Glum, grim, grey and ghastly

Rating: 4/10 (19 June 2012)

Oh good lord. Casino Royale may have offered a different Bond, but this is a kind of Bourne- alike which really does nothing to add anything to the canon. In place of wit, we have Ms Strawberry Fields (really?) played by Gemma Arterton as a kind of cross between a pert schoolgirl and a refuge from the Joyce Grenfall school of undercover police work. Daniel Craig has to rank as the most charmless, po-faced Bond ever. The grim styling is more suited to one of those hard, overblown Euro-thrillers where the villains are interchangeable, and indistinguishable and one really doesn't care about the outcome as long as the action scenes keep coming. These do keep coming, but they are full of jerky camera work, intense close ups and high octane stunts that push the envelope of disbelief even further than some of the Bond's of the 70s and 80s.