Quantum of Wha...

Come ON!! You can't call THAT a Bond movie! No siree, you can't.

Where was the customary visit to Q to load up the latest awesome gadgets?

Hell, where were the gadgets? (Yeah, yeah Sony Ericsson phones are cool (I have one too - the G700) and the Microsoft Surface http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_surface in M's office is very nice. BUT YOU CAN'T KILL PEOPLE OR GET INTO BED WITH BOND GIRLS USING THEM!! {hmmm, the Surface and Bond girls...could lead to some interesting things. Pause for imagination to run wild a bit here...back?..no..pause some more...back? ok, we resume}

Where are the pun-ny double entendre names for bond girls (Holly Goodhead,Plenty O'toole, Pussy Galore)?

Where is the nuclear weapon / world domination attempt / oil field / world war 3 initiation centered plot?

What is this? A watered down Vin Diesel flick?

Actually, when you think about it Vin Diesel would've done a way better job as the lead in this movie. After all this movie would've been right up his alley. All Quantum of Solace has is a line of chase sequences strung together with two bit dialogues and flashes of skin. The chases are damn good, no doubt. And they cover all modes of transport as well. So you have a chase on foot, in a car, in a motorboat (Ok, so how does a beat-up fishing boat beat down two state of the art motorboats with sub-machine gun toting goons?) and, to top it all, an aircraft chase (Again, a beat up transport aircraft beats a fighter plane. I mean, seriously, what were they thinking?)

And the pseudo bond-girl's revenge story was a straight lift from numerous Mithun da movies. Has the Bond brand come to this!

The villain would have to be one of the most non-sinister loser of a villain of all Bond movies...ever... even the ones that haven't yet been made. I mean the guy started off thinking that he'd play an evil-incarnate megalomaniacal callous villain. But when he read the script (spoiler warning) and realized that he'd be plotting all his terrible (?) plans around water resources in far off Haiti to get a freakin' utilities contract for his company, I guess his enthusiasm fizzled out. Quite correct too. In the end it seemed that the guy was doing the movie only because he signed the contract earlier and was ruing every second of the shooting.

And Daniel Craig? He's no James Bond. Give me the measured smoothness of Pierce Brosnan or the twinkle-in-the-eye panache of Sean Connery any day. He had the chance of recreating the suave one liner status of Bond with the 'She's sea sick' line (You've seen it in the trailers - Bond walks up a pier with a girl in his hands and tosses her into a confused helpers arms with a wry dialogue). But he did that terribly! It sounded like he was reading it from a cue card. Trust me, that line could've become legendary (or legend...wait for it..dary as Barney Stinson http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barney_Stinson would say)if Pierce Brosnan was delivering it. It could've become the iconic signature line of the movie ('Kitne aadmi the...' - Sholay, 'Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn' - Gone with the Wind)

All in all, not worth a trip to the movie hall late at night with the road dug up and no parking available and sitting in an awkward corner. You guys rent out a Vin Diesel movie instead - way more fun.