I guess I'll die another day

Rating: 2/10 (30 October 2008)

What a big step-down QoS is. If you are expecting the Godfather Part II or a sequel equal to The Dark Knight you are in for a huge disappointment. Despite being the highest budgeted Bond film ever (just where all the money went is beyond me), QoS is half-hearted and extremely simple. Of all the Bond films in history I've never seen one as straight-forward as this. Yet despite the simplistic nature, it's also an incomprehensible mess. I kid you not...you've NEVER seen an absolute MESS OF A FILM than this.
As a direct sequel to Casino Royale the film drops pretty much ALL plot and focuses on action. What little story there is, almost the same story from A View to a Kill (which was actually a carbon copy of Goldfinger), is nothing more than a weak excuse to string together a bunch of action scenes that feel more like alternate Jason Bourne fights rather than a Bond film. There's no mystery, no puzzle-solving and nothing resembling dangerous espionage. The 105-minute running time cripples QoS. Don't get me wrong, I hate films that are padded with dead weight, but QoS just feels too light and too hurried.
Daniel Craig handles the action well, but is thoroughly un-engaging when it comes to the emotional scenes. I don't like his interpretation of Bond and I am sick to death of all these 'tragic action heroes' that are so damn common these days. I'm also sick of guns as an extension of manhood, which QoS has a lot of.
The British press made a big hoo-hah over Gemma Arterton being cast as a Bond Girl (a term that I really don't like), but I swear she's in it for about five minutes and has about ten lines of dialogue before she meets a strange end in an obscure Goldfinger reference.
Eon made a big mistake in hiring Marc Forster. The class and elegance of Casino Royale has been replaced by the raging, confused testosterone of a hormonal fourteen-year-old boy. Robert Wade and Neal Purvis (who have spent way too long with the series) delivered their worst Bond screenplay so far. It's like they were afraid to put any kind of signature on it, resulting in the film feeling completely alien to the Bond universe. Take away the character and this unintelligible drivel could be any Statham or Seagal straight-to-DVD trash. I could type paragraphs and paragraphs about how utterly asinine the plot is, but I've got better things to do with my time, like pressing a burning iron against my skin.
Bond should call it a day. He's been in the movies for close to 50 years and, in my opinion, he's had too many restarts, too many women, and too many missions. Bond is a dinosaur and completely out of place in the modern world. Despite attempts at making him relevant and contemporary, I feel that his time is up and that he should step aside for a new hero. Just not a 'tragic' one.