Julian Assange as a Bond villain?!?

Rating: 7/10 (12 November 2012)

Okay, there was a lot to like in this movie. We see the famed Astin Martin car used in Sean Connery's Bond movies, we have references to exploding pens, we see a new Q, get some backstory on Bond's history prior to MI6, some good action sequences...
Now for the problem. The mish-mash of threads/themes that churn on the screen like bad tequila and ice cream do in a stomach.
The movie starts out with a list of undercover operatives that has been stolen. This is never resolved. A simple line, like "it's on the internet now, we've should pull everyone in" would work, but instead, they only pull the operatives whose names are outed online. Instead, it is just left dangling.
We see Bond as being too old and probably washed up, yet, this is only his second adventure (Casino Royale & Quantum of Solace being linked together as one larger interlinked assignment).
I think the biggest theme which is mishandled is... the villain. It ends up being revealed that the villain is actually a former operative who was disavowed/sold off by his Majesty's government and with a legitimate reason for revenge against MI6 and M, but that reveal conflicts with the heavy-handed propaganda that the movie tries to force down our throats prior to that.
You see, the villain here is Julian Assange of Wikileaks fame, not a wronged former agent. This movie is here to sell the idea that the internet is a dangerous place and a hacker can manipulate events in the digital world and wreck havoc in the normal one. An island can be evacuated and taken over by a criminal organization without a single shot fired. Secret agents who are undercover and working to protect us can have their identities outed with the push of a button. Granted, this is realistic and would have made for a great villain/idea... but it is only left partially followed thru. The last third (after the capture of Assange) seems to have been done by an entirely different script-writer.
Yeah, Assange has revealed top secret documents and does pose a risk for governmental leaks, but he has also exposed many scandals thru his website that those in power do not wish to see the light of day.
Now, that would have made for a better Bond villain... have Bond be assigned to terminate an Assange character, let Bond learn that the "villain" is actually a good guy trying to expose government corruption and have him go thru the turmoil of deciding Queen and Country versus Doing the Right Thing.
Anyway, it is still in the top 10 of best Bond movies ever made... and I recommend seeing it.