After such a strong opening scene (it was actually one of the best in any Bond film!), I had almost forgotten the travesty that were the first few installments of the Dainel Craige lineage. My hopes were quickly dashed as the "plot" "developed"...or rather DIDN'T develop. Actually, scratch that: It was dashed when the "abstract music video intro" was bland and meh at best. What was that Octopus even about? Wasn't it a Ghost on the ring? Was it some strange homage to the original series? It didn't work. The song sucked, and the sequence didn't compare to any of the others.
From start to finish, this was an undeveloped smorgasbord of schizophrenic plot, trite & half-realized characters, non-sequitur story telling bordering on laughable deus ex machina [see this comment on reddit] and trivial to non-existent character arcs. This ill conceived shit show was as convoluted as it was dull. There is no emotional investments, no stakes, and nothing of note to take away from it.
Any semblance of cogent narrative was drown out by the incessant need to trail-blaze across the world ah-la National Treasurer / Inception, largely to the detriment of this film, despite the engorged budget. The scope was blown out of proportion and it collapsed under its own weight.
This film suffers from identity crisis. It doesn't know what universe it's in. It felt like a lukewarm jester's take on Jason Bourne. It's like the writers looked at how Ice cold Skyfall was and in so realizing said, "I know how to fix it!" and dumped boiling horse shit in to compensate. It didn't work. You get one or the other--dark and brooding, or Golden Eye.
The Bond girl (who he "falls in love with" after only 20 minutes of screen time) is just as flat (and I don't just mean chested). She was neither alluring or interesting. She's like the soulless auto-targeting NPC in a video game that occasionally fails the mission for you.
Damsel in distress cliches notwithstanding, she has very little purpose. She holds 2 key bits of information and tosses them out like a quest reward immediately after Bond beats the ice level, and non-character Q comes up short.
That brings me to Q. God, I hate this fucker. He's like a flat version of Data from Star Trek. His purpose seems to be "oh shit...we need another character because this movie sucks... Also, we have no idea how to bridge these scenes together. I know! Hollywood hacker bullshit(TM)!" Hey, speaking of Star Trek, did the writers take notes from J.J Abram's system of run and gun plotting? They missed the memo on engaging dialogue and character...
Even the high-notes were powerfully overshadowed by the cliche one liners that make Die Hard look like Casablanca. Speaking of words that start with a c... We know what it stands for! hahahaha-- CRAP!!....oh :/
The Bond "Villain" is perhaps the worst part of this movie (despite his true to roots appearance), because of what a waste talent he was. His character feels shoe horned at best. By the time we get a PROPER introduction, the movie is already basically over. He comes out of the (literal) shadows and drops some monologue about how he's been the bad guy forever, and how every preceding movie he was also the bad guy, and even all the way back to Bond's childhood he was the bad guy and he is always going to be the bad guy and bwuahahah!
WHAT. THE. FUCK!?
I think absolute worst moment came when the bad guy unveiled his dastardly plot: torture James Bond (for seemingly no reason) and erase his memories! Buwhahaha! But only of people's faces. Yeah. That's it! Why? I have no fucking idea. I don't even think the writer's knew. WHY IS THIS HIS PLAN!? So after pulling the trigger on this "plan", Bond SOMEHOW comes out of it completely unscathed (even though they drilled into his brain stem or something?) and is like "Nah, don't worry. We gucci. That shit don't phase me. I'm literally invincible. Did you not see the train fight scene 10 minutes ago? Legit that huge ass dude (who ruined his own death with a one liner) didn't leave a scratch on me. Like fuck a makeup department we don't need that shit, we already blew our budget on a stupid 30 MPH car chase. Someone call Drake cuz we up right now! Bond out!"
It was rotten to the unstable foundation, and though it did have some semblance of the vibes associated with classic Bond films, it was all lost in new-age translation and superficial bullshit about Big Government Evil Corporation / Illuminati Is Really Bad Yatta Yatta been there done that Die Hard, Mission Impossible blah blah blah. And that ending? What the hell man...oh no I'm kid napped! Oh no I broke out! Oh wait there are arrows with my name (someone in the theater a row down audibly said "phfft are you serious?" under their breath). Oh wait the girl is inside! Oh wait it doesn't matter I'm James Bond I'll just totally foil this plan by...doing not much and running. Oh look I SHOT A FUCKING HELICOPTER WITH A PISTOL
By big block buster standards (great sound, visuals, CG, ENORMOUS BUDGET AND CAST, etc), this was a bust. Although I can't say it was the most utterly atrocious thing I've ever seen in theaters (Transformers 4) I cannot say that I was satisfied given the name JAMES BOND. Suffice to say, this was a waste of my money. Catch it on day time television in a few years and thank me later.
Overall ranking for its caliber as compared to what it should and could have been?
5.2/10
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