Meh.

Lots of flash and little substance is how I’d describe it.

Casino Royale was about Bond returning to his roots (or perhaps, growing some new roots entirely). It was gritty, it was rough, it was far from the suave and unrealistic Bonds of the last decade.

Quantum of Solace tries to emulate this, but it oversteps. Now, Bond has degraded into a sort of stoic, Terminator-ish role. The Director wants us to see that Bond is a flawed character; his personal losses ever twisting his personality — but the script never gives Daniel Craig a chance to act. The movie starts with a car chase (yawn), and never quite stops running. There’s no time to breath, let alone identify with the characters.

The new Bond girl, Camille, is a bore I’m afraid. Try not to roll your eyes when she mentions her poor, tramautized childhood. Oh, do I need to tell you that she’s cool-headed and hardy, can handle a gun, and initially dislikes Bond, but has a soft, vulnerable side? Or can you figure all that out on your own?

And the cinematography. My god. Whoever was doing the cinematography needs to chill. If you watch the action scenes closely, you’ll notice that, in addition to the blitzing MTV-like cuts and edits, they decided to include more artsy (think art-house) shots — you know, close ups of pistol grips, slo-mo pans of mundane fruit, that sort of feel. It’s like they got some French drama cinematographer to edit the already over-edited MTV shows.

Everything was just so, I dunno, overdone.

When it comes to some movies, more is sometimes better. Bigger is sometimes better. Think of Michael Bay: Here, it’s always bigger explosions, bigger robots, bigger boobies. I’m sure he knows it. It’s formulaic, but it works and occasionally, we get a solid popcorn flick.

Other times, it’s better to go with the subtle approach. Gentle dialogue. Likeable characters. Story driven rather than action driven.

So you see, Bond needs to decide what he wants to be.

Don’t get me wrong. Quantum of Solace isn’t bad. In fact, most critics seem to like it enough.

I found it to be mildly entertaining. A not-so-enthusiastic one-thumb-up, if you will.

Part of it, I think, is that the older I get, the less impressed I am with action movies. It usually takes something truly epic and extraordinary (on the scale of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings) to impress me.