Bond was not a thug or robotic in QoS, but a damaged human being doing a dirty job while having to find his own moral compass against the emotional backdrop of feeling grief for, mixed with a sense of betrayal by, the first woman he truly loved. He finds it by the end of the film and "becomes" the Bond we know. Which is why the ending of QoS is the perfect ending to the best Bond film in my book.
Pretty much an auto-pilot responce there.
The truth is, fine, Bond is damaged, hence unemotional, stiff, underweight and unstable. Probably the closest we've had to a druggy Bond so far, which is a interesting change.
However, Bond doesn't "become Bond" at the end. He's still the same robot the we had at the start, the editing is still hyperfast and nauseatingly metronomic (I'm talking non-actoin scenes here), there's a definitive lack of chemistry between actors, with most of the energy coming from Craig's excellent performance alone.
After the watching the film again last night, there is very odd about the direction, and somehow stifles any development in Bond's character, maybe due to the shooting schedule I don't know. The dialogue scenes not scored by Arnold, often show up the clunky dialogue, awkward acting, and a lack of momentum, and a lack of one of the most important factors in producing any Bond film - irony.
It takes itself far too seriously, when the subject it's dealing with isn't that serious at all, almost like a robot directed the film. Going through the motions and hesitantly ticking off the Bond formula (unsuccessfully), action sequences, and bare script without even knowing why.
Edited by The Shark, 18 September 2009 - 10:13 PM.