The Viewpoint Blog's Ranking of the best James Bond Films. 23: Quantum Of Solace

So we continue to make our way up our ranking of the James Bond films from worst to best, and at number 23, we find Daniel Craig's second movie as 007, and the shortest film of the entire series, coming in at just over 1 hour 45 minutes.  In the old days, when films were shown on big reels that lasted about 20 minutes, this duration would make it a 5 reeler, where as most two hour films are commonly referred to as 6 reelers, and the big finale would always happen in reel 6.  So does the shorter film actually help or hinder the film.  Time to find out as we review, Quantum of Solace.



Oh boy, that trailer looked so good...

THE PRE-TITLE SEQUENCE

This is the second film not to feature the gun barrel sequence right at the beginning.  I don't really like this, especially as it's been a long term feature of the Bond films.  The Pierce Brosnan gun barrel sequences were just about perfect for modern Bond films, and I'm disappointed that we don't have those 3D style gun barrels, as they were visually very good, and a nice improvement on the original style created by Maurice Binder.

In fact, our first shot seems to be an incredibly long-distance, yet fast zoom, probably a helicopter shot, though maybe with some zoom on it as well.  And we're thrown right into the action with James Bond in a car chase.  This can work quite well if done right.  It throws you into the action quickly, and can be a great way of pulling the audience in quickly.  If done badly, it actually shocks you straight out of the movie, and it's very difficult to get the viewer back in, once that happens.

Unfortunately, this tends more towards the latter than the former.  Whilst it doesn't exactly shock you out of the movie, it doesn't pull you into it either.

The biggest problem with the sequence, is the editing.  I have this theory about editing and films.  The more you notice the cuts and edits, the less you're actually into the film, and the film hasn't done its job, which is to pull you into the story, and you don't really notice the edits.  When you notice the edits, they're not good edits.

This is part of the problem with Quantum Of Solace, and it comes in practically from the start.  There's a lot of fast cutting here, a lot of shots are no more than 5 seconds at most, which is 120 frames of film, and when you have shots that are no more than 12 frames, then the shots are probably unnecessary, and you should look at how the edit actually plays, because it won't play well to an audience.  If you as a Director or Editor think it's intense, then your average cinema goer is probably going to be blown out of their seats and not in a good way.  They're not going to understand what's going on, and you're going to lose them from the film.

Sometimes, shots need to take a little more time, in order to allow the audience to come along for the ride.

The next big problem, is the actual action itself.  Now, I have heard this car chase described as bland, and I think that's actually a little unkind.  It's not bland, but it doesn't feel very much like a James Bond car chase.  Part of that is down to the fact that the car doesn't have any gadgets other than bullet proof windows, but that on it's own shouldn't make this feel not very 'Bondian'.  Heck, the first car chase in the James Bond series ever, involving a hearse chasing Bond in a rental car, had no gadgets and really didn't have much happen, but that still feels more 'Bondian' than this one does.  Sure there's a lot of action in the sequence, and they do manage to get one thing right, which is managing to remove a door from Bond's car, which gives a little bit of vulnerability, and really helps the sequence actually, but just about everything else about the sequence felt like something out of Transporter or XXX, not really like a James Bond car chase at all.

Watching the "Bond On Location" special feature, I saw the camera they used to film some parts of the chase.  It's called the Ultimate Arm, and it really is a wonderful technical achievement, to get the shots they got, but ultimately, it feels a little bit like a great technical achievement rather than something that helps with telling the story.  The shots themselves don't really seem to add much.  However, the one shot they used a fair bit which really worked, was the shot from inside Bond's car, looking at Bond.  It's not your standard camera shot for cars, it's a lot lower, and is looking up from just off the passenger seat, and actually allows you to see more of what Bond does inside the car.  I'm not sure if it's a fish eye lens, or just a standard wide angle lens, but to my eyes, those are the best shots in the whole sequence   It's a nice angle, and I'd be happy to see further shots like that one in other car chase sequences.

The editing will crop up again later on...

So, anyway, Bond manages to dispose of his pursuers, and we get a wonderful establishing shot of the location that Bond is arriving in, Siena in Italy, ruined by an overly pretentious title card giving the name of the location.  This is another problem I have with this sequence and indeed the film as a whole.  These location title cards are just way too over the top.  It seems like an overly pretentious, arthouse way of titling locations, and what you really need is location title cards that just do the job, and do it without the pretentiousness.  This is a James Bond film, not some piece of arty French cinema.  Don't get me wrong, I like some really arty French films, but the style of one does not translate to the other very well.  The James Bond style would not translate to arthouse movies, it would be visually quite boring, and likewise, the arthouse style does not translate to James Bond films very well at all.

There is a place in Bond films for more artistic stuff, usually not in big action scenes, but in the quieter, talking moments, you can do things that are slightly different.  If it works, it's great.  If not, it matters less than if you mess up an action sequence for instance.  As long as the shots work for the story, it should be okay.

Anyway, Bond arrives at this underground garage, somewhere in Siena, we don't know exactly where, and he gets out of the car and opens the boot, to reveal Mr White is in the boot.  That moment actually works.  It has some real shock value.  If Bond pursuers had succeeded in driving him off the road, there was a chance they could have killed Mr White too in the resulting accident.  However, if we'd seen that Mr White had been put into the boot of the car that Bond was driving, the car chase would have had an extra tension all of it's own, which actually would have made it feel a little more James Bond-like.  Yeah, it worked in the way it was intended to, but it could have been so much better.  Also, I would have liked it, if like the Quantum Of Solace video game, the film had actually started at Mr White's mansion, picked up right where we left off Casino Royale, and maybe started with a shootout there, leading into the car chase.  So many missed tricks in this opening, it could have been so much better.

THE TITLE SEQUENCE.

This is a title sequence and title song that I have to put low on their individual lists, because they're not particularly good.  MK12 produced these titles instead of Daniel Kleinman, and to be honest, it shows.  There isn't really a lot of imagination showed in this title sequence, it's too dark, and everything is in slow motion, and it is paired with one of the worst main title songs in Bond History, perhaps only beaten by Moonraker.

The titles themselves animate onto screen in a weird way as well, and it doesn't really work.

I don't honestly know what more to say.  Jack White was good in The White Stripes and Alicia Keys was great as a solo artist, but the whole way they combine just doesn't work, at least not for this song.



THE PLOT

The film proper starts with a series of shots setting up Siena, again, specifically, a particular horse racing event that takes place every year.  A crew shot some documentary style footage to be used in the final film, and they did a very good job, it adds some good atmosphere to the sequence.

We are then shown Mr White being helped into a chair, and Bond tells him "Don't bleed to death."  Oh my goodness!  Humour, in a Bond film, and it's appropriate humour too.  It turns out this an MI6 safe house, and also here are various other MI6 operatives, Craig Mitchell, M's personal bodyguard, and indeed, M herself.

We then get a lot exposition, allowing us to remind ourselves what happened in the last film, and basically setting up the story.  I have to admire the fact that they do this very quickly.  In a 2 hour film, you have no more than 30 minutes to set up the film's story, and get into the "meat and two veg", the main course as it were.  Here, the basic setup is done very quickly, before we're 10 minutes in, so they got this part right.

The interrogation of Mr White begins, with M, Bond, Mitchell and another agent who we're not introduced to here as well.  Mr White seems exceedingly casual here, talking to Bond and M, and this should be a warning sign, but somehow nobody gets on alert, not even us in the audience.  The line about having people everywhere isn't even that noticeable in terms of how the sequence is shot, and this is one of the main problems with this sequence.  Nothing the director or his DP (Director of Photography) do indicate that there is anything special about what Mr White is saying, there is no tension being built up, which is kinda needed here.  I know they're trying to go for as much shock value as possible with the 'big reveal', but shocks like that, need a little leading into, so that you don't completely shock your audience out of the film.

Mr White looks up at somebody off camera and says "Am I right?", and Mitchell suddenly pulls out his gun and shoots the agent that we hadn't been introduced to at point blank range.  This is the old Star Trek; The Original Series "Red Shirt" gag.  You can guarantee that anybody in a scene we haven't been introduced to, and in Star Trek that usually meant the red shirt security guys, are going to be killed, and this had been pretty much signposted from the moment everybody got together.  Only one person there we didn't know, and they were going to be killed.  No lines of dialogue, means no life at the end of the scene.  It's an old old gag, and to be honest, one that shouldn't be used, it is somewhat obvious when it happens.

A fight breaks out, M narrowly avoids getting killed, and Mr White gets shot in the confusion with M making her escape.  I have to be honest here, and say it has taken me several viewings of that sequence of shots to realise what is going on.  The way that sequence is edited, there aren't many shots that last more than 1 second.  In essence, camera positions are changing all the time, and the flurry of cuts from one shot to the next renders most of that initial fight, unwatchable.  Your brain does not have time to process what you're seeing before moving on to the next shot, so you're left with a flurry of images that make little sense visually.

One shot that I do like in the sequence though, is the one that shows M running up the steps.  It's a handheld shot and gives the shot a nice documentary feel, as though the cameraman was just happening upon it, rather than everything set up ready to capture it.

There then follows about a 5 minute chase sequence, which starts under Siena in the tunnels, goes through part of the city at ground level, then goes onto the rooftops, and finally seems to end up at this bell tower, which includes a weird moment of an Italian woman dropping a box of fruit or veg, I'm not sure which, and going "Oh mama mia...".  Honestly that moment, wouldn't have looked out of place in Moonraker, but it sure didn't do anything here, except just look weird.

Bond thinks he has Mitchell cornered, but Mitchell surprises Bond and another fight ensues, one which, whilst some edits are as quick as before, most of the shots at least about 3 seconds and it makes the sequence much more watchable.  The sequence ends with Bond shooting and we assume he's shot Mitchell, but we don't actually see that he's shot Mitchell, nor do we see Mitchell die, which feels like a mistake somehow.  

We cut to London, and another pretentious location title card, and it's raining.  Oh my goodness, all the old stereotypes are coming out here.

Bond arrives at Mitchell's apartment, and we get what I can only describe as an odd scene here involving M and Bond.  Bond is looking cool as usual, but M is almost frantic, beside herself with worry.  What happened to the "evil queen of numbers" that we were first introduced to in Goldeneye?  Where's the stoicalness that we have seen so many times throughout the film series?  This is not the M we've come to know since Goldeneye.  I can't blame Dame Judi Dench for this, this comes down to the writers and director.  I get that they want to make the Bond/M relationship a subplot here, but to be honest, there have been better films that have used this subplot, even during the Judi Dench era.

M gets a call, and we suddenly cut back to M and Bond back at MI6, a very different looking MI6 to what we saw in the previous film, 2006's Casino Royale, and yet this is supposed to have happened in relatively quick time frame, about a day or so???  Mistakes like that are really avoidable, and you shouldn't make those kind of mistakes ever.

Anyway, we get a brief bit of exposition here, which links us, rather obtusely, to the next sequence.  Also, we have a touchscreen tabletop, which just seems a little over the top technologically for 2008, or should that be 2006, after all it is a direct follow on to Casino Royale.  Heck, in 2006, we didn't even have iPod touches yet.  The iPad didn't come out until 2010.  Heck, whilst the idea about tabletop touchscreen technology has been around for a long time, the actual technology still isn't that good yet.

We then go to Port Au Prince in Haiti, with another pretentious location title card, which looks like it came from an old spaghetti western.  I do wonder if there was some kind of game going on between the director and the editor to see how many different fonts they could include in the movie.

Bond arrives at a building, where he is supposed to interrogate a suspect, but he ends up killing him.  But honestly, what is this sequence here for?  It feels like an action sequence designed to fill a plot hole, the point being to introduce us, eventually to Camille.  It was like they thought, how do we get from London to our Bond girl, and they wrote this gratuitous fight scene in.

Anyway, Camille picks up Bond, not really knowing who he is.  And the car she is driving is followed by someone on a motorbike, but Camille manages to give him the slip.  But it turns out the guy who Bond killed back in his flat, was meant to kill Camille.  Camille ejects him from the car at gunpoint, and the guy on the motorcycle catches up, but Bond takes him out and steals the motorcycle to follow Camille.

Camille is tracked to some warehouse on the docks, and this serves as an introduction to this film's villains.  First, henchman Elvis, performed by Anatole Taubman, and our main villain, Dominic Greene, played by Mathieu Amalric.  The villains here are not that good, and really don't make much of an impression.  I'll talk more about the villains later on.  But the sequence where Camille confronts Dominic Greene just feels a little gratuitous as well.  There are better ways to introduce us to the villains.  There's one more villain that we're introduced to here as well.  General Medrano, played here by Joaquin Cosio

Bond has a short conversation with a gate guard, which serves no purpose at all, other than to show the card which has the name R Sterling on it.  R Sterling being a reference to Bond's cover name in The Spy Who Loved Me, Robert Sterling.  It's a nice touch, but it does nothing storywise.  Just gives Daniel Craig a small acting moment, along with the guys playing the gate guard and Elvis.

Camille is introduced to General Medrano here, and this is a big mistake in the film, as at this point, we have no idea what connects these two people, and it turns out there's some rather interesting history there, which we don't get until much later.  I know that nobody like exposition scenes and they try to use short quick ones throughout the film, rather than one long exposition scene, but the moment where Camille meets General Medrano would have had more impact in story terms, if their history had been explained before the meeting, and as such, the meeting happens too early.

There's a little side storyline here about Medrano taking over the Bolivian government.  It would have played better if there had actually been anything about it later in the film, but it never comes up again, so why mention it?  It just goes to show how terrible the writing was on this movie.

Anyway, Camille goes with the General, and Bond rescues her by boat.  Why he decides to do this I don't know, it doesn't really make a lot of sense, I think they just wanted to get a boat chase in here, but it just doesn't compare to the one that was done in Live And Let Die.  Stuff happens, and Bond basically wins out.  At least the editing here isn't a problem.

Bond steals a jeep, and calls the office.  M's office has a wall that becomes a massive display screen.

What the...???!!!???

Ye gods, the production design in this film feels more over the top than one of Ken Adam's.  Ken was known for extravagant sets, but this feels more Star Trek than James Bond.

M and Tanner have a conversation with Bond, and connect with Gregory Beam, the head of the CIA's Latin America section, played here played David Harbour, and we're re-introduced to Felix Leiter, played again by Jeffrey Wright.  Felix is a well-loved character in the Bond universe, but I've never taken to Jeffrey Wright's performance.  I wasn't keen on it in Casino Royale 2006, and I'm less keen on it here.  He does have one moment when it harkens back to the old-style Felix/Bond relationship, but the whole thing feels out of place generally.  It was as if they had hired him for two films, and were struggling to fit him in.

Gregory Beam here feels like he should be a hero, but he comes across more like a bad villain.  That is to say someone who just isn't that bad, but isn't that good either.  That kind of sums up both the character and the performance.  Not that bad, but not that good either.  He's got nothing about him that makes me root for him.  He's just bland, and you can tell he's not a good guy, but he's just not much of a bad guy either.  A slightly dirty shade of grey.

Don't get me wrong, it's fine to have some more morally ambiguous characters in the Bond world, but they really need to be done better than Gregory Beam.  Beam and Leiter meet up with Greene on a private jet, and conversation happens, which mostly leaves me cold, cos I have no real interest in seeing this, as it actually has very little relevance.  It's basically meant to give us a sense of the plot moving forward, the bad guy's plan in motion, but really, in this film, I couldn't care about it.  The real plot is Bond taking on Quantum, and what Greene is doing just doesn't really play into that at all.

There is one sequence, at the opera in Bregenz, Austria, with another totally pretentious location title card, in yet another different font, that actually does play into the main plot, where members of Quantum including Greene and Mr White are in conversation over earpieces and Bond manages to infiltrate that 'meeting' and causes quite a panic.  However also in this sequence, there is a shot of Elvis looking at what I can only guess is another henchman and smiling at him.  The other guy seems completely unamused.  Why is that even there?  Does it add anything to the story?  No.  It serves no purpose.  That moment should have been cut.

And yes, I know this is already the shortest film in the series, but any moment in a film that serves no discernible purpose must be cut.

Anyway, back to the plot.  Bond manages to get ahold of a special earpiece that Greene and his cohorts are communicating on, and forces them to tip their hand, meaning that he can get photographs of most of them, but not Mr White, who is also there at the opera, and takes his earpiece out rather than leaving.  The rest decide they've been compromised and leave.  Bond encounters them and gets into a fight with the bodyguard of one of the cohorts, called Guy Haines, who happens to be a special adviser to the Prime Minister.  The fight ends with Bond knocking him off a building, in a moment straight out of The Spy Who Loved Me.  However, instead of landing on the ground, he lands on Dominic Greene's car, and a henchman gets out and shoots the bodyguard dead.  Huh?  Killing the bodyguard of one of your own members?  That doesn't make sense.

One point I must make here, is that it is in this opera sequence that the name Quantum is first used, however, I don't think it's done that well.  Not badly, just not that well.  It feels a little bit random, and I'm just not sure how it could have been done better but then again, a lot of this film feels this way.  It could have been done a lot better.  Not entirely sure how, whether the blame lies more with the writers or the director, but suffice to say, the writing isn't strong and the direction doesn't feel like it has any... direction... to it.

Another point that I'm going to make here, is that after this point in the film, it is believed that Bond killed Guy Haines' bodyguard, even though that's not what happened.  And yet we have nothing to show why that is believed to be the case.  This film is so short, and it is missing so many important little things, and yet we have other moments that really do not belong there.

Anyway, Bond makes contact with London, and is told to come in for a debrief as the bodyguard that Bond fought is a member of Special Branch, but Bond refuses.  M puts a stop upon all of Bond's cards, and restrictions on his movements.  Bond tries to follow Quantum to Bolivia, but can't due to the stop put on Bond's cards.

We don't see how he does it, but the next cut we see is Bond travelling on a boat in Talamone, Italy.  How did Bond get there?  It's a short film, so a couple of minutes of montage to get us to this location would be good.  Also, yet another pretentious location title card.

It's no secret that the production of Quantum Of Solace was messy with the writer's strike, and filming and editing were condensed into less than a year.  Filming was done from 2nd January 2008 until 21st June, and the film was released on 31st October, with the London premiere 2 days before.  This feels like a rushed job, that they didn't give this the thought it required, never mind the care and attention.  Filming on any movie usually takes about 3-4 months, sometimes a little bit longer, and some big productions these days usually schedule re-shoots for a 2 to 4 week period halfway during editing to tidy up parts where editing is throwing up issues with the original shoots.  Here, they just didn't have the time to do re-shoots and tidy up bits, and they tried to fix what they could in the editing, but mostly it made it worse.

Anyway, it's here in Talamone that we are re-introduced to our second returning character from Casino Royale 2006.  Mathis, played once again by Giancarlo Giannini.  Mathis was cleared of being a double agent at some point between when we last saw him in Casino Royale, and when we see him here, in a villa that has been bought for him by MI6 as compensation, even though the whole timespan can not have been any more than a few weeks at most.  Continuity seems to have been a real problem with this film, I just don't get how they think this is believable.

Mathis agrees to help Bond get to Bolivia, and we get a scene on the plane over where Bond is drinking and Mathis joins him, and we get a 'boohoo, the woman I loved is dead' scene, which doesn't fit everything else that Bond has been saying and doing.  His approach so far has been very cold and almost clinical about shutting that episode out of his life.  Suddenly we have this???  It makes no sense.

Bond and Mathis arrive in La Paz, Bolivia, via another pretentious location title card, and it is here we are introduced to Agent Fields, who is an MI6 operative based out of the British Consulate in Bolivia.  She is played by Gemma Arterton, and she doesn't have a lot of presence really in the film, and I'm sorry to say, she feels like somewhat of a wasted character.  Gemma Arterton is a great actress, and she deserved far better than this.  I hope she gets another appearance in a Bond film, as she deserves to have a much better role than this.

One thing that jumps out at me on reviewing this is that Agent Fields seems to be dressed in nothing other than a beige trench coat and brown knee length boots.  Surely that's not all she's wearing?  But there is no other visible clothing on her.  Maybe a hint of a dress or some trousers, wouldn't have gone amiss, but the way she appears here is very suggestive, of many other things...

Fields tries to get Bond to turn around and head back to London, but Bond manages to seduce her and persuades her to work with him.  This part of the film really feels weak here, like they wanted a scene of Bond making love to a woman, but just couldn't fit it in well, and it does feel somewhat shoehorned in here.  It's a weak sequence.

We then come to the next big bug bear sequence in this film, which is the Greene Planet party.  This whole sequence is a big problem in this film.  Plot wise, it seems to have little relevance to anything else, and I truly wonder why it is here.  We have a shot of someone who could have been President Barack Obama's father, or older brother here, and a moment where Bond asks Fields what her real name is and she says "Fields.  Just Fields."  The moment should be a set up for a pay-off later where we learn her real name.  But it never comes.  And we never get the expected immortal line about Strawberry Fields Forever.  Yes, Strawberry Fields, that is her name.  Whilst I don't mind them not doing the obvious jokes sometimes, the idea here is actually kinda lame.  Set up a gag, and never pay off, it never feels good.

Then we immediately cut to Greene making a speech, and we start with a wide shot of the building, followed by a shot of the balcony where Dominic Greene is giving his speech from.  We get shots of Bond, Fields and Mathis watching on, and then we get a weird edit, to shots of people who I guess are really extras in the film, with Greene saying "I hope that tonight, you make the decision to be part of that."

I know other reviewers, like Calvin Dyson, are completely confused by why the director and editor chooses to show these people.  I've thought long and hard about this, and the best answer I can some up with, is that these people are prospective Quantum recruits, or maybe are part of Quantum, and that's why we focus on them, but if that's the case, the idea flops very hard, because we never see these people again.  Another setup without a payoff.

Also the way Felix Leiter is shoehorned in here is just horrible.  He has two moments in this sequence, one where we see Bond walking and we suddenly cut to a shot of Felix sat down as though he's watching Bond.  It really feels jarring to see that shot in there.  Then there's a second moment as Bond is leaving with Camille and that's a little less jarring but still very bad.

And then we have the infamous Fields tripping Elvis moment, and the reveal that he's wearing a wig. Just appalling really.  It's Fields last moment of action in the film, and it flops even worse than  anything else so far.  All in all, that whole sequence was a mess, and nothing even close to acceptable cinema, never mind good cinema.

And as if to top all that badness off, we get a moment with Bond being followed by Bolivian Police, and the reveal that Mathis is in the boot of the vehicle that Bond is driving.  The moment where Mathis dies in Bond's arms is meant to be poignant, and emotional, but like so much else in this film, it flops just horribly.  Even the short moment of action where Mathis is shot by the policeman, is poor, and just feels horribly random.

We're only just over an hour into the film, and it's already felt like 2 hours, it needs to be put out of its misery.

Bond and Camille rent a plane, and Bond is expecting to be sold out by the guy who they rented the plane off, yet he does nothing to prevent that?  Can we get some decent scriptwriters, please?

There's a nice moment where Bond references to Camille about why he's after Greene, and when he says that he tried to kill a woman, but it's not what you think, Camille asks "Your mother?" and Bond says with a smile, "She likes to think so."  I think that's a genuinely funny moment referencing M as being like a mother figure, and actually plays into how Bond in the books always looked at the M in the books, who was male, as a father figure.  I think it's a genuinely Fleming-esque moment, that is unfortunately overrun by so much that just doesn't hold a candle to it.

We then get a really well shot and well edited aerial dogfight sequence, which has some genuine tension and excitement about it.  It's probably the best sequence in the whole film, but most of the audience has been lost by this point.  But unfortunately, the sequence is kinda ruined by what follows which is Bond and Camille sharing a single parachute, leaping out of the plane, and landing in a sinkhole, and oh my goodness, the effects shots here are appalling.  It takes me out of the film instantly again, after having been pulled back in with the dogfight.  Come on guys, you can do better than this.

There is another pointless sequence here with M meeting the Foreign Secretary, which flops so hard.  This is no offence to Judi Dench or Tim Piggott Smith who are great actors, but this scene doesn't need to be here.  We don't need to see this.  It has no relevance to the plot, and is just painful to watch.  It shouldn't have even been written, never mind filmed or put in the final cut.

We get an interesting scene where Bond and Camille talk and there's a lot of exposition done here, and it's kinda nice, and we get what Greene is really up to, but again, too little, too late.  There's some scenes which just reinforce what we've just discovered, and again, it just feels like it's over the top.

We then get a scene where M is in Bolivia in the hotel where Bond has been staying, and Bond arrives, to discover her, and also to discover that Fields is dead, covered in oil.  Once again, the editing here is uber-pretentious, and at this point the whole M/Bond subplot just flops really badly.  By this point, I have lost interest in what's going on.  Even from a review standpoint.

Bond is suspended, and leaves with some agents, but fights his way out in an elevator, and then confronts M.  Suddenly, she changes her mind.  Why?  How?  Bad writing again.  The writing in this film is so bad, that it makes Thunderball look like a Shakespeare masterpiece.  I'll talk more about Thunderball in a later post, but suffice to say, Ian Fleming at his worst, was way better than this piece of garbage.

We get another Beam and Leiter moment, when Bond phones them.  And we get one final bit of exposition, and another piece of gratuitous action when Bond and Leiter meet up in a bar.  What they say here is relevant to the plot, but doesn't matter overall, because the whole plot is worthless by this point.  What plot there is, is just a means to get from one action sequence to another.  In a way, it's a bit like my number 24 entry on this list, the 1967 version of Casino Royale, the plot is a thread, and a bot threadbare in places, that is trying to hold together all these action sequences, and not doing a good job of it.

So anyway, we get to the hotel in the desert, and this is meant to be the big finale.  The final reel of the film.  It's a boring start as we see Medrano and the Police Chief talking, and we get a moment where Bond is talking to Camille about how this kill is personal and how she should rely on her training.  It's like good grief, can you make this any more boring than you already have?

Greene meets up with the Police Chief and Medrano, and stuff happens that I really couldn't care about by this point.  We're just waiting for the final battle to begin, but we don't see Bond really for a good couple of minutes, however we do get shots of Camille.  Then suddenly Bond appears, and it all kicks off, and within 30 seconds, the hotel starts blowing up.  I kid you not.  Less than 30 seconds after Bond appears, we get the first explosion and the hotel starts destroying itself.  Please, this is just so bad.

It is interesting that we have Bond fighting Greene and Camille fighting Medrano at the same time, the two sequences inter-cutting like this are interesting, but it just doesn't work as well as it should.  Bond lets Greene go, to rescue Camille, which he achieves, just barely, and Bond goes after Greene.  We never see Bond catch up with Greene, we just cut to Bond driving a car, and throwing Greene on the ground from out of the boot.  And then Bond, just leaves him in the middle of the desert with a can of motor oil.  Huh?  This is the second film in a row where Bond has not killed his main antagonist directly, and it feels weak here, like so much else in this film.

Bond says goodbye to Camille and we get a kiss but no sex.  That just feels weird.

We then cut to Kazan in Russia, once again via a pretentious location title card, and no two have used the same font in this film.

Bond is waiting for someone in an apartment, and we see two people come home, one of them being Vesper's former boyfriend, Yusef.  We then get a weird sequence of Bond confronting Yusef, and advising his current girlfriend to contact her superiors, they have a leak in their seals.  And she just leaves.  M is outside as well, why?  It makes no sense.

The one thing I do like is as Bond walks away, he drops Vesper's necklace in the snow, and we get a nice gentle piano piece as the film fades to black, which is really lovely.  It is then spoiled by a bad, out of place, gun barrel sequence.  The gun barrel has no interesting design or texture to it, Bond walks in far too fast really, and the gun barrel then becomes the title of the film.

THE VILLAINS

Dominic Greene really is our main villain here and he is like so much else in this film, instantly forgettable.  No disrespect to the actor, but he is given nothing to work with really.  His motley true of henchmen have nothing memorable about them at all, especially Elvis who really never acts like a henchman, he's seen a lot, but only once do I see him holding a gun and he doesn't shoot it.  Please, this is horrible characterisation.

Medrano is a stereotypical South American dictator-wannabe type, he just doesn't have much about him, and the Police Chief is similarly stereotypical here.  There's nothing about either of them that makes me interested in them as characters.

Mr White is possibly the best of the bunch, but even here, he feels like somewhat of a let down, he only really appears at the start of the film, and at the opera, we never see him again after that, until apparently the upcoming Spectre film.

THE ALLIES

I have to talk about M here as she is used far too much.  We have scenes that she should not be in, yet she is.  We have a scene between her and the Foreign Minister, that shouldn't be in the movie at all, and we have as character who is nothing like how she was originally written in Goldeneye, and all the films since until this one.  I can't blame this on Judi Dench,as she gives a wonderful performance here, but she is undone by the writing.

We have someone who is a forensics tech, but he comes across as almost Q-lite, as though they were testing him out to become Q in the next film.  He didn't make it, but it was kinda interesting to see this.

Bill Tanner reappears in this film, played this time by Rory Kinnear.  He's a great actor, and plays the character well, but isn't a patch on Michael Kitchen from Goldeneye, and The World Is Not Enough.

Jeffrey Wright makes his second appearance in a row as Felix Leiter here, and for me, flops badly.  He wasn't great in Casino Royale, but is actually worse here.  His version of Felix now gets put into the same category as Jaws and Jack Wade.  Better in their first appearance than in their second.

STUNTS AND ACTION SEQUENCES

Only 3 action sequences here really feel like they work, and they are the car chase in the pre-title sequence, Bond chasing Mitchell through Siena, and the aerial dogfight, the rest just don't really sell themselves that well, and the big finale where within 30 seconds of Bond firing his first shot the hotel starts blowing up just feels lazy.

THE BOND GIRLS/WOMEN

Camille is as close as we come to a traditional Bond girl, and is a pretty good character, but I'm left feeling that she really wasn't totally complete as a character here.   I can't explain it, but there feels like there was something missing.

Agent Fields is this film's equivalent of Paula from Thunderball, she exists only to die really, and her death doesn't even move the plot along.  Gemma Arterton does a good job with what she has, but she doesn't really have much.

OTHER NOTES

I've already written a lot about the writing and the editing and the location title cards, but let me bring all that together here.  Every location title card is done in a different font, for what reason really?  It adds nothing to the film, and really feels out of place in a Bond film.  The editing for most of this film is really bad.  Even the good sequences in the film, are sometimes undermined by editing that leaves you with no clue about what you've just scene.  In the initial fight with Mitchell in the safe house, there's a whole sequence of about a dozen or more shots and none of them are more than 24 frames, or 1 second.  Too much cutting between cameras, not enough focus on the action itself.

The best example I can point to of fast cutting in a fight is the fight between Grant & Bond in From Russia With Love.  The camera may only change position there every 3 to 5 seconds, but it's a perfect edit, allowing the pace of the fight to dictate the cuts, rather than cutting to make it seem pacy.

There are far too many moments in this film that should never have been included.  And there were scenes missing that really should have been written and shot but obviously weren't.    The writing on all this was bad, and the editing just emphasised all the problems.  You can't edit your way out of bad writing.  This film should have been postponed, re-shoots ordered, and a whole new re-edit done, but they were trying to turn this round fast and it fails, it flops so hard as to show up everything bad about it.

I mentioned it earlier, but the production design in this movie was bad.  Peter Lamont retired after Casino Royale, but the new look MI6 was something right out of Star Trek, not James Bond, and how could it look this different in mere days?  The film was set right after Casino Royale, and there wouldn't be the time to change the look so drastically.

OVERALL

There are too few good moments in this film, and far too much that flops and usually flops hard.  There isn't even any mediocre stuff in between, it either flops or it's good.  But overall, the whole film flops, hard.  Not quite as hard as Moonraker did, nor the 1967 version of Casino Royale, and I placed that lower than this because that flopped from a higher point to a lower one, but it still flops hard.  If I never watch this film again, it will be too soon.

Next time on this list, number 22, and a film that was another poor attempt at capitalising on a movie trend.