Don't Buy Junk Bonds

Rating: 2/10 (3 December 2006)

OK MAJOR SPOILER alert here. Do not read any further if you don't want to know why this movie stinks. Just accept that it does and go see "Deja Vu". Do you remember "New Coke"? OK, don't say I didn't warn you. First off this movie is ersatz Bond. There is an opening sequence in black-and-white. Why? To establish age? Flashback? I dunno. But worse is the premise of the sequence. Bond must make two "kills" before he gets his double "0" designation. Now since the "00" is the "License to Kill" what were the first two? Murder? Unsanctioned hits? Fun? Then the opening title/credits with an absolutely tiresome theme and no "Bond women" in the animation. OK, this is the "new Bond" Then we get a Bond who breaks in to M's apartment? What the hell is that about? James Bond would not do that. No god agent who wants to keep his job would. OK, we go on to a Bond who does not seem to like women, just uses them. In the other Bond movies we get a sense of Bond using women, yes, but because he likes them and they like him. There are three women in this movie and he toys with one(no sex however) and she ends up dead. She's married a minor villain and Bond later tells the next woman he prefers married women. The third woman, while a plot point, has no lines and might as well not exist. This was not the Bond we knew. He was willing and able to romance all sorts of women. The second woman he Falls in LOVE with and spends time romancing after the mission is supposedly over. Bond has been married before and since then Bond loves em and leaves em. Oh, that's right this is the "new" Bond. So why the old "M"?
I have read the James Bond novels(yes, they were books first) and while this Bond is more realistic- he is no Superman, nor does he have more than a couple of gadgets, he still seems just a bit of a stilted thug. OK, there were no wisecracks to speak of, the one while he is being tortured falling absolutely flat to my ears. In fact most of the dialogue stunk. Bond don't care if his martini is shaken or stirred? Yeah, right. My wife pointed out there was no sense of fun in the movie. She likes Bond movies, but she felt this Bond was not suave, did not look right in a suit and "just felt wrong'. Finally the manipulative ending. Bond goes for sadistic revenge of the death of his girl. He finally says the line "I'm Bond, James Bond" and that's the last line. No, I've seen James Bond, I know James Bond and you're no James Bond. Oh, and one more thing. Why the hell did you save the "James Bond Theme" for the closing credits?