Stunningly good Bond film, the best in a long time. It starts with a bang: some black and white photography, as if to say "wake up and pay attention... we know what we're doing". So you do wakeup and are rewarded with a great movie.
The one it reminds me of most is my favourite, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, for a number of reasons: it has an odd structure (lots of explosive action set pieces, then settles into drama - kind of the opposite of OHMSS), it is quite faithful to the source material (the most since OHMSS), has a first-time Bond who excels in fight scenes, Bond genuinely falls in love and loses that love.
Daniel Craig is terrific, best since Connery - I can't believe people were launching petitions against him, esp in favour of Vanilla Brosnan (poor Brosnan, he did a decent job but that seems forgotten now in all this panting over Craig). Craig is top notch in the fighting scenes and decent in the romance; not as strong in the quips department, yet, but pretty good first time out. He really seems like a killer - the haunted eyes, professional movies; Lewis Collins is the one who would have been closest to him.
The film also has a superb Bond girl in the stunning, sad-eyed Eva Green (so beautiful, so tragic), a worthy villain in Mads Mikkelsen (who cries blood) and not one but two brilliant sidekicks: Jeffrey Wright is the first strong Felix Leiter ever, and made me angry that this character had been basically thrown away for so long; it's also got Giancarlo Giannini as the weary Mathis.
The story is so powerful it didn't need the extra kick of being the story of how Bond got established - that is material, really for another film. But since it is there, who cares? The locations are pleasingly exotic, the action sequences breathtaking - fights in Africa, a car chase at Miami; there is also decent suspense when Bond is poisoned.
Some of it slightly jarred - in the terrific opening fight scene, did we have to keep cutting away from it; there was one ending too many; the theme song was uninspiring; I got confused by Vesper's acts at the end But the strengths are so strong: the acting, the genuine exotic flavour (scenes set in Africa, few American characters), sense of humour, the action, and most of all sense of romanticism and drama which powers it.
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