Quantum of Solace

Incomprehensible at times and Utterly Charmless, the Best one can hope for is that James Bond (Daniel Craig) has put His Feelings to Rest, has Forgiven Vesper, and can now get Right with the World of Espionage and Become the Secret Agent that He was Meant to be.

It manages to Clear the Air for the Brooding Bond and that may be the Only Thing that is Clear in this Dismal Movie that has so Little of the Bond Feel that it cannot be Forgiven.

The Action Scenes are more of the Post Modern, Quick Cut, Shaky Cam Nonsense that Works quite well in Very Limited Doses but is used here to Nauseating Excess that Hacks and Film School Students, and B-Movie makers have Adapted for a "Style" that has been so Overdone as to be Ridiculous. Add to that some Extreme Close Ups and all Sense of What Goes On is Lost in a Placebo of Adrenaline.

The Film's Locations are Anything but Exotic, more like Third World Infomercials that are Used to Adopt a Hungry Child. This is a Rather Boring Bond and is about as Unexciting as a Bond could be. Given the Backstory and the Historical Template and Oodles of Money it has just Enough Empathy from Fans to Tolerate this Dull Delivery, but just Barely.

The Title is one of the Worst for a Bond Film, as is the Opening Trademark Song, and Overall One gets the Feeling that They are in Disdain for the Character's Attributes and the Coolness that made Bond Survive over 20 Movies, 5 Actors, and 5 Decades. Its Acceptable to Modernize a Bit, Tweak a Little, and bring a Slightly New Artistic Touch, but not at the Expense of the Root Material.

Quantum was my least favorite Bond movie for quite some time. After the over-ambitious Spectre, I look back at Quantum with fondness due to its simplicity. Not necessarily in its plot, but in its treatment of Bond as a character and his coming to terms with Vesper's death. It's an epilogue to Casino Royale; Bond is hellbent on revenge. It effectively functions as a discount Bourne film. Daniel Craig is great as always, as is Judi Dench and the rest of the supporting cast. The problems with Quantum lie mainly in the directing and editing.

The film opens with a car chase - Bond is being pursued by thugs. Why? We find out later, but the fact that we have no information at the start makes it really hard to care about the action. On top of that, the camera is moving and cutting every half-second so it's nearly impossible to tell what's even happening. This shaky-cam technique is used throughout the film and it's as disorienting as it is annoying.

We're eventually led to our Bond Girl, Camille, who is a unique Bond Girl for having her own character arc (and her own villain), then she leads Bond to our main villain, Dominic Greene - a businessman who wants to buy a pipeline to control Bolivia's water supply. Not exactly a James Bond-level threat, is it? Greene is no match for Bond physically in any sense, but their final confrontation is gratifying if only to see a villain genuinely, and rightly, terrified of Bond. It's great fun to watch Greene yelp as he's swinging an axe around for dear life while his fuel cell-ridden desert hotel explodes around him.

The rest plays out like a standard revenge story. Camille wants revenge against General Medrano for killing her family, and Bond wants revenge for Vesper by going after the organization that was blackmailing her. The writing is stilted and unpolished, but where the movie mainly fails is in its directing. It's pretentious and tonally clashes with the dark character study of Bond that the script is going for. It also doesn't help when the action scenes keep cutting away to a nearby horse race or an opera.

What we have here is a Bond-Bourne hybrid that had the impossible burden of having to follow Casino Royale. However, it's nice to see a gritty Bond adventure for a change. It's not a great Bond movie, but it's engaging enough to be a good time if you're able to look past its flaws.

I was looking forward to seeing this film but I'm not sure I was excited to see it. This had been tempered by some average reviews and also some negative ones that suggested that it was simply, not very good as a film - a lot of which have come from ideas over what a Bond film should be. People praised the "reboot" but apparently QOS is unacceptable? I do not think that the Bond films cannot change it up, but if they tried to do a Bond that was a romantic comedy I would be the first to come to this site complaining about "what have they done to Bond?" so I'm not totally for change.

QOS is not that much of a step away from the Bond tradition and it is just more of an action movie than a Bond movie. Yes I thought it was strange that the traditional opening was saved for the end of the film but the absence of gadgets, innuendo, comedy etc didn't bother me one bit – these were what I hated in Die Another Day in particular. Some have had the issue that QOS follows directly on from the previous film and that the narrative flows directly rather than restarting with a new threat. I liked this though as it cuts away the need to establish everything fresh and instead we get the development of the Quantum organisation - a thread that is good for several more films I suspect. Others have complained that the story made no sense (Kermode in particular went on about how little sense it made) - personally I didn't struggle with the overall flow. The specifics of some scenes or characters perhaps were lost on me, but this was mainly because the film didn't spoon feed me - and I'd rather it made me think. It is not a traditional Bond story though but it worked and those scoffing about the exploitation of one country to make money and get power as a trivial plot by the series standards are not seeing this as a part of a bigger, powerful organisation.

Where the "story" side of the film falls down is in the development of the character as Bond – it could have been any character doing the running and jumping. Don't make me wrong, it is not terrible but the title credits made me hope for more. You see, the names I recognised that made me think something would click were the following - Daniel Craig (arguably the best "actor" to play Bond), Paul Haggis (Oscar winning writer - and not for action films but for films where story, script and characters were the whole show), Marc Forster (Kite Runner and Monster's Ball - again, more about characters and material than action). I wasn't looking for QOS to be a no-action, all character affair but I did hope that these talents could do great things with the new, darker character of Bond. But they don't. Yes we have the general continuation of this tough, violent man driven by some twisted sort of vengeful love but it makes very little of it. The scenes between the action do well enough to built the story and connect the action but ultimately they are only "the bits between the action". The cast are still good - but just feel like more was possible. Craig is a good Bond, rough, fit and attractive with dark menace in his very heart. Amalric may not be a typical Bond super-villain but that was the point. Kurylenko is stunning and fits the modern Bond girl role well. Dench does what she does with quality but Arterton offers nothing but a clumsy Goldfinger reference while Jeffrey Wright's performance suggests an interesting character that the script never produces. Giannini's character produces a moment of emotional and superficial coldness in Bond that is good but otherwise I could have done with him or his character.

The action is what the film is about and, while enough to entertain, is never as thrilling or engaging as it should be. This is a problem and it's a problem that Bond struggles to solve - the Bourne problem. I know some people hate rapid editing and tight shots on principle because it causes motion sickness or "you can't see what's happening" but, done well (as in Bourne) it can draw the audience into action and make it a lot more intense. However, it is not something that happens in the editing room alone. For Bourne this approach compliments and is complimented by the choreography of the action and also the filming style. With Bond it feels at times like this style is an afterthought - some of the action scenes work with it but in the majority it only detracts from the scene. It is still noisy enough to do the job and I do like the brutal edge the scenes have but the editing was not a good call here. Otherwise the action is "good", great locations, fast cars, big explosions - just a shame that nothing had me on the edge of my seat.

QOS is different from the traditional, Christmas-afternoon-telly Bond; but clearing away a lot of clutter doesn't bother me as much as it has some viewers. The film works well as a solid action movie but falls short of being anything special. It is so conscious of Bourne that, in imitating aspects of that film, the makers forget to see if it works with what they are doing. The lack of depth and development in the character is also a disappointment given the talent involved in key areas. It is still a solid and enjoyable film that is worth seeing even if it is hard to ignore that most of it could and should have been better than it is.

Quantum of Solace (2008)

** (out of 4)

Weak sequel to CASINO ROYALE has Daniel Craig returning for his second stint as James Bond. This time out he must try and stop a man (Mathieu Amalric) from trying to control the water supply in the world. Or something to that effect. QUANTUM OF SOLACE is a fair movie on its own but as a Bond film it's a major disappointment on so many levels that it's really not fair to even call it a Bond movie. I mean, everything memorable about a Bond film is missing here from Q to Moneypenny to brains and thrills. This is such a strange movie to watch because it seems that the director (Marc Forster) and editors wanted to be the star of the picture. Just take a look at the opening action sequence, which really has nothing to do with anything else in the film. The scene is very fast, the edits are very quick and it's really impossible to see anything that's going on. This here is okay for an action picture but a Bond picture is supposed to have brains to where the action has the hero having to think his way out of the situation. That doesn't happen in this scene or any of the action scenes that follow and it appears that the director and editors just want to put their style all over the screen no matter how much it harms the picture. But then again, perhaps they did this because they knew the story they were working on seemed incomplete, boring and just not satisfying at all. Craig is perfect as Bond but there's just nothing he can do here. Judy Dench is fine as well but again can't save anything. Olga Kurylenko is pretty forgettable as the sexy woman and Amalric is one of the least interesting villains in the series' history. QUANTUM OF SOLICE is just a downright mess of a film and one that can easily be skipped.

I first saw this in 2008 with my family in a theatre.

Revisited it recently on a dvd which I own.

This is the twenty-second in the Bond series, a direct sequel to Casino Royale, and the second film to star Daniel Craig as James Bond.

Like its predecessor, this one too doesn't rely on gadgets n cgi n has more chases n fast paced action but in trying to cash in on the success of Jason Bourne, Taken n other action movies, this one tried the fast cut editing which ruined the fun.

In quick cut editing one cannot make out who's who n what is going on.

In this film, Bond seeks revenge for the death of his lover, Vesper Lynd and is assisted by a Bolivian agent Camille Montes, who is coincidentally seeking to avenge the murder of her own family. The trail eventually leads them to Dominic Green, well connected with CIA and a businessman working in reforestation and charity funding for environmental science but helping an exiled General to get back into power, in return for support for his sinister plans along with CIA.

This time Bond faces Craig Mitchell, General Medrano, Dominic Greene n Colonel Carlos.

I miss those olden Bond villain's powerful henchmen.

This time the movie being fast paced n Bond on a vengeance, Bond gets to cool off with Gemma Arterton only.

The pioneer of the balcony/window jump is undisputedly Jackie Chan (Rumble in the Bronx).

Jason Bourne in Bourne Ultimatum copied almost the same jump.

Bond too copied almost the same jump in this movie.