I can say that this feels like a pretty nostalgic moment for me. For those of you who know me personally know that I started writing reviews about two years ago on facebook, you can go back on my profile and see all the old ones there still, and the first post I made was about Casino Royale [2006]. So this is slightly refreshing to be revisiting this new Bond franchise with its newest episode which is a direct sequel of the 2006 reboot.

So I usually write a short synopsis for the movie’s plot when I review it, but since my first issue with this movie is the plot I’m going to skip that bit. If you’ve seen the good Bond, Casino Royale, then this is the direct sequel of that movie.

Earlier this week I decided to sit down and watch both of Martin Campbell’s 007 movies, Casino Royale and Goldeneye, and remind myself of why I love both of those movies for two completely different reasons. Goldeneye was more of what the whole world knows James Bond for, being all suave and having the ability to get any woman in the movie just by smiling and saying a quick innuendo, but at the same time had some amazing action sequences. Especially the opening sequence with Pierce Brosnan and Sean Bean with the gas tanks, I keep wondering why after that one all the other Pierce Brosnan 007 movies sucked so much. Casino Royale was the beginning of the James Bond universe it forgot all the standards more or less, Bond doesn’t drink a martini, he doesn’t say “Bond, James Bond” every five minutes, and there is no Q with a shoe equipped with a bomb in the heel. It gave us a very honest and believable beginning for Bond where he figures out how to be a professional double-o.

This movie did not fit into the style of either a Goldeneye or a Casino Royale. It still had some gritty action that made us think of Casino Royale, and at the same time tried to make the Bond more of the man that made women melt at the quivering of his lower lip. This annoyed me because it never decided for sure what it really wanted to be. Some may want to say that this is the right thing to do since it is a transitional time between the Casino Royale and the Goldeneye style Bond character, but I disagree with that idea. Since this film is all about revenge, which is very easily seen throughout the movie, the whole point of Camille [Olga Kurylenko], the new ‘Bond Girl’, is to move the revenge theme along. If the movie wants to be all about revenge they have to 100% continue with the completely rough around the edges James Bond, so stop being indecisive about what kind of agent James [Daniel Craig] is and get back on point.

This movie felt like a video game for the entire 106 minutes. The movie starts up with this huge car chase/gunfight scene. And when that sequence ended they gave us one/two lines of dialogue and then moved on the next action heavy sequence. Then they rinsed and repeated for the next 70 minutes. This just felt like the writer/director was forced into making the film action heavy and sometimes it never even made sense why the action sequence was even happening. My only thought more on this is wondering where this problem started. Did is start from as early as the writing stage? Or was it as late as the editing of the film?

To continue on the action of the film. I’m going to say that it wasn’t that good. I felt so confused a lot of the time. The editing made it almost impossible to grasp a feel as what was happening at any moment. Where I felt that Casino Royale kept it to a gritty minimal style where it was so small and enjoyable, this movie decided that they had to extend those action scenes so as to add that wow factor. It was almost like the director [Marc Forster] felt he had to top Paul Greengrass’ The Bourne Ultimatum. I loved The Bourne Ultimatum just as much as the next man but I felt like James Bond had already found his own style and there was no need to try and be someone else. And just extending those sequences only makes you realize how superior Bourne really is. Imagine if Forester had tightened up scenes, like where Bond goes to see the geologist, like how Campbell did the fight sequence between the Africans and Bond in the staircase in Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace would’ve been a much better film for it. Maybe if Forester allowed the camera to sit in one spot for more than a few seconds and allowed my simple mind to understand what was going on, other than knowing Bond is going to kick ass, it would’ve worked.

And as you may have told from before, the plot is really thin here. It is as if the studio and writers had no real plans while writing Casino Royale as how to continue. So after a vacation they sat down to write and after a couple weeks of nothing, one guy shouted out “REVENGE!!” at the top of their voice and they just wrote about ten pages and would stick in a blank page and it would read ‘ACTION SCENE HERE’. The plot was really put on the backburner for this installment of the new Bond films. If this is the idea they’re going with I don’t want to see another one of these movies, go back to the episodic style Bond movies before Daniel Craig was cast for the role.

I’m pretty much done with the film, but since I really want to hammer my point home I’ll rag on one of the more menial moments of the movie. I hated the new song. Jack White, of The White Stripes, wrote and produced the title song for this Bond flick. He performs it alongside Alicia Keys. And Alicia Keys really ruins it for me. I’ve been a fan of both The White Stripes and Alicia Keys for a very long time, but this is just ridiculous. I heard the song prior to watching the film and wasn’t that fond of it, but decided to hold off judgment until seeing the movie and hearing the song along with seeing how it fit into the movie and the graphics that they made for it. I didn’t like the title sequence either; it just felt once again not sure which kind of Bond film it wanted to be. Quantum of Solace’s title sequence had ladies and guns, which takes us back to the episodic Bond movies. It didn’t realize that this is not the episodic Bond; this is the Bond that will drink gin and vodka together rather than lady like martinis.

So, I’m assuming if you’ve made it this far you get the gist of what I’m saying. I call this movie a failure as a sequel to 2006’s Casino Royale. But at the same time it is a movie that if it stood alone and you decided to change all the character names you wouldn’t mind it as much, I’d call it an okay film at that point. But it really is a fail.

IMDB says 7.2/10

Rotten Tomatoes says 66%

I say 5.5/10