I saw it tonight.
It's all summed by towards the end, as Bond drops Camille off at a train station in a small, out-of-the way Bolivian town railroad station. Before they part, she tells Bond that he's a prisoner, and hopes that he can be free one day.
That got me thinking.
Bond in this film didn't have a sense of fun. No relishing of the good things in life. When he drinks his martinis in the first class lounge in the plane, it's not for hedonistic pleasure. It's to dull his senses. He gets a grand room in the grandest hotel in La Paz, and some company from the very primly British Ms Fields. But there does not seem to be any joy in that either. People remark that he looks like he hasn't slept in days. He hasn't.
This is not the Bond of Connery, Moore or Brosnan. (I don't consider Lazenby or Dalton as worthy Bonds). This is Clint Eastwood or Charles Bronson in a designer Suit, an Aston Martin and the body and moves of an athlete/gymnast. The Craig Bond is a silent, brooding person without joy or zest for life. He's a prisoner and is out to avenge those who harmed and took away the love of his life. Very Eastwood. Very Bronson. Not Bond.
That aside, the plot was good. It was actually one of the best written Bond plots I've encountered so far - very real world. I was fascinated to see Britain's foreign affairs ministry cavorting with the evil organisation, all in the name of securing the oil if felt was being snapped up by the Americans, Chinese and Indians. The oil that Russia and the Middle East were offering in less than friendly terms. Reminds me of how many big organisations have large departments working at odds, hardly aligned for the ultimate national good, seeking only to succeed in their narrow KPIs for the sake of career, glory and power.
Camille Montes (played by Olga Kurylenko) was totally believeable as a Russian-Bolivian Spy. Hard to believe she's ukranian - she does sport a latin-american look. Her "origin story" was reminiscent of O-Ren Ishii (the leader of the Yakuza, and her personal assassins, the Crazy 88 in Kill Bill). Recall the young girl who sees her family brutalized and killed before her tear stained eyes by a sadistic, evil man, and then her house is set on fire while she's still in it.
Seeing a black Felix Leiter was a joy, given today's announcement of Barack Obama's winning the 2008 US Presidential Elections.
It's just as well Q did not make an appearance in this film. He would not have fit. Q was about gadgets. About surviving like a lab rat in the subterranean depths of a large, confusing and officious organisation. About a bit of fun.
Best Tech in the movie? The table inteface in the early M debriefing, and later the glass wall display where the name search for matches for Dominic Greene are running. Nice visualizations, M has better interface design programmers than Tony Stark has.
No fun in this Bond film. Just lots of very well choreographed action, and a fascinating, real-world storyline. Good stuff, but still not in the league of the Connery films.
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