So much to like here... but nothing is ever near-perfect in Bond-land.

The casting first of all. Brosnan is the face I see when I imagine Bond. He has the roughness of Connery, is the perfect age, is a very good actor. He sells himself as Bond in the first few moments and you find yourself asking "Moore? Lazenby? Dalton.... who?"

The plot is an interesting one. It's clearly a film left over from the Dalton days that has had the recent computer craze added in to it. It works on the whole but that is more for the use of 006 and the fiery Famke Janssen than anything else. The Alan Cummings character is an enjoyable comedic foil that owes a ot to the Moore years but it just about works.

The downsides... The music - awful electronic stuff that makes a Cold War looking film sound like it is in the wrong era. The budget feels smaller as the whole thing looks a little cheap - some dodgy use of stock footage doesn't help there. (I'm sure something was going on with MGM in the 6 years between films that contributed to that penny-pinching)

What I will say though is that this film offers up Pierce Brosnan as the heir apparent to Sean Connery and promises that he has the skills and talents to be the best Bond ever... If they give him the films.

What a refreshing surprise and a fantastic debut from Brosnan.


7.75/10