He's not a Bond villain. He's just a very naughty boy!

Rating: 4/10 (26 December 2008)

After Tomorrow Never Dies, I vowed to never watch another modern James Bond film again. Nothing against Brosnan, but after enduring the over-the-top rubbish that was being pumped out with our Irish friend at the helm, I gave up on 007 all together. Maybe it was the fact that I had grown out of the whole teenage fascination with the misogynistic martini-swilling agent, or maybe it was the fact that I was sick to death of watching Brosnan defeat an entire evil organization without even getting out of his gadgeted car - regardless of the motivating factor, the whole shebang just wasn't doing it for me anymore. Let's face it, Bond films just regurgitate the same tired formula over and over and over again. I craved to see a new, fresh take on Bond: I wanted dark and gritty action without the need to appease the popcorn-swilling morons via the use of enough explosives to level a third-world nation. It took almost a decade for Bond to finally change his ways, but Casino Royale rekindled my interest... well, at least enough interest to endure Quantum of Solace.
Now let's get this straight, personally I really don't care about the new versus old Bond debate, I have no issue with Daniel Craig as Bond, I don't care about a lack of gadgets... but just about everything else the critics have said about this film is more or less true. Your average film goer is probably going to be in one of the two following mindsets by the end of the first reel: either scratching their heads wondering what the hell is going on, or two, finding themselves so disinterested in the film that they are going to tune out for the next hour and a half. You can only take so many pointless car and boat chases before you switch off.
The story lacked anything resembling an intriguing hook, it was all over the shop, and the villain was, for the lack of a better term, absolutely pissweak. Aside from tying up some loose ends with Vesper, the film consisted of Bond flit-farting from one part of the world to the other on the trail of a mysterious group called Quantum. Usually the word 'mysterious' would conger up notions of intrigue and excitement - negative, this group seemed to be about as boring as the operas they choose to convene their secret meetings at. I'm sure we will find out more about this Quantum group in the next film, but if they are all as limp-wristed as our featured villain, Dominic Greene, it would be safe to presume that I won't give a rat's proverbial by then.
I can't even call this guy a villain and keep a straight face - Bond dropping a bar of soap in front of Richard Simmons would have warranted a higher threat level than this croissant-eating joker. He's an insult to actual villains everywhere... in fact, he's so pissweak that he even makes the average Cockney geezer from a Guy Ritchie film look like a criminal mastermind in comparison. Our Bond 'villain' is nothing more than a French environmentalist whose only real dastardly deed is to legitimately buy-up huge tracts of land in order to dam the water and sell it back to the inhabitants at exorbitant prices. Somebody call the Prime Minster, he's a Capitalist! No, this villain wasn't planning to destroy a country, let alone plotting for world domination... at least not in any traditional sense. Greene was just some scumbag businessman buying up land to make money - where the hell is the international threat in that? Where the hell is there any real threat worth the price of cinema admission? Sure, it's probably immoral, but since when did MI6 care about immoral? Quantum of Solace may have bloody well been better served as an episode of Scooby Doo - it sure as hell isn't worth James Bond's time! Plot and villain issues aside, Quantum of Solace did string together a few semi-decent action setpieces... well, that's assuming you could work out what the hell was happening. While I'm not going to blame the Bourne series for spawning the rapid-cut shaky cam hard-on in modern action films, rather merely bringing the technique back into vogue, let's just say that there were numerous times during fights and shootouts where the audience couldn't even determine who was getting shot, stabbed, punched or killed. It was so confusing at points I even heard a few people in the darkness of the cinema mutter phrases like 'was that Bond that just got shot?', or 'what the hell is going on?'. If you are claiming to be an action/thriller and your audience is struggling to follow those actions and thrills, you know you have a major problem on your hands.
Just before I wrap-up this scattershot review, I quickly want to mention a couple of small points about characters and characterization. Firstly, the Bond Girl (Olga Kurylenko) was very bloody ordinary, both in talent and looks. Secondly, what was all that rubbish that Craig was spouting in promos about Bond using the death of Vesper to soul search and become stronger: I think the quote was along the lines of 'he needed a quantum of solace to find himself'. If looking into the camera and pulling a Muhammad-I'm-Hard-Bruce-Lee pose is Bond's attempt at soul searching and finding himself, and the writer's attempt at characterization in order to make Bond a more fleshy character, man, don't even bother.
Normally I like to be pretty thorough with my reviews, but the critics before me have said just about all that needed to be said when it comes to Quantum of Solace. The plot is dull and can be difficult to follow, the villain is an absolute joke, and the action scenes were so hard to follow at times. After Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace was a major letdown.
Edited excerpt from: www.youseenthat.com