Not another Bond film... SADLY!

Rating: 3/10 (1 December 2008)

I love my bond. I've spent many hours watching and re-watching every outing by 007. We purposely watched only the trailers for the new movie, no reviews. Why? We didn't want to spoil the surprise. We booked out Gold Class at Greater Union in Sydney George St, got there early to avoid the rush, but the theatre was nowhere nearly empty! Imagine my shock. After ordering the champs to be brought in halfway through, we made our way in. For the next 2 hours, the most interesting thing was the steward bringing our champagne and nibbles. Poor Cubby Broccoli would be spinning in his grave like a Christmas turkey of he knew what a "Barry Crocker" the studio was going to try and pass off as the sequel to Casino Royale. I love Daniel Craig as Bond and Dame Judy is my hero, but the five year old who wrote this story needs a spanking. There is more of that silly running/jumping/leaping and other similarly improbable moves that even the fittest superhero would have had trouble with. It worked in Casino Royale but is done, done, done to death. Unlike Casino Royale, poor "Q" has been given his notice and is sunning himself in Greece, because he certainly didn't work on the DB, or the watch, or belt or any other Bond-like gadget. No lasers or guns under the bonnet, no oil in the boot. Just some poor sap running about and punching/shooting and otherwise killing people. The committee (who never met) that consulted with the five year old to write the words and story line had obviously never seen another Bond film, not even the previous one. This movie was all over the place like a mad womans' breakfast. Someone got a whole bunch of stuntmen together and filmed them beating each other to a pulp, then got another man to find an excuse to blow up a god-awful alleged hotel in the middle of the desert. Oh by the way, just to make sure that it does fly apart, the seamlessly work into the story that it runs on fuel cells. Every room has a large cylinder in the corner with large friendly letters saying "hydrogen" plastered across them. It's just as well they all faced the camera or we would never have guessed that some kind of gun fight was about to ensue, and moreover, that the place was about to become visible from space as an appropriately huge explosion tore through the building blowing concrete to smithereens. Luckily it missed bond, phew! Even better, it only put a bit of a hole in his particular room instead of launching it into orbit around Jupiter. And as if by chance, the hole was just big enough for two people scramble out, would you believe it? But not onto a ledge, no no no, down the rubble, which had thoughtfully landed in a big pile right outside the hole so they could caper down it and on to the sand and through the desert to safety. Just as well they weren't thirsty or die of the injuries that killed every other living being in a 200 kilometre radius. I'm sorry but this un-007-like story was bad and almost impossible to follow, perhaps an extra few bottles of champs would have helped. It bore almost no resemblance at all to a bond film but instead was a series of cutting-room-floor actions scenes cobbled together by a blind man and foisted off onto us as a carefully considered 007 feature film. The actors tried their best, but bless them, the words "silk purse" and "sows ear" come to mind. I DO like an action flick, and there was certainly action, but I don't think it was all filmed for this picture. I think some clever clogs in Hollywood had a little too much blow when stapled the scenes together, because I don't think he got them in the right order or in the right movie. Since our most entertaining thing about the evening was trying to find the nibbles in the dark, I would wait until the DVD comes to your local Blockbuster and goes to weekly, get 5 friends to chip in and you'll have value for money. As long, of course, as you have a six pack of champs, two bottles of voddie an endless-tray of nibbles and a whole bunch patience. The only reason we gave the film 3 was the Daniel was partially clad, but not, in our opinion, for anywhere near long enough to get the extra points. This movie was NOT a Bond film, it was its' poor mongrel cousin.
We wait in anticipation for the next instalment and hope this crew got the chop before the whole franchise is deader than a dingo's donger!