# No Time to Die Movie Ending Explained (In Detail)
Bond fans had to wait a long time for the new film, especially because of the Corona pandemic, but now JAMES BOND 007 - NO TIME TO DIE is finally coming to the cinemas. How Daniel Craig's fifth and last mission as 007 turns out, we reveal in our review.
OT: No Time to Die (USA/UK 2021)

# The plot summary
After years of toil in Her Majesty's Secret Service, James Bond (Daniel Craig) has decided to quit his job to travel the world with Madeleine Swann (Léa Seydoux). But this dream remains foam. Even retirement proves to be merely an extended break from duty: Bond's old buddy, CIA agent Felix Leiter (Jeffrey Wright), asks him for help one day. Together with his British colleague, he will rescue the kidnapped scientist Valdo Obruchev (David Dencik). Unfortunately, Leiters should be aware that this mission is risky, abundantly true. For as it turns out, the mysterious, dangerous terrorist Safin (Rami Malek) is involved. To stop Safin, Bond must confront his Spectre adversaries, including his nemesis Ernst Stavro Blofeld (Christoph Waltz). At least new double-zero agent Nomi (Lashana Lynch) and CIA operative Paloma (Ana de Armas) are also on their feet to steer fate in the right direction....

Review Six years have passed since Daniel Craig's fourth 007 mission "Spectre". Calculated in Bond years, that's an enormous amount of time. By comparison, Pierce Brosnan's entire four-film 007 tenure stretched from 1995 to 2002. However, Brosnan's Bond era ran much smoother behind the scenes than the Craig era, which began in 2006. "Quantum of Solace", for example, was affected by the writers' strike. MGM, the studio involved in the Bond rights, slid from one financial crisis to the next. And "No Time to Die" was also a difficult film birth. Initially Danny Boyle was supposed to direct the film, but there were disagreements between him and the producers, which is why both he and his preferred writer John Hodge ("Trance - Gefährliche Erinnerung") dropped out. As a result, the writers and Bond experts Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, whose ideas Boyle had previously rejected, were brought back. The frantic search for a Boyle replacement included names such as Christopher McQuarrie ("Mission: Impossible - Fallout") , Jean-Marc Vallée ("Dallas Buyers Club") , Edgar Wright ("Baby Driver") and Denis Villeneuve ("Dune") before "True Detective" director Cary Fukunaga prevailed in September 2018. But there was also a clash between him and the studio. Fukunaga expressed the wish that his film should turn out to be a delusion set during "Spectre".The first take for "No Time to Die" then fell in February 2019. Because "Contagion" author Scott Z. Burns and "Fleabag" creator Phoebe Waller-Bridge were called in for script revisions during filming, and Craig needed a break from filming for health reasons, it quickly became clear that the film would not be finished on time. Further, there was a rift between Fukunaga and his regular composer Dan Romer, whereupon Hans Zimmer was hired. And a few days after the title song, sung and co-written by Billie Eilish, was released, it became apparent that the Corona pandemic was more serious and long-term than once hoped. The minds behind Bond were even among the first in the film industry to draw consequences, allowing the completed film to take several extra turns on the postponement merry-go-round. In the meantime, streaming services courted the exclusive rights to "No Time to Die", which MGM consistently refused - before the studio was finally bought out by Amazon. Nevertheless, the 25th official Bond film remained a theatrical title with regular exploitation on the big screen - much to the delight of all cinema operators who have gigantic hopes for the soon-to-be 60-year-old franchise. But what are they, and above all: the film fans, getting now, almost two years after the end of filming?

"The minds behind Bond were among the first in the film industry to draw consequences, allowing the completed film to take several extra laps on the launch-delay merry-go-round."

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First: a film that briskly makes clear why it was one of the first to dodge in the face of Corona. Because the first scene after the (relatively late-onset) opening credits sequence takes place in a lab where pathogens are being developed into warfare agents - not exactly the story material you'd feel comfortable with at the start of a global pandemic. That Craig's fifth 007 mission with this plot is now being released by the responsible studios with a clear conscience in a pandemic that is still ongoing probably reveals more about society's treatment of Corona as an annoying burden to which one has become accustomed and less about the studios. Otherwise, No Time to Die is - at least in terms of its ingredients - exactly the Daniel Craig-era finale that Craig, writers Neal Purvis & Robert Wade, and Bond production outfit Eon Productions have been working towards: A classic, grand 007 adventure - stringently reinvented for this new, more emotional Bond. With "Casino Royale" they still told the story of the secret agent James, who first had to become "Bond, James Bond". With "Quantum of Solace" they did a lap of honour within this original story. In "Skyfall" they let the Bond trademarks and the 007 "basic taste" return, but wrestle against Nolanesque influences, so that the film results in a metafictional argument about whether good old Bond still has a raison d'être. And "Spectre", briefly billed as Craig's farewell performance, attempted to unite the quintessential Bond elements (including erstwhile nemesis Blofeld) with a narrative that rounds off the previous Craig-Bond films.
Rami Malek plays the villain Safin.
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This very case may be one of the Bond films that divide. Even in the team at Wessels-Filmkritik there is disagreement about whether "Spectre" is top or flop. One thing, however, is rarely said or written about it regardless: That it feels like a seamless union of early Craig Bond and classic Bond trademarks, never mind that these two styles co-exist on paper. So now the next attempt. "No Time to Die" finally fulfils everything that this rocky, convoluted 007 path has been heading towards since the end of "Casino Royale": This 163-minute agent's tale revisits the beginnings - both in the sense of "the beginnings of Craig interpretation" and in the sense of "what made 007 tick before the reboot". In the film's opening sequence, for example, Craig's Bond murmurs at his flame Madeleine Swann in a moment of distrust, as if the early Connery Bond had gotten into him. As the story progresses, a debauched, swanky underground rogue base is explored, the kind that could have come out of the later Connery or many Moore films. The villains' intentions and modus operandi also have great parallels to the "bigger, flashier, more manic" era in the Bond roster of villains - though this doesn't carry over to the film's tone. It comes across with the seriousness and "This time I'll take it personally!" frustration of Timothy Dalton's "Licence to Kill", although the action scenes never reach the hardness of the short Dalton phase, but try to combine this Dalton attitude with the more family-friendly blockbuster show value of the first three Pierce-Brosnan missions or Craig's "Skyfall". The material is garnished with various references to George Lazenby's only Bond mission - "On Her Majesty's Secret Service". And all of this is threaded through by a prominent thread, namely the dramatic exploration of how the Bond we came to know in "C@sino Royale" can find fulfilment.

"The material is garnished with various references to George Lazenby's only Bond mission. And all of this is threaded through by a prominent thread, namely the dramatic exploration of how the Bond we came to know in 'C@sino Royale' can find fulfilment."

In particular, Bond's trust issues, first introduced and ultimately intensified in Craig's debut, dominate his Bond finale. No wonder, then, that the script for No Time to Die passed through many hands and had to be revised repeatedly, because bringing all these elements together is unlikely to succeed at the first attempt. But the first two fifths of the film roughly prove that it is possible: the so-called cold open, i.e. the passage before the opening credits, shows a Bond who wants to conclude but cannot. Because he has seen too much, because he has done too much, and last but not least because he cannot get his first love, Eva Green's famous "Casino Royale" character Vesper Lynd, out of his mind. This is not the only thing that clouds his honeymoon phase with Madeleine Swann, whom Léa Seydoux ("Kursk") is able to give more character profile here than in "Spectre"...
M (Ralph Fiennes), Moneypenny (Naomie Harris) and Tanner (Rory Kinnear) return.

Cary Joji Fukunaga directs the action sequence in the cold open with a capable hand - good to strong stunts (most will already know the motorbike super jump from the trailer), landscape panoramas captured ravishingly by cinematographer Linus Sandgren ("La La Land"), and dramatic character moments that clearly cause tension go hand in hand. The aforementioned laboratory raid is also enjoyable, and a later large-scale agent operation in Cuba is a real pleasure: Craig's "Knives Out" colleague Ana de Armas shines here as Paloma, a CIA youngster who is both hypernervous and highly enthusiastic about her job. Bonus points not only for de Armas' infectious enthusiasm, but also for the fact that the directors resist the obvious gag of Bond's (latest) return from retirement with an inept rookie at his side. Paloma can do something, she's just jittery about it! In a direct comparison of the new, female agent characters, Nomi, played by "Captain Marvel" supporting actress Lashana Lynch, has a much harder time. The filmmakers seem almost indecisive at times as to whether they want to create Nomi as an agent who respects her predecessor or whether they want to stir up an underlying rivalry. This inevitably inhibits Lynch's potential, but she makes the best of it: she plays Nomi as a stern, cool professional who gets snotty when she sees her rank in danger, but is otherwise collegial - albeit with teasing sarcasm that she can't turn off. A whiff of early Connery Bond wafts through her scenes, at least whenever Lynch is given enough leeway. And the way Craig's Bond reacts to his gruffly professional successor is both entertaining and delightfully understanding.

"Daniel Craig's 'Knives Out' co-star Ana de Armas shines as both hyper-nervous and supremely enthusiastic about her job, CIA youngster Paloma."

From the third quintile onwards, however, the "No Time to Die" creators repeatedly get tangled up trying to round off their character arc, begun in 2006, around the gruff, uncouth and stubborn gun on two legs who is supposed to learn to be more of a gentleman, by means of classic Bond trademarks. The most glaring problem is Safin: Rami Malek ("Bohemian Rhapsody") plays this garishly, unsubtly sketched character tremendously stiffly, in some scenes even with an almost paralysing stolidity, so that he drags down all passages that revolve around him. Admittedly: It is difficult to imagine a Goldfinger, Scaramanga or Karl Stromberg villain in him because of the melancholy tone in which "No Time to Die" manoeuvres itself. But when Malek as Safin emphasises in a dialogue that he is not angry but passionate, the question forces itself: "What, the character is supposed to be passionate?" Malek's stodgy acting also inevitably makes his character's shallowly written motivation stand out negatively, which would be easier to excuse in the case of an eccentric creep with a "He's just completely nuts". This, together with brittle revelations about several of the characters and a lack of rousing action scenes, regrettably ensures that the immedi
ate build-up to the final "no time to die" act drags.
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Nomi (Lashana Lynch) now wears the number 007...

It is not until the finale that director Fukunaga shifts to a staging that focuses on suspense - driven by the tense question of how the characters act on a mission that is close to them. This is a good gimmick in theory, taking us tonally back to the beginning of the Craig era and bringing the stylistic full circle. However, the execution continues to suffer from the lack of traction of the villain (just imagine if No Time to Die had someone like Javier Bardem's Silva as its antagonist), and from how little emotional foreshadowing the middle of the film has done. The somewhat ponderous editing, which leaves individual moments awkwardly suspended, also hurts the final act, which has good ideas and literally cries out to be mercilessly, consistently and immediately turned on the suspense screw. On the plus side, meanwhile, are the successful, coherent character sketches and Daniel Craig's emotionally complex portrayal of Bond - in "No Time to Die" the agent has the sum of his previous missions, loves, flaws and setbacks written all over his face.

And there is another plus point that stands out until the very end: even if Hans Zimmer ("Dune") quotes himself too clearly two or three times, all in all he gives "No Time to Die" the appropriate sound wallpaper. In the more turbulent moments, the statement "Hans Zimmer, child of games, is happy to experience an adventure with Bond" almost resounds from the speakers, but the soundtrack is dominated, tonally appropriately, by big string sounds full of love, secrecy and sorrow - including elegant recourse to Billie Eilish's title song. And Zimmer's score is even responsible for one of the most casual moments of levity in Craig's Bond era: A dust-dryly delivered oneliner is commented on with a casual, semi-quietly mixed throwback to the iconic James Bond guitar riff, as if it were a flourish. "No Time to Die", on the other hand, is not, in its entirety, a flourish that closes Craig's time as Bond. Although narratively it does not want to be an ending with a flourish at all, it is nevertheless regrettable that it does not represent a final, great flourish in terms of quality. However, "No Time to Die", all strengths and weaknesses aside, should be at least one thing thanks to some of its ideas: a Bond film that will be remembered and stand out from the crowd beyond the previous phases of the film series as well as many other reboots.

"'No Time to Die', on the other hand, is not, in its entirety, a flourish that brings Craig's time as Bond to a close. While narratively it doesn't even want to be an ending with a flourish, it's still unfortunate that it doesn't qualitatively represent a final, great flourish."
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Verdict: Most James Bond actors go through ups and downs, but before Craig, none had been granted an orderly farewell with a planned final film. Besides this novelty, "No Time to Die" also brings quite a rarity to the 007 tableau: a fairly mediocre Bond mission that isn't mediocre because those in charge briefly fell into a rut, which happens to this franchise once in a blue moon. This agent mission is mediocre because its remarkable conceits are caught up in a cinematic adventure whose strengths and weaknesses balance each other out.

"James Bond 007 - No Time to Die" is in German cinemas from 30 September 2021.