SO, okay, I may not be Bond fan 001, but I went to see the latest mix-me-a-martini-while-I-get-the-baddie-and-the-girl flick in the expectation of being entertained. I have seen my share of Bond, and was looking forward to some brainless fun.

But this time Bond is just plain boring. You can't fault Pierce Brosnan: I find him easy on the eye and he's a decent actor. The blame for this dud of a movie lies with the scriptwriter. Not only was the plot unbelievably flaky, but the one-line puns were lifted straight out of the seventies and hit you over the head with the subtlety of a sledgehammer. Sure, Bond films follow a certain formula, but that's no excuse for bad writing.

What looks like, on paper, an excellent supporting cast (Robert Carlisle, Robbie Coltrane, Judy Dench) and a John Cleese cameo are all wasted by a weak script that doesn't know how to use their talent. You get the sense that any two-bit actor could have delivered what are some very flat lines. You may get something out of this if you're a die-hard Bond fan, but even the action sequences seemed stale: how many times has that ski chase, that boat chase, that car chase been played in Bond films, anyway?