A perspiring and unoriginal action movie

Rating: 5/10 (17 November 2008)

If Casino Royale was a departure from the gadgetry-driven, comically conceived plot that characterized almost all previous Bond movies, it will be evident to you that "Quantum of Solace" is perhaps the most radical and extensive departure from the elements that distinguished the Bond series and made it a very unique action/thriller saga. The departure, however, was not a good one. With Casino Royale, the Bond series had taken a turn away from the silly theatrical action of the past to a plot-driven slick thriller. The characters were no longer the unidimensional types of yore: the super-male, the super-villain and the erotically charged superwoman; instead the characters were now believable and realistic, stripped away from the superlatives of the past. With Quantum of Solace, however, the Bond series oversimplifies itself. It takes away the intelligence and realism of the predecessor not by going back into the common Bond traits, but rather by exploring all of the cliché moments of any other Hollywood action movie. Quantum had its share of pursuits, of high-speed mass destruction, of physical manly violence and the slick gunfight that has become the trade of the industry. Quantum does without the popular agent Q (the gadget expert) and manages to rely on a Bond whose only weapons are his talents. At first glance, this could have been a welcomed evolution, but sadly, I could not help but hope that the silly details of the past could lighten up the somber mood that permeated the entire film. We come to believe that the only thing that drives Bond's pursuits is his thirst for revenge, instead of the more rosy and Utopian desire to restore order and peace.
The action-packed film does not provide the comic relief of old and it does not even provide viewers with a last climatic action scene, for the ones that open the movie are far more stunning and complex. The villains are unimpressive, the malevolent plan is rather weak and the many actions sequences seem to have been extracted piece by piece from far more effective and more entertaining action films.
The bright notes of the movie are mostly provided by the cool and slick aura that Daniel Craig is able to give to this hyper muscular post-modern Bond character. Beyond that, Quantum of Solace follows every trick in the long history of action movies without providing the fun silliness of the Sean Connery years, or the vast twist and turns that kept us interested during Casino Royale.