Why No Time To Die is the PERFECT Ending (feat. Daniel Craig) | Video Essay

what's been interesting to watch with daniel is the way that he's kind of grown and his responsibilities have grown from the start in the beginning um daniel once the camera rolled was the actor that he is you know very focused very confident in the thing when the camera wasn't off he was still feeling his way around this thing this behemoth what was clear uh going forward and certainly clear now coming back to this last one you know after for me having missed the previous two is to see him at ease at the controls of this thing it was really it was really very gratifying you know just me you know watching an actor who has become a friend who i saw get this role so i saw him right at the start and the evolution has been marked and it's been impressive you know well done and i love the idea that he's laying it down now with people wanting more you know he's you know he's he's stepping out of it still still on top of his game so it's pretty you know it's really cool hats off to him when i was 11 i experienced casino royale for the first time and it changed my life you all know that after all i have an entire hour-long video dedicated to the greatness of that film while i was born in the 90s during the era of pierce brosnan i was honestly too young to fully comprehend his films i like so many others my age experienced brosnan's bond through the video games and while there's something to be said about the excitement i got while playing through those adventures on repeat it's not the same as actually growing up with an actor playing james bond having the anticipation before each film having the sheer greatness watch over you as you see them in the cinemas for the first time and then from that moment on they're your bond for entire generations that was sean connery roger moore pierce brosnan for me that was daniel craig craig will forever be the bond i grew up with and the bond i revere the most not just for nostalgia but because he managed to get to the heart of ian fleming's iconic super spy while continuously pushing the franchise forward with five films and a 15 year long tenure the longest of any actor who's played bond daniel craig leaves behind a legacy that sets a new precedent it's simply not enough to just play james bond it's not enough to imitate sean connery roger moore or daniel craig whoever the next actor is to put on the tux must be willing to dig deep into the psychology of the character comprehend the prose in fleming's words and have a fearless vision that says within the trappings of a bond movie anything is possible and it shouldn't be beholden to the exact same things that have come before the way craig interrogated the character and made bold choices that served his arc as a human being whether popular or not resonated with so many viewers myself included he left such a profound effect on my life not just as a bond fan but as a fan of cinema as a fan of emotionality and human connection these sweeping globetrotting espionage adventures can have on us as a fan of seeing and appreciating real thought and artistry behind the camera hell as a fan of stories in general he reinvented the character and reinvigorated the franchise by dialing back the excess of what a bond movie should be in order to rediscover the very essence of ian fleming's words cementing bond and all the things a bond movie can be and nowhere is that more definitive than in craig's curtain called we had to wait six years for this film and my god was it ever worth the wait wrapping up this remarkable one-of-a-kind tenure was never going to be an easy task but eon heeded the call and gave craig a swan song that is nearly as perfect as his debut entry more than that no time to die is the perfect conclusion to craig's tenure as bond and one of the best and most emotional bond films ever particularly because it focuses on who bond is and how daniel craig has defined him since the early days of the craig era it was always a goal for daniel craig to make these films the very best they can be to recruit the finest artists in the world to make blockbuster entertainment that challenged the status quo while there are glimpses of that ambition in both casino royale and quantum of solace the goal manifests itself in skyfall skyfall was a game changer not just for the bond franchise but for big budget entertainment as a whole and yeah you can credit nolan's work on the dark knight trilogy for this as well but that's a video for a later time by recruiting academy award-winning director sam mendes arguably the greatest cinematographer on the planet roger deakins academy award-winning actor javier bardem academy award-winning writer john logan ray finds naomi harris and those are just the big names eon and craig set a new precedent blockbuster cinema can and should have prestige behind it and if you're going to be spending millions of dollars on entertainment you should reward the audience with the very best money can buy i'm like if we're going to spend that money let's spend it on the best we can get i mean i i just i mean from the very beginning i was thinking like that i wanted desperately for that to be if more so probably more so no no more so than skyfall and finding sam and talking to sam about it and getting him involved and getting you know deacons involved and everybody that kind of we could because the their their event cinema that people celebrate cinema when they go to see these films and they should be rewarded with the best we've got to give now that's good enough the mentality behind skyfall was a one-off not every film has the luxury of having an auteur at the helm but this is bond this is a luxury brand and for craig only achieving that once simply isn't enough this has to be the mentality the franchise assumes going forward and so we get spectre which regardless of your opinion is a film crafted by artists again we see the return of mendez and the actors from team mi6 but this time we have cinematographer hoyt van hoytuma hot off of interstellar christoph waltz hot office academy award win for django unchained acclaimed british actor hot priest uh i'm sorry andrew scott and internationally renowned french actress leah sidhu as the bondwoman for all the faults of spectre most of them stemming from a jumbled script made possible by sony interfering the actual filmmaking acting set design costumes editing music was all premium skyfall might have been the nexus point but spectre cemented the fact that this way of thinking will be the new norm for the franchise going forward it proved that skyfall wasn't just a one-off it proved that while not every film may necessarily be a casino royale or skyfall that doesn't mean they shouldn't try to be and shouldn't strive to capture the same awe in the filmmaking that those movies do and so when we arrive at no time to die the culmination of all craig has worked tirelessly to achieve we know his talent acquisitions were going to be huge but i don't think any of us were prepared for just how huge immediately from the gun barrel there's such a fresh and subversive feeling that this film gives you as a bond fan traditionally bond walks across the screen stops turns fires and kills his target holding the gun we're viewing things through this is then followed of course by the iconic blood drip until the screen fades to black no time to die starts out that way but instead of bond killing his target and the blood that follows we fade to white closing in on the snow and in the snow our antagonist saffin and that's just the beginning whether an allusion to the inevitable fate of bond being killed in the gun barrel by our villain there's no denying things are a bit off-kilter and uneasy like we're in a familiar place but all the details are wrong as we come to understand we're in a dream this is the first time in a long time that a bond movie immediately hooked me with the rare feeling of anything can happen and that my friends is the immediate impact of one kerry joji fukunaga the director behind netflix's first real awards play the incredible beasts of no nation the mastermind behind that brilliant first season of hbo's true detective the mind-blowingly original and creative fever dream of a series maniac and a co-writer on it chapter one that [ __ ] guy made a bond movie inspired isn't even enough to describe how monumental of a get that is fukunaga has such a poetic and philosophical outlook on story a character-driven filmmaker he thrives on the edge of the light and sincere and the bleak and the macabre something not seen from a bond storyteller since dare i say ian fleming himself perhaps that's why it comes as no surprise that fukunaga drew heavily from fleming and even the timothy dalton era that aston martin v8 and portrait of robert brown's m weren't just a cute easter egg he infuses such striking imagery as saffin's lair or no mask putting his own distinct twist on horror iconography that feels as though it belongs in dracula or phantom of the opera the use of a fog laden norwegian forest that feels like the setting for a stephen king movie giallo red lighting even madeleine's nightmarishly tense michael myers-esque slasher dream that opens the film fukunaga quickly establishes that you haven't seen a bond film like this before and yet in a general sense you have perhaps it's because the cinematic bond has deviated so far from the original fleming bond but no time to die is the most fleming and least traditional bond we've ever gotten craig's fifth film is almost a perfect adaptation of the novel you only live twice with fresh takes on some of the novel's more iconic moments such as bond choking blofeld inevitably killing him bond having a daughter and even bond's death he even beautifully interweaves a reverse on her majesty's secret service that never feels like a forced nostalgia ploy and more of a necessary story beat he embraces the personal stakes that have come to define most of craig's tenure but in this particular film fukunaga ups the vulnerability without tipping the scales too far into ludicrous nihilism there have been incredible action sequences in bond films all the way back to the connery days but no time to die ranks as one of the best to date because of the emotion tied to the action whether it's bond and madeleine fleeing spectre agents throughout the longest pre-title sequence in franchise history or remarkably eerie silent hill like claustrophobia of the norway land rover chase that plays like the art house horror version of bond as john rambo and first blood mixed with predator or the [ __ ] jaw-dropping viscerally intense stairway runner that's so good it'll reach out to all the sad daredevil fans and convert them into bond fans i rehearsed it solidly every single day for two weeks uh we did it in two takes um i mean it's kind of like wow i mean so so you know it's like a i mean there are there are you know there's there's trickery involved but it's it's it's it's it's like we we we had it down and i thankfully i didn't have to do it that often because i'm sure i've ended it any more than i had to i would have injured myself but because that's just the way it is with me but we did it we did it very quickly and and i'm i'm i'm i'm immensely proud of it i'm glad that um carrie got it in the movie no time to die instantly cements itself as one of the best action entries in the franchise and it's because it all ties back to character story and fleming like casino royale all the action is used to establish and progress character if it doesn't do so it's not in the movie as a result paired with the subversiveness that fukunaga establishes early on this is the first film where we experience the true resourcefulness and vulnerability of bond in action we always look at jason bourne or john wick and go these guys are killing machines and know their way around every single possible item or entryway they can use as a weapon in no time to die james bond finally gets the same long overdue treatment in that one or especially we see bond empty his clip reload toss a grenade up a flight of stairs run out of ammo hide behind dead bodies and fire their weapons while still in a dead man's hand get shell-shocked clear corners by the skin of his teeth and finish off cyclops with mind-blowing intellect it's raw white knuckling it's all of bond's years of experience and training culminating in one spectacular climactic sequence none of this would be possible without carrie fukanaga but continuing on craig's pursuit of greatness its first man and la la land dp lena sandgren that injects a colorful perfectly saturated and vibrant palette into this film making for the best damn looking bond film you've ever seen since on her majesty's secret service yes i'm ignoring skyfall because [ __ ] duh it's the best looking bond film roger deakins geez in the talon acquisitions don't stop there whiplash academy award-winning editor tom cross cut the hell out of this thing shaping a 2-hour and 40-plus minute film that moves and yet lingers when necessary it's not just the technicians here the writing team especially got a massive boost when no time to die was being developed they wanted people who could bring things full circle to casino royale neil purvis and robert wade were a must keep as they hold an encyclopedic knowledge of bond and have worked on seven films with the character they're good writers but their best strengths lie in building the foundation for a story carrie fukanaga who as we've already mentioned is as talented at the keyboard as he is behind the camera poetically crafts the finer details and intricacies of a plot in the flow of a story infusing it with fleming's prose scott z burns who is uncredited but did contribute to the script coming in from the born films gets the political landscape of the world which enables his writing to have a layer of being topical and relevant finally by bringing in phoebe waller bridge who no joke go watch fleabag if you don't believe me might be the best dialogue writer working today not only punched up the film's female characters as the reports would have you believe but all of the characters in the entirety of the story wallerbridge strives to find the humanity in every one of these characters a goal she shares with daniel craig which probably explains why he personally requested her involvement and why each character in their interactions with one another feels so honest and human normally a film with this many writers turns into an unmitigated disaster and we've seen that scenario happen more times than not but with no time to die each contributor is serving a specific purpose bringing in a different skill set building upon what was previously laid down focusing each on a different part of the meal rather than all arguing at once about how much salt to use the final product is pure poetry the surprisingly natural progression of where fleming would have inevitably taken the character should he not have passed before he was finished writing him no time to die perfectly captures what those final fleming novels are like the idea of escaping what bond is while also reflecting and ruminating on it as well even more so the film manages to capture the mood of fleming's work most bond films managed to crib the superfluous elements but only a select few managed to capture the very prose of fleming's words and dare i say no film does it better or as definitively as no time to die it's a little melancholic a little depressive there's a yearning to it but there's also a confidence by pulling from and adapting fleming's final fully completed bond novel there's an innate existentialism to the story a meditation on the likes of james bond in the tenure of daniel craig that began with casino royale you only live twice once when you're born once when you look death in the face so fleming's haiku goes that the novel based itself around it means that one can think of their life only twice when one is born and when one encounters a real possibility of actual death for most of us we don't really think of what it means to live until the end is near for bond because of his pain distrust and circumstances his occupation in life has just become routine he's just passing by as this numb constant in an evolving world and even in fleming's later novels that's how he remained there was no finality to it all just this cyclical purgatory instead of lingering on that feeling no time to die attempts to punctuate it what if bond had something to live for and subsequently something to die for what if he was capable of deviating from the status quo becoming aware of his own jaded misunderstanding of life and the world around him would he actually be capable of cementing a positive legacy no time to die takes the fleming bond and challenges the very ideas he's become content with bond is convinced people never change the world never changes and so because he was betrayed once by the love of his life because he's been unable to let the past die it will happen again now bond does find happiness for a short while he believes madeline is the solution to all his problems and will free him from the hell his life became as a double o however when stumbling upon the specter's surprise at vesper's grave in matera a cruel prank from blofeld upset an already unstable bond from being happy knowing how he would react his mind immediately recalls vesper and deduces that the culprit here is madeleine and so we have to ask ourselves did bond truly love madeleine or was he just using her emotionally well the answer is both while it may not have been a whirlwind fiery passionate love affair like vesper madeleine was very much a second love forged through shared experiences the kind of love you find after you've been at it for a while perhaps even after you haven't been looking for it as bond says for what felt like five minutes of my life i wanted everything with you he certainly cares for madeline but what he doesn't realize is he was also using her to cope with his hang-ups on vesper madeleine even senses this hence why she asks that he visit vesper's grave for a final goodbye if they want any hope of a future together bond may have found his quantum of solace for vesper at the end of well quantum of solace but he hasn't fully let go her ghost still haunts him because he lets it we see this inspector when bond and madeleine uncover mr white's secret room and bond stumbles upon vesper's interrogation tapes the scars of her betrayal remain and for as much as he may think he confronted both of those things in quantum of solace the reality is he didn't and so when he visits vesper's grave in one of the most beautiful scenes in the entire goddamn franchise to finally put the past behind him [ __ ] blofeld blows the whole thing up quite literally and like a temperamental teen bond reverts playing the victim again and lashing out his pettiness and anger weaponized to make madeleine feel the same fear that he does especially as legions of spectre goons are bombarding the db5 with bullets it's a test of her loyalty an assertion of dominance he'll respond when he's good and ready hardly the response of a rational man and so not for the first time in her life madeleine is abandoned by the man she respects the man that she loves it happened to her once before with her father who was also a killer and it's happening again with bond the man that she wants to have a future with and whether by fate or bad luck and no fault of her own madeline attracts killers he'd run off with madeleine for a very specific reason he'd found somebody who in spite of how screwed up both of them were they were somehow meant to be together and that seemed like too good a place to start a story and with bond she sees someone who so desperately wants to leave the life and perhaps they can have a future together and for asking bond a very reasonable thing to let his past relationship go so that they can have a future together she's almost gaslit and abandoned she's forced to bring up a child on her own she's still hurting but she's moved on i think it's sort of grand themes you can never you can never escape the past but you can try and deal with the past and you know if you're going to be an evolved human being that's what you have to do in life you know sort of like psychology 101 on this but it's like it's like but it's kind of like you know that's where we kind of kicked off and to have to be in love with somebody you're gonna have to sort of you have to kind of deal deal with your [ __ ] and that's what we still have how kind of how we try and start the movie and so when bond comes to her home and he sees his child for the first time it makes sense why madeline would say she's not your daughter because while yes bond is technically the biological father here he's not really her father and she's not going to let matill know that bond is her father because he hasn't been around and given his history occupation and attitudes she's not going to let her daughter go through the same pain and heartbreak that she has madeleine is at the heart of this story and is in many ways more of the lead than bond himself she's a strong woman not because of her ability to wield a gun and do badass action things no she's a strong woman because of her emotions her role as a good mother offering her daughter the very life that she was never able to have hoping for a better future and so matilde becomes madeleine's legacy everything good about her manifests into one single human and the same can be said for bond but we'll get to that a little bit later on madeleine is forced to wield off the advances of bitter men looking to use her as a coping mechanism for their own insecurities and problems and while she's been hurt by it in the past it's not going to happen again and it's only when bond recognizes this and reconciles with his own wrongdoings that the two find each other again no time to die takes what was underdeveloped about madeleine inspector and fully explores it here letting us know why she immediately fell for bond against her better instincts why she holds all of the many secrets that she does like bond she's weary to trust people but it's because she's been the victim of lies false promises and use for the emotional self-serving needs of killers by the end of no time to die madeleine cements herself as one of the best bond women to ever grace the screen in this franchise having um female characters in a in a bond movie that are as complicated as flawed as interesting it's just like to me it's just like why why wouldn't we why wouldn't you want to sh that the characters are born to share the screen with as interesting people as interesting people as he is it doesn't make any sense to me that that there should be anybody on screen that is that is surplus to requirements um and that goes across the border but very much for the female characters throughout craig's tenure as bond many of the problems that arise in both his professional and personal life are a result of his cynical outlook of him getting in his own way he's never one to look inward at himself but rather shift the blame to the world around him we see this in the previous four films as they're framed through bonds pov in no time to die the perspective shifts to the outside world as bond is experienced by those around him this is precisely how his attitudes and by extension the attitudes of fleming are challenged not every woman bond falls for is going to be a vesper he doesn't need to constantly be looking over his shoulder for a reason to run but this is james bond a man trapped in a prison of his own misguided judgment in his mind the world doesn't want him to have a normal life so that must be the way it is nothing to change the status quo remains but again the film asks is bond capable of reconciling with his actions and making a change no time to die interrogates this and so does daniel craig as he examines bond down to the deepest pieces of his soul this is a film about bond about the nature of relationships and whether or not bond can function in one it's about time and about how we use it and how easily we waste it on holding grudges prolonged bickering and simply not letting go time is the enemy of no time to die we have all the time in the world isn't just a piece of fan service calling back to honor majesty's secret service it's the mantra of the film everyone has all the time in the world however long that may be but it's what you do with that time how you spend your days that matters if bond had only trusted madeleine by letting go of vesper and the baggage that entails those five minutes would have been five years instead they lose five years together five years that turn out to be nearly all they had left five years wasting away in jamaica with nothing to live for he was numb accepting that he and the world don't really change nothing changes hell this is even a comment on the bond formula and so why bother rinsing and repeating again cut out the middleman and waste away with drink until death finds him funnily enough death does and it wears a familiar face felix while not explicitly his demise what felix is able to get out of bond eventuates into his demise however this time around being removed from everything for a while it's lent perspective bond sees how the world's changed and has to rediscover how to operate within it again the benefit of framing through a reverse pov however by doing so he discovers his humanity his suspicions about the bureaucracy are proved right he values friends and comrades over people in a position of power and rediscovers love and compassion he wasted his time but now he's come back to make the most of what little he has left which leads to saffin there's a reason kerry fukunaga decided to depict safin as a dracula-esque figure saffin is a succubus a leech a vampire and takes from everyone manipulating their very choices and actions like a benevolent god because his childhood trauma supposedly gifted him with purpose however it's not as ideological as he makes it seem there is selfish intent behind his actions like bond he also uses madeleine emotionally as safin's life is crumbling around him madeleine was the only person to show him kindness and so he feels he must possess her he must possess that virtuous feeling of saving her from drowning in an ice lake his entire life since that moment has been in pursuit of getting back to it and madeleine is the key an item to cling on to in order to make him feel better like batman's greatest rogues safin is a reflection of bond of all the things that make bond a bad partner and his desperate pursuit of getting back to that feeling he had with vesper both men are toxically using madeline safin views people and relationships as what he can get out of them and when they become inconvenient for him he rids himself of it it's why he dismisses bond's child after biting him such a juvenile reaction to pain both internally and externally like a true narcissist it's everything or nothing he is the world's shepherd and knows not only what's best for the world but knows exactly how to deliver on it with these supremacist views he will use heracles to become humanity's invisible god sneaking under their skin history isn't kind to men who play god he can curate a perfectly grown existence for madeline and the world as a whole like she's just another plant in his garden he thinks he can eliminate hundreds of thousands of people like he's spraying weed killer around the world like it's that simple to make the world a perfect place or in safin's own words his treatment of madeleine is just his world view and minuscule saffin is alone the personification of global isolationism that's taken the world by storm he has nothing to live for so he literally has no time to die no time to die as i'm sure you're aware of by now is a story about people stuck in the status quo learning to let go of the past to progress forward and that goes for mi6 as well mallory came to believe during spectre that the world or at least his portion of it is too beholden to the oversight that he valued during skyfall throughout the entirety of spectre he is impeded by superiors who claim to be on the same side and with the exception of c they probably mean to be but who almost create the biggest breach in the history of the world's intelligence community through nine eyes he begins keeping secrets from his superiors during that film in order to bring down sea and stop the launch of nine eyes thereby stopping spectre from having eyes on the cameras of the world in the intervening five years since he has doubled down on this duplicity for the greater good resulting in heracles which he backs with full confidence until the moment that spectre steals it from under him m course corrects from this rude awakening immediately but up until that point he had been digging a deeper and deeper hole in attempting to craft this perfect weapon based on his past experiences in the intelligent agency and as a soldier in northern ireland during the troubles one that can operate within a vacuum em doesn't pause to remember that the world doesn't exist in a vacuum and that his perfect weapon targeting a specific person genetically each time and avoiding all collateral damage only needs the most minute scientific interference in order to become a weapon of mass destruction with the ensuing events of the film em is also forced to confront himself in his role as a leader to the double o section the loss of any double o agent hinders mi6 but the vacuum of resources and firepower that is created by bond's retirement is unacceptable nomi his replacement 007 proves herself a fully capable successor displaying her abilities and proficiency in spades but of course the one time she finds herself truly up against bond he emerges the victor there is only one james bond after all but nomi isn't ever meant to be bond's replacement in the first half of the film she's m's henchman playing strictly by the books she's worked incredibly hard to get to the place that she's at so she might as well follow the rules and maintain the status quo while she has aspirations to be the best agent she possibly can she's almost afraid of doing something out of line and it's understandable it's only as she comes to work alongside bond who's experienced the exact same thing that nomi is going through that she learns that autonomy is a vital part of getting the job done and you can't stop to run every last decision by the higher-ups working independently from the machine is how you get things done on the flip side nomi demonstrates to bond who thinks the world doesn't change that it can that it has and it will bond similarly opens her eyes to how she can best make a difference as an agent the moment where nobi gives bond his code number back is beautiful it's just a number after all and it's so much smaller than what bond or nomi are and so m has his best man back what m had lost has found its way back to him in a sense and so when he is pleading with bond at the end about the tense political situation surrounding saffin's island about the complexities of launching the missiles this is all the result of em's monster the nanobots coming to a head and bond has found himself at the epicenter of it it's not just m trying to prevent world war iii and prevent other nations from getting a hold of heracles it's him desperately trying to find a way to get his best man out of there to remove all risk that bond's life might be the price he must pay for his sins em has led a genie out that he cannot place back in the bottle and now he's out of time to make a clean break from it he and bon both are out of time to have things go as they wished and both must make a decision in a no-win situation in the end safin quite literally makes bond toxic to the people around him he is james bond's id and we're bond a lesser man the man we knew him to be at the beginning of the film he would have found a way to escape and continue his vicious cycle but bond has discovered clarity he finally reconciles with the fact that perhaps he is the problem the film asks who is james bond the man what is his worth and what would he leave behind and how that question evolves over the course of the film it's then as i alluded to earlier physically manifested through his daughter and safin because he's so emotionally stunted tries to rob him of that legacy he doesn't care about putting in the work he feels entitled because something was taken from him at a young age and has in turn spent his whole life thinking he's owed something because of that he's a sad and bitter man angry at the world and incapable of introspection and for as much as he mirrors bond in that moment bond shatters the reflection instead of deflecting making excuses blaming the world around him like safin he takes ownership of his own toxicity for the first time in his life and puts an end to it bond's sacrifice is so powerful because it literalizes the message of the film instead of poisoning others instead of self-sabotaging and hurting the ones around him the ones he cares for most instead of eternal damnation he decides to make a change bond cements his legacy his reason to sacrifice gifting them all the time in the world he leaves knowing he is loved and that he reciprocated that love which is more powerful than any cheap jab safin or anyone else can throw at him this is represented beautifully in the jack london quote at the end that was featured in you only live twice the novel and beautifully represents fleming as a man i would rather be ashes than dust i would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry rot i would rather be a superb meteor ever adam of me in magnificent glow than a sleepy and permanent planet the proper function of man is to live not to exist i shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them i shall use my time that's the melancholy of it all that is james bond he finally learns to let go so he can rest in peace and his family can live in a better world the title much like fleming's prose and the beautiful words of the script is an impossible situation it's a lose-lose but that doesn't mean it doesn't matter or that it's not worth anything safin is a vampire vampires live forever but are cold and dead and empty inside is it worth living forever if it's self-centered and devoid of love the answer is no that's the journey that began with casino royale that's the message that vesper tried to relay to him while giving her life for his that's what every single person bond was close with and met their end tried to tell him that he couldn't see mathis m vesper don't spend your life bitter and angry fueled by someone else don't be the man james bond is but the man he aspires to be just like the franchise shouldn't be complacent with the franchise it is but what it can be that's the tragedy and legacy of james bond i don't think i can overstate this craig is bond in no time to die it's the quintessential fleming bond performance in a quintessentially fleming bond film digging deep into the recesses of the character's mind via ian fleming's writing a week ago before getting to see this film i would have probably told you that craig's working casino royale is as good as it can possibly get well i was wrong across his previous four performances they're all great and i think while casino royale wins overall each one added something new and showed new layers of the character for example quantum of solace arguably gives us the best portrayal of bond's alcoholism and depression whereas skyfall arguably has his best moment of humor among other things but with his work and no time to die craig is not only giving us the culmination of those four previous performances he's amalgamating the best of all of them and giving us the entire emotional gamut while never faltering never going too big and always immersing himself in the character we've never gotten a bond who lives over his shoulder whose time in the film is entirely informed by the events of the past and who never neglects what came before maybe that's an unfair advantage as we've never had a bond tenure like this before where there is a beginning middle and end but regardless craig delivers on the promise of that and creates a defining performance been an increasing lack of trust in things trust in institution institutions a trust in one another trust in leaders it's just been a very fluid unstable time in the world the thing that i've come to recognize about characters like bond is that fans are intensely passionate about these stories and these characters because they can trust them and at a time when you know everything seems that it's wanting to you know just uh to unravel that's an incredibly powerful thing so i can go into this space with these stories and with these characters and even if they're villainous i can trust them i can trust them to be villainous and it's a place where people can in some way find hope they can imagine things that they might not be able to imagine in the real world because it's so slippery it's films like this and heroes like this in some ways that may be our most uh powerful exports when madeleine drives off in the db5 and begins to tell their child about a man named bond james bond in theory for a franchise like this that shouldn't work as well or hit as hard as it does but when paired with louis armstrong's all the time in the world you can't help but melt like i said before no time to die is a story about legacy about leaving something meaningful behind about leaving the world a better place than when you entered it on a meta level this is true for daniel craig's tenure as bond he took the job with backlash in his ears and lofty ambitions in his heart and in spite of all the obstacles that came his way countless injuries a writer's strike a pandemic he still managed to push through it all for the promise of something extraordinary on the other side in the words of judy dench's em would i be damned if i'm going to leave the department in worse shape than i found it that stuck with craig through the past 15 years and five films it's why he enlisted the very best artists that money could buy it's why he physically put himself through the ringer to achieve each daring action sequence it's why he was so involved from a story and character perspective craig wanted to make a change for the better and that passion and desire is what spawned what is perhaps the greatest 15 years in the history of the james bond franchise so when madeleine says let me tell you a story about this great man named bond james bond she's also speaking directly to us about craig about the lasting legacy he leaves behind his achievements as an actor producer storyteller and artist he used his time well for the betterment of the franchise and to preserve it for future generations so that bond fans old and new audiences across the globe can have all the time in the world to spend with this 60 year old institution so raise your glasses to daniel craig because while james bond will return and keep returning daniel craig is and always will be james bond [Music] so [Music] you

Channel: FilmSpeak

Views: 210,973

Keywords: why no time to die is the perfect end, why no time to die is a perfect james bond movie, no time to die ending explained, daniel craig interview no time to die, why no time to die is a masterpiece, why no time to die is a perfect movie, why no time to die is good, no time to die video essay, no time to die review, james bond video essay, filmspeak james bond, no time to die analysis, james bond no time to die analysis, ian fleming james bond, the best James bond movie of all time

Id: ybyoiMb7jpo

Length: 40min 15sec (2415 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 16 2021