Not a Bond film, please re-title this as something else

Rating: Null/10 (14 November 2012)

I must admit that as far back as when Daniel Craig was announced as the new Bond I really had low hopes and expectations for the continuation of this franchise. I became a fan of the Bourne series instead with Matt Damon and that filled the void for me quite well. I never thought Craig would be a good Bond, he just didn't fit the part. He looked like one of the Bond villains instead of Bond himself. Definitely not what Ian Fleming might have envisioned.
Regardless, I continued to watch and give the series a chance because I have always been a big fan of the franchise. Although they decided to completely change Bond and everything that made it a 'Bond film', Casino Royale was surprisingly not that bad. I realized that this was going to be a different universe of Bond and took it for what it was.
All that aside, this last installment of the series was a big disappointment especially after the lackluster and equally disappointing Quantum of Solace.
Craig was as wooden and non brilliant as ever. Dench played her usual predictable curmudgeon self. And with the exception of these two, no other characters were properly fleshed out. Even the main villain played by one of today's most promising thespians in Javier Bardem. No real back story or development to his character other than a brief verbal story. Not to mention we only see him for maybe 30 minutes of a more than 2 hour movie. And when he is on film, he has to work with mostly very campy and predictable one liners. What a waste of a great talent! He did command attention with his presence alone and he definitely stoled the show when he was on screen therefore making him and his character probably the only promising thing about this movie.
The story was trite and predictable. Lots of plot holes and implausible action sequences. I thought they were suppose to make Bond more realistic? Plot lines are dropped and never picked back up on a whim. No consistency whatsoever throughout. You never really seem to care or form any real connection with any of the characters and some seem to be forced in just for no other purpose than to move the story along.
A very poor effort indeed, especially considering that this marked the 50th anniversary of the franchise.