Shoddily directed and horrifically edited, but not a total misfire.

Rating: 6/10 (25 November 2019)

Quantum was my least favorite Bond movie for quite some time. After the over-ambitious Spectre, I look back at Quantum with fondness due to its simplicity. Not necessarily in its plot, but in its treatment of Bond as a character and his coming to terms with Vesper's death. It's an epilogue to Casino Royale. Bond is hellbent on revenge, and it's fun to watch that side of Bond every once in a while - it's like a discount Jason Bourne movie, and that's fine by me. Daniel Craig is great as always, as is Judi Dench and the rest of the supporting cast. The problems with Quantum lie mainly in the directing and editing.
The film opens with a car chase; Bond is being perused by thugs. Why? We find out later, but the fact that we have no information at the start makes it really hard to care about the action that's happening. On top of that, the camera is moving and cutting every half-second, it's nearly impossible to tell what's happening. This is consistent throughout the film, and it almost ruins the movie for me. It's genuinely awful.
We're eventually led to our Bond Girl Camille, who is one of the better Bond Girls actually, and she leads Bond to our main villain, Dominic Greene - a businessman who wants to buy a pipeline to steal Bolivia's water supply. Not exactly a James Bond-level threat, is it? Greene is not an intimidating villain whatsoever, nor is his henchmen Elvis, who is possibly the worst character in the history of cinema, and that's not even an exaggeration. He has a bowl cut and has no interaction with Bond at all. At least Greene has a creepy look in his eye. He's no match for Bond physically in any sense, but their final confrontation is entertaining if only to watch Greene yelp as he's swinging an axe for dear life trying to avoid Bond's fists while his fuel cell-ridden desert hotel explodes behind them. It's a good sequence, and the only standout moment in the film.
The rest plays out like a standard revenge story. Camille wants revenge against General Medrano for killing her family, and Bond wants revenge for Vesper by going after the organization that was blackmailing her. The writing is serviceable, especially considering the writer's strike; it could've been much worse. Where the movie fails is in its directing. It's pretentious and tonally clashes with the dark character study of Bond that the script is going for. It's a shame because there is a lot of promise here. I like the disconnected, emotionally torn Bond. He's kind of a dick, and I like that. He has good chemistry with Camille throughout. Again, if a good director was behind Quantum, I'm sure I would've enjoyed it much more.
What we have here is a Bond-Bourne hybrid that takes itself too seriously to be fun, and doesn't have enough great action to hold your interest. However, it has an intriguing plot, and it's nice to see a low-stakes Bond movie every now and then. It's not the worst Bond movie (bottom 5 maybe), but it's unique enough to be watchable if you're able to look past the editing.