Bond gone far off the rails

Rating: 4/10 (24 September 2009)

I've never been a big fan of Bond and haven't bothered with it much since Connery, but I heard this was good so I took a look. What is good here is the mega-budget, making everything look expensive, the sustained production values – and, as always, Dame Judi. But in terms of acting, script and everything else
Dan Craig wanders about, face set into an unchanging hard-man mask, showing nothing of his undoubted acting ability, and the support, Dench apart, aren't much better. The story, at least in the early part of the film, consists entirely of running about and shooting. When fifteen straight minutes of jumping around on top of cranes gave way to an apparently endless gun-battle (all for no explained reason) my attention wandered and I never really managed to get it back.
This film clearly thinks it's very gritty and cool, and some seem to agree, perhaps because it says Bond on the label. But the story is too ridiculous for grittiness. In fact it's an expensive but mediocre attempt at an action flick, po-faced throughout, with no hint of the style and wit which established and once defined this most successful of series. For Fleming's great creation to be reduced to sub-Willis-Diesel nonsense, without even the benefit of a Willis or a Diesel, is tragic.