Quite a good action flick.

Rating: 8/10 (2 December 2008)

Quantum Of Solace
Emerging from the shadow of Casino Royale comes this little story. Its gritty, brutal, fast and action packed. But does it live up to the hype? The action fan in my is jumping up and down with joy, but the Bond fan in me is crying. What this movie is ultimately about is:
Revenge.
You see Mr. James Bond take out people, bikes, cars, boats, planes, houses, dozen armed men, hotels and governments with a pistol and his left thumb. It's just crazy. One of my favorite scenes in the entire movie is when Bond is introduced to the bike for the first time. He uses his fist more then ever, he barely fires his weapon. It's up close and personal for this one. The camera is fast, over edited and shaky. For the most part it serves it's purpose of giving you the feeling of speed and anger. But it can derail the experience. The action sequences are with the lack of a better word: astounding. Yes it's a shaky cam, yes you can barely see whats going on but when you do it's adrenaline galore. Those many cases where the camera is mounted to the falling catwalks or props you just feel how much that fall down that floor hurt.
The story is complex, strangely portrayed and you get the feeling they rushed to tell you just so they can continue with the action. Bond rarely makes a joke, but for me, the action tells the jokes and the story. A lot of what Bond does is both funny and intriguing, although I felt Bond was missing his "Gentleman" stature that I had come to love with Sean Connery. The ladies man was gone. M (Judi Dench) delivers, of course, once more the most important role of being Bonds "mother". The villains on the other hand are quite bleak, not very ruthless like they were supposed to be, and ultimately not very interesting. Olga Kurylenko gives a decent performance but Gemma Arterton is quite pointless and could well be skipped entirely.
Now that we got that over with I must say I liked it. A lot. It's just my type of a movie. To anyone who's ever watched a Bond film, especially Casino Royale, you need to see this film.