Nothing special...disposable installment of the series

Rating: 6/10 (18 December 2008)

Having seen the first of the Daniel Craig 007 movies and enjoying it, I was looking forward to this sequel. It was at the cinema that I saw Craig's first up effort "Casino Royale" and I hadn't seen the film again. So, going into the sequel cold, I must say how disjointed it all felt. None of the baddies in the movie rung any bells for me, so I didn't really get a sense of this movie being a sequel, with Bond seeking vengeance on his girlfriend's murderers. Maybe the baddies in this movie weren't in the first movie, which would explain it.
If this movie is meant to be about Bond getting revenge, it doesn't really function well on that level either. Sure, it has the usual quota of action set pieces, but nothing memorable...like my first Bond movie, "For your eyes only" which had that classic scene of Bond driving a Mini at full speed down a winding hill road, backwards. Even "Casino Royale" had that daring foot chase scene in some dangerous locations.
The editing in this movie is hyper-kinetic. It's quite plausible, I think, to have this style of editing used to great effect-e.g.to create the illusion of something spectacular having happened when it would be very hard or expensive to actually do it (say for car chase sequences where dodging other cars is an issue), however, here the method is merely disorientating. You know something exciting is happening...you just don't know what it is...the camera spins and swoons and you're never really quite sure what is going on. Action fans may feel cheated by this. On "At the movies", the director explained that he wanted to put his own personal style on the movie. Personally, I don't think that this 'style' is very personal or effective.
Lastly, this just doesn't seem like it's following on directly after "Casino Royale" and it lacks the old Bond movie highlights of a great opening sequence (a la the Moore years) and a great title theme (with the likes of the legendary Shirley Bassey singing the theme to more than one Bond movie.
Action aplenty, signifying nothing.
P.S. I have recently rewatched this movie the day after rewatching "Casino Royale" again. This method does improve the coherence of the story (but not of the editing and cinetography, unfortunately!). So, I'd recommend watching this film soon after watching "Casino Royale". In that case I'd give this movie 75/100. It's a good story, with realistic evil schemes...just spoiled by incoherent and pretentious cinematography and editing.