No Time to Die IMAX Review: Not Perfect But A Fitting Send Off

The Best Bond of modern era (in my opinion) gets a 2 hours and 43 minutes celebratory send-off that is incredible in some places and lacklustre in others. Here’s our No Time to Die IMAX review.

We headed straight down to Cheshire Oaks Vue IMAX cinema to see director Cary Fukunaga helm the latest Bond movie and see if the Daniel Craig era of Bond movies can be wrapped up with something truly spectacular.

Casino Royale will always be my favourite Daniel Craig James Bond movie with the others thereafter falling way short of the mark.

There was immense pressure on No Time to Die to do Daniel Craig justice after carrying such sub-par scripts in the shape of Quantum of Solace and Spectre with only Skyfall providing a glimpse of real hope and a throwback of cinematic finesse to the powerhouse that is Casino Royale.

No Time to Die for me, despite its faults is only second to Casino Royale in the Daniel Craig era of Bond movies.

James Bond is enjoying a tranquil life in Jamaica after leaving active service. However, his peace is short-lived as his old CIA friend, Felix Leiter, shows up and asks for help. 

The mission to rescue a kidnapped scientist turns out to be far more treacherous than expected, leading Bond on the trail of a mysterious villain who’s armed with a dangerous new technology.

Our film begins with some exposition as we explore the character of Madeleine Swann growing up and the introduction of this films main villain Safin.

The opening of the movie starts out very tame indeed as we are slowly introduced to this retired Bond living a more relaxed life, it’s not the all guns blazing introduction and in that regard, the entire movie steps away from some core Bond elements whilst at the same time paying homage to those films gone by.

The general premise of the movie is the same old Bond story as Heracles, a biological weapon of mass destruction has been stolen and Bond comes out of retirement to save the world once again whilst learning of his partner’s (Madeline Swann) past and how it affects the situation that has currently presented itself.

As far as Bond villains go I’d go as far as saying that Lyutsifer Safin is perhaps the worst Bond villain of the Daniel Craig era.

We hardly see him, his arc serves no real purpose and despite some wonderful acting Rami Malek can only work with the script he was given and in this case (and other characters for that matter) his arc and character depth are too thin for us as an audience to invest in.

Whilst I’m on the negatives I’ll certainly add Lashana Lynch’s character Nomi into that pile.

A character that whilst Bond was away earned her role as the new ‘007’ but whilst her character should really be paving the way for female empowerment she falls way short of the mark. Her character was underutilised, a little boring and forever in the shadow of James Bond from start to finish.

She was so poorly written that it annoyed me just how badly she fit into the story whereas Paloma (Ana de Armas) another new character in the franchise fell into place beautifully.

This ditzy character was only in the movie for all of 10-15 minutes and showed more kick-ass moves, chemistry and depth than every single scene Lashana was involved in.

I felt so sorry for Lashana to have been given such a poorly written character to work with, her performance was solid but it just didn’t work for me, it detached me from caring about her character in any way shape or form and she was only there to dent Bond’s machismo. 

Despite the niggles the movie absolutely flies by and whilst the ending for me wasn’t the one Daniel Craig deserved it provides a wonderful ending to an incredible era of British cinema.

Daniel Craig gave James Bond a soul and No Time to Die explored that more than any previous movies did post Casino Royale.

Driven by love and some little surprises along the way No Time to Die is a beautifully worked piece of cinema as Daniel Craig is truly celebrated throughout.

No Time to Die is backed by a beautiful theme song from Billie Eilish and as a whole is one of the strongest Bond movies we’ve had in quite some time.

No Time to Die in IMAX was a joy with the screen drawing us in and the audio delivering in all departments with the fight and chase sequences providing an audio and visual delight for the audience.

Cary Fukunaga has presented a beautifully shot movie and draws out all of Bond’s traits in such an artistically precise way.

With the long run-time No Time to Die does stutter in places but for the most part, it’s an engaging piece of cinema and despite stumbling over plot points, old characters and poorly written current characters, its flaws can be forgiven.

With so many winks and nods to Casino Royale it almost feels self-aware and pays a tribute to that movie in its own way.

No Time to Die doesn’t intend on competing with its almost perfect predecessor but it does provide a mature Bond, an explosion of personality, love and war and whilst not the fitting end for Daniel Craig’s Bond (in my opinion) will serve as one hell of a send-off to the man who rejuvenated the franchise.

Where the franchise is heading is anyone’s guess as the ending certainly didn’t help the next production team to continue any story of any kind.

Best of luck to them!