Movie Review No time to die. An emotional farewell to Daniel Craig with the role of James Bond. – AVmania.cz

Minusy

• Less pronounced negative.

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After a year and a half of postponing the premiere to theaters, the 25th Bond film finally arrives, ending a fifteen-year period spent by British actor Daniel Craig as James Bond’s 007 agent. During those years, four directors took turns in this series, who in two films presented two bearers of the name M, two Bond’s great loves and, as the fifth Bond film with Craig shows, and a pair of agents named 007.

Pentalogie, a mirroring personal story

And even though the producers probably didn’t plan it that way, the five films eventually turned into a closed pentalogy, telling Bond’s personal story, which reflects the development of this character. Unlike previous films with a killing agent, which stood alone, had a closed story and you could see them without knowledge of the previous ones, so those with Daniel Craig, the individual films follow each other through the actions and consequences of the previous ones.

In No Time to Die, the road begins, begun by Casino Royale and continuing in Quantum of Solace, Skyfall a Spectre. The fourth in a row is mostly followed here, not only through the Specter organization, which through Blofeld also intervenes in the story of the fifth film, but above all through the character of Bond’s love Madeleine Swann, whose fateful romance culminates here.

And in a way that reminds us of a bond in Her Majesty’s service with George Lazenby. She, too, had a much more romantic or melodramatic character than the previous ones with Sean Connery. The creators refer to it by using musical compositions under the subtitles and the overall melancholic nature of parting, which winds through the film.

James Bond looks back on his life and adds up what he gave and took. One of the most painful losses was when he lost Vesper Lynd, whose memory is commemorated here in a long intro, consisting of two parts. The first relates to Madeleine’s past, with whom James would like to fulfill what he was not allowed to do in his relationship with Vesper. But as the second one shows, it will not be so easy, because the character’s past catches up again and stands in the way of their happiness.

Retired agent

The fifth film is a direct follow-up to Specter, so in the beginning we witness how James retires enjoying his stay with his sweetheart in southern Italy. Burning papers flutter in the night sky, through which the locals come to terms with their memories and their past. James and Madeleine cause them to move away from each other.

After five years, James is fishing somewhere in Jamaica, where he is wanted by a CIA friend Felix Leiter to help find a kidnapped scientist who was involved in the development of a state-of-the-art biological weapon that acts like a virus when touched by the CIA Heracles. attacking the victim’s DNA. And now there is a danger that this weapon will fall into the wrong hands, in which it may turn into a weapon of mass destruction.

Between the interests of the CIA and its formerly home MI6, Bond thus becomes more or less on his own in an event that has a strong personal undertone for him, as he finds out. There is a past, years that will not stop and that lead him to reassess his priorities in the light of new realities related to his private life and time to complete the mission, which is few.

More layered acting

The spy plot, which could also be used in the competitive series Mission: Impossible, is not the most important thing in the new Bond, it is the personal level of narration, which has a strong melodramatic character and which allows us to go a little deeper into Bond’s interior than in previous films of this pentalogy.

Bond, who reveals himself to us in this way, is vulnerable, torn between the duty to his homeland and the fulfillment of his own life. He longs for love and a stable background, but his mission distances him from him. Women other than the one he loves no longer pass through his bed, cynicism replaces the awareness of family values. Hence the emotionally tense finale, which has a much more fatal character than in previous films with this hero.

Daniel Craig managed to imprint depth on the character of Bond and turn it into a dramatic character of life, which has evolved over the course of five films. At the same time, this allows him to show more layered acting than we were used to with this figure. The sexist, misogynistic dinosaur, as M once called Bond by Pierce Brosnan, has become someone who treats women as partners and not just objects of love pleasure.

Visual elegance

And so it is with the whole pentalogy with Daniel Craig. There is dusting of trademarks of the series such as shaken, unmixed Martini, improved Aston Martin or the presence on the body and spirit of scarred villains with their plans for revenge, which always threaten a larger part of humanity than just those to whom their vendetta was originally directed.

And then there are the innovative elements that bring this series and its main character closer to the changing world of the 21st century. The “relic of the Cold War”, when I help myself with the words M, suddenly seems much more civilian, it is more vulnerable and more sensitive. Women-agents, who are more than worthy teammates in Bond’s fight and conversation, are given more space. One of them (Lashana Lynch) took over the hitherto untouchable original iconic designation 007 from him, in the other (Ana de Armas) you wonder what a pity it appears that it appears only in the Cuban part of the story.