It's an official, family-starring affair, a little ploddy and reverential but smart in its use of clips and interviews.
Everything Or Nothing is a must for Bond fans and riveting proof that many of Bond’s most perilous, high stakes challenges occurred off screen.
There's more than enough to enjoy, and plenty about the remarkable and melancholy figure of Fleming himself, who never lived quite long enough to enjoy the success of his creation.
Like a 007 adventure it boasts a great first act then soon settles into a routine formula with questionable treatment of certain individuals.
Untold? Hardly. Yet as Skyfall appetisers go, this thorough survey of how Ian Fleming, Cubby Broccoli and Harry Saltzman created a phenomenon could barely be bettered.
Everything Or Nothing moves as rapidly and as brutally as the bullet Bond fires into our faces as it deals with Fleming's finally fulfilled fantasies and lust for fame, and the infighting involved in the creation of a franchise, an institution, a national treasure and a gold mine that kept revealing new seams for those prepared to keep digging.
It’s frequently funny, sometimes poignant and always interesting.
In the end, though, it's all a shameless bit of self-promotion by rights holders Sony to flog the upcoming Blu-ray releases of its Bond back-catalogue and Daniel Craig’s third outing as the spy in Sam Mendes' Skyfall, which hits cinemas 23 Oct, and, like many of the Bond movies, is probably more at home on bank holiday telly than on the big screen.
General release. Check local listings for show times.
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