Better than a whole bottle of sleeping pills.

Rating: 6/10 (10 November 2012)

Once again, the specter of unmitigated HYPE rears it's ugly head. And once again, I fell prey to the liberal use of it, wasting my hard earned money to watch his aging dinosaur on IMAX, and to describe this film as a colossal waste of time is just as gross an understatement. Just as "Casino Royale" brought new blood and new excitement to the 50-year old franchise with the addition of the superb Daniel Craig (in this reporter's opinion, the best James Bond ever, superior to even my original favorite, Sean Connery), this turkey was more effective than a bottle of sleeping pills, at least for me. The only thing I enjoyed was listening to Adele sing the theme song. But after her stirring rendition, everything quickly went south. Frankly, the same old 007 tricks simply fail to work anymore... even the solemn reading of, "Bond... James Bond," falls as flat as the proverbial pancake in this overpriced dud. Just how many times can we watch Fight To The Death opening scenes, casino scenes with a martini, shaken, not stirred, an ex-Soviet bloc Bond woman with a highly conflicted background, and a di riguer car chase scene before we holler, "Uncle!"?? And that Tyrolean haunted house matte painting that doubles as Bond's ancestral mansion, looked as phony and contrived as the family manse in "Batman" (with the exception that 'Batman' was never intended to be anything more than a cartoon). Now I'm going to reveal the ending, so anyone who hasn't seen this loud, action-filled dinosaur, you can stop reading now... whenever just a shot of the old Bond automobile, the iconic Aston Martin DB5, receives more applause than the actors, you know you're in for a long sit (hopefully, you're in a comfy recliner seat). And when the only thing that even keeps your leaden eyelids open is watching the superb Judi Dench getting whacked (sorry Ralph Fiennes, as great an actor as you are, you'll never replace her) , and even the incredible Javier Bardem can't quite live up to his terrifying turn as the psychotic hit man in "No Country For Old Men," you know that this expensive piece of eye candy has simply ran out of gas. While attempting to mix this new film with a bit of the old, the innumerable homages to the original Bond films makes us only long for the freshness of the original. But unfortunately, I just can't see this franchise, like the Super Bowl, go on forever. While 'Casino Royale' gave us a rousing, full blooded vision of what a retooled Bond film could be, this third installation turned out to be a classic, full bore... bore.