Shaken - or just stirred?

Bond is a brute in a suit - it's Sex and the City for men - and the explosions are cool

THERE'S an episode of I'm Alan Partridge where that paragon of chat plans to watch all of the James Bond films back-to-back. His Russian mail-order bride, eager to please, keeps making dumb comments, mistaking Connery for Lazenby, etc. "Stop getting Bond wrong!" implores Partridge.

There is, as so often with Partridge, something recognisable in this. Bond brings out the pedant in all men, both the cad and the geek.

But as perfectly intelligent women are fond of saying when I question their idiotic worship of the vacuous Sex and the City what's wrong with indulging your worst side for a bit of entertainment?

Quantum of Solace is in many ways a departure. Unlike the subdued Casino Royale, the action does not relent. Daniel Craig's Bond chases and is chased on foot, in boats, cars and aeroplanes. No sooner has he slipped on a Tom Ford shirt, than he bloodies it. There's precious little quippage, none of the camp of the Pierce Brosnan era. There's not even much by way of seduction, just enough to prove he can if he so wants (there's a delightful, almost doleful ease in the way he beds Gemma Arterton's character).

This is all fine. Craig excels at taking punishment. The endless, brilliant action sequences look and sound as if they properly hurt yet he always walks away with dignity. He is a brute in a suit.

I don't think Partridge would like it, to be honest - he is a Moore man. Women will strongly dislike it.

But it's not for them. In its superior depiction of the male condition get smacked, pretend it doesn't hurt it is among the few intelligent movies aimed at men. There is something numbly moving in its relentlessness.

Oh - and explosions are cool.

SHE SAYS...

No wit, no charm - he's all but lost interest in bedding beauties. Even the dresses are dull

WOMEN are always incredulous when I tell them. "You've never seen a Bond film?" they cry. "You don't find Sean Connery attractive?" Well, I hadn't and no, I don't. Until 2006 I had never entered into the collective love-affair that women have with Bond. But I was tempted by the re-invention of 007, and I'll admit it, all it took was a flash of semi-naked Daniel Craig to reel me in.

After Casino Royale I got it, the wit, the sophistication, the conquests the reason for Connery's eternal ability to top the "most sexy" polls. So it was with an unashamed lust for chic outfits and one particular bare chest that I went to see Quantum of Solace a mistake. Bond, in its latest guise, is for boys. Just for boys.

I'm no chick-flick fan and I can handle a fist-fight or five, which is good because there are plenty, but I expected romance too or at least a spot of fashion.

Outfits are out, apparently. Yes, we see a couple of Prada dresses, a glimpse of Burberry, but the girls get only four outfits between them. It really is a case of "If you've seen the poster, you've seen it all". Olga Kurylenko might be stunning in Jasper Conran but we need a bit more than off-the-rack from Debenhams to inspire our inner Ursula Andress.

As for seduction, Bond evidently has new priorities. The bare-fleshed moments are so limited (total score: 1) that I was pining for those unyielding blue trunks from the last film, and it seems he has all but lost interest in bedding beauties. You're upset about Vespa, we get it we liked her too, that's why we're back in the cinema but why are you the only British man who has never heard of the rebound, or just plain-old taking advantage?

For me, gratification will come in the guise of that unwatched back-catalogue of Bond classics instead. The rest of womankind might have to accept that he's just not that into us. So ditch him, and move on.