The new James Bond movie is a real dud. During the opening theme song I turned to my wife and noted “This song really sucks”. Nothing memorable like ‘Goldfinger’ by Shirly Bassy, ‘You Only Live Twice’ by Nancy Sinatra, ‘Live and Let Die’ by Paul McCartney, 0r even ‘A View to a Kill’ by Duran Duran.

It was noteworthy that the Bond gadgets were gone. No special high tech toys in the good guy’s aresenal. No specially equipped brief case with hidden knives, no dart ejecting cigarettes, no specially magnetic watches, no car with ejector seats, oil spewing defense mechanisms, and machine guns behind the head lights.

But what was most missing were Bond quality villains. There was no plot to take over the world’s gold supply like ‘Goldfinger’, destroy the human species and restart a master race in outer space as in ‘Moonraker’, black mail the western powers with stolen nuclear weapons like ‘Thunderball’, or destroy Silicon Valley and monoplolize the computer chip industry like ‘A View to a Kill.’

In Quantum of Solace there is a weasel who threatens the head of Bolivia with overthrow if he does not buy the country’s water supply from his monoploy. Instead of real villains with real evil this Bond fights amoral CIA hacks and greedy businessmen.

This Bond seems to try and copy the Bourne series with explosive fighting and jarring car chase scenes. Even Bond himself becomes a rogue agent like Bourne.

There is one bad ripoff when a Bond sex object is drowned in oil and her dead black shining body left on his bed, reminiscencent of Goldfinger.

Bourne is the new Bond.

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