Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Rating: 2/10 (23 July 2016)

There are spoilers from the start – the point of a negative review like this is to save you wasting your time on something you may not enjoy and in order to explain why the plot doesn't work, I have to say what it is. Here's a thumbnail. Bond has a little mishap, decides to take some time off (for no reason we're ever told) then later sees MI6 under attack and returns, but (for no reason we're ever told) unable to shoot straight or pass any test for suitability as an agent. Of course he's put straight back into the field and helps an international terrorist achieve his goal of killing M. Pretty stupid, right?
Fine, it's only Bond, so am I taking it too seriously? Well, if the plot doesn't matter, what remains of those wonderful Connery films? Bond dallying with gorgeous women? – nope, a couple of women have tiny parts, and JB doesn't lay a finger on either of them. Fun gadgets? – nope, apparently we've got rid of those too. A clever screenplay, based on a brilliantly witty Fleming novel? – nope, since we ran out of novels, we don't seem to bother much about the repartee any more. Great, or at least adequate, acting performances? – nope, Dan Craig used to be able to act (didn't he?) but recently just struts about trying to be Vin Diesel with face perpetually set into a hard-man grimace, Bardem is stupidly OTT at all times, and even the wonderful Dame Judi doesn't seem to care much any more – and with a plot and screenplay like this, who can blame her? All we're left with is a lot of running around, shooting and missing, and explosions. A gazillion cheap B-movies have all of this and plenty of them have better plots, acting and screenplays too.
Just to return to the stupidity – the movie's defining feature. With the bad guy in his sights, stranded on a ladder, why does Bond not shoot him, instead talking about nothing much until the guy dumps a tube-train on his head? Stupid. When the bad guy gives his gun to M, imploring her to kill them both with the same bullet, why doesn't she just shoot him? Stupid. When they escape via a secret passage to the middle of a midnight moor, why do they wave a flashlight around so the bad guy knows where they are? You guessed it – stupid. Why does the bad guy 'want to be captured' so he can escape and launch a terrorist attack, why not just launch the attack? Clichéed and stupid. And the acme of stupidity. A nasty terrorist wants to kill M. Oh dear, whatever shall we do? I know! – let's take her to a remote Scottish country house. Let's make sure no-one but the terrorist (along with his small army of thugs equipped with helicopters, explosives and high-tech weaponry) knows where she is. Let's defend her only with a washed up agent who can't shoot straight, and an old gamekeeper type, the two of them armed with nothing much at all. Then, when she's unsurprisingly killed, let's say well done to Mr B (whose moronic idea all this was) and line him up for further doubtless equally stupid sequels.
How stupid does this stuff have to get before people stop liking it? How much more stupid is it in fact possible to get? I appreciate that people do like movies of this type, especially if money's been spent to make them look glossy, as it has here, but if making some kind of sense is important to you, better avoid this.