Move over Sean Connery, Daniel Craig has arrived

Rating: 9/10 (20 November 2006)

If you live in the UK, then you will have had the dubious pleasure of watching every single bond movie at least 300 times, mostly concentrated around Christmas and bank holidays. Believe me, I've seen 'em all .. plenty of times .. over and over and over .. (you get the idea)
Given this exposure, fans of Bond soon realise that some Bond movies are classics, that can be watched again and again and by the 100th repeat you enjoy the fact that you've subliminally learnt all the dialogue and can repeat it back, in sync, with each frame of the movie. However, as strange and unbelievable as it may seem, you may get the impression that some Bond movies were knocked together on the back of a fag packet and can only rightfully be assigned to the appropriate file, under the heading "the man that wrote the plots was off that day". (and we all know which ones they were)
With a heavy focus on gadgets, plot lines written by children on a diet of pure sugar, Bond women with strange and exotic names (I wonder how you rehearse for a role with a name like Xenia Onatopp ?? maybe you lie on top of things, just to get into character ?) cheesy one liners and villains that border on cartoon characters (ok, I'm being cruel to cartoon characters), it just "seemed to me" that maybe, just maybe, Bond had truly worked himself into a corner. One of those corners that you don't easily get out of.
Until now ..
exit old Bond stage left, thank you .. and please .. no crying
enter new Bond .. out with the gimmicks, out with the ridiculous villains, gone are the gadgets, stupid names, etc it's a "Back to basics" formula but with a more credible, believable style.
When I say believable I mean
NO Invisible cars, NO Satellites in the sky destroying everything, NO Laser or Magnetic watches, NO ridiculous computer generated action scenes that are laughable, NO taking rockets into Earth orbit ... and MANY others ... (ala, previous Bond films)
So, Daniel Craig has blond hair ... SO WHAT ...
Forget the hair, watch the action.. at last, a breath of fresh air and the first Bond film I actually bothered to see at the cinema for a VERY LONG TIME.
So, my opinion? Compared to the other Bond films
....... It's a great film and great entertainment, ...........
Well done Daniel Craig, keep up the good work .... and remember ... when they show you the next Bond script and it has villainous monkeys with telepathic headsets and guns that fit into your watch and you have a time travelling machine and a talking robot...
First off, take a nice deep breath.. then
beat the living crap out of em ..