Quantum of Nonsense

Rating: 4/10 (1 January 2010)

I remember when I saw Casino Royale the day it came out in the cinemas in the UK. I had been ticking off the days, eagerly anticipating it's release and when I finally saw it it was so much better than I had ever hoped. I had a similar experience with The Quantum Of Solace, except this time by the time I finally got round to watching it I was going in with the lowest expectations and the film managed to pull off a miracle by managing to be even more awful than I thought it would be.
There is so much wrong with the film that you feel lost trying to pick it apart, so I think I'll start with the positives. Some of the action sequences are half-interesting and fairly neat in concept and the acting by Daniel Craig and Judi Dench is what you expect from both of them, but that is about it to be honest. Everything else sucks so much I'm surprised people still buy vacuum cleaners.
There isn't a plot to the film. It's pretty much the film equivalent of a dot-to-dot picture with all the action sequences planned out and then just joining them together brainlessly. This wouldn't have been so bad if the action had been completely original and breathtaking, but it is more likely to send you into a seizure due to the plain silly idea that a cut every nanosecond is going to make the action seem more realistic and gritty.
I think action is much more effective when you can see the bigger picture and take it all in. Seeing action unfold in a single uninterrupted take is like looking from the top of the Eiffel Tower and taking in all the sights and being stunned by the scale and beauty of what you see. Watching a sequence unfold from start to finish is what should be seen as a spectator. If I wanted to feel as if I was in the film myself and a part of what was going on I'd just play the video game. I want to be amazed, not left trying to figure out what the hell is actually going on in between random explosions and pointless shots of random debris! Of course, if you think that trying to figure out what is going on in the action sequences themselves is a challenge that even a team of Poirot, Sherlock Holmes and Clarice Starling (with a little help from Watson and Hannibal Lecter of course) wouldn't be able to get their combined intellectual nous around then god help you if you try to follow the actual plot. Most of it seems to consist of Daniel Craig running around looking moody and killing people for no real purpose other than hoping to trip over some information to why he's doing it in the process.
Hopefully, now that they have stopped making Bourne films, the Bond franchise will decide to move away from the flavour of the week style of handhelld incomprehensibility and make a film that manages to keep up with the tradition of the series, yet updated for a new generation, much like they succeeded to do with Casino Royale. One thing is for sure, by the time the next Bond film comes around, it will take a hell of a lot of shaking up for me to be stirred to see it.