The first direct sequel in the Bond Series, and while it isn't perfect it is very fun.

Rating: 8/10 (10 December 2008)

Quantum of Solace is the 23rd James Bond film in the nearly 50 year old franchise. It picks up directly where its predecessor Casino Royale took off. Bond (the excellent Daniel Craig) has taken Mr. White captive and brought him to be interrogated with M (Judi Dench). White reveals a little information about a secret organization named Quantum, and also hints at what Bond desperately wants to know: Why his deceased lover Vesper betrayed him and ended up dead. However after a series of mishaps White escapes and Bond goes on to his new mission of tracking down a man named Dominic Greene (Mathieu Amalric), the supposed leader of Quantum. Greene is a strange man with weery eyes set on the control of a certain important substance. During his mission Bond meets a literally scarred but beautiful girl named Camille (Olga Kurylenko). She is a grieving and tough person just like Bond, since her whole family was killed in a house fire set by the General Medrano, a man involved in Quantum who she vows revenge upon. Bond and Camille team up to uncover the secrets of Quantum and also Dominic Greene, and in the process have to overcome their own problems and grudges.
Quantum of Solace has been a sole disappointment among most loyal Bond fans. It features very little of James Bond's normal traditions in his classic movies. Not once does he say "Bond, James Bond", he doesn't order a specific alcoholic beverage, there's no love scene between him and the Bond girl, and the gun-barrel sequence is saved for the end. However Quantum of Solace features a much more brooding and gritty James Bond instead. While he does use a gun in a few scenes, he engages in much more hand-to-hand combat and also uses a lot more of the environment to his advantage during the fight sequences. To some fans this seems more like a Jason Bourne film than a Bond movie, with scenes of him on rooftops leaping over gaps. The older Bond films with Sean Connery, Roger Moore, and Pierce Brosnan all featured gizmos, gadgets, and villains that had eccentrically extravagant plans to take over the world and/or kill millions of people. Casino Rayale and Quantum of Solace both disposed of the stupid gadgetry, and instead focused on more realistic action and villains that could actually achieve their dastardly plans in real life. I think this is a nice breath of fresh air in the series. Out with the old, in with the new.
The acting in Quantum of Solace is good. Daniel Craig plays a much darker version of Bond with a chip on his shoulder that he has to recover from. Craig gives a mostly strong lead performance although I hope he stops brooding by Bond 23, and grows into a few of the habits of the older Bond movies. Olga Kurylenko also gives a good performance. Her character becomes very developed as the film moves along revealing that her and Bond truly aren't that different. Even though her character awkwardly disappears from the film for a little while until she's needed later on. Mathieu Amalric's performance is pretty standard. He's not a farfetch'd villain but he's not very interesting until we learn what his organization Qunatum is actually up to, and what he's attempting to control. However in the end he does pose a challenge to Bond, unlike most of his cronies who Bond takes out with the wink of an eye.
The visual style was also very interesting in my own opinion. Many fans believed the director Marc Forster wouldn't be fit for a Bond flick, but i think he did quite well. There are some interesting shots and camera angles that are unique for an action flick. Such as when Bond and another bad guy are fighting while swinging around all tangled in rope upside down from scaffolding. As each gets closer to the ground and try to grab the gun lying on the floor, we see lots of uniquely suspenseful upside-down shots of the gun getting closer and farther away as each of them swing towards it, misses it, and swing away from it again. The cinematography also helps bolster the grittiness of the environments, and also puts emphasis on resources that Bond can use during the fight scenes. In one scene Bond meets with another agent, and ends up having 30 seconds to escape. The cinematography and lighting adds a lot of dangerous suspense by revealing the amount of dirt and perspiration there is on each man's face. The only thing that hampered the film, which I really don't enjoy, was the shaky-cam editing. It almost seems like a carbon copy ripoff of Jason Bourne when they do this. Shaky-cam is literally what it sounds like: During the action scenes the camera can't be held still for a second, which is supposed to add to the suspense, but really only annoys. For instance the beginning of the movie involves a huge car chase in a tunnel. The camera is so shaky and the editing of each frame is mostly about one second long each, making it very hard to comprehend anything that's happening.
Quantum of Solace wasn't perfect but then again what Bond film really is? While it goes against the classic rituals of a Bond film, I believe that was only a standalone thing for this film. Bond is brooding over the loss of the woman he loves, and has no desire to do any of those old rituals this time around. Bond's no-nonsense attitude in Quantum of Solace seems to be only a hitch in the road for him, and since he's now over it the next installment can show him taking up the classic rituals the fans whined over. I give Quantum of Solace a 4 out of 5.