High expectations... sadly not met

Rating: 6/10 (7 November 2008)

I was pretty excited when I ordered the tickets for QoS's prime time opening screening at Berlin's OV-theater "Cinestar im Sony Center", as I enjoyed the prequel "Casino Royale" despite the constantly (r)evolving plot very much.
But being pretty "unhappy" about the sheer amount of ads and trailers before the movie finally started, which of course is not the movie's fault but the theater's, I was even more appalled by the amazingly bad soundtrack of the opening credits.
When the first scene finally started it became obvious, that being seated middle/middle was the wrong choice. Despite having the a pretty good 2x45 degree view upon the big screen, I simply couldn't grasp what was happening on the screen. The cuts between what felt like a dozen different angles within just frames were almost inducing a synaptic shock. Being in a total clear state of mind I didn't even dare to think how someone could watch this frame-massacre in any altered state.
This style continued throughout all action sequences which made it really hard to cope with what actually happened and how the outcome would affect the plot. Ah yes, the plot. With "Casino Royale" in mind QoS's storyline seemed to be pretty thin. The twists were either pretty obvious or not conclusive at all. On top of that the movie was over pretty abruptly which was strange itself, but what really astonished me was the weak runtime of not even 1h 40mins.
6/10 just because I liked the Aston Martin DBS - without it would have been a mere 5!