What's all the fuss about?!? I just don't get it.

Rating: 3/10 (28 January 2009)

I don't normally feel compelled to write reviews like this but there have been so many people wetting their pants over this film and lavishing such enormous praise on it that I felt I had to add my 2 cents in this case.
I can remember the first time I saw this movie, a friend brought it round when it had just come out on DVD... long story short, it was the only time I can EVER remember being bored with a James Bond film. I just wanted it to end, it seemed to go on forever... and at the end I remember thinking 'What the hell was that?!? What have they DONE to James Bond? Where was the JB theme, the gadgets, the excitement? The FUN?!?' And then I later thought, well if I feel like that then I can't be the only one. There must be people all over the place complaining about this utter mutilation of a tried-and-tested formula that has worked so well for decades.
Not so. I since discovered that according to many critics and fans around the world this is apparently 'the greatest Bond film ever', and Daniel Craig is 'the best Bond ever'.
Um.... HUH?!? OK then... I thought. Maybe it was just me and I wasn't paying attention or something then. I decided to give the film a second viewing.
Well... all I can say is I don't know what these people must be smoking but I want some of it. Upon my second viewing my feelings of the film were a bit better but my overall reaction at the end of it was simply, 'meh'.
Apparently the 'best Bond film ever' features a Bond who falls hopelessly in love with an average-looking woman who is nothing special (and pathetically has to be rescued by her and others all the time), a mundane and unthreatening villain who keeps getting pwned and doesn't actually kill anyone, a horrific torture scene featuring an extremely unpleasant image (for me) of a naked Daniel Craig getting his balls whipped (this kind of thing has NO place in a Bond film!!! Especially one with a '12' rating!!!), 1/2 the film spent sitting round a Poker table (not my idea of 'thrilling'), Bond driving a... Ford, a Blonde Bond, very little humour, no gadgets, no Q, no Moneypenny and - most criminal of all - NO JAMES BOND THEME throughout the entire movie. Yup, you heard that correct. Although I think for some reason they might have stuck it in at the END of the film instead.... o_0 W..T..F?!?! Now people are claiming to love this 'grittier, darker Bond' (read: humourless and charmless) lauding the fact that it's more 'realistic' and those 'silly gadgets are gone'. Well forgive me but since when was a Bond film supposed to be 'realistic'?! Isn't that the whole point? I love the old Bond films for what they are, classic ESCAPISM. I really couldn't care less whether they seem 'real' or not.. who cares.. the gadgets and silly stuff were all part of the FUN to me, a concept which seems to be severely lacking in this film.
Its almost like they've literally changed EVERYTHING in this film compared to past Bonds. I can appreciate that after 'Die Another Day' the franchise needed a severe change in direction, OK... but they didn't have to change EVERYTHING. -_- And oh for the glorious days of Ursula Andress emerging from the sea in that bikini. It seems nowadays all we get to see emerging out of the water is.... erm, Daniel Craig and his six-pack. What the hell?!? James Bond films were never about looking at guys' abs?! Or him pathetically pandering to mediocre women? What's going on? Was the whole thing taken over by the PC-feminist brigade or something? A lot of people constantly denounce Moonraker and Diamonds Are Forever as being the worst in the JB series. Yes, they have some notoriously silly moments, but personally I would much rather watch those over CR any day, I find them both to be much more entertaining.
As a stand-alone action film its OK I guess, I'd give it about 6 out of 10. But because it purports to be a 'James Bond' film, containing almost none of the traditional trappings that make a James Bond film so good (as well as being pretty long and boring), it gets a 3 from me.
Most over-rated film in a long time.