Quantum of Solace

1. Vital Stats

Publisher: Sony

Age Rating: 12A

Length: 110 mins

Directed by: Marc Forster

Starring: Daniel Craig, Gemma Arterton, Olga Kurylenko, Mathieu Amalric

We give it:

Bond is back to avenge Vesper's death. Tim joins him in an epic adventure but is this film truly a tale From Russia with Love or has Bond Died on yet Another Day?...

Casino Royale was exactly what the Bond franchise needed. After Die Another Day they needed to reinvent the wheel, which they did by completely rethinking Bond. It was a commercial and a critical success and has become one of my personnel favourite films.

So its no wonder Sony and MGM wanted to continue the success of Casino Royale by making Quantum of Solace (QoS) a direct sequel to Casino Royale, a first for the Bond franchise.

So QoS starts off where Casino Royale finished off with Bond capturing Mr White and quizzing him about the mysterious organisation, which we learn is called Quantum. The plot then continues on to focus on one of the members of Quantum being Dominic Greene. We learn that Dominic is helping to destabilize Bolivian government and reinstate an exiled into power in order to gain control of an important natural resource.

Dominic Greene in QoS seems to have the potential to be a brilliant villain in this film, however as with most parts of this film, his character didn't have much time to truly develop into the Bond villain you would imagine him to be.

This brings me to my major gripe about this film, it being the length. I can easily say I think this film should have been 30-45 minutes longer than its 110 minute run time (which is also the shortest a Bond film has ever been). The main problem with the short runtime was that it didn't give the film much chance to stop and let the narrative take its breath before it was heading off into either another location or another action scene. This meant that once you get to the epic finale of the film you get the feeling that you have missed something major, which doesn't normally happen when you get to the finale of a Bond film.

QoS like Casino Royale also lacked the true feeling of a Bond film. QoS feels like it is moving further away from the Bond formula for example no gun barrel at the start nor did he ever say "Bond James Bond". Whilst these conventions should not be stuck into the film for the sake of it, the producers should also consider that they are making a James Bond film not a James Bourne film.

This brings me to the action scenes, which have obviously been influenced by the Bourne series. I liked the action scenes a lot, however the only problem with them was the camera work. I found the camera work to be focused too close on the character and also had dramatic changes. This made me feel like I didn't know what was going on in the scene and also a little ill.

At this point you must be thinking I am being very negative in this review, well apart from these gripes I enjoyed the film. I thought that the film makers resolved all the issues such as Vespers betrayal and death from Casino Royale quite well which is something they missed out on when they did Diamonds are Forever after On Her Majesty's Secret Service. Also Olga Kurylenko was quite good as a Bond girl as she was very different from Vesper in Casino Royale and was a very independent character.

I thought the actors playing Mathis and Felix Leiter also reprised their roles very well. I thought that Gemma Arterton also played her part well even though it was very brief.

The plot also told a quite good story and also raised some good questions about the reliance of governments on resources such as oil etc.

In summary QoS is not as good as Casino Royale, but it is unrealistic to expect that it could be better than Casino Royale. It is however an enjoyable action flick which everyone should enjoy but don't go in expecting the greatest Bond film ever made.