A worthy sequel to Casino Royale

Rating: 8/10 (31 October 2008)

Casino Royale was, without a doubt, the best Bond movie since the days of Sean Connery. It threw out the cheesy puns, gadgets and villain-with-doomsday-device bloat that marred the Brosnan and Moore films, and returned the films to a more basic approach, focusing on the James Bond character rather than explosive pens and invisible cars.
Quantum of Solace continues this approach, and for the most part, it works. It does indeed pick up five minutes after the end of Casino Royale, with Bond (Daniel Craig) being pursued by Mr. White's (Jesper Christensen) bodyguards, as he takes him back to an MI6 safehouse to be interrogated. After a rather traditional opening credits (think girls and guns going off), Bond spends the rest of the film tracking down the Quantum organisation's members and one of them in particular, phony environmentalist businessman Dominic Greene (Mathieu Amalric) who plans to monopolize Bolivia's water supply.
Daniel Craig continues to show why he's the best Bond since Connery. He portrays Bond as a cold, ruthless character imagined by Fleming. It's obvious that Bond is still suffering from the events of Casino Royale, and his pursuit of Greene pretty much manages to alienate him from most of his allies and leads to the deaths of several friends. There's not many bad puns, either, although the few that do make it in (remarking that a failed asssassin "reached a dead end") are delivered in a more serious fashion, rather than practically winking at the screen as Brosnan might have.
As for the rest of the characters, M (Judi Dench) seems to spend most of the film exasperated by Bond's vendetta, but manages to flesh out the character quite well, showing how she interacts with the rest of the UK government, and providing a few hints of M's personal life.
Camille (Olga Kurylenko) is a rather atypical Bond girl, focused on her own personal vendetta against deposed dictator General Medrano (Joaquin Cosio). Medrano is rather undeveloped, but Kurylenko's performance is quite refreshing, as she's probably the first Bond girl to be portrayed as being interested in doing something other than jumping Bond sighing "Oh James!" as soon as the end credits roll. Agent Fields (Gemma Arterton) doesn't really get much to do, but is the more "traditional" Bond girl in this film. Her oily fate is a clear reference to Goldfinger, but isn't as effective. Personally, I think Arterton might have been better for a reimagined Moneypenny, as Fields is apparently nothing more than a secretary, and you do find yourself wondering why MI6 would send an inexperienced clerk to sort out Bond.
Mathieu Amalric's Greene is a slippery, loathsome character who exhibits the same two-faced nature that many politicians possess these days. He's quite different from the usual scarred villain that Bond confronts, and would prefer to buy out his opponents rather than fighting them. The rather unskilled nature of Amalric makes a refreshing contrast from the physically formidable opponents of previous films, and in an odd way I felt rather sorry for him when he gets the stuffing beaten out of him due to Bond's superior fighting skills.
The film is a lot faster paced than many of the previous ones, with a minimum of "explain the villain's plot" scenes, and instead focusing on spectacular set pieces, such as a rather memorable plane chase, or the impressive explosion of a fancily designed hotel in the film's climax. The fight sequences are well orchestrated, and despite the globetrotting nature of the plot, there's never a moment when you feel bored. In shedding most of the old trappings of Bond, the film manages to still feel fresh after Royale, although it doesn't completely break with tradition.
It still has some of the traditional elements, such as the theme, and yes, the famous gunbarrel sequence. This latter series tradition appears to have been quite mobile in Craig's films: in Royale, it appears as the lead in to the opening credits, and here, it appears at the end of the film before the final credits. I've seen a lot of complaints about this on internet forums, but it didn't bother me personally. I'm guessing that the reason for the ending gunbarrel is that at the end of this film, we're left with a sense that Bond's become the more polished character we know from the other films. The gunbarrel sequence we see here is rather traditional (dots, Bond theme, walk followed by shooting and blood), so I'm guessing they'll stick this at the opening of the next film.
It doesn't manage to be quite as good as Royale, but that comes from the fact that it isn't rebooting a tired series, rather it's continuing in the vein of its predecessor, which isn't a bad thing at all. It's well worth seeing, although if you're one of those "Craig's Not Bond" people, I'd stay away, as the style of Moore and Brosnan seem well and truly a thing of the past.