A twenty-first-century action thriller, featuring James Bond

Rating: Null/10 (14 May 2010)

It's unfair to compare QUANTUM OF SOLACE with the old James Bond films. Daniel Craig's movies have an entirely different style and tone. They are gritty and real-ish. Serious spy thrillers set in the modern world.
QUANTUM OF SOLACE is a good follow-up to CASINO ROYALE (2006), although the former is not as good as the latter. Daniel Craig is back as a brutal James Bond and the film continues the series' new deadly serious tone.
In this outing, James Bond investigates a top-secret global crime organization. When MI6 isn't sure it can trust 007, Bond goes rogue. In that respect, and the underlying revenge theme, the film is similar to LICENCE TO KILL (1989). The story is pretty interesting, with betrayals, reveals, and twists and turns along the way. It rounds out the 007 origin story started in CASINO ROYALE and sets up the new Bond universe for future installments.
At first glance QUANTUM OF SOLACE may not seem like a "Bond film". There's no gun-barrel opening. There are no fun spy gadgets. James Bond is more thuggish and less suave. There's very little humor. The action scenes are edited together with quick cuts and enhanced with digital touches.
But the film does have many of the James Bond staples. Exotic locations (Italy, Haiti, Austria and Bolivia). Action. A lovely female companion. A casual fling between Bond and a woman he just met. A gray Aston Martin. There's even a gala scene where Bond gets to wear a tuxedo.
Still, QUANTUM OF SOLACE is stylistically unlike any other Bond film. It doesn't even try to "look" like a "Bond film". It has its own style. The quick cuts, the different typefaces, some interesting camera angles. The director seemed to want to make a more "artistic" James Bond movie. There's a fight scene intercut with an opera performance that is totally un-Bond-like, but pretty interesting nonetheless.
There's plenty of action, including a car chase, a foot chase, and a boat chase. One of my favorite sequences involves an airplane escape. This movie makes full use of 21st-century film-making techniques, enhancing the action scenes with CGI when needed (although there's still a lot of quality stuntwork). There's even a little bit of slo-mo. But the movie is edited with such quick cuts that I believe the action suffers. The viewer can't fully appreciate the sequences because of all the jumping around and close-ups.
QUANTUM OF SOLACE is not one of my favorite James Bonds, but I did like it. Parts of it, at least. It may not have the familiar "feel" of a Bond film, but it fits with the serious tone of the revamped series. It certainly has none of the campiness that brought down some of the lesser (older) Bond movies. It's an action thriller, and as such it is occasionally thrilling. However, it lacks that special something to set it apart as both a Bond film and a generic thriller. It's serious and gritty and action-packed and it has hints of 007's signature coolness, but the villain and climax were underwhelming and the editing was too choppy. It's good, but not great.
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QUANTUM OF SOLACE is the twenty-second official James Bond film and the second to star Daniel Craig as 007. The Bond girl is Olga Kurylenko. The villain is Mathieu Amalric (THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY). The secondary Bond girl is Gemma Arterton. Judi Dench returns as M for the sixth time. Jeffrey Wright reprises his role as Felix Leiter of the CIA.