No Time to Die Starring Daniel Craig, Rami Malek & Léa Seydoux, Directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga

Bond has left active service and is enjoying a tranquil life in Jamaica, but his peace is short-lived when his old CIA friend Felix Leiter 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.

The release of this film has been off-set so many times, they had to redo some scenes because technology caught up with them. But don’t let that mar what is an exceptional swansong for Daniel Craig in his last role as Bond.

And what a swansong it is! I will stick my neck out and say this is the best Daniel Craig bond film of all. The story is believable and strong, the cast excellent and the script, wonderful. I suspect the addition of Phoebe Waller-Bridge (Fleabag, Killing Eve) – apparently at Craig’s insistence – who revised the dialogue and added welcome, gritty humour to the script.

However you feel about Daniel’s Craig’s innings as Bond (for me a close No. 2 to Connery) it’s undeniable he’s brought it back from the preposterous (apart from the DB5, there were almost no gadgets in this movie) into an intelligent, fast-action franchise and I am longing to see who will step into his extremely large gentleman’s brogues.

Verdict: A superb finish to a fabulous line of Craig Bond movies. ****