- Network: BBC America , SKY
- Series Premiere Date: Jan 29, 2014
Critic Reviews
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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.
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An enjoyable if inflated and overwrought four-part mini-series.
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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.
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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.
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Ultimately, Fleming will leave you neither shaken nor stirred.
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The mini-series and its characters are all over the map, stylistically, seeming unable to find the right tone for the time period.
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Fleming’s problem is not the story it tells, but the details it chooses to enhance.
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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]
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Fleming works only fitfully, despite conjuring an impeccable period look and feel filming in a trio of locales.
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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.
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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.
User score distribution:
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Positive: 16 out of 22
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Mixed: 4 out of 22
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Negative: 2 out of 22
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Jan 31, 2014