"When you can't tell your friends from your enemies, it's time to go."

Rating: 7/10 (13 January 2020)

Having been amazed by viewing Casino Royale (2006) the day before,I found it to overshadow QoS when I first saw that film on the big screen, with QoS being less smooth than Casino, leading to me wanting to revisit the film on its own,when my memory of CR was less fresh.
Getting the Daniel Craig 007 films for fellow IMDber Red-Barracuda's birthday,and with a revisit having been on my "To do" list for years (!) I at last embraced the solace.
View on the film:
Revealed years later that the main draft of the script was completed just 2 hours before the US Writers Strike began, leading to the production unable to request re-writes, that ended up being done the director and the lead, who caused the movie to be more linked to Casino Royale than originally planned.
The disjointed building in Michael G. Wilson and Paul Haggis screenplay, (who re-wrote the credited Neal Purvis and Robert Wade's first draft from scratch) actually benefits the film,thanks to it capturing the disjointed state of Bond, torn between a dour desire for revenge ignited by the death of his love, with a thrilling blood rush to dive head-first into a mission against the murky dealings of Dominic Greene,and Bond Girl Camille, who is kept tantalisingly ambiguous over who side she is on.
Whilst the production issues were kept undercover in the script, they become visible in the action set-pieces, where co-writer/director Marc Forster and editors Matt Chesse and Richard Pearson piece Bond's fights together with a staple gun, clipping agitated half a second edits on grinding shaky cam.
Taking a completely different approach to the non-Action majority of the film, Forster & cinematographer Roberto Schaefer eye a excellent jet-set Euro Spy atmosphere, stylishly gliding on reflective surfacing mirroring 007's espionage activities,cracking on the sun-kissed locations, dried up from Greene's vicious water business dealings.
Opening a box which she finds contains info on assassinating her,Olga Kurylenko gives a terrific turn as Camille,whose Bond Girl glamour shines by punching into the fight scenes, which are rolled by Kurylenko with a lingering mistrust, whilst Mathieu Amalric gives a tasty, slippery take on boo-hiss baddie Greene.
Injured three times on the set, Daniel Craig gives a wonderful, gritty performance in his second mission, with Craig recoiling Bond's thirst for revenge,which is threaded by Craig with a growing determination to make this mission a success on the cards.