No Time to Die **Spoilers from post #1449 onward**

I saw this at a midnight showing. Trying to keep spoiler free.

I hated it, it's still raw for me but as a Bond fan it's right up there with the worst Bond movies ever made. Really hated the whole thing - the movie hinges on you buying into Bond and Madeleine as a pairing, and she is possibly the worst love interest he has ever had. Infact the movie really needs you to invest into Madeleine as a character (even seperate from the Bond pairing) and she is just so, so dull.

The movie is pointlessly long - the plot is threadbare and what little story there is verges into the ridiculous.

Rami Malek's Safin was really, really poor - just a flat out boring character. His motivations and goals are either unclear, nonsensical or uninteresting - and it takes quite a while for him to even show up. The grand plan is so hokey and the implications it has for the characters are bordering on the ridiculous.

I expected myself to hate Lashana Lynch's character and she ended up being way down my list of complaints here. She wasn't bad, she definitely gets a few too many free verbal hits in on Bond, though if anything her character could have done with more developing - which is mental to say when you consider the runtime.

There is something else that happens that will be divisive but I was so mentally checked out by that point that I didn't care.

The good - The best scene features Ana De Armas and it takes place in the first act. Everything after this scene is a boring slog. Infact shes the best thing in the movie and has less screentime than every character I listed above. Some of the shots were ok I guess, and Zimmer was decent.

Well if you buy into Madeleine as a character even slightly more than I do then you will have a better time with this.

You might find plenty to enjoy - hopefully you do.

I think the problems with that character are more script based than anything - it never gives you a reason to be interested in the character, he never seems like a real threat. His goals (aside from being bad) are not very clear. There's also a scene late in the final act which is played for comedy which I found completely undercut his presence. I loved Mr.Robot so it wasn't like I was going in underwhelmed by the casting of Rami Malek - but what transpired on the screen made me find the character awful.

Maybe they are coming at it from a different perspective but my perspective is that I am a Bond fan. I guess it's like the Last Jedi all over again with certain critics v long term fans of the franchise. I have seen every Bond movie multiple times as my uncle was a Bond fan too and we used to 'bond' over talking about them.

I just find it incredible that I can pick a good 20 Bond movies that I would rather have seen a direct sequel to than Spectre, and as Bond girls go, I cannot believe the one they chose to bring back AND make so important and critical to the story is one of the worst ever.

Even from the Craig era alone, if they are giving this 5 stars than Casino Royale must be worth 500 stars.

I wasn't sitting there hating every moment, there are some alright bits in the first act - as I mentioned before with De Armas. Coincidentally these scenes are scenes where Bond is not with Madeleine. But once the pieces of the main Madeleine centric plot start falling into place it takes a catastrophic nosedive.

It was a very strange route to take for the producers expecially as CR QoS has done so well to set up Quantum (remember them) as an organisation with so much influence and Bond was literally just a fly in the ointment. They went from that to Bond is the person the ointment is for.

I think I'll be seeing NTTD on Wednesday but if I weren't going with a group of mates, I really don't know if I would bother. After Spectre my expectations are very low.

As someone who hated this, I would rank this as on par with Spectre (which I hated). I think Quantum while not really a good movie is better than these as a Bond flick, at least I found more to enjoy in it than I did Spectre and NTTD. Then Skyfall, and a country mile clear of the other 4 is Casino Royale.

Not counting Never Say Never Again in the list, Craig takes up at least 2 spots between 20-25 for me, and one spot in the top 5.

I don't really see any way back for the franchise from here - two disasters in a row (from the perspective of being a James Bond movie, staying true to the character written by Ian Fleming). I know they have resurrected the character from previous low points, but in todays climate and with the noises out of Barbara these days, I would personally rather that they put the franchise to bed - because anything further from here is almost certainly going to be more of the same.

It's very obvious that the studio has no interest in making an actual James Bond movie anymore, and would prefer to serve up whatever tripe they feel like, and plaster the name James Bond on it.

This was literally like the most anti-James Bond movie possible. I can only but think that the majority of people who are loving this will only have seen a small couple of Bond films in their lifetime. And to me, just make something else then - do this completely unearned and quite frankly unbelievable, sappy nonsense in a different movie. The people who liked it will still like it, and you aren't sh*tting all over a beloved character. Win win.

This 'deconstruction of the character' rubbish didn't work with Luke Skywalker and it didn't work here. Why studios are so eager to hand the keys to franchises and their iconic characters over to people who actively don't like those franchises and those iconic characters, completely baffles me.

I fully expect that when the dust settles on this that history will not look back as kindly as it as some of the immediate reactions are.