The 2nd worst Bond film

Rating: 3/10 (8 November 2008)

I went into the cinema expecting to see a worthy sequel to Casino Royale and what I saw was a total mess. It was then that I realised action films are not easy to make and the number 1 rule is never get a director who is good at those artistic drama or such movies to direct an all out action movie, because what you have is between a really bad action film and an inadequate artistic film. Everything that is Bond is wiped out in this movie and left with an empty shell that reminds me all too much of a Jason Bourne movie and I hated all 3 Bourne films. The obsession and insistence of filming action sequences close up, jittery hands for camera and indistinguishable hero-villain during a fight is to me the trademarks of a bad director who doesn't know what he is doing. Of course Marc Forster must start somewhere but to start with a Bond film perhaps may be too ambitious. The same reason why The Golden Compass failed is the exact same reason why Quantum Of Solace fails to deliver what should have been an amazing experience expected of any Bond film. Locations after locations, seems more like a show off with no substance. The script is also terrible. Absolutely devoid of any memorable lines, the script is a mix of awful unmemorable lines, confusing lines or lines that absolutely made no sense. Gone are the witty exchange. Even the drama or heartfelt moments in this movie is spoiled by a less than sincere effort of a script. Maybe the scriptwriter had no time to vet through it, since the writers' strike was nearing the deadline so that script had to do. But what a terribly confusing script. If you felt Mission Impossible the movie was impossible to decipher, Quantum Of Solace has a premise as difficult to explain as its title. In the end I still don't know what, who, where, why is Quantum. Characters from Casino Royale, such as Mathis were introduced again just to die a senseless death and when I say senseless, I meant I can't understand what happened. Was Mathis a double spy? I still don't get it. Then Felix Leiter, the CIA agent became rather shadowy or rather an implication that CIA is shadowy. And then? Nothing. A character gets introduced, a plot gets introduced and then suddenly the tone shifted and the plot nor the character never get a satisfactory end explanation.
Casino Royale had the alluring Eva Green as Vesper and only in this movie did I realise how alluring she was and she was only said in name and seen in pictures. Gemma Arterton's Agent Fields is rather pointless, introduced merely to have sex with Bond and die a terrible death. Whilst the gold covered corpse in Goldfinger was iconic and relevant to the plot, Agent Field's death by oil is simply a waste of film. There is no relevance (she should have drowned or died of over consumption of water because the water is the main point in this movie) and the way her body was filmed was like as if the director did not know whether to focus or not focus. It was neither shocking nor memorable. In the end it was just another dead character and her character is as pointless as Teri Hatcher's character in I believe Tomorrow Never Dies. Gemma Arterton did not have enough to make an impact and I thought the way her character was introduced was rather weird.
Olga Kurylenko plays Camille and I thought she looked over tanned. Poor girl,hardly any budget to look as glamorous as any Bond girl should, not even at a fancy party. Her performance consisted of pouting and looking dead serious. She wasn't even alluring but looked over baked. Her acting was inadequate and amateurish. Her character irrelevant and I can't see the connection, except for tremendous loss of a loved one, which is in the end rather forced.
In the end this movie failed because everything Bond is stripped and what we are left with is a crazy killing machine. Daniel Craig was good as ever but too slim to look believable as a killing machine and too serious that somehow I wonder where had the witty sarcasm gone. The villain was the worst. Mathieu Amalric looked like a really poor version of a villain, given neither credible storyline nor a memorable line to be considered a good Bond villain. He simply fell flat looking like a rat rather than a powerful sinister whatever he was. He wasn't even scary and what his role do exactly is as confusing as the entire film. He is probably a very good actor but in this movie, he seems like a fish out of water. Even the main story point about water was lost in the confusing plots, subplots, double plots and no plots. The theme song was as awful as any other and the opening sequence seems like a throwback to the old Bond films which is embarrassing to watch. I love Casino Royale and this movie made me love Casino Royale and the past Bond films more. The producer should have demanded more instead of giving us this half baked, badly acted, badly scripted and worse badly directed mess. Get a director who know action films, perfect the script and spend more time on casting. I just pity Judi Dench, excellent as she was as M, she seems overran by the awful mindless witless plot. Even for a drama it was terrible. No doubt this one will make tons of money but in the end it does not deserve a place in the long line of excellent Bond films. And it manages to make an under 2 hour film seems more than 2 hours and that is quite an achievement.
(Worst Bond film = Die Another Day)