Fleming: The Man Who Would Be Bond
BBC America | SKY | Release Date: January 29, 2014
CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
62
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 22 Critic Reviews
Positive:
10
Mixed:
11
Negative:
1

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
91
NewsdayDiane WertsJan 27, 2014
Season 1 Review: Their [John Brownlow and co-writer Don Macpherson's] saga is so vividly shaded, even minor characters resonate. Read full review
80
New York Daily NewsDavid HinckleyJan 29, 2014
Season 1 Review: With fine supporting players like Anna Chancellor as Fleming’s wartime superior, Second Officer Monday, and Rupert Evans as Ian’s brother Peter, this four-part series makes us care about people whose fate neither we nor they can easily summarize. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterTim GoodmanJan 29, 2014
Season 1 Review: Directed with aplomb by Mat Whitecross, who periodically decides, in the course of this four-hour feast, to stop making a movie about a man and instead make a Bond movie, Fleming is the kind of movie that winks at you constantly and you never get annoyed by the intimations. Read full review
80
TV Guide MagazineMatt RoushJan 29, 2014
Season 1 Review: Actually, his greatest gift was that of imagination, and Fleming is especially enjoyable as it dramatizes the exploits that would give birth the immortal 007. Read full review
75
New York PostMichael StarrJan 28, 2014
Season 1 Review: The performances here are all good, and the chemistry between Cooper and, particularly, his lovers is palpable. Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesRobert LloydJan 29, 2014
Season 1 Review: Despite its troublesome subject, the series succeeds, moderately, in letting you know that it knows that Bond, as his creator conceived him, is a relic, and that Fleming's pulp-novel aspirations are worth skewering. Read full review
70
SlateWilla PaskinJan 29, 2014
Season 1 Review: The Bond stuff is, on the whole, more enticing than Ann and Ian’s psychological pas de deux, which skirts up against real issues--and rape fantasies--before giving them a gauzy gloss of true love. Read full review
63
People WeeklyTom GliattoJan 31, 2014
Season 1 Review: Cooper is compelling as an overconfident hothead who sees creative potential around each corner. Trouble is, no matter what the writers dream up for Fleming, Fleming has already dreamed up better for Bond. [10 Feb 2014, p.48]
63
RedEyeCurt WagnerJan 28, 2014
Season 1 Review: If only writers John Brownlow and Don Macpherson focused more on Fleming's wartime spy-jinks than on his extended mating dance with the already married and cheating Ann. Read full review
63
Chicago Sun-TimesLori RacklJan 27, 2014
Season 1 Review: Fleming’s life could have used an editor; the four-part series feels repetitive and should have been cut in half. Read full review
60
The Huffington PostMaureen RyanJan 28, 2014
Season 1 Review: Cooper does a solid job with the title role, and the early installments have an engaging briskness. However, Fleming drags a bit in its second half; given its slender budget, it might have worked better as a three-episode miniseries. Read full review
60
Philadelphia InquirerTirdad DerakhshaniJan 28, 2014
Season 1 Review: An enjoyable if inflated and overwrought four-part mini-series. Read full review
58
Uncle BarkyEd BarkJan 30, 2014
Season 1 Review: Cooper and Pulver are fine in the lead roles, although there’s little to like about either character’s comportment. The music swells on cue but the story just doesn’t jell. Read full review
58
HitfixLiane Bonin Starr Jan 29, 2014
Season 1 Review: Fleming seems to want to have it both ways--a warts-and-all portrayal of a famous writer paired with heart-stopping adventure and intrigue. The problem, of course, is without Bond at the center of the excitement, we don't care much about what happens to Fleming. Read full review
50
Boston HeraldMark A. PerigardJan 29, 2014
Season 1 Review: Ultimately, Fleming will leave you neither shaken nor stirred. Read full review
50
The New York TimesNeil GenzlingerJan 28, 2014
Season 1 Review: The mini-series and its characters are all over the map, stylistically, seeming unable to find the right tone for the time period. Read full review
50
The A.V. ClubJohn TetiJan 28, 2014
Season 1 Review: Fleming’s problem is not the story it tells, but the details it chooses to enhance. Read full review
50
Entertainment WeeklyJeff JensenJan 27, 2014
Season 1 Review: Fleming sketches the inspirations for Bond and also indulges the criticisms of Bond (misogynistic, brutish) via his boorish creator (played by Dominic Cooper). Yet there's little depth to Cooper's rake, and the female characters are Bond-girl problematic. [31 Jan/7 Feb 2014, p.96] Read full review
50
VarietyBrian LowryJan 24, 2014
Season 1 Review: Fleming works only fitfully, despite conjuring an impeccable period look and feel filming in a trio of locales. Read full review
50
Wall Street JournalDorothy RabinowitzJan 24, 2014
Season 1 Review: When not trapped in the effort to wring excitement from Fleming's adventurous sex life, the series rolls on compellingly with his spying adventures, his role in creating a special operations unit. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleDavid WiegandJan 24, 2014
Season 1 Review: Fleming has its moments, but they are too few and even farther between. The last of the four episodes is the best, but you have to slog through the other three to get there. Read full review
38
Slant MagazineAlan JonesJan 27, 2014
Season 1 Review: Fleming the character is Bond without the mystery, and Fleming the miniseries is a Bond epic reduced to the most generic of redemption stories. Read full review
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