For Your Eyes Only - Total Spoiler

Rating: 4/10 (28 November 2006)

If have not seen this movie stop here because I am going to rip it a new one. One Caveat-- this is not a review of Daniel Craig. I think he will make a great Bond. He needs a decent script, a director and some acting classes but he has the essence, seriously.
This movie was billed as the "Origin of Bond". The first 10 minutes are but after that we zoom ahead to 2006 with the exception of the conversations between "M" and Bond which hearken to the promoted theme of the movie. Their relationship is just starting out but the movie is current day. It seems the script writer and director cannot produce a spy movie without the use of cell phones. If you have seen it I challenge you to imagine the movie without them. You can't because every clue that James follows comes from his ability to read the call history. It leaves one feeling that they meant to write an origin type plot but they didn't want to lose the money Sony Ericson must have paid to show off it's phones.
The best thing that you can say about the plot and the character development is that the movie seems disjointed. It has scenes that are real jewels that get lost in apparent attempt to make the film more marketable. You don't leave a plot this sloppily laid out unless you are sure that the fans will love it no matter what you do; and, let's face it, the Bond movies are the Wrigley Field of the movie industry.
To add insult to injury, the worlds greatest spy is duped by the old, "Yes, we were going to kill you but after you passed out you were rescued!" trick. He beds the heroine who has no scars from her apparent torture experience and is not suspicious. James who? Once again a phone call from "M", phone text messages and call history replace the keen eye of the Master Spy.
I didn't hate the movie. The first twenty minutes are probably going to go down in history as one of the best action intros to any of the Bond films. It really is pricelessly choreographed and executed. The place it falls down is that it misses the point. Bond is a tradition of excellent sleuthing, ruthlessness, technology and class, yes, but you still have to tell the story of a great master spy, fallible and lucky and clever as hell.
There is no way that this film deserves 8.5 stars. It just doesn't. I don't know what they are thinking.