James Bland ?

Rating: 7/10 (1 November 2015)

My anticipation for this movie was such that I had avoided all print spoilers and pictures, any adverts on TV or trailers at the cinema so that I could approach it as fresh as possible. What I was left with was a bit of an empty experience, one that I hope will better served by repeat viewings. Whereas, having watch previous Bond movies at the cinema and having been thrilled by the action, stunned by the stunts and excited by the story the only thing I could really compliment this on was Thomas Newman's music. It wasn't the story, the actual plot and how it moves forward generally works well and it wasn't the cast - Craig is still great as Bond, Lea Sedoux was fine as the main Bond girl and the support did their job in what limited capacity they had, even Belluci who I thought did more than enough to earn her place (despite what others may say). The direction though was incredibly flat, the action sequences were nothing special, not by Bond standards - the second unit stuff on the helicopter pre-title sequence was quite naff and the bit on the Thames at the end where Bond is chasing Blofeld, where he's got his 9mm and it's let's take a shot and another. And another. And another. And another....and oh look we've finally hit the engine....just very lame. I appreciated that there were multiple nods to the previous movies with various set pieces (Moonraker / On Her Majesty's Secret Service / The Living Daylights being the most prominent) but it left the movie bereft of it's own style. I am one of the few people who loves Quantum Of Solace as it was brave enough to be different. It was thrilling, had great dialogue and was visually like nothing Bond has done before. Sure, Dominic Green was a waste of space, but was Blofeld any better ? Cursed with a Star Trek II non-twist of revealing that the character you know is another person, Christoph Waltz seemed bored to be there. Yes the story was good, but the dialogue was pretty dire and I hated the 'Scooby Gang' feel of M, Tanner, Moneypenny and Q helping out as it felt like we'd stepped into a Joss Whedon movie...... But hey, the music was good. Please, pretty please, if you're going to make this right next time let's have the set up that seems to have been suggested by the end of this movie, in that Bond and Swann drive off into the sunset, be the pre-title sequence of Bond 25 with Spectre killing Swann, ala On Her Majesty's Secret Service and have Bond go all Revenge-tastic in the next film. .....and let someone else direct....be it Christopher Nolan, Steven Spielberg or hell, get John McTiernan or Paul Verhoeven in.