The trouble is these days the Bond formula is the universal narrative template for most mainstream thrillers (think of a theme park with 10 great rides and no waiting) and a goodly number of action movies do Bond better than Bond himself. Despite the superficial adjustments and modernisations, The World is Not Enough adheres resolutely to the time-tested recipe: the babes with toaster-slot cleavages (in this case the cartoonishly pneumatic Denise Richards, giving 90210% all the way), the baroque baddies, the touristy locations, the gadgets, the kiss-off lines, and the soft-porn credits (accompanied by a Garbage theme song that belongs firmly at the Sheena Easton/Duran Duran end of the Bond song quality-spectrum). A changing formula would doom a franchise in 40 minutes, and it's been nearly 40 years - 40 very remunerative years - since Ursula Andress walked out of the surf in that white bikini in Dr No. Then again, you don't go to a Bond movie because of the reviews, and you certainly don't go because you want anything new. Perhaps the addition of a name director like Michael Apted makes very little difference, since the cast-iron 007 formula always bends everything and everyone to its own ruthless purposes, including Apted and villain Robert Carlyle. The World is Not Enough had the best Bond opening ever, which is hardly surprising given the saturation advertising campaign behind it, including the kaleidoscopic array of product-placement ads featuring Pierce Brosnan (the guy must feel like a pimp), though the reviews were lukewarm all round. And this past weekend marked the first time in box-office history (boring statistics alert, people) that two movies have both made more than $30m apiece: the new Bond movie, The World is Not Enough, took a princely $37.5m and Sleepy Hollow, Tim Burton's very loose Washington Irving adaptation, made $30m.

Pokémon has since tumbled to number three with $13.4m though it's likely to have banked $90m by the time Thanksgiving is over. Last week it was the rabidly hyped toddlermania phenomenon Pokémon, which cleaned up to the tune of $50m despite an ineptly run tie-in campaign that culminated with the CEO of Burger King taking out full-page newspaper ads explaining 'Why I Am Currently Not the Most Popular Parent in America'. But the reason you can tell it's nearly the holiday season is the sheer amount of money being spent already.

Cruise for Christmas by Andrew Grey