No sense of adventure or fun

Rating: 1/10 (9 November 2008)

Craig is a dull, dour and po-faced bond.
QoS is as dumb as The Passion of the Christ, and just as illiterate. Craig is no fun to watch at all. See High School Musical 3 Senior Year - the stars are better looking.
In The Passion of the Christ you didn't want to look at the screen as this pleasure was made loathsome by what you saw. In QoS you look at the screen (if you can stay awake) but what you see you cannot make sense of and worse you don't enjoy what you see - a girl covered in oil! And you don't care about any of the characters in the film.
You should know by now that these films are hokum. If the writers and producers don't have the courage of their convictions they should stop. Enough already. This was already evident in Goldeneye in which Bond is called a dinosaur and 'Jimbo' and the theme music drowned out by tanks rumbling along. They're either sending it up or dumbly and cack-handedly self-referencing other more successful movies to grab their reflected glory (a girl covered in oil - oh dear! this moment crystallised for me the cynicism of this film).
In common with recent films in this series QoS has no sense of adventure.
My favourite sequence (I call this pure adventure) comes from The Man With the Golden Gun where we see Roger Moore as Bond piloting solo the sea plane to Scaramanga's island in Red Chinese waters flying low to avoid radar. Circling the island and landing on the small beach. Superb! the plane is later destroyed by Scaramanga with his gratuitous laser gun. 'I call that Solar Power' - 'I call that trouble' - 'I am now undeniably - the man with the golden gun'. I must also mention the famous car spiral jump across the river, modelled on computer and filmed successfully on the first take! 'I never done that before!' says Sheriff J W Pepper when the car lands on the other side, and picking himself up from the back seat where he has ended up. 'Neither have I actually' replies Bond. Superb! There are other moments like this in these films. The last really satisfying James Bond film for me is Octopussy. George Macdonald Fraser was a co-script writer! (author of the Flashman books). Here there are several good pure adventure sequences. Roger Moore as Bond investigating alone Octopussy's train for the atomic bomb and later trying alone to get to the circus in Karl Marx Stadt in time to stop the bomb.
In Live and Let Die, Roger Moore as Bond escaping the crocodiles, the speed boat chase and the famous boat jumps.
Sean Connery in Goldfinger driving alone the Aston Martin following Goldfinger in Austria.
Diamonds are Forever - Sean Connery in the back of Professor Metz's van on the way to the secret depot in the Nevada desert where the Satellite weapon is being assembled. The two wheel car stunt down the alley - 'Lean Over' into the alley on the right wheels and out on the left! Superb.
On Her Majesty's Secret Service. George Lazenby escaping from the cable car wheel house and skiing alone to freedom - a fist fight with one of Blofeld's thugs who falls over the precipice. Pure adventure! QoS has no sense of adventure because the film doesn't tell a story in which we relish the telling - it is too concerned about not being a James Bond film. What a bore.
Could M just stay in the office and let the boys have some fun? QoS lacks also any sense of fun. Octopussy - The auction sequence at Sotherby's and its aftermath is great fun to watch where Bond switches the fake egg for the real thing and bids for the egg to test the villain's resolve. Superb. M (superbly played by Robert Brown) tells Bond to leave the egg behind as it is now government property.
The first James Bond film I saw was Diamonds Are Forever, and I remembered for days after the sense of mock doom, and the red hot submarine exploding beneath the sea as Blofeld (again superbly played by Charles Gray) deployed his ludicrous laser weapon before locking it on Washington DC.
Unfortunately I can't say anything favourable about QoS at all - I can't remember much about it, and I doubt I'll sit though it again - life is too short - there are other films to see & other books to read... For now Bond seems to be dead unless a new production team can breath fresh life into him. A team who are not embarrassed with the fabulous hokum that is Bond! I didn't enjoy Casino Royale much either - Bond does not have his balls whipped.
QoS - Not enough hokum, not enough adventure, no fun. I'll watch one of the classics.