Really struggles in certain areas but as a mystery with an element of espionage it works on a basic level, just don't expect an all round experience.

Rating: 6/10 (21 November 2008)

Quantum of Solace is a mixed bag, and it's a real, real mixed bag. On one hand, the film is a very passable and dare I say entertaining affair that just manages to be enough time without outstaying its welcome but still leaves that nasty, niggling feeling after it's finished that it was nothing special on the whole. Following on from 2006's hugely successful Casino Royale, successful because it practically saved a franchise, is Swiss director Marc Forster continuing the tale but unfortunately, he cannot bring his style and European inspired grace that gave us the slow, rewarding and powerful character driven dramas such as Monster's Ball.
The choice of director is a strange one. On IMDb, the trivia section states Bond actor Daniel Craig himself recommended Marc Forster and it seems the studio listened but since when was it a good idea for the cast to start choosing who's making the damn film? Secondly, since Quantum of Solace is the first Bond film to be a direct sequel, why was a new director chosen in the first place? Usually, the same director for the sequel or following film works better than a new creative talent all together. If the studio knew this film was going to be a direct sequel (the planning took place before Casino Royale was wrapped) then they should've made sure Campbell was on board for sure. Apply it to other works; Peter Jackson made all three Lord of the Rings films and Greengrass made the second and third Bourne films; all five examples of which have garnered a lot of fan following.
So the general set up before the film has even begun is rather messy and this is before the film has started. Quantum of Solace is two different sorts of beast. Firstly; the large espionage, driven plot about one man hunting for revenge of a loved one is actually handled reasonably well and never grates in the same way a Death Wish sequel probably would. But twinned with these scenes of tracking, following and generally interesting mystery surrounding a large criminal organisation and its shifty members are the action scenes and boy, what a mess.
I don't know what it was with either the writer's or the director but they seemed to be doing things in stages. The pre-credit sequence is a chase through Siena in Italy, one of a few places introduced via erratic and deliberately post-modern graphics and fonts that feel a bit silly. The chases in the film involve cars and later on will involve people on rooftops and later on will involve boats and later still will involve aeroplanes  it's this sort of Michael Bay inspired hierarchy that drags Quantum of Solace down; a sort of 'every chase will be bigger and better than the last!' mentality that grates on you as you sit and watch it unfolding at paced intervals of about twenty minutes.
But again, this is just the set up and the general mentality behind the chases with the visualisation of the scenes is slightly worse. In short, and I will not be the last to notice this, the editing is terrible. Constant moving, tracking, cutting and one on occasion, slow motion as the camera glides to the side yet enforces its rapid editing on show. The film's attention to space and the space that the characters inhabit is equally poor; Bond has a gun, Bond is shooting and bad guys are dropping around him like flies  it gets to the point where Bond may just as well be shooting up into the air above him and we can cut to someone below him, dropping and thus being eliminated. The establishment of where we are and where people are and how they're going to go about achieving their goal of killing each another is just nonexistent.
But I like the overall feeling the film tries to get across in the sense Bond, played well by Daniel Craig, and his accomplice Camille (Kurylenko) are both after the same thing in the film (revenge through death of a loved one) but must use one another to get closer to their goal. Incidentally, Camille is anything but the glamorous beauty who exists to be looked at, something previous Bond films have been guilty of doing to their women, although the treatment of ally Strawberry Fields (why did they send a woman to apprehend Bond in the first place?) is unfortunate and the negatives do outweigh the positives. If Casino Royale helped move the franchise away from petty references and the use of gimmicky gadgets (the invisible car was a tad over the top), then Quantum of Solace threatens to undo a lot of good work by pushing the series back down to that area. The excessive shots of the technology in the film, such as screens that seem to suspend themselves in mid air in the middle of offices or others that react to touch and evoke copious amounts of information at a fantastic rate, too fantastic even.
Then there are the Goldfinger references such as the certain character covered in oil rather than gold paint whilst lying on the bed and the bad guy's lair at the very end which, maybe it's just me, looks distinctly like the interior of Fort Knox with its coloured interior; steel walkways and general look. The film is nothing to write home about but it quenches a lot of espionage related thirsts with a healthy mix of action and dialogue, complete with betrayals and meek statements on today's political climate what with the increasing lack of oil and the shifty activities the Americans might be indulging in, some of it to do with 'friendly fire'. Quantum of Solace isn't great but it's a fun enough time that doesn't creep too low beyond the line of negativity, like it could've done.