No Time to Die reviews: what do the critics think of Daniel Craig’s final Bond film?

Daniel Craig has described the final cinematic journey of his James Bond as "spectacular", with most critics agreeing the pandemic-delayed film was well worth the wait.

The blockbuster's stars including Craig, Lea Seydoux and Lashana Lynch joined with a quartet of leading royals, celebrities and young US Open champion Emma Raducanu at No Time To Die's world premiere in London on Tuesday night.

"Bond movies are to be seen in the cinema and this one especially. It's spectacular," Craig, who is stepping back from the role of 007 after five films since 2006, told the PA news agency from the rain-swept red carpet at the Royal Albert Hall premiere.

The sentiment was shared by reviewers from The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian and The Times who all gave the movie five stars.

Robbie Collin, The Telegraph's Film Critic, said director Cary Joji Fukunaga’s "extravagantly satisfying, bulgingly proportioned last chapter to the Craig era ... throws almost everything there is left to throw at 007 the series can come up with".

The Prince of Wales, the Duchess of Cornwall and the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge attended the world premiere, in a rare joint royal engagement on the red carpet.

The Royal family met the stars, including Craig, who complimented the Duchess of Cambridge in her dazzling gold gown.

"You look jolly lovely," he told her.

Actors tipped to replace Craig include Venom star Tom Hardy and Bridgerton's Rege-Jean Page.

On his advice for his successor, Craig said at the premiere: "Just make it your own, be brilliant. Take it somewhere wonderful."

The movie was due for release in April 2020 but was postponed as the first wave of Covid-19 broke and repeatedly pushed back as the pandemic took hold.

With the cinema industry in the doldrums, the keenly anticipated film, which will be released in UK cinemas on Thursday, is expected to herald a major return of filmgoers.

Fukunaga told PA he was delighted audiences would be able to enjoy the movie on the big screen.

"I was so happy people are getting to see it in a cinema," the American director said.

"We made this, especially shooting on Imax and all the work we did on sound, all the sequences were meant to be seen larger than life on the big screen and shared with audiences for that contagious feeling of emotions when you're in a cinema."

'An impossible act to follow': what other UK reviewers said about Bond

The Times

The Times' Kevin Maher described the Fukunaga effort as "magnificent" and delivered on the potential Craig's first Bond film Casino Royale teased in 2006. Swedish cinematographer Linus Sandgren was praised for making the movie "visually astonishing" while Craig's performance was also celebrated.

Maher said: "He's a towering charismatic presence from opening frame to closing shot, and he bows out in terrific, soulful, style. His, perhaps, is an impossible act to follow."

PA

Damon Smith gave No Time To Die an 8/10 rating in his review for PA: "No Time To Die is the most emotionally satisfying chapter under Craig's guardianship and the subtle nods to the past 20 years sever some ties to the past and provide exciting opportunities for reinvention in the future.

"Bond will return and he or she will be a better person for it."

The Sun

The Sun's Dulcie Pearce gave No Time to Die four stars out of five. She said Craig "exits the franchise with a bang", reserving special praise for the "simply spectacular" stunts.

However, Pearce found fault with the film's run time of two hours and 43 minutes, writing "there are times you want to get a defibrillator out and give it a much quicker pulse".

She added: "The storyline feels like there were too many cooks, but it still tastes familiar enough to be craved."

Empire

Empire magazine also gave it four stars, with reviewer John Nugent writing: "This is a 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."

The Independent

Writing in The Independent, Clarisse Loughrey gave the film three stars out of five: "What's most disappointing about the film is how uneventful the whole thing feels." Remi Malek's performance was underwhelming, according to the review, which states the Oscar-winner "gives almost nothing to the role beyond his accent and stereotyped disfigurement makeup".

But Craig's performance was a fitting end, Loughrey wrote.

She said: "He is brilliant in No Time to Die, in a way that outshines everything around him. His granite-carved features crumple in just such a way, always at the right moment – his Bond contains an ocean of battered emotions trying to reach the surface."

'It's still the same tired nonsense, just longer': what American reviewers thought

Vulture

Vulture's Bilge Ebiri was ambiguous in his review. While he acknowledged the film had its "spectacular moments", he said that the plot's indebtedness to Spectre, which was criticised for its confusing storytelling, was a mistake.

"With all its connections to the previous film, No Time to Die’s biggest failing is probably the fact that it seems to think Spectre had a compelling narrative," he wrote.

Variety

Owen Gleiberman, writing in Variety, meanwhile, was fulsome. He compared it to Casino Royale – "the most perfectly realized Bond movie ever" – and argued it was a "terrific movie". It is "an up-to-the-minute, down-to-the-wire James Bond thriller with a satisfying neo-classical edge," he said.

The criticised running time was not a problem, said Gleiberman. "At 2 hours and 43 minutes, [it] is the longest Bond film ever, yet it’s brisk and heady and sharp," he wrote.

Hollywood Reporter

An excess of plot and Rami Malek's villain were singled out as duff notes, by Hollywood Reporter's David Rooney. But Rooney also said viewers who have been following Craig's Bond closely "will feel a surge of raw feeling in the devastating closing act of his fifth and final appearance in the role in No Time to Die".

Fukunaga's direction received praise, too. "[He] handles the action with assurance and the more intimate interludes with sensitivity, never forgetting that there’s a wounded, vulnerable human being beneath the licensed-to-kill MI6 agent."

IndieWire

No Time to Die "might be the least exciting Bond film of the 21st century, but it’s undeniably also the most moving," wrote IndieWire's David Ehrlich.

Ehrlich praised the film's attempt at "tying up all of the frayed threads that Spectre left blowing in the wind". He also noted that Craig's performance was the most emotionally rich of his five-film tenure: "Connery will always be treasured for giving birth to the character, but it’s Craig who finally allowed him to grow up."

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