Quantum of Solace

First, the title appears to mean very little, although a site called the James Bond Dossier gives a fairly good indication that it actually does mean something. Apparently 'quantum' can mean an amount, in which case, 'a small amount of comfort' might a reasonable translation.
The movie is high energy, lots of explosions, little sensible dialogue, lots more explosions, the inevitable inability of villains to kill someone even with a machine gun, car chases, rooftop chases, plenty of people getting killed for no apparent reason, explosions, and finally, lots and lots of explosions. Out of which Bond, his lady friend, and the villain all manage to escape. As you'd expect.
Beyond that, the film washes over the brain, seldom engaging it in any way at all. It's full of stuff but what that stuff is, is anybody's guess. Most things that happen in the movie have very little to do with anything, especially the action sequences, which come at regular intervals, just in case anyone with even half a brain wants to do some thinking for a while.
The action sequences are cut in such a way that most of the time you have no idea what's going on, which is a pity, because they look as though originally they were staged very cleverly. And there are all sorts of unexplained things. Both Bond and M appear to get shot very early in the piece, but make no comment about the fact that they're both still alive in the next sequence.
I suspect the film is full of Hitchockian McGuffins, which the scriptwriters thought nobody would want explained so they threw them all in. To detail them all would be a waste of time; suffice to say: this Bond film is all-out energy, rather like Mumma Mia, but when you walk out of the film you rather wonder what you've spent a couple of hours doing.

The Bourne Ultimatum

As it happened, I watched The Bourne Supremacy again on DVD last night. Its plot was pretty much as follows:
Jason Bourne is under attack. He knows too much. An asset is sent to kill him. (An asset is an assassin paid by the CIA.) Asset fails. Jason goes on the run again. Pamela Landy has an underlying sense that Jason isn’t just a loose cannon, but she is put down by her superiors. Her superiors turn out to be corrupt. In the end, Jason defeats the assassin, and brings down the corrupt superiors. There are lots of car chases.
Tonight we went to see The Bourne Ultimatum at the movies. The plot was pretty much as follows:
Jason Bourne is under attack. He knows too much. An asset is sent to kill him. Asset fails. Jason goes on the run again. Pamela Landy has an underlying sense that Jason isn’t just a loose cannon, but is put down by her superiors. Her superiors turn out to be corrupt. In the end, Jason defeats the assassin, and brings down the corrupt superiors. There are lots of car chases.
Notice any similarities?
The Bourne Ultimatum is loud, full of car chases and spectacular crashes, chases of people up and down buildings and in and out streets, and several unpleasant deaths.
Did I mention it was loud?
The photography is forever on the move, even in the quiet scenes, so that our eyes are worn out trying to adjust to what’s going on. The movement in the quiet scenes uses that recent development, particularly noticeable in tv shows, where the camera is apparently handheld, and keeps jittering. On a big screen this is just plain annoying. But the photography in the various chases is worse. The cutting is so fast that no shot lasts for more than a second or so. Consequently the audience can barely keep up with who’s who and what’s what and where we are. And many of the shots are blurred, as though it was easier to disguise what was actually happening that way. This becomes increasingly irritating as the movie goes on. The car chase towards the end, when the assassin gets back in on the act, is barely understandable. Jason Bourne’s vehicle is almost written off, yet keeps on going. He survives falling off a building in a car, being smashed into by everything in sight, and smashing other cars. At no time does he get whiplash, or any of the other normal consequences of his driving. His limp turns up again after he climbs out of an almost completely demolished car, but is gone again shortly after. The assassin is virtually wiped off the map, yet he turns up a few scenes later with not a scratch on him!
The Bourne Ultimatum, I hate to say, is basically absurd, derivative, and hard to watch. And did I mention loud?