What you get is a bruised forearm movie in its purest raw form. From the opening to the close, we are treated to a James Bond film stripped down to its bare essentials: Bond, a beautiful girl, a nasty villain and thrilling action scenes that take other action films off to the side and tell them just how inadequate they are.
Daniel Craig knocks it out of the park once again with a low key but very intense and tough performance. His Bond is raw and cool with a hint of humor to balance things out a bit. I could watch this man play Bond until the day I die.
The other performances are good too, with Camille and Greene standing out the most for me. Greene is a superb villain. Smart and vicious and while you don't exactly think he'll be able to take Bond out in their fight, you at least believe he's psychotically enraged enough to get lucky. Dude's got some freaky looking eyes too.
The action is great with my favorite scenes being the rooftop chase (the stuff with the ropes and scaffolding is wonderfully inventive) and the hotel finale. The hotel is really cool and that fight between Greene and Bond is a real showstopper. Funny how in four movies, Pierce only got one real standout fist fight and two films into his tenure, Craig has four great ones. Odd.
Overall, everything clicks in this entry, with only the main title song and titles taking some adjusting too (I think they're fine but I still prefer Daniel Kleinman's stuff). This is a great film that to me, is a spiritual adaptation of the Union Trilogy which I feel is Raymond Benson's crowning achievement, blended with the raw grittiness of classic Fleming.
In other words, this film kickws some serious
! 9/10
