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First off, I like that there is a sense of consequences here. I like that in the opening scenes, there are all these small tragedies happening because of the wake of violence the spies spread. Ordinary people are getting hurt for real while the principles play games with lives. On the other hand, I think the action photography is a little too muddy and the cuts hard to follow. I liked the interspersing of things like Tosca or the race with the action sequences, but often things were made unnecessarily hard to follow because of the way they were lit and shot.

I share Squirrel's qualms about M suddenly getting stupid for this movie, but it occurred to me that as the theme was the questioning of motives, maybe M was deliberately setting things up to let Bond off the reservation. I hope that is the case because otherwise I feel heartily cheated. it seems to me if she really wanted to keep him she'd have sent a grizzeled old male agent and not a girl barely out of school.

Otherwise, I do like this bond. I do like the acting and the muddy motivations and sudden brutality under the smooth facade. This works for me in a way the old Bond movies never did, even though the plot was rather unsatisfying. The villains were ones I've seen before a million times, after all. I like Cammy though and Dominique was interesting to look at, though i kept wondering if the actor was stoned or if the character was meant to be.


So all in all a mixed positive.