No Time To Die Review: 7 Ups & 3 Downs

Downs...

3. Rami Malek's Safin Is A Dull Villain

By far the biggest downer of the entire movie is its villain. Any way you slice it, Lyutsifer Safin (Rami Malek) is a dull, generic Bond antagonist with uninteresting, over-familiar motives.

One senses that the filmmakers wanted to deliver a traditional Bond villain - he's disfigured, has an awesome lair, and touts a ridiculous megalomaniacal plan - but he's ultimately got so little screen time that he lacks both the depth and presence necessary to register much of a pulse.

Poor Rami Malek, a talented actor who's given very little to work with here and so can't do much but just go through the motions.

While you can certainly argue that No Time to Die is far more about Bond's personal journey than a typical Bond plot, as villains go Safin is staggeringly low-effort.

As much as fans complain about Quantum of Solace's Dominic Greene (Mathieu Amalric) being boring and unimposing, Safin honestly isn't very far off.

For a film that otherwise puts so much effort into feeling epic and operatic, Safin's basically just... there.