I've been mulling it over and I'm afraid to say that it ultimately
left me somewhat dissastisfied. It just all felt rather bloodless.
Despite its many flaws Quantum of Solace at least had a very driven
Bond glowering his way through the hired hands of a shadowy
organisation that felt threateningly sinister owing to how little we
knew about it. Much of the action in the film may have been bungled,
and it may have had a muddled script, but there were enough stand-out
moments in the film to make me think that it has been judged a little
too harshly by critics. (The opera house, the finale in the remote
little complex leading to a very cruel moment by Bond with the oil
can.)

This film... well, Spectre revealed itself and... it just didn't seem
all that immense an organisation. It didn't even seem to have any
definable goals. Neither did Blofeld. Okay, so he's trying to take
over the world's network of intelligence. He's willing to kill women
and children in his chaotic bomb attacks (which play so distantly and
quietly that it's hard to get worked up in the film about them) and
he's got a secret base. But what's his actual plan once he has access
to the world's security? Is it more sinister cartel stuff? Because it
feels as if they're kind of doing that already with their 'we're
everywhere' stuff if we're being asked to believe that they are behind
Quantum as well. Well, at least we've got sinister Blofeld, eh? The
man in the movie who's reign of terror saw the deaths of... er... who
would stop at nothing in his destruction of... um... who's evil brain
drill twice pierced Bond's skull and caused him to... ah.

The man who breathtakingly achieved a scheduled demolition slightly
ahead of schedule and then crashed in his own helicopter, before being
arrested?

There's something faintly laughable in poor old Blofeld. He tries to
torture Bond to death. Bond simply blasts his way out of there with an
explosive watch which, if he had indeed been following Bond all that
time, he should really have suspected was a Q department product. He
builds a gorgeous little base in a crater somewhere. Bond blows it up.
He gets his computer programmers to infiltrate the world's security
networks. Bond's friends pull the plug. He tries to kill Bond with the
old exploding building trick. Bond simply runs out of it. He tries to
run away. Bond shoots his chopper down. With a handgun. From about 500
yards away.

Wait a minute, how did Blofeld plan to use his infiltration software
if all his computer programmers had been blown up? Wouldn't the
destruction of his surveilance base put the kibbotz on his scheme? Why
did his surveilance base have big explosive oil and gas pipework
everywhere? (Also, Bond was so close to that Austin Powers gag when he
bursts in and fires three shots from his gun and six bad guys fall
down.)

Oh well, at least we have a smouldering romance between Bond and Lea
Seydoux. She hates him and his world of guns! No, wait, beating up
Dave Batista gets her kinda hot, forget that. They're totally an item
now. Oddly, there seemed way more chemisty in his scenes with Monica
Bellucci. They really should have run with that instead. (Someone else
Blofeld entirely fails to kill, incidently. 'Go see my buddy, Leiter,
he'll protect you.' 'Oh okay, I certainly hope that nothing will
happen to me in the sixteen or so hours it takes me alone and
unprotected to get over there. Phew.'

Hmm. Well, at least we have Bond spitting and snarling and
relentlessly pursuing the architect of his recent tragedies. "It was
me, Bond. It was always me." To which Bond responds silently with a
look of, er, "Oh, okay. Good to know," and proceeds to carry on
exactly as before. He doesn't even really seem to hate Blofeld, just
views him with a degree of contempt. Which is a jim-dandy Bond
reaction normally, if the script didn't keep awkwardly shoe-horning in
lines from Blofeld about how it was really personal. (To which Bond
responds with a faint air of bafflement as if he's got some stalking
secret admirer and he can't figure out why.)

Oddly, C seemed the greater menace in all his bureaucracy, even though
he's just a hired hand. I was really hoping for an awesome bluff and
for it to turn out that HE was Blofeld, not Waltz, who really needed
more lift-traps and failure-intolerance to make an impression.Think
about it, how much more awesome would that have been? C'mon, you've
got Moriatry there. I was hugely expecting it, for Waltz to really be
an ostentatious lacky fooling Bond while C did something really evil
back in London. But no. Gngh.

And where were the other 00 agents? Were they tamely surrendering too?
You would have thought they could have helped out in a pickle, though
heaven knows Bond handled it all tidily and quickly enough.

Also, who builds a headquarters for secret intelligence out of glass
in central London, glass that isn't even shatter-proof?

Good things: Mexico. Ridiculous driving a plane bit. Dave Batista
fight. Q and M being droll. Moneypenny is very cute. Set design. Some
winning gags. Bond is still kinda fun.

Bad things: Blofeld failing evil school. Unbelievably clumsy
retro-conning to ape Marvel's bigger picture movie format.
Insufficient stakes. Inexplicably exploding bases. Stupid boneheaded
even-worse-than-Roger-Moore plot logic.

Wonder Woman