dour Bond movie, no fun at all

Rating: 4/10 (29 May 2007)

This was a dour and rather serious Bond movie. I guess I like these movies to be fun: the plots are ludicrous, but they become tolerable if they are backed up with entertaining characters and spectacle. This Bond had neither in the quantities I'm used to or that the plot, such as it was, required. Daniel Craig, the new Bond, has two or three expressions, one of which is a bovine grin that is supposed to be the mark of the hard man. He is stretched at one point by a a pretty vile torture scene that was, by any standards, unedifying; but as an actor Craig came through. Into the final act the film fizzles out completely with a lengthy anti-climax that is not seriously lifted by the spectacle in Venice or the damp squib of an ending. We also lose out on the good bits that eke out the slender plot lines of Bond movies, such as the inimitable contribution Judi Dench might have made as M and the usual explanation of new gadgets, which we don't get at all. As for the new seriousness and greater respect for women -- no silhouetted nudity in the opening titles -- that's all very well, but it would have been gratifying to find something taking the place of the usual clichés. I thought this Bond was cold, often dull, and lacking any real narrative drive. Very disappointing.