Bond fails to ignite again.

Rating: 6/10 (4 November 2008)

So its broken all the records in this country in its opening weekend but lets look past that and ask ourselves is the new, in this revitalised franchise, James Bond film actually any good? well its not bad, its OK, but its not brilliant, not quite good enough to get four stars not bad enough to warrant two so a solid three then right down the middle. The first thing you notice about this episode is thanks to director Marc Forster who has brought an arty edge to the ice cold killer, hand to hand combat is spliced with a famous horse race or an opera and typography appears cleverly on the screen to let us know which part of the world Bond is in on his rouge quest to avenge the death of his lover Vesper Lynd. Pouty mcCraig is back as 007 and what he lacks in gadgets he makes up for in injuries, yes he bleeds which invariably means he has to take his shirt off a lot to nurse wounds, womankind and homosexual men catered for blokes get the equally pouty Olga Kurylenko as the more sensible named Camille and a brief glimpse of rising Brit Gemma Arterton as the ridiculously named Strawberry Fields. Judi Dench reprises her role as M and is really starting to flesh out the character and give her real depth but the show is stolen by Mathieu Amalric as bad guy Dominic Greene who adds a general air of creepy whenever he is on screen. The action in the movie is relentless and from the opening car chase we then get chases on foot, bike, boat and aeroplane I was beginning to expect a chase on space hoppers after we had exhausted all the other options. All that said at least we've ditched the camp and stupid gadgets in favour of the leaner meaner Bond but I can't help but thinking that inside every new Bond film is a Bourne film trying to get out.