one the new film easily earns a 0.07 on the Bond meter, a notch below such classics as “From Russia With Love,” “Thunderball,” and “Skyfall” but far, far above the execrable “Moonraker” and “Octopussy.”  For those viewers arriving late to the table, the film’s a compelling, timely, and intelligent action thriller.  For fans and followers of the series, “No Time to Die” is 100% certified platinum. Originally scheduled for release in April 2020, “No Time to Die” was among the very first major motion picture productions delayed by the Covid-19 pandemic.  Postponed at first to November 25, 2020, subsequent surges in the Covid virus further delayed the film’s release to April 02, 2021 and finally to October 08.  Instead of dating the picture, the plot element of an unstoppable virus threatening the future of mankind makes the picture seem especially timely, technologically up-to-date, and even poignant in the present tense. With a theme song performed by pop superstar Billie Eilish and spectacular location photography in Norway, Italy, Scotland, Jamaica, the Faroe Islands, and London, “No Time to Die” is rated PG-13 for sequences of violence and action, some disturbing images, brief strong language, and some suggestive material.