Review Roundup For No Time To Die

The new James Bond movie No Time To Die opens in theaters this weekend in 50+ international markets, and ahead of its premiere, reviews for film have finally arrived.

No Time To Die is an especially noteworthy installment in the series because it is Daniel Craig's fifth and final outing as the British superspy. The movie was also among the first high-profile productions to be delayed due to COVID--it was originally expected to release back in April 2020.

The story picks up with James Bond hiding away in Jamaica until he's pulled back in to stop a new threat from a deadly villain played by Oscar-winner Rami Malek. In addition to Craig and Malek, the movie brings back Lea Seydoux, Christoph Waltz, Ralph Fiennes, Naomie Harris, Ben Whishaw, Jeffrey Wright, and Rory Kinnear, with Ana de Armas and Lashana Lynch joining the cast.

The theme song was written and performed by Billie Eilish and her brother Finneas.

You can see a sampling of review scores and excerpts below, and more critical consensus here at GameSpot sister site Metacritic.

No Time To Die

• Directed by: Cary Joji Fukunaga
• Written by: Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, Cary Joji Fukunaga, Phoebe Waller-Bridge
• Starring: Daniel Craig, Rami Malek, Christoph Waltz, Ralph Fiennes, Naomie Harris, Ben Whishaw, Jeffrey Wright, Lea Seydoux, Rory Kinnear, Ana de Armas, Lashana Lynch
• Release Date: September 30 UK/October 8 US

The Guardian

"No Time To Die is startling, exotically self-aware, funny and confident, and perhaps most of all it is big: big action, big laughs, big stunts and however digitally it may have been contrived, and however wildly far-fetched, No Time To Die looks like it is taking place in the real world, a huge wide open space that we're all longing for." -- Peter Bradshaw [Full review]

Screen Daily

Pulling out all the stops with wild – if not exactly gleeful – abandon, director Cary Joji Fukunaga and his co-writers find various elegant solutions to wrapping up the Daniel Craig cycle of Bond movies as a self-contained, interconnected series. So there’s plenty to gawk at, and to argue over, in this episode - yetNo Time To Dieis oddly lacking in pleasure or real wit." -- Jonathan Romney [Full review]

BBC

"If 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. To quote a certain song that makes a wistful reappearance: if that's all we have, we need nothing more." -- Nicholas Barber [Full review]

The Hollywood Reporter

"Regardless of the plotting deficiencies and occasional pacing lags, there's plenty here for diehard Bond fans to savor, with a frisson of excitement every time Hans Zimmer's stirring score sneaks in a few bars of Monty Norman’s classic original Bond theme. It may not rank up there with Skyfall, but it's a moving valedictory salute to the actor who has left arguably the most indelible mark on the character since Connery." -- David Rooney [Full review]

Variety

"What happens in the climactic scene feels poetic: Bond, in a strange way, takes on the karma of all the people he has killed. I never thought I'd wipe away a tear at the end of a James Bond movie, but No Time to Die fulfills its promise. It finishes off the saga of Craig's 007 in the most honestly extravagant of style." -- Owen Gleiberman [Full review]