Daniel Craig’s Bond is back and twice as deadly in Quantum of Solace – a direct sequel to the franchise re-launch Casino Royale. While the film has some trouble, it is a great Bond adventure, packed with action, and leaves you counting the days until the next film in the franchise hits the big screen.
Picking up right where Casino Royale (which I suggest watching again before this one) ended, Quantum of Solace sees Bond on a quest for revenge over the death of Vesper.
The world’s greatest secret agent has to control his emotions after Mr. White (Jesper Christensen) reveals to M (Judi Dench) that there is a new power player in the world known as Quantum, and they are everywhere. This statement is followed up with one of M’s MI6 agents taking a few pot shots at her.
From there the film is pretty much a full-throttled rollercoaster ride with Bond killing his way through every lead as he tracks down the people behind Quantum – who he considers responsible for Vesper’s death and trying to kill M.
Director Marc Forster and writers Neal Purvis and Robert Wade did a good job matching Casino Royale’s look and feel with this movie while not making the film feel predictable or just another version of what was done the first time. The filmmakers move Bond along in his development as 007, but we can still see that this isn’t the suave secret agents from the past films. This Bond still has many flaws which tend to cause trouble for him and get innocent people killed.
Bond’s investigation (if you can call it that since he kills about every person he questions) puts him in the path of environmentalist Dominic Greene (Mathieu Amalric) and his love interest for the film, Camille Montes (Olga Kurylenko). Greene is anything but menacing, but manages to come off so smug that you can’t wait for Bond to kill him, punch him, or just put him in his place.
As one of the heads of Quantum, Greene has a big plan to make billions, but it isn’t that thrilling or even something that seems worthy of the classic Bond enemy SPECTRE (Special Executive for Counter-Intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion) – which Quantum seems to be based on. Watching the film for the first time, I was left thinking “that’s his big plan?,” and couldn’t help but wonder if the classic Bond villain and SPECTRE leader Ernst Stravro Blofeld would toss Green into the shark tank for suggesting it.
Like in Casino Royale, Bond basically stumbles his way through the conspiracy using violence and his quick thinking to put the pieces together in time to save the world – or at least the part of the world he is in at the time.
Once again, I think Daniel Craig’s portrayal of Bond was great, and he seems to be more comfortable with the character in his second outing. This is not a comical Bond, a flirting Bond, or even a Connery Bond. Craig’s Bond is one part thug and one part cold blooded assassin.
Some critics knock the franchise’s reinvention as being too similar to the Bourne films, but I think they have finally gotten it right. Not since the early Sean Connery Bond films, has the character felt real (although he does have more than a few Superman moments in this one), and I give credit to Craig’s stripped down and reserved performance as Bond.
I also enjoyed Craig’s interaction with Dench’s M, and the few brief scenes with Jeffery Wright’s Felix Leiter (who needs a bigger part in this franchise!). I wish we could get Q back into the franchise, but I think the low-tech approach is working for now. Bond doesn’t need a lot of goofy gadgets to get through the adventure, and they wouldn’t fit in this style of Bond story.
I was also surprised by Olga Kurylenko’s performance in the film, and thought she did an excellent job being more than just someone for Bond to rescue or a replacement for Vesper. Her character has a reason for being in the story, and has a motivation for being with Bond.
If the movie has any faults, it is with the character of Greene. I say the character, because I thought Amalric does an excellent job at being the bad guy – even if it just because of his snobby performance that makes it easy to hate him.
The character’s motivation and stature never seem to be good enough to go up against Bond – which makes their showdown at the end seem a bit silly. After seeing Bond kill his way through all the henchmen, is it really possible that Green could go toe-to-toe with him?
The movie looks incredible on Blu-ray’s crystal clear picture, and really helps sell all the details Forster and company put into making the film. Once again, Bond takes a beating pretty much through the whole movie, and every little scratch and bruise seems visible in the detailed format. I also really enjoyed the colors of the film, and the different lighting used for various scenes (such as the opera sequence or the solar powered headquarters of Green).
It also comes with some decent special features (although I would have liked a little more since it is a Bond adventure and the first direct sequel to a Bond movie) that take you into the making of the movie.
There are several behind the scenes look at how the movie was shot, looks at the various action sequences, and location shooting. It also has the music video for “Another Way to Die” and trailers.
Quantum of Solace was another great adventure for Craig’s version of Bond. If you liked him in Casino Royale, you will like him in this film. I hope the next movie continues where the franchise is heading, and look forward to seeing what 007 has in store for audiences next.
Quantum of Solace [Blu-ray] is now available at Amazon . Visit the DVD database for more information.
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