Which is lucky, because that's what I did today.
I was expecting the exhibition to make at least a token gesture towards being, well, sciencey. The mathematics behind the rolling car jump in The Man With The Golden Gun, whether it's physically possible for a woman to do that with her thighs, and so on. Instead it was the usual girlsgunsgadgetscarsexplosions formula. But seldom have I seen so many props gathered together in one place - including many vehicles and models from Die Another Day - and it was nicely laid out, with a perfect M's Office where I would have lingered if the representatives of an Indonesian TV channel hadn't been filming in there (they were interviewing punters and I did hope they would choose to ask me which was my favourite Bond, but I guess I looked too fanboy).
A nice touch is the 'Agent Card' you receive as you enter, which can be swiped at a number of terminals along the themed route to access related gobbets of multimedia. There are also Bond movie questions to be answered, and at the end you are judged on your performance. (Mine was pitiful, if you care.)
Supposedly the grand finale of the tour is the explosion of the villain's lair, in which some lights flash as you completely fail to guess the sequence which turns off the self-destruct mechanism. Really, of course, the climax is the attached gift shop. I was strongly tempted to go wild, as you can only access the merchandise if you've forked out the nine quid it costs to go round the exhibition, but managed to persuade myself that it was the same old Science Museum tat as you could get in the shop downstairs only silver and with a 007 logo, and besides I probably had enough notepads and pencils. So I contented myself with a 40th Anniversary badge and a rather nifty keyring torch.
The fun has not yet ended. I am about to head for www.jamesbondexhibition.com and enter the top secret agent number embossed on my card, thus gaining entry to yet more multimedia goodies and games.
Over and out.
