Enjoyable yet annoying as well.

Rating: 7/10 (21 June 2009)

The world famous spy returns yet again in this fast-paced and more cold-blooded than usual fare. Picking up right after "Casino Royale" left, Bond races away from assassins and soon finds himself on the heels of a business man who is most likely not all that he initially seems to be.
The plot here is fairly interesting and it is more believable than many previous Bond entries, it feels less comic bookish, much like "Casino Royale," and one can almost imagine a group like QUANTUM existing. They operate via shadowy business dealings, use doublespeak during public functions and largely hide in plain site... it is quite the enemy organization for Bond to take on; a secret meeting during an opera performance is one of cleverest bad guy moves and, of course, Bond is there to screw it all up in his signature recklessly calculating fashion. Many of the previous Bond villains also were in the vain of QUANTUM, but they lacked a certain edge, or maybe it was the previous films themselves lacked the rough edge of these last two Bond films. They were still largely enjoyable, but this gritty approach Bond sure works well. Bond's dark and very dry humor is also in top form here.
That is not to say that "Quantum of Solace" is without disappointment and it is a rather ironic and heavily irksome disappointment. "Casino Royale" started of with intriguing plot and that new style of gritty action, but then failed to match its initial action scenes for the climax and the love story essentially made a flying bullet of a thriller film hit a brick wall and shatter into nothing. "QoS" stays with its plot and there are many action scenes and each one is different than the last, which makes for a variable of thrills. However, that is also where the irk comes in. "Casino Royale" for the action that it had, was shot and edited very well, but this film, for reasons inexplicable, succumbed to the hyper-editing craze that seems to be dominating big action films today. From the first car chase to a boat chase to a plane chase and finally an exploding hotel and everything in between seems like it was put together by someone on amphetamines. There are plentiful quick cut close-ups that too often result in a blur. With the high budget and obviously awesome set ups for the action scenes, it is real shame that much of that isn't actually shown. Isn't that why people pay money to see a film like this? Slow motion is also heavily under used and would have very much helped those quick-cut close ups and reduce the blur factor.
To conclude, the plot is slight improvement over the previous entry as it remains consistent throughout, the film moves quickly and enjoyably; however, the action style is a downgrade from the previous entry, which, especially in the Miami airport scene, demonstrated what awesome action scenes are all about. --- 7/10
BsCDb Classification: 13+ --- violence