Avis Metacritic

it’s often very funny indeed. The mood is often closer to the perkier passages of the Connery films, and the humour feels contemporary and British: the Phoebe Waller-Bridge script polish evidently yielded the desired result.

No Time To Die is startling, exotically self-aware, funny and confident, and perhaps most of all it is big: big action, big laughs, big stunts and however digitally it may have been contrived, and however wildly far-fetched, No Time To Die looks like it is taking place in the real world, a huge wide open space that we’re all longing for.

No Time to Die will be remembered for its emotional impact above all. And, to cap it all, Craig may well have delivered the most complex and layered Bond performance of them all.

This is Bond film that dutifully ticks all the boxes — but brilliantly, often doesn’t feel like a Bond film at all. For a 007 who strived to bring humanity to larger-than-life hero, it’s a fitting end to the Craig era.

At 2 hours and 43 minutes, it’s a long goodbye for Craig. Too long, really; parts of the last act drag a bit. But as Bond says earlier, “Letting go is hard.” In “No Time to Die,” it’s also satisfying.

Even a disappointing villain can’t detract from a bold, satisfying climax to Daniel Craig’s time in the tux.

To its credit, this two hour, 43-minute movie (thus making the title a bit of a lie) assiduously builds on everything that the recent Bond movies have established, in a way earlier incarnations generally didn't. That has deepened the character, allowing Bond to experience grief, loss and love without hitting the reset button, the recurrence of the villainous Blofeld notwithstanding.

Fukunaga’s direction is crisp and assured, if occasionally languid, and the script creaks under the weight of its myriad responsibilities to both its star and franchise. But it hits where it counts, and sets up a new chapter for the saga, a blank slate upon which the creatives that come next can paint a new vision for 007.

The problem is the movie doesn’t always realize this should be a hoot. Rami Malek and Christoph Waltz realize what movie they are in. And I love Craig’s Bond, but there are times when he’s trying to be a Connery Bond in a clearly Roger Moore Bond movie.

There’s plenty to gawk at, and to argue over, in this episode - yet No Time To Die is oddly lacking in pleasure or real wit.