Endless unrealistic action and not enough plot.

Rating: 5/10 (31 October 2008)

Casino Royale reinvented the Bond franchise to give bond back some dignity by digging the franchise out of an ugly hole. Sadly, the franchise seems to be digging itself back into the hole, by having endless action sequences with little in terms of a strong plot.
The film is meant to follow straight on from where Casino Royale finished, yet it seemed as though Bond had entered a completely different world. Although the storyline managed to involve familiar faces, such as Mr. White, Felix Leiter, Mathis, and a photo of Vesper Lynd, the plot and acting was so weak that it did not live up to being a sequel. The action sequences performed were too unrealistic and blurry that seemed to be a take of the Bourne franchise, but in this case was badly done. Unlike Casion Royale, Bond was less humanised, which was the reason why Casino Royale was so widely praised, instead it had Bond acting too much like a Jason Bourne, constantly rampaging across different locations giving him more of a 2D persona with little done to emphasise his reason for action. The acting was another floor, Craig did his best to bring back the his original interpretation of Bond, but the plot made it impossible for him to do so. The rest of the characters just seemed to be there to keep the plot flowing. However, Olga Kurylenko deserves appraisal for her performance as the long suffering victim, who has done everything to gain vengeance on the culprits who did this to her. Yet, her character development was also suppressed by the poorly constructed plot. The film ends with a totally unoriginal climax, involving the fight scenes and explosions at the villain's headquarters. Furthermore, it has Bond gaining his vengeance for the loss of Vespa by the weakest possible circumstances, resulting in him going back to his own ways.
Overall, the film did very little to carry the franchise and should really have stayed true to how Casion Royale was depicted.