WARNING: The following contains spoilers for No Time to Die, in theaters now.
No Time To Die, the latest installment in the James Bond franchise, is a direct sequel to 2015's Spectre and the narrative heavily focuses on the sinister organization of the same name. Rami Malek carries the Bond villain mantle with his role as Lyutsifer Safin, an anarchist, terrorist leader, self-proclaimed scientist and assassin. His family were talented chemists and supplied poisons to SPECTRE. They oversaw production at an island manufacturing facility called The Poisoned Garden.
Little did they know, they were all pawns in SPECTRE's grand scheme, and Mr. White, a SPECTRE assassin, killed the entire family with their own dioxin chemicals once their services had expired. As the sole survivor, the poison left Lyutsifer facially disfigured and fueled by an insatiable thirst for vengeance against the organization and its members.
Some of the greatest Bond villains of all time include Dr. No (Dr. No), Le Chiffre (Casino Royale) and Jaws (The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker), but unfortunately, Malek's portrayal of Safin falls short of his predecessors. That being said, Malek himself cannot be held entirely accountable, as his heinous villain is hardly seen throughout No Time To Die's two-hour-43-minute runtime. In fact, he appears briefly in the introductory sequence, then disappears until the final act. Malek's acting prowess can never be accurately assessed when his character suffers a non-existent character arc and poor writing choices.
Even so, one could argue Malek lacks the proper experience to sustain a villain role. His most notable acting credits include portraying the late, great Freddie Mercury in the 2018 biopic Bohemian Rhapsody and the anxiety-ridden cyber-security engineer, Elliot Alderson, in Mr. Robot. Until Cary Joji Fukunaga's No Time To Die, Malek hadn't really had the chance to play a villain, much less a Bond villain, for which there are big shoes to fill and a reputation to uphold.
Moreover, a vengeful character like Lyutsifer Safin, who had been mistreated and wronged all his life, should've been much more malicious than he was. The official James Bond wiki describes Safin as "an extremely powerful, ruthless, sadistic and nasty individual from the most diabolical kind which could be ever imagined by MI6 or Bond himself" -- a description that Malek's portrayal doesn't quite live up to.
The wiki article further states that "Safin, in addition, is said to be knowledgeable on how to get under Bond's skin, making him Bond's most cruel and sadistic nemesis he's ever faced." In the film itself, "cruel" and "sadistic" are arguably generous adjectives. While Safin does endanger a child and threaten to unleash his poison in a demented act of global vengeance, labeling him as "Bond's most cruel and sadistic nemesis he's ever faced" is an overstatement.
Consider the likes of Le Chiffre, who went to drastic measures just to express his displeasure at losing to Bond in a poker tournament. Le Chiffre kidnapped Vesper, Bond's love interest in Casino Royale, which forced Bond to give chase and walk straight into his trap. Le Chiffre leaves Vesper, bound at the feet and hands, in the middle of the road, and Bond is forced to swerve and subsequently crash his car. All of that, just because he lost money in a poker match.
Safin has suffered far greater loss and still spent more of No Time To Die lecturing Bond about his inadequacy than actually acting on those remarks. In a truly horrific scene, Casino Royale sees Le Chiffre torture Bond by repeatedly striking him in the testicles with the knotted end of a thick rope. If that isn't the mark of a man who will stop at nothing to get what he wants, then nothing is. Rami Malek is an astounding actor and his reputation proceeds him, but his performance in No Time To Die left something to be desired.
To judge Rami's performance for yourself, No Time to Die is now playing in theaters.