Rami Malek, Lea Seydoux, Naomie Harris, Michael G. Wilson, Lashana Lynch, Jeffrey Wright, Neal Purvis, Cary Joji Fukunaga, Ben Whishaw, Robert Wade, Daniel Craig, Barbara Broccoli
No Time to Die, released in 2021, is the 25th overall Bond film and the final film in which Daniel Craig will be in the title role. It stars the aforementioned Craig, Rami Malek, Lashana Lynch, Lea Seydoux, Naomi Harris, Ana de Armas, and Ralph Fiennes. The supporting cast includes Billy Magnussen, Christoph Waltz, and Jeffrey Wright.
No Time to Die, released in 2021, is the 25th overall Bond film and the final film in which Daniel Craig will be in the title role. It stars the aforementioned Craig, Rami Malek, Lashana Lynch, Lea Seydoux, Naomi Harris, Ana de Armas, and Ralph Fiennes. The supporting cast includes Billy Magnussen, Christoph Waltz, and Jeffrey Wright.
As has been the case with all of Craig's films, this one is tied to the others and is a direct sequel to Spectre. While Christoph Waltz does return as Blofeld, the main villain of the movie is Safin, played by Rami Malek, who has a direct tie to Madeline Swann (again played by Lea Seydoux). In fact, the opening sequence of this movie does not involve Bond at all but shows the death of Madaline's mother when Madeline was a little girl. Then the movie jumps to the present where at Madaline's urging Bond visits Vesper's tomb in an attempt to get closure. He is ambushed by Spectre agents which sets off the big opening action scene. Of course, he survives and the movie does a five-year time jump at which point everything else plays out.
The main plot involves the use of nanobots, which can be programmed to target and kill specific individuals or groups of people. Safin intends to use them to kill millions of people. Bond has to take down Safin, but like everything stopping him comes with a price. All of the main cast returns for this installment, Including Jeffrey Wright. Ralph Fiennes, and Naomi Harris. Lashana Lynch is introduced as the newest 00, even taking up the 007 designation when Bond is retired. Ana De Armas is introduced as Poloma, a CIA agent operating in Cuba. She definitely fits the "Bond Girl" model, including the dress they had her fighting in. She was not in the movie for long, but the time she was in it was definitely memorable. I will not spoil anything, but as you can imagine not every character makes it out unscathed, but it is made clear that Bond will return in some form down the line.
The 4k set is a two-disc set containing a UHD disc and a standard blu-ray disc. The movie looks and sounds great in the UHD format, and the A/V quality is at or near reference quality. All the bonus features are included on the UHD disc and start playing immediately after the credits (if you let the credits roll all the way to the end). The longest of the bonus features is a 45 minute or so retrospective on Craig's Bond from the controversy regarding the announcement that he got the role to his last day on set during No Time to Die. Then there are a few shorter featurettes on the making of the movie. Although it's not a ton of bonus material, what was included was of good quality.
Overall, I really liked the movie. Ultimately, the film serves as a fitting conclusion to this era of the Bond franchise, leaving open the possibility of a hard reboot or a continuation with at least some of the characters introduced in the last few movies coming back. It is definitely worth watching even if you are a casual Bond fan, or just want to watch a good action movie.
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