Why the latest Bond movie failed to charm

Rating: 3/10 (15 November 2008)

Although my first reaction to this movie was "How on earth could they make this one ?", I later sat down thinking and here's why Quantum of Solace never worked any of the charm that it's predecessor had: 1. There's a labored attempt to make this Bond appear really cool, to the point that he never speaks outside very short sentences. That's fine, but then you make the screenplay writer walk on a very thin edge--- if you don't get the right lines, that attempt at smartness might appear ridiculous, which it does here. Right in the post-climactic scene, where Bond finally realizes that going for revenge was not worth it, or to put it better, when Bond finds his quantum of solace, the terse, "smart" lines are so out-of-place that the audience was actually giggling audibly. 2. Why do the villains have to be comedians, unless they are American/English ? The Bolivian General Medrano was such a clown that it took away half the edge from the story. 3. Then the two women in the story ---couldn't they at least get a better cast ? Gemma Arterton as Strawberry Fields is so pathetic; instead of someone dispatched from the highest authority in London to restrain Bond, she appears like some ordinary idiotic cute girl just graduated from college, quite willing to run after Bond like a pet dog( for want of a better analogy). As for Olga Kurylenko as Camille Montes, she dropped way down my list, as soon as she walked right into her supposed killer's hands, with only some ridiculously faint protest. Her acting couldn't have been worse. These two actresses coupled together reminded me of Kate Capshaw in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, and I had never thought I would ever see worse acting. But, then, again, maybe it was not the actors, it was the miserable screenplay that never let the movie rise above being a farce. But, farce it was, there's no doubt about it.