Our James Bond Marathon covers six eras from 007

This weekend, No time to die ends the Daniel Craig era of James Bond, ending a story that began 15 years ago with the reboot’s origin story Casino Royale. This is of course just a stretch of a franchise that has been around since the early 1960s, with no more than a few years between subsequent installments. In honor of that final page turned from Bond’s ongoing book, we’ve scheduled an upcoming 007 Adventure Marathon, selecting a movie for each of the six actors who played the super-spy. To discuss this intimidating block of spy blockbusters that lasts almost a whole day, AA critics Dowd and Katie Rife welcome a special guest: a colleague AV Club James Bond staff member and lifetime superfan Cameron Scheetz. Fair warning: we disagree Golden eye.

Here’s what AA Dowd had to say about No time to die in his written review:

No time to die is the 25th film in the never-ending James Bond series, and possibly the first to offer something like a real ending as well. “Goodbye” is usually not in the vocabulary of the spy – not with a sequel always on the horizon, a return always promised to the credits. Even at the dawn of a redesign, it’s rare to get the finality of a Bond film; producers like to leave the door open, hoping to catch their star for another tour of martinis. No time to die is different. It was meant as a good farewell to Daniel Craig, taking his fifth and final round in a tuxedo, and as an attempt to wrap up this serialized stretch of a series that has taken place since the early ’60s. Unfortunately, the film is so concerned about the farewell he ends up dealing with reality pleasures Bond – which kept audiences coming back for six decades – as an afterthought. Everything is punctuation, no sentence.

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