If you like brainless Bourne-pandering and don't think too highly of expectation, it's a return to grass roots, with scenarios you could easily associate with the Brosnan era, but fully fitting into Craig's world, for those that were wowed by the psychology and drama of the more relaxed and grounded Casino Royale...don't bother looking for it.

There are great, very quiet scenes that struggle to remind the audience of such gravitas, like the sting operation at the opera, an enjoyable Bourne-esque version of something similar to The Godfather murders, about any scene Dench has etc...but there's nothing there. Craig's Bond doesnt give a **** about Vesper, and neither does the audience. There are no flashbacks to Vesper, no sequences of her calling out to Bond in the desert (oh don't get me started on the waste of time that was the walk through the desert back to a fully populated city and hotel...pointless, utterly pointless "cool shot" and nothing else), no visual attempt to anchor her meaning to Bond whatsoever since the movie constantly boasted he was struggling still with "loss"...pfft, he was over her when he said "the bitch is dead" in Casino Royale and displays a typical attiude to work the whole film.

All Vesper means to Bond by the movie's dull and dry conclusion is a shrug of his shoulders and him saying "Meh, she was a good shag". What Casino Royale had built up surrounding the nameless organisation and Vesper's boyfriend were completly evaporated when the incomprehensible plot that made Greene's associates look like they wanted to simply build the world's largest Tetris game, and the conclusion is just very wet.

If Vesper's dropped necklase in the snow was a homage to one of the covers for OHMSS, it represented more of a dropped ball than any love letter to a vastly superior novel and Bond movie.

There's a mention of "Quantium" (the name of the organisation), and the "solace" portion of the title is depicted as visually out of reach rather than stated when Bond's saying goodbye to the main girl of the film.

Dominic Green was quite ineffectual as a villain. His organisation's intents were inexplicable, and the insane girl-raping stereotypical general? C'mon Barbera and Michale, this isnt 1995.

"Fields" (whose real name is in the credits, it's way too silly for words), was a paper pushing secretary who gives up on her assigned task immediatly to shag Bond. Obviously these "two in a row" Bond girls produce uninspired groans from even the writers these days, as do the "Rebellious Bond is rebellious" scenes.

Get a new idea.

***1/2