Preposterous and messy

Rating: 4/10 (12 April 2009)

Following the spectacular effort in Casino Royale, it only took the production team one film after the "reboot" to drag the Bond series back down into the absurd. We were supposed to enter a new age of a more serious Bond, featuring mature plots and realistic characters. But this film is back to the same old tricks - Bond hunting down one of the leaders of a vague multi-national crime organization that the world's intelligence services know nothing about. Oh, and the villain also has a quirky sidekick - you see where this is going?
Bond and his friends are ridiculously omnipotent this time around - if he needs a car, he gets a car. If he needs a plane, he gets a plane. If he needs a gun, or a passport, or a credit card, or ties to the Bolivian national police - well, he gets them. Don't ask how, since MI-6 cuts him off 1/3 of the way through the movie. For crying out loud, they brought back the double agent from Casino Royale (Mathis) as a Bond confidante!
At one point in this movie, Bond and a woman (who may or may not be Bolivian intelligence - whatever that may be) fly a cargo plane into a desert, get their plane crippled by a fighter jet that Bond subsequently runs into a mountain, then jump out of the plane and share a parachute that they open about 50 feet off the ground. They show no signs of distress from this activity in the next scene. In fact - despite the fact that they are in the middle of the desert dressed for a dinner party (suit for him, cocktail dress for her) and without any kind of supplies - this is seemingly no problem. They just walk back to civilization - her in bare feet while carrying her high heel shoes!
But enough about the large leap of faith you'll need to suspend disbelief long enough to make it through this movie. It's just poorly made. The action sequences are choppy and tough to follow, some of the blue screen work is blatant, and any character outside of M and Bond are instantly forgettable. I could not discern any reason for the story to exist. I understood the plot, just not why I needed to hear about it. I finished watching the movie only 30 minutes ago and I already forgot the villain's name. One nice thing is that the movie has a lot of energy, but it needed more focus.
Summary: If this wasn't a Bond film people would be warning you to stay away from it. The movie is ridiculous but without the tongue-in-cheek recognition that it's ridiculous. Even with some old bad Bond films you could marvel at the cars, the locations, and the stunt work. But we don't even get that here. As long as people keep supporting the franchise then this nonsense is what we have to put up with, instead of the intelligent Bond thriller that fans of the series have been longing for. Quantum of Solace is not as insulting as something like Die Another Day, but for people hoping that Casino Royale was a step in the right direction, we are left feeling that QoS is another two steps back.