Makes 'Casino Royale' Good

Rating: 3/10 (8 November 2008)

I became a fan of the new rebooted franchise of Bond after watching the original Casino Royale in 2006(I even watched it in the first-day first-show). I think that movie really made Bond character a more human, compared to all that previous visual gimmicks garbage eggs. I liked the actor Daniel Craig's interpretation of 'Strong and Silent' brutal Bond which the original author Ian Fleming envisioned. When I heard EON production planning for a sequel I was greatly excited.
Fast forward, present day NOV-7-2008, all that excitement I gained after watching, surfing, downloading the news, trailers, articles of BOND 22 from preproduction to its early release, ended when I witness the sequel in the theatre.
Quantum of Solace. (***SPOLIERS***)
After the murder of Vesper, Bond became more aggressive to trace out the true killers responsible for her death. This time he happens to know that it is Dominic Greene (Mathieu Amalric), and to get him Bond has to go threw a wide cycle of events with the help of a girl named Camille (Olga Kurylenko).
Picking up almost an hour after the ending events of Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace is the first true Bond sequel happened in the James Bond franchise. Based on an original idea by producer Michael G. Wilson, director Marc Forster tells the continuing story of the world's greatest secret agent.
But the problem for this rebooted sequel is, first of all it doesn't feel like a thrilling movie or even a sequel because of the lame storyline and lagging plot expansion. The art film director Marc Forster doesn't even come close to the average Martin Campbell with his lame narration techniques. Originally intended to show Bond as realistic as possible, this director portrayed the action scene with unrealistic camera movements for CGI fight doubles and even copied the outstanding free-running sequence from Casino Royale. Or was it because of the bad script written by screenwriters Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, and Paul Haggis. Anyway it all sucked. No wonder why major directors like Roger Michell, Tony Scott, Alex Proyas, Jonathan Mostow declined to shoot this sequel with that draft. Even the opening credits looked pathetic.
Daniel Craig did his best as Bond even with a bad script; he showed he can hold on. His interpretation of Bond as a antihero more than a hero was prefect in this movie. Even without a good plot or great dialogues or a threatening villain, Daniel Craig proved he can play Bond as bold as ever. On the other hand antagonist Mathieu Amalric downplayed the character and appeared less alarming to Bond.
Second heroine Gemma Arterton was wasted all way long, so was Jeffrey white. Anything good was from Olga Kurylenko who captured the true essence of the Bond Girl. I became a fan after watching her outing with AGENT 47 in Hit-man, in this movie pairing with AGENT OO7 showed a new side of this talented actress. Plus, the stunt coordinator Gary Powell of Casino Royale and Dan Bradley the second unit director of Bourne film series, really deserves credits for bringing Bond realistic as possible. They showed their talents in creating the breath taking action sequences, especially the first car chasing and the rooftop fighting.
And also the soul given by David Arnold finally made an impact in this movie. I hated all his previous scores in bond films including Casino Royale, but this score heard in the movie really gave a true identity to the new serious Bond. Truly this is the Best Bond Score ever! All in all this is a movie which should have made better, but completely went wrong by hiring terrible director. EON producers better give importance to the preproduction, and please give Daniel a new long haircut in the coming sequel. I'm giving this movie 3 out of 10! (And it's only because of the Bond girl Olga Kurylenko and the eye candy M16 graphical user interface shown in the movie).
Quantum of Solace = Avoidable (Better try to watch its divx aXXo release and save your precious time and money).