No Time To Die

As strict first impressions go I very much liked this movie but this is the first time where I am curious where the series will go from here.

As an exit for Daniel, it worked. As a Bond film I thought it was great. But it just raises too many questions, not in term of plot but what comes next? Despite my love for the Brosnan era, it never crossed my mind once what would happen after Die Another Day, the Bond series has always been something that has been a matter of fact, those movies have always been around. I was always looking back and never ahead until now. But I had a real good time with it. Does it improve on Spectre? Partially. It does it's own thing entirely with Bond coming out of retirement to usurp the new villain Safin from releasing a blood virus on the world, while he reconnects with Madeliene. It's a good plot and for an almost 3 hour film the pace was kept excellently. Craig is having the most fun I think of this role than any others in his tenure, he gets little moments of each Bond. He gets some charm from Connery, the humor of Moore, the romance of Lazenby, the cold kill of Dalton, and the action man status of Brosnan. And yeah, there was some fan wank in this film boy but I won't lie, I loved it. When I heard the chords of We Have All The Time In The World and Vesper's theme I did have an emotional response. The marketing campaign puts a lot of emphasis on secrets and changing the game which it delivers on quite a bit, but not really in the way you would think. This is one of those movie that will get an In Retrospect one day and there will be much to discuss. New additions to the cast are great with ample love going to Ana and Rami who were excellent. The action got my blood going and was always visually interesting. The sets and locations are wonderful and each used to the fullest. It all worked for me, despite there being some big notes from me. I do definitely recommend it, I would give it 4 stars, and an 8/10. Stay tuned for the also long delayed ranking of the 007 series tomorrow.