Overcomes various flaws to deliver solid entertainment

Rating: 6/10 (21 October 2016)

Bond's back, in this latest instalment of the forty-year-plus franchise. QUANTUM OF SOLACE sees Daniel Craig returning to the role of Britain's grittiest spy after the success of CASINO ROYALE, and many fans will be asking whether this film can live up to the last one. Many feel that CASINO ROYALE breathed new life into a film series which had become stale and frankly boring. The answer is no: QUANTUM OF SOLACE is no match for its predecessor. But it's still a good movie.
The action kicks off seemingly minutes after the end of CASINO ROYALE. Bond has one of the bad guys locked in the boot of his car, and sub-machine gun wielding thugs are hot on his tail in a frenzied car chase, a pre-credits sequence and one of the year's best. From thereon in we're thrown into a plot involving a tycoon planning to steal an entire country's water resources. Action is the emphasis here; at times, the story feels lightweight, an excuse to hold together a string of increasingly frenetic chases and fights. The excitement is very much in the style of the Bourne franchise: frantically edited, reliant on stunt work over computer graphics, although some unwelcome CGI is present in a couple of scenes.
Craig slips back into the role with ease, as do returning actors Jeffrey Wright, Judi Dench, and Giancarlo Giannini. The newcomers do well too, with Mathieu Amalric making for a suitably slimy villain and Olga Kurylenko a sultry female fighter. Only Gemma Arterton as Agent Fields jars, a '60s-era Bond girl looking and feeling incongruous in the rebooted film series. As an action adventure, QUANTUM OF SOLACE is simple, fun fare: a slim, pared-down, white knuckle ride of a movie.