(* ½ out of 5)Quantum Of Solace starts off like an ad for a BMW or Audi or some other feat of German engineering; then you find out it’s only a British car – an Aston Martin – and the disappointment foreshadows the next 2 torturous hours of your life. It’s bad. How bad? It boasts the worst portrayal of Bond, ever (no sniggering about George Lazenby - revisit On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, an undervalued gem). Daniel Craig takes his hard-assed, joyless, uncouth Casino Royale Bond and makes him even more of a soulless automaton. It is the worst titled Bond film, with the worst Bond song (Alicia Keys and Jack White ‘singing’ Another Way To Die).

QoS has the worst car chase, with perhaps the worst plot and the worst Bond villain (Mathieu Almaric’s pathetically weasely baddie makes Living Daylight’s toy-soldiers-playing General Whitaker and Tomorrow Never Dies’ over-the-top Eliot Carver pleasant company). It boasts the worst line in the franchise’s 46-year history (a dying character says: “Forgive her; forgive yourseeeeellllfffff…”, besting the previous worst from Casino Royale: “I have no armor left; you’ve stripped it from me”).

While it doesn’t have the worst Bond girl (that dubious honor goes to Denise Richards in The World Is Not Enough), Oleg Kurylenko is probably the most lifeless. Also, as a Ukrainian playing a Bolivian with the aid of a laughably fake tan, she represents perhaps the franchise’s second-worst casting decision (see Denise Richards above).

Simply put, Quantum of Solace is easily the worst Bond film ever made.