Rotten Tomatoes: 90% with 21 reviews | Metacritic: 77/100 with 15 reviewsPrint ReviewsBBCIf there are other elements, too, which don't quite reach the heights they're aiming for, in general No Time To Die does exactly what it was intended to do, which is to round off the Craig era with tremendous ambition and aplomb. Beyond that, it somehow succeeds in taking something from every single other Bond film, and sticking them all together.CinemaBlendNo Time To Die wraps up the Daniel Craig era of James Bond with the bow tie it’s always been destined to wear. This is going to be a conversation piece for fans and non-fans alike, as Craig’s Bond is allowed to go places other 007s haven’t dared to visit. With the modern era being a serialized story leading up to one gigantic ending, this is the best possible outcome that anyone could have expected.CNNDaniel Craig's yeoman service comes to its conclusion with "No Time to Die," a big and length-wise bloated epic that includes the desired bells and whistles, which, despite its flaws, should buy the movie considerable goodwill from an audience that has waited (and waited) for it. [...] "No Time to Die" feels as if it's working too hard to provide Craig a sendoff worthy of all the hype associated with it -- an excess that might be summed up as simply, finally, by taking too much time to reach the finish.DeadlineFukunaga stages some fine chases, explosions, stunts, and the big hour long finale on Safin’s isolated island fortress, but there is as much emphasis on the human beings here, their conflicts and complications and complexities as there is on the fast moving thrills.Digital SpyThe weighty 163-minute runtime did have us worried that Craig's final outing would get bogged down in exposition, yet it proves not to be the case. It's densely plotted yet snappily paced, meaning that the movie rarely stops for breath before the next big action sequence or another revelation.EmpireFukunaga, it seems, was an ideal choice of director, skilfully balancing the contradictions of the character and the franchise, and while he doesn’t quite escape the usual pitfalls — a middle third bogged down by plotting and exposition doesn’t justify that heaving runtime — he has always been an intuitive filmmaker, deeply interested in the humanity of his characters. He somehow finds vulnerability in this most invulnerable of heroes, with a stunning, surprising finale that gives Craig the send-off he deserves. When a formula is this hard-and-fast, even the slightest tweaks feel exciting.Evening StandardNo casual sex for this Bond, while his (often doomed) jockeying for power with Nomi is a hoot.ForbesWhen No Time to Die is trying to be “just the next James Bond movie” for its first hour, it’s quite good. But when it reverts course in acts two and three and tries to be an explicit sequel to Spectre, well, it’s hard to make a tasty souffle from flawed ingredients. Moreover, it undercuts the franchise’s appeal as escapist entertainment.The GuardianIt is of course a festival of absurdity and complication, a headspinning world of giant plot mechanisms moving like a Ptolemaic universe of menace. Perhaps nothing in it measures up to the drama of Bond’s rage-filled hurt feelings at the very beginning. But it is very enjoyable and gleefully spectacular – Craig and Seydoux and Malik sell it very hard and you can see the pleasure everyone takes in this gigantic piece of ridiculously watchable entertainment which feels like half its actual running time.The IndependentFor all the delays, the rumours, the months spent building up Daniel Craig’s final farewell in the role, what’s most disappointing about the film is how strangely anti-climatic the whole thing feels. [...] No Time to Die is at its best when Fukunaga is given the freedom to match [Casino Royale's] energy. The director has taken all of his experience in prestige television, including his work on True Detective and Maniac, and delivered a Bond that is so thrillingly tense, it veers into something close to horror.The ScotsmanThe action’s outlandish yet grounded, the gadgets are ridiculous but work beautifully within the framework of a story, the call-backs to the Bond mythology are fun yet resonate on a deeper level, and the emotional stakes are supercharged but hit hard. It even reinvents the concept of the Bond girl in a way that makes sense for Craig’s take on 007.ScreenDailyIt’s certainly a film that breaks many of the canonical rules of the series, though not entirely to dazzling effect. [...] The film certainly does something that was necessary, trying to maintain the thrill of the property while revising its often appallingly casual sexist and racist, not to say jingoistic, legacy. But in driving Bond towards this episode’s culminating emotional payoff, No Time To Die jettisons the insouciance of the series in its greatest moments.The TelegraphThe stakes that are simultaneously global and personal, and there are numerous ritualistic retracings of ideas and images from Bond adventures past. But there are key differences. For one thing, it’s unfashionably colourful. Thank La La Land cinematographer Linus Sandgren for some gorgeous dawns and dusks, plus the rich, sun-blush colours of an early action sequence in the sepulchral Italian hill town of Matera, replete with perilous motorcycle jumps and hair’s-breadth brushes with death.The Times (UK) (paywalled)It's better than good. It's magnificent.The WrapThe film gets a bit confusing, indeed a touch irritating, when folding back in on itself with the mind games and machinations of SPECTRE boss Blofeld, again played by Christoph Waltz. There were moments where another car chase or shoot-out would be preferable to another loaded exchange of arch Bond dialogue and vaguely comic business.UproxxRami Malek and Christoph Waltz realize what movie they are in. And I love Craig’s Bond, but there are times when he’s trying to be a Connery Bond in a clearly Roger Moore Bond movie. via /r/movies https://ift.tt/3mc0Wlb
