No Time to Die - a review!

Earlier today, I went to the cinema to catch the 25th Bond film, No Time to Die. With me was my mother, my two uncles and my two aunts. The cinema we chose was Imperial in Copenhagen, one of the biggest cinemas in Northern Europe.

As we sat down in the cinema, my mind began to wander. "I hope it's as good as they say. How will the villain be?"

The lights went out, so I was about to get answers to all these questions.

The movie is directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga, and the synopsis is as follows: Bond has left active service and is enjoying a tranquil life in Jamaica. His peace is short-lived when his old friend Felix Leiter from the CIA turns up asking for help. The mission to rescue a kidnapped scientist turns out to be far more treacherous than expected, leading Bond onto the trail of a mysterious villain armed with dangerous new technology.

Reprising their roles from previous films, we have Daniel Craig as Bond, Léa Seydoux as Madeleine Swann, Ralph Fiennes as M, Naomie Harris as Moneypenney, Ben Whishaw as Q, Rory Kinnear as Tanner, Jeffrey Wright as Felix Leiter and Christoph Waltz as Blofeld. Newcomers to the franchise are Ana de Armas as Paloma, Lashana Lynch as Nomi (007 for most of the film), Billy Magnussen as Logan Ash, Davic Dencik as Valdo Obruchev, Lisa-Dorah Sonnet as Mathilde and Rami Malek as Lyutsifer Safin, the main villain.

As usual with a Bond film, there are huge set pieces, and exotic locations. Of course there is a villain with his own island, who is bent on world domination. It gets old very quickly, and it keeps Rami Malek's character from being terrifying. He's actually quite boring, now that I think about it. Now, this being a Bond film, there is naturally going to be some explosions of some kind, and this movie has a few. It mostly relies on practical stunts, however, and there is one sequence that's almost near perfection. It's a car chase that starts on the side of a mountain, and ends up in a forest. Absolutely fantastic stuff, with some amazing car stunts. It never gets old seeing a Land Rover Defender fly through the air, at speed!

However, this movie is not without any flaws, sadly. One of the flaws is with the villain. As I wrote a while back, his villain is just plain boring. The Bond franchise really need to reinvent their villains. Give me a terrifying villain, who is looking for revenge for something either Bond or MI6 has done, kind of like Silva in Skyfall. That villain worked so well, because he had a personal score to settle, and not trying to take over the world.

In the end, No Time to Die is a great Bond film.Lots of exotic locations, good looking cars and great action sequences. The real star of the show is Lisa-Dorah Sonnet, who is super adorable. An absolute joy to watch on the big screen.

8/10