Very ordinary and does dishonor to the Bond franchise.

Rating: 3/10 (9 February 2007)

Well it appears that the Bond film makers went horribly wrong with this one and I have grave concerns about subsequent bonds. There are many things wrong, minor and major, including:
INTRO I appreciate we are "at the beginning" of the bond saga. But that's no reason to abandon the tradition opening and then insert it at the point of his first kill. I'm sure it sounded good on paper, but was an early indication that the Bond formula (that we never seem to get tired of!) was going to be varied.
OPENING CREDITS I don't mind a bit of variation, but I prefer silhouettes of naked women doing gymnastics. This one looked like it was made with a computer from the 70s and the title song was less than memorable.
DANIEL CRAIG That guy should never play bond again... ever. He is wooden, lifeless and completely lacks the suave and cheekiness of the other Bonds. Pierce Brosnan didn't get it right until the second Bond, but even in Goldeneye, he seemed to have the makings of a good Bond. With Craig, I struggle to see how they'll turn it around and make him a Bond we will all love.
THE LOVE STORY Oh please! This got so schmaltzy in parts that I completely forgot that I was actually watching a Bond. To make matters worse, I didn't feel that the chemistry between them was convincing. When it become really serious, it became eye-rolling.
THE PLOT Well there really wasn't much of a plot at all. I know the "destroy the world or some part thereof" plots have been done to death, but this was simply about beating a terrorist in a card game to starve him of money and therefore force him to talk to save his skin. Butif Bond loses, they (MI6) will effectively be "financing terrorism". Again, may have looked good on paper - one of those "the stakes couldn't be higher" type deals - but in the end, it didn't deliver. Throw in a few double crosses to teach bond that he can't trust anyone... and that's about as complicated as the story gets.
GADGETS Where were they? The most complicated thing in the whole film was (a) the defibrillator in the car and (b) going through another persons mobile phone to read their sms's. Oh yes - we had him using his laptop on a boat, but even I can do that these days. As per usual, there was no shortage of product placement.
FEW STUPID MISTAKES I have a word limit so I won't do a list here. But there were plenty of them. Here is one: he dives into the water to get her out of the elevator with her phone in his pocket. That model is not water proof, but works perfectly minutes later (after it's been 50 feet under water for 3 minutes or so). And the fact that it still worked was crucial to the ending. Small errors here and there and not everyone would catch them, but they appear throughout. Needless to say that if they are big on product placement, they shouldn't pass off a non-water proof phone as water proof.
COMEDY Where is the cheeky bond with double entrandes, dry British humour and sharp whit? I think the problem is that Bond is portrayed as too much of a destructive arrogant evil bastard rather than a sly & smooth, yet deadly secret agent. Again - not convinced that Craig can pull this off in subsequent Bonds.
THE POKER GAME Here we go. Well I do play poker myself. So I can confirm that the hands that came up in the game were ridiculous - especially the last one. You could play the game for 20 years and never get a hand where four players have a flush, a full house, a bigger full house and a straight flush between them. Very unrealistic, but I won't sit around poking holes in that too much because it is a movie after all.
M: For some reason, I felt Judi Dench looked almost...... uncomfortable in this film. She was given a bigger role that usual and carried the same stern attitude she has in other bonds, but I think she was better suited playing off Brosnan. Something was wrong in this one. Perhaps the whole affair was all too serious and mean spirited for her liking. Or perhaps she simply can't work well with Craig (which doesn't surprise me).
CONCLUSION I felt that this had all the tools of the bond, but just wasn't one. We had the Aston Martin, a dangerous villain, bond was able to get himself out of any situation, fast action, casinos, cocktails and beautiful women dancing around all over the place (though in my view, 95% of them looked extremely anorexic to me). But despite many of the fundamentals making an appearance, I just didn't feel like I was watching a bond at all. This could have been just a simple stand-alone spy movie (and an ordinary one at that).
This does dishonor to the bond franchise, as does Daniel Craig. At times, I felt that they tried to make the action, the love story and the game take centre stage and Craig was there just working through the script, whereas, in other bonds, it is James Bond who takes centre stage the whole way through. The bottom line is that the film just didn't come together and didn't ring true as a Bond.
Even Die Another Day was a pretty decent Bond. But this one took a major wrong turn with a pointless, shallow plot that only marginally unfolded in the closing 10 minutes. It was way too long and I lost interest in parts. There was a fairly evil undertone to Bond as well which I wasn't comfortable with.
Probably the worst bond to date.