Spectacular stunts and scenery, disjointed plot

Rating: 4/10 (18 November 2006)

This movie had incredible stunts and exotic venues, from seaside villas to magnificent wood-carved rooms. However, the plot unfolded like an I-Ching reading--resembling a loosely related pile of entities which could only be interpreted by filling in the blanks and by having some intuitive luck at figuring out how this bunch of scenes is supposed to be tied together in one movie. With any Bond film, we have to suspend belief as James flings and contorts his way through bombs, skewers, and third-world assassins. However, in previous Bond films, it was clear that the character was a figment of Fleming's imagination, akin to no real-life hero. Not so with this film, that unsuccessfully blended the reality of torture with the an occasional funny moment. Leading the list of disjointed characters is M, which may stand for "mother" or "murder" depending upon the scene in which we catch her. No one is constant in this film except Bond, and even he is unremorsefully guilty of cold acts of violence. This movie should have ended after the sweet pseudo-denouement, which would have spared us from the last roller coaster ride into puzzlement about the final scenes. Perhaps the last part would have sufficed as an alternative ending, but it did not ring with a satisfying note as a full-fledged movie conclusion. A movie of this advertised caliber should not have been edited by minimum-wage teenagers, but that's what it felt like by the end. I prefer my Bond as a character who knows he's playing Bond, not as an attempt to make him a nitty-gritty reality. Put more reality into the plot, so we can follow the action unfettered with confusion.