No Time to Die gets an action-stuff, neon-soaked new trailer

If we know any­thing about James Bond, it’s that he’s very hard to kill. He’s made it through shark tanks and laser beams and gun­fire of every vari­ety, an agent so durable that not even a globe-span­ning pan­dem­ic can stop him.

007​‘s lat­est vehi­cle No Time to Die – Daniel Craig​‘s last time don­ning the tuxe­do before mov­ing on to pas­tures new – was going to make a grand the­atri­cal pre­mière back in April, until the sud­den out­break of COVID-19 cleared out cin­e­mas and put the movie cal­en­dar on hold. But even as large sec­tors of the world (okay, fine, the Unit­ed States) con­tin­ue to strug­gle with con­tain­ment of the coro­n­avirus, Bond has set plans to return to the new­ly reopened mul­ti­plex­es with a the­atri­cal run in Novem­ber, Tenet-style.

With this big news comes a flashy new trail­er con­vey­ing a fuller impres­sion of the dan­gers in the mis­sion to come. Direc­tor Cary Fuku­na­ga will put Bond through the wringer in this new install­ment, as sug­gest­ed by the many, many stunts that involve Craig get­ting thrown onto and off of build­ings, dri­ving cars through hails of bul­lets and over rolling hills, or attempt­ing to break his way to the sur­face while trapped under a sheet of ice in a frozen lake. Rough week for our man.

The trail­er also pro­vides a clos­er look at Bond’s new asso­ciates, both friend and foe. Smart mon­ey says the break­out char­ac­ter will be Lashana Lynch’s Nomi, a new MI6 agent and Bond’s replace­ment (he’s been retired for five years when the new film picks up), seen here learn­ing how to fly on the fly in a shape-shift­ing plane, and look­ing just plain fly at a neon-lit nightclub.

Bond also gains an ally in CIA agent Palo­ma, as well as a pos­si­ble love inter­est. Though plen­ty of peo­ple, myself includ­ed, would be per­fect­ly hap­py if this film was just two hours of Ana de Armas dou­ble-wield­ing sub­ma­chine guns and jump-kick­ing guys while wear­ing an evening gown.

In his first go at the fran­chise, Fukunaga’s got some­thing to prove, and the trail­er offers a hint of the shock-and-awe tac­tics he’s got in store to keep the fans hap­py. The most intrigu­ing snip­pet comes near the end, with Bond lost in a misty for­est and dodg­ing cars that come fly­ing out of nowhere.

There’s an eerie, almost sur­re­al sparse­ness to it, qual­i­ties not often seen in the big set pieces for these block­busters. Though ​“eerie and sur­re­al” seems to be par for the course when going to the movies in a pan­dem­ic, so it’ll all mesh nicely.

No Time to Die will be in UK and US cin­e­ma in November.