No Time To Die has finally arrived in theatres
and there's much to break down in Daniel Craig's final outing.
Some of you may have already seen my review and you'll know that I
had a lot of problems with the film, with the plot being a central one of those issues.
But regardless of my personal thoughts on the film, I'm going to be breaking down the
plot, the ending and events of No Time To Die, explaining what happened and where we
could be going.
This analysis will also contain spoilers, so if you do happen to be someone who hasn't
seen the film yet, then I would recommend watching this video after you've seen it.
But if you want to keep up to date on any of my future content including a ranked list
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But without further ado, let's dive into the plot of No Time To Die explained.
So for the first time in James Bond's history, the main hero has died, leaving behind a child
and his 00 number.
But how does No Time To Die get to this moment?
Well, as I explained in my review the plot is really
convoluted, and definitely needs a clearer explanation to help with gathering the motivation
behind events.
No Time To Die starts with Rami Malek's Safin seeking revenge.
Mr White, a former high-ranking member of the villainous Spectre who made major appearances
in Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace, and Spectre, killed Safin's
parents and siblings, and, as in retaliation, Safin kills White's wife, but saves his young
daughter, Madeleine Swann.
This is of course motivated as described but then
the idea of releasing deadly nanobots on the global population is slightly muddled.
Regardless, as I said yesterday, I really enjoy
the opening 20 minutes of this film and the tone it sets.
We learn that many years later, Madeline Swann is trying to leave the past behind with James
Bond, but of course, things soon catch up with them.
Blofeld, operating from Belmarsh prison using a fake eye, has a Spectre agent attempt to
assassinate Bond while he's visiting the grave of Eva Green's
Vesper from Casino Royale.
This is great and it was awesome to see Vesper's character mentioned, becoming an emotional
moment for Bond as he briefly reflects on the events of
that first film.
Bond barely escapes using a cool set up turrets that pop out from the headlights of his car
but blames Swann for the attack, and in turn, the two lovers part ways, with Bond leaving
Swann on a train.
This may all happen before Billie Eilish's theme song plays during the opening credits,
but it's definitely key to understanding the rest of the movie.
Swann, we learn later, was not responsible for giving away her and Bond's position.
She was also pregnant with Bond's child at the time, as signalled by Swann as she reaches
for her stomach when Bond puts her on a train.
The assassination attempt was Blofeld's fault, but the iconic villain who is played again
by Christoph Waltz has another nemesis who wants him dead.
That's where Rami Malek's Safin comes back into play.
He has been orchestrating the deaths of every Spectre member from his villainous island
for many years and having found a mole in a secret UK government lab, Safin uses a biological
weapon that targets individuals using lethal nanobots.
Spectre, with the nanobots in hand, lures Bond to their party in Cuba.
Which is another one of the sequences that I actually liked in the film.
Jeffrey Wright's Felix Leiter has come back into play with a fellow henchman, Logan
Ash and the two hope to employ Bond to work for the CIA and help recover the rogue scientist
who is carrying the nanobots.
After tracking down the scientist to a Spectre party in
Cuba, they meet with Ana De Armas's Paloma, another CIA agent, who I must say was one
of the standout parts that wish we had more.
She's always drinking, funny but also quite deadly in the action scene that follows.
Kind of like a reflection of the early days of Daniel Craig's Bond, but more upbeat, rather
than drinking away the pain which Craig's character does an awful lot in the older movies.
As the party turns deadly, the nanobots target the members of Spectre, and then Safin's men
attempt to retrieve the scientist.
Bond escapes with the scientist and that's the last we see of Paloma, but we learn that
Felix has been double-crossed by his new right-hand man Logan, who is working for Safin.
He turns on Bond and Felix, shooting the American multiple times and then destroying the ship
that they're on.
Felix dies, and Bond goes out for vengeance which he later gets
once he kills Ash by letting a car fall on him.
We in turn learn that Blofeld believes that the nanobots are set to target Bond.
However, the scientist in charge of the nanobots is secretly working for Safin and changes
the target from Bond to the members of Spectre who were at the party.
Of course, once it was unleashed, the virus killed everyone except for Bond and Paloma.
So technically, Safin had just saved James Bond.
And from here, there's only one Spectre member left and that is Blofeld.
Bond ends up taking Safin's targeted virus straight to the Spectre villain,
while Safin later manages to persuade Swann to wear a sample of the nanobots while visiting
him, which in turn after a few complicated events, kills the character.
However, Safin's not done and wants what every moustache-twirling
villain wants and that is world-conquering power by continuing to develop the nanobots
further.
There are plenty of major deaths in No Time To Die and perhaps one of the biggest is Bond's
long-time nemesis Blofeld, who meets his demise during an interrogation scene.
As Bond tries to find out what Blofeld knows about the nanobots, he is killed
accidentally after Safin had forced Swann to apply the targetted nanobots to herself.
She bails on the interrogation of Blofeld, however, just as she goes, Bond touches her
wrist and therefore he becomes a carrier of the nanobots himself.
When he strangles Blofeld, he passes on the killing mechanism and ends his life.
It's not a bad thing as this man managed to orchestrate an entire villainous organization
using a fake eye from behind bars, but it was not Bond's intention.
Also with the writers trying to end the story of Spectre and move in the direction of Safin's
villain, this is an understandable moment.
But with Blofeld dead, it's slightly confusing to know what Safin's grand plan is after killing
everyone who's a member of Spectre.
At his island base, Safin's seemingly farming more of the nanobots which are being wired
to wipe out entire continents of people.
It's a bioweapon of mass destruction, which Safin wants to wield, but the answer as to
why appears to simply be for power.
Safin's justifications as described before are, frankly,
quite weak and I honestly think it's one of the things that pulls this movie down from
being as compelling as it could have been.
The emotional stakes get wiped out with little motivation and I personally would have liked
a lot more surrounding why he was doing what he was doing.
But having seen the devastating effects of the nanobots, Bond is pulled back into action
and hunts Safin with the new 007, Nomi, played by Lashana Lynch.
As made clear very quickly, Nomi has taken on the 007 badges following Bond's retirement,
but however, when Bond comes back into action, she later asks for him to be reinstated as
007 for their last mission.
As I said in my review, Lashana Lynch's new agent feels like a self-aware nod to the controversy
around the casting of Bond, which I'm fine with, but then she’s not given much of a
character to make her interesting on her own.
At times she also comes across as pretty annoying, repeating her role as 007 to James Bond before
she gives it back to him and it just feels completely obvious
what they were trying to do with the character.
I would have prefered Ana De Armas's Paloma as a sidekick to Bond in this movie but hopefully,
we'll get more of her in the future.
But coming back to the final act of No Time To Die, Nomi tracks down a rogue US agent
who's working with Safin, while Bond goes after Swann.
At Swann's childhood home, Bond finds her and discovers that she has a daughter named
Mathilde.
Swann insists that it's not his daughter before them both being eventually captured by Safin.
This leads to Bond locating his evil lair which is a former World War Two base, and
with Nomi, the two 00 agents behind infiltrate the base.
Safin uses Swann and Mathilde to stop Bond from
destroying the project but Swann manages to escape, Nomi kills a few henchmen, and Bond
ends up helping Swann, Nomi, and Mathilde get to a small ship to sail away.
Things aren't as straightforward as they seem though, as Q, operating from an aeroplane
above, needs the blast doors to be open so that missiles can destroy the lab that Safin's
built.
Bond shoots his way to a control panel, opens the doors, and makes his way out, but the
tragedy is soon to follow.
Because Safin closes the blast doors and swipes Bond with a version of the nanobots that targets
Swann and Mathilde.
Bond kills Safin, and not wanting to risk the fate of the world alongside Swann and
Mathilde, heads back to open the blast doors, despite knowing there's not enough time to
reach the control room and evacuate the island.
Bond opens the doors and gets patched through to Swann, where it is confirmed that
Mathilde was his child and that Bond loved Swann.
The missiles follow by raining down on the island and James Bond dies in the process.
We end the movie with Bond's family at MI5 toasting to the former 007 and Madeline
Swann drives into the sunset with Mathilde to the song, "We Have All the Time in the
World" by Louis Armstrong, which is the same theme from arguably the other most tragic
Bond movie of them all, On Her Majesty's Secret Service.
That is a film I love and while I don't think it does nowhere as good as a job of conveying
the emotion and stakes which that film does, It was a cool reference to end things off.
Of course, we knew this was going to be Daniel Craig's last James Bond movie, but we didn't
know that the former 007 would be killed off in No Time To Die.
His death is pretty final as there are missiles falling all around him, and having Craig's
character return in any form would take away any emotional degree that the ending has.
Danny Boyle, who was originally scheduled to direct Bond 25, was previously reported
to have left the project over creative differences, some claiming that the disagreement came from
Boyle not wanting Bond to die.
"There were discussions about killing off Bond in dramatic fashion at the end," claiming
that Boyle called the idea ridiculous.
Bond does die in spectacular fashion and it's a huge moment, but it's one that will essentially
cause controversy.
I honestly didn't mind this even know I know that a lot of people will not the choice they
made.
As I said in my review there are other things in this movie that I find worse than the killing
off of bond because at least that ending was payed off in an emotional
context.
What I didn't like was the convoluted portrayal of the plot leading up to this moment and
the attempts at trying to get us to care for the relationship between Bond
and Madeline, with a script that is so generalised.
Again, I like the idea as it calls back to On Her Majesty's Secret Service and explores
the emotional side of Bond, but the execution just felt very poor to me.
Regardless, Bond will of course be back after this ending, with a new actor and new stories
to tell.
So for the most part that didn't bother me as much.
But that was my video explaining the plot and ending for No Time To Die.
I'm excited to see what direction they go in next, even though I didn't particularly
like this latest film, and some of the ideas that they had
on display were ones that honestly, I think could have been done better.
But regardless, I'm interested to see who the next James Bond will
be and also what kind of approach and director that they are going to take.
Who would you like to see play James Bond next and what type of film would you like
to see?
Let me know down below, alongside your thoughts on
No Time To Die as a whole.
But I do hope this did help some of you guys understand the events a bit better, and will
be doing more on James Bond over the next week.
In particular, I will be posting a ranked list of Daniel Craig's James Bond Movies,
so keep a lookout for whenever I post.
For more breakdown videos on big upcoming films during the end part of this year, then
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But anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed it, I've been Cortex and as always make some
noise.