No Time to Die

image for No Time to Die

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Not suitable under 14; parental guidance to 16 (mature themes, violence, language, scary scenes)

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This topic contains:

  • overall comments and recommendations
  • details of classification and consumer advice lines for No Time to Die
  • a review of No Time to Die completed by the Australian Council on Children and the Media (ACCM) on 16 November 2021.

Overall comments and recommendations

Children under 14 Not suitable due to violence, themes, scary scenes and language.
Children aged 14–16 Parental guidance recommended due to violence, themes, scary scenes and language.
Children over the age of 16 Ok for this age group.

About the movie

This section contains details about the movie, including its classification by the Australian Government Classification Board and the associated consumer advice lines. Other classification advice (OC) is provided where the Australian film classification is not available.

Name of movie: No Time to Die
Classification: M
Consumer advice lines: Mature themes, action violence and occasional coarse language
Length: 164 minutes

ACCM review

This review of the movie contains the following information:

A synopsis of the story

In a loving relationship with the secretive Madeleine Swann (Lea Seydoux), James Bond (Daniel Craig) seems to have finally found happiness but after being targeted and nearly killed he believes that Madeleine was the one who betrayed him and, after saving them both, he leaves her. Years later, Bond is living a quiet life off the grid, having retired to a remote island, when he is approached by Felix (Jeffrey Wright), an old pal from the CIA, who asks him to help with a case involving a biological weapon featuring genetic nanotechnology that has the power to target its victims in the most horrific ways. Bond initially refuses but when Blofeld (Christoph Waltz) appears to be involved, Bond comes out of retirement to join in the search for an abducted Russian scientist with the ability to program the virus. Aided by a beautiful new operative called Paloma (Ana de Armas) and vying for control with the latest Agent 007 (Lashana Lynch), Bond winds up meeting Madeleine again. Haunted by a past she cannot escape, Madeleine inadvertently aids the mastermind who no one saw coming. She and her daughter are taken hostage, brought to the place where it all began and ultimately, thanks to Bond, where it all will end.

Themesinfo

Children and adolescents may react adversely at different ages to themes of crime, suicide, drug and alcohol dependence, death, serious illness, family breakdown, death or separation from a parent, animal distress or cruelty to animals, children as victims, natural disasters and racism. Occasionally reviews may also signal themes that some parents may simply wish to know about.

Revenge; Death of a parent; Children as victims; Biological weapons that target innocent people; Violence as a means to solve conflict; Betrayal; Lack of trust.

Use of violenceinfo

Research shows that children are at risk of learning that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution when violence is glamourised, performed by an attractive hero, successful, has few real life consequences, is set in a comic context and / or is mostly perpetrated by male characters with female victims, or by one race against another.

Repeated exposure to violent content can reinforce the message that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution. Repeated exposure also increases the risks that children will become desensitised to the use of violence in real life or develop an exaggerated view about the prevalence and likelihood of violence in their own world.

There is frequent violence in this movie, including:

  • A young man tells about how a man killed his entire family and how he watched his own mother die at his feet. This man then shoots Madeleine’s mother with a machine gun.
  • Bond is nearly killed by a bomb in a cemetery.
  • Numerous men shoot at Bond and chase him off a bridge where he swings on a wire onto a lower level. The men chase Bond through the streets, shooting at him. Bond catches one around the neck and attempts to strangle him to death.
  • There is a street race through the narrow lanes of an Italian city. The cars smash and crash until Bond and Madeleine are surrounded by black cars and numerous gunmen who shoot them at point-blank range through the bulletproof windows of the car. Bond then uses an automatic weapon concealed within his car to shoot in all directions of the square, allowing them to escape.
  • An office worker is shot as men with laser guns blast through the doors of a laboratory.
  • Officers later shoot all the lab workers, execution style.
  • A man is seen getting a bullet to the head.
  • The floor of a building is blown up to conceal evidence.
  • Men are shot at a party meant to be a trap for Bond. Instead of killing Bond with the new biological weapon, the weapon is turned on others instead.
  • There are numerous fight scenes during this event which include people getting shot with machine guns as well as regular hand held weapons, getting kicked or punched and shooting at electrical cables to collapse scaffolding.
  • Felix is shot and he and Bond are trapped on a ship that explodes. They are caught underneath and as hard as Bond tries to save his friend, Felix drowns in front of him and Bond only just makes it to safety.
  • The weaponised disease is explained as being able to target any person based on DNA and also able of being modified to kill anyone who is related to the target.
  • A group of men attack Bond, Madeleine and her little girl. They drive them off the road, shoot at them and repeatedly attempt to kill them.
  • A man on a bike chases Bond, Madeleine and her daughter through the woods until Bond manages to sabotage him and later pushes a car down to crush him.
  • A Russian scientist is kicked in the face and chest.
  • Madeleine’s daughter is threatened at gunpoint.
  • A scientist is thrown into a poison bath where he writhes in pain and appears to be chemically burned to death.
  • There are multiple machine gun fights, killing randomly through poisonings at the factory and grenades are thrown from both sides causing numerous explosions and death. Men are choked and strangled, thrown from above and one man’s electric eye gets too close to Bond’s watch, causing the eye to explode while still in its socket.
  • Bond is shot repeatedly and then poisoned by the man that killed Madeleine’s mother. Bond shoots his killer three times in the head and then orders a missile attack on the island, knowing full well that he will not live to see his family again.
  • Bond is seen standing at the forefront of the factory as the missiles rain down around him and the island is engulfed in explosive flames.

Material that may scare or disturb children

Under fiveinfo

Children under five are most likely to be frightened by scary visual images, such as monsters, physical transformations.

In addition to the above-mentioned violent scenes, there are some scenes in this movie that could scare or disturb children under the age of five, including the following:

  • The masked man who is hunting a small family is very creepy and disturbing.
  • The people who suddenly die from the genetic weapon quickly develop awful sores and lesions on their bodies as they quickly collapse and die. This happens in a gathering and masses of people rapidly succumb.

Aged five to eightinfo

Children aged five to eight will also be frightened by scary visual images and will also be disturbed by depictions of the death of a parent, a child abandoned or separated from parents, children or animals being hurt or threatened and / or natural disasters.

In addition to the above-mentioned violent scenes and scary visual images, there are some scenes in this movie that could scare or disturb children aged five to eight, including the following:

  • The movie opens with a man in a creepy mask breaking into the house where a young girl is looking after her mother. The man shoots the mother in front of the child while she hides and he then slowly moves though the house searching for her. She is absolutely terrified. She manages to find her father’s gun and shoot the man multiple times in the chest before he is able to use his automatic weapon on her. He falls over a balcony and she, after pausing to check on the lifeless form of her mother, drags his body out of the house and into the snow where he suddenly sits up again. She runs backwards in terror and he chases her out onto a frozen lake where she falls through the ice in a desperate bid to escape him. He shoots through the ice and instead of killing her winds up saving her life but even as an adult these experiences haunt her. She is unable to forgive and is still terrified of what happened. The scene is graphic, intense and could be extremely disturbing for many young children.
  • Madeleine and her daughter are trying to escape with Bond when their car is targeted. They are repeatedly crashed into and nearly run off the road. Madeleine is screaming while her child is clearly scared. Eventually they are able to hide in a forest. Bond gives Madeleine a gun as the pair are tucked away in a tree trunk while he attempts to neutralize the threat. They look absolutely terrified as they crouch in the dark knowing that assassins are searching for them.
  • Madeleine and her young daughter are taken hostage by the man who killed her mother and are forcibly separated shortly after their arrival on an island. Madeleine is very distraught as her daughter is kept from her and taken through a poison garden. The man seems to revel in Madeleines discomfort and soon forces his men to drag her away as she screams for her daughter.

Aged eight to thirteeninfo

Children aged eight to thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic threats and dangers, violence or threat of violence and / or stories in which children are hurt or threatened.

In addition to the above-mentioned violent scenes, there are some scenes in this movie that could scare or disturb children aged eight to thirteen, including the following:

  • The above scenes are likely to be disturbing to children in this age group.

Thirteen and overinfo

Children over the age of thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic physical harm or threats, molestation or sexual assault and / or threats from aliens or the occult.

  • Nothing further of concern.

Product placement

The following products are displayed or used in this movie:

  • A Heineken beer commercial featuring James Bond is shown just prior to the start of the film.
  • Nokia mobile phone.
  • Range Rover.

Sexual references

There are some sexual references in this movie, including:

  • A woman who meets Bond on the side of the road accompanies him back to his house and straight away asks about the bedroom. She removes her wig and Bond says, “that wasn’t the first thing I thought you’d take off”.

Nudity and sexual activity

There is some nudity and sexual activity in this movie, including:

  • Bond and Madeleine are kissing passionately in a hotel room. Madeleine is later seen sleeping naked with her back and hips exposed.
  • Bond is shown naked in the shower though his genitals are not exposed.
  • Paloma accompanies Bond while wearing a dress with a plunging neckline and no back. She helps him fight their common enemies doing high kicks and rolling around on the floor. The skimpy dress leaves little to the imagination.
  • Bond and Madeleine kiss passionately and later are shown in bed together.

Use of substances

There is some use of substances in this movie, including:

  • Pills are scattered over a table in a house where the mother obviously consumes a variety of substances.
  • A young girl brings her mother a glass of wine.
  • Lesser characters smoke cigarettes and Cuban cigars.
  • Many characters drink in a variety of settings throughout the film: in bars, offices, casually, at a memorial, in parties and events.
  • Bond orders his classic drink of a Vodka Martini and a young woman gulps one down to try to calm her nerves.
  • A character says that is has been 4 or 5 hours since they last had a drink.

Coarse language

There is some coarse language in this movie, including:

  • “For fuck’s sake”.
  • “Shit”.
  • “Ass”.
  • “Hell”.

In a nutshell

No Time to Die is an action adventure set in numerous locations around the world. It is the 25th James Bond movie and the fifth to star Daniel Craig in the lead role. Due to the nature of the violence and the themes contained throughout, this is not a family film but rather one that could be enjoyed by older teens and adult audiences.

The main messages from this movie are that the function for humanity is to live not merely to exist; and that negative experiences can scar us but that it is our choices and the way we respond to what happens to us that make us who we are.

Values in this movie that parents may wish to reinforce with their children include:

  • Forgiveness
  • Courage
  • Determination
  • Sacrifice
  • Hope.

This movie could also give parents the opportunity to discuss with their children attitudes and behaviours, and their real-life consequences, such as:

  • Focussing all your energy on revenge.
  • Using violence as a means to solve conflict.
  • Trusting those who would do you harm.
  • Betraying those you love.