 The film was similarly well received in North America . MSNBC gave the movie a perfect 5 star rating . The film was described as taking James Bond " back to his roots " , similar to From Russia with Love , where the focus was on character and plot rather than the high @-@ tech gadgets and visual effects that were strongly criticised in Die Another Day . Rotten Tomatoes gave the movie an aggregate rating of 95 % , the highest rating for a wide @-@ release of the year . It is the fourth @-@ highest rating for a Bond film on the site behind Goldfinger which received a 96 % , From Russia with Love which received a 96 % , and Dr. No , with a 96 % score . Metacritic gave the movie a Metascore of 80 , signifying " generally favorable reviews " . Entertainment Weekly named the film as the fifth best of the series , and chose Vesper Lynd as the fourth best Bond girl in the series . Some newspaper columnists and critics were impressed enough by Craig 's performance to consider him a viable candidate for an Academy Award nomination . Roger Ebert gave the film a four out of four star rating , and wrote that " Craig makes a superb Bond ... who gives the sense of a hard man , wounded by life and his job , who nevertheless cares about people and right and wrong , " and that the film " has the answers to all my complaints about the 45 @-@ year @-@ old James Bond series , " specifically " why nobody in a Bond movie ever seems to have any real emotions . " Time Out New York 's Joshua Rothkopf called Craig " the best Bond in the franchise 's history , " citing the actor 's " crisp , hateful , Mamet @-@ worthy snarl ... This is a screwed @-@ up Bond , a rogue Bond , a bounder , a scrapper and , in the movie 's astoundingly bleak coda , an openhearted lover . " 
