Bondectomy: Taking a Bond film and surgically removing style and substance

Rating: 1/10 (14 November 2008)

This latest Bond is a collection of pretty poorly organised set pieces strung together by a plot that is actually made of holes. I didn't like Casino Royale With Cheese much but I respected the intention behind it. I still think they should have just called it "Bourne Begins" and had done with it but then (thank God) I don't work in UA's marketing department. Having said that, I liked Craig as Bond and I was looking forward to this film in the hope that they could do something different to Casino. They did. Sadly not in a good way.
Craig has none of the panache or wit he displayed in Casino and while I respect Kurilenko's artistry (in removing all clothing at every opportunity) I don't think she's a great actress and not even a great Bond girl. Dench comes off as indecisive, one minute she's condemning Bond the next supporting him. None of this is the actors fault who, I think, do as much as they can with what they have but what they do have is minimal.
--Spoiler--
Starting moments after the end of the last film Bond is chased to Siena with the captured Mr White in the boot of his car. White promptly escapes courtesy of M's bodyguard who, it turns out, was actually Mr Deus E. MacHina. Bond pursues him across the rooftops of Siena before they both fall into a big Heath Robinson / Rube Goldberg machine and Bond kills him.
Chasing a money trail to Haiti, Bond decides to rescue noted Bolivian Irina Androvnova Norkoutski from the clutches of the evil General Belgrano who's kidnapped her at the behest of her boyfriend Mr Green, Mr White's colleague. Sadly Messrs Teal, Magenta and Cyan wont be appearing until the next film. The General wants Mr Green's money to finance his coup in Bolivia. He's spotted that, after about 30 years of universal suffrage, free elections and political stability, what the Bolivians really want is another bloody great civil war.
The Americans (now taking over from the British as the world's bad guys) have agreed to recognise the General as the head of the Bolivian government if they can have the oil that they believe Mr Green has found under the Bolivian desert. Bond follows Green to Austria and listens in on a board meeting of SMERSH... sorry SPECTRE... sorry, Quantum. During his escape he appears to have killed a special branch bodyguard and is disavowed. He recruits his colleague Mathis (from Casino)and the two of them head off to Bolivia where they are met by Totty McDoomed (Gemma Arterton, fresh from critical pannage in unilateral sh1tfest St Trinians), an attractive attaché from the British Consulate. The film makers, wisely realising that it takes too much effort to write sexy, witty dialogue, have Bond seduce Totty in one of the most ludicrous moments in film history. Bond and Totty go up to his suite and Bond says "I cant find the stationary" and in the next scene he and Totty are in bed together. Yer-what!? It's like a badly made porno without the money shot. Did I miss the memo about the pant-dampening eroticism of stationary? As a man, do I fail to see Bond's smouldering seductiveness? This is a moment that achieves new heights in the pantheon of lazy writing.
Bond gets hold of a plane and with Irina in tow goes in search of Mr Green's proxy and discover that Green's been collecting water not oil. It's lucky for him that Bolivia only has one source of water because otherwise it might be difficult to corner the entire country's supply.
Returning to the hotel, Totty has been drowned in oil. For why, we are never told. Possibly Green is just kinky that way but given that it's already been established that his plan involves water not oil it's a strange choice. Bond doesn't have time to lament the loss of another of the world's great stationary fetishists because the CIA want him dead. He escapes and, for reasons too secret to let the audience in on, knows to chase Green and the General to a hotel in the middle of the Bolivian desert. It turns out that the Hotel, built on sustainable environmental principles is also the worlds most flammable building so Bond sets it on fire. Take that environmentalism! I'm not a massive environmentalist (as can be judged by the fact that I normally leave the "environ" out when using the word) but I cannot help but think that this is some crazed subconscious attack on the whole movement by the writer. Perhaps his father was killed by some particularly "live" yogurt.
While the building collapses Bond kills some people and cripples Green. Camille kills the General. Bond maroons Green in the middle of the desert with a only can of motor oil to drink presumably in recompense for drowning Totty in the stuff.
Finally Bond goes to Russia and find's dead ex Vespa's boyfriend who is busy seducing a new target. Bond has the boyfriend arrested and forgives Vespa for betraying him in Casino.
--Spoiler--
Quantum of Balls has the realism of Moonraper, the originality of Never Say Hairpiece Again, the acting of On Her Majesties Big Pile of Australian Pants, the continuity of The World Is Not ADD Enough, and all the style of Octopieceofeck. It's sort of a "perfect storm" of bad Bond films. Frankly it should be avoided like the plague.