"Quantum of Solace" suffers despite Daniel Craig's continued excellence

Rating: 6/10 (25 November 2008)

Quantum of Solace
Directed by Marc Forster. Starring Daniel Craig, Olga Kurylenko and Judi Dench.
Despite having possibly the worst title of any 007 feature, I was very excited to see the follow-up to 2006's fantastic "Casino Royale." Bond's character was reborn in "Royale," the best installment since 1995's "GoldenEye." Most fans were hoping for "Quantum of Solace" to continue the trend. Unfortunately, the new film backtracks and completely fails to meet expectations.
Daniel Craig returns as the charming English spy and is just as good as before, albeit with much less to do. This time he's looking to avenge the death of Vesper Lynd, the woman who betrayed his love. Going on the little information received from the sinister Mr. White, Bond seeks out members of Quantum, an ominous organization with unknown motives. Even though 007 deals with many of its henchmen, not much information is given about the SPECTRE-like group. This is most likely to set up for the next film and stir up excitement among audiences.
After hopping through more exotic locations than you can shake a martini at, Bond tracks down Dominic Greene -- one of Quantum's top operatives -- and uncovers his plot to control Bolivia's water supply. Though the movie notes that water is the world's most valuable resource, the scheme just isn't interesting or villainous enough. For that matter, neither is Greene (Mathieu Amalric, who works well with what he's given). Bland as he may be, Greene isn't short of any enemies. While scoping out the villain, Bond encounters the beautiful Camille (Olga Kurylenko). Like Bond, she also has revenge on her mind, and is using Greene to settle a score. The character has potential to be deep and interesting, but Kurylenko is ultimately unable to commit.
Throughout the mission, Bond has to deal with an increasingly irritated -- and irritating -- M (Dame Judi Dench), who is given far too big a role. "Quantum" has other things that it should be focusing on, and would have been better suited keeping 007's boss behind her desk.
Forster's direction is unsatisfying, and his final product suffers from two major aspects of film-making: pacing and editing. It starts up with a visually distracting car chase, filmed primarily with shaky hand-held cameras, that leaves the audience playing catch-up as to what took place on-screen. The scenes are reminiscent of the "Bourne" films, and for good reason. The producers hired the crew from 2007's "The Bourne Ultimatum" to film the action pieces. Bond was once reborn, but now he's 're-Bourne.' The transition is a failure, and will hopefully be ditched for future Bond movies.
"Quantum's" unrelenting pace doesn't let up as the movie progresses, and neither do the unstable cameras and quick-cut edits. The movie is bereft of almost any breathing room, leaving the James Bond character little time to develop. Normally, griping about character development in a Bond film would be futile. After twenty-two films spanning over forty years, one would think that there's little left of 007 to explore. And yet with "Casino Royale", the series brought a much needed shot of humanity to the world's most famous secret agent. It's a big disappointment to see that compassion ignored this time around.
"Quantum" is not overtly bad as much as it just isn't very good. Hopefully this is just a misstep, and the next Bond film will be a worthy addition to the series. Craig deserves another fantastic outing to truly solidify his depiction of James Bond. Unfortunately, after "Quantum of Solace", he's still waiting for one.
Final Grade: C