Review of 'Quantum of Solace'

22nd film in the 'James Bond' series

Following immediately on from the events of Casino Royale, James Bond (Daniel Craig) races to Siena, Italy with a captured Mr White (Jesper Christensen) in the boot (trunk) of his car and pursued by White's henchmen. In White's interrogation by MI6 it is clear they know very little of his organisation but the session is interrupted when one of M's (Judy Dench) bodyguards, Mitchell (Glenn Foster) turns on them resulting in White being wounded but escaping. Investigation into the now deceased bodyguard leads Bond to Port au Prince, Haiti to track down Michell's contact Mr. Slate (Neil Jackson) who attacks Bond when he enters his hotel room. A short time later Bond is accidentally assumed to be the, now deceased (of course), Mr. Slate by Camille Montes (Olga Kurylenko), lover of Dominic Greene (Mathieu Amalric), CEO of ecological company “Greene Planet”, who hired Mr. Slate to kill her. Deciding to let Camille go, Bond follows her and learns that Greene is helping a Bolivian general, Medrano (Joaquín Cosio), in overthrowing the government in exchange for some “useless” land in the middle of the dessert. Following Greene on his travels takes Bond to Austria where he discovers Greene is head of a mysterious ogranisation calling itself “Quantum”…

Confused? Yeah, so am I after this head-ache inducing film. To be honest, I had to re-read the synopsis from IMDB before I could even begin to describe the plot…This is pretty much a train-wreck of a film and a huge disappointment following the promise of “Casino Royale”. Unlike that far superior film in Quantum of Solace the action never stops which leaves little time for character development or even to enjoy the scenery. Here Bond is an unfeeling killing (and sex) machine, ripping up the scenery from the first second of the film to the last. As to what is going on, it would take a great deal of effort to unravel the story as here it is secondary to massive set pieces and incredible stunts – Yes, they do indeed look great, but after an hour and a half it is tiring and you no longer really care too much about what is going on. We all know how it will turn out. The only thing we can be sure of is that Bond will be there, everything and anyone else, is up for grabs.

Here Craig as Bond does little to strain his emotional muscle but seriously strains his muscle's muscles with action from start to end. Dench as M is limited to muttering about the body count as it gets steadily larger (she has a point, seriously!). Thankfully we do see the return of several of the characters from the first film including the moral voice of the CIA Felix Leiter (Jeffrey Wright) working contrary to what appears to be “corporate” policy and fixer Rene Mathis (Giancarlo Giannini) who, sadly, is only on screen for a few minutes before being, literally, tossed aside. This seems to be common pattern as the film rips from one country to the next with bodies flung in all direction…

Yeah, not a big fan of “Quantum of Solace” as it has none of the charm, elegance and intelligence of other Bond flicks (ok, perhaps they never had much of the later, but I hope you get the point). Even now, having just seen the film for possibly the fourth time I still can't figure out what is going on but there are some amazing explosions…

Rating: “Average, but who wants to be average?”

Review Date: 2020-01-26

Directed by: Marc Forster

Studio: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)

Year: 2008

Length: 106 minutes

Genre: Action/Adventure

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0830515/

• Dr. No (1962)
• Thunderball (1965)
• Die Another Day (2002)
• Casino Royale (2006)
• Skyfall (2012)
• Spectre (2015)

• World War Z (2013)