James Bond versus Nestlé, featuring: greenwashing, offhand showing the CIA being terrorists, and only a little unintelligible British mumble acting. Possibly the only Bond film made, even to date, that has what counts as meaningful commentary on the geopolitical and economic events it sensationalizes. I have to admit, I came away unimpressed upon my initial viewing in theatres, and I can chock that up to my own ignorance of the world. I just re-watched it, and I have to say it may be the best executed Bond film of the ~15 I've seen. I'll have to re-watch _Skyfall_, but this may actually be the best all-around Bond film.

The reality of the plot seems to have mirrored the backdrop of real world power structures too much for audiences to have appreciated it, ironically enough, given how high stakes the reality is, but I can't point to any particular flaw in the plot or script, which is nearly unheard of (perhaps the mention about running out of oil, but that will still happen eventually, and people thought it was more imminent around 2008.) It's very tight, and that's something that the extremely bloated Bond films have needed since the sixties. People may have complaints about the action, though I'm not sure why. Action scenes have always been the downfall of the pacing for most Bond films in my experience, but this film neatly opens and intersperses the plot with them instead of having the entire film overtaken by laboriously long and tedious action scenes and, followed by the perennial favorite of "Bond gets captures, but the villain doesn't kill him for ~reasons~", which was thankfully absent here.

I can't help but think this would have fared better and been memed instead of forgotten, had it been released ten years later.