A solid enough action film, but a definite step down from "Casino Royale"

Rating: 7/10 (5 April 2009)

NOTE: This review was originally written in January, after I saw the film in theaters, but I held off on posting it until now because I wanted to watch it again on DVD first. Unfortunately, my opinion on the film didn't change much the second time 'round (somehow I was expecting it to).
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For how long can you breathe new life into a franchise before you end up entirely reinventing it? That is the question that plagues Quantum of Solace, an entertaining but flawed sequel to 2006's Casino Royale.
To be fair, this film had a lot to live up to; Royale was widely touted as not only one of the best films of the entire 40-year-old Bond series, but perhaps even the best. It made numerous critics' year-end award lists. It earned Daniel Craig the status of being the ideal modern-day Bond, carrying with him all the grim and serious introspection that has become a staple of this millennium's entertainment. We are accustomed to brooding heroes in this age, and Craig fit the bill, offering a complex and daring portrayal of what had become a very outdated, campy character.
Quantum's first misstep is that it runs with the dark elements of Royale but maintains none of the franchise's staple humour. Every Bond film has its fair share of tongue-in-cheek moments; even the opening action sequence in Casino had some fun and inventiveness to it. Quantum is by-the-numbers — a big long car chase, so tightly edited that you can hardly tell what's happening to whom (a technical flaw that occurs throughout the movie, to the point where it makes the chaotic stylings of Paul Greengrass look Scorsese going through one of his move-the-camera-as-little-as-possible moments).
Some critics have complained that Quantum presents a boring, revenge-fueled Bond, stripped of all characteristics. It's true — to a point. This isn't the first time Bond has gone on a revenge spree; the difference is, last time he didn't disarm people with Jason Bourne-style physical defense moves. Actual plot mechanisms and general design aside, including the whole "Ludlum ripped off Fleming" argument, the producers are so clearly trying to ape the action framings of the highly successful Bourne trilogy; money talks, and Bourne shouted, so it's only common sense that others would follow in pursuit. The problem is, Quantum's director, Marc Forster, has no experience with action sequences whatsoever, and the editing — as aforementioned — is so fast that you literally can't tell what's going on half the time. Every time the movie cuts to an action sequence — which is quite frequently — you have to wait until it's over to figure out who's left standing.
The plot doesn't make much sense and, when you finally figure out what's going on, it's not nearly as complex as you would have hoped (in order to justify the poor plot setup points earlier in the film). Basically, the movie picks up right where the last one left off, with Bond trying to hunt down a new elite criminal organization named QUANTUM, which was responsible for the death of his One True Love. Bond is joined this time around by a feisty heroine (Olga Kurylenko, exhibiting not nearly as much charisma or acting capabilities as Eva Green), who is also seeking revenge against someone affiliated with QUANTUM. She joins forces with Bond and they uncover a vast conspiracy (if that's what you wish to call it) to control a region's water supply.
In spite of a poor plot and other aforementioned flaws, the movie is nevertheless quite entertaining and, perhaps because of my low expectations after reading some very critical reviews ahead of the screening, I didn't feel terribly disappointed. The movie kept my interest, which is more than can be said for some of the '70s and '80s Bond pictures. It also wasn't nearly as far-fetched as the last few Brosnan pictures, although the much-critiqued high velocity plane sequence (which ends rather lamely, mind you) does seem very gratuitous and interrupts the film's otherwise bleak, down-to-earth approach.
Ultimately, this isn't as deep or emotionally gripping a film as the last Bond picture, but it's far from a disaster. Truth be told, the fact that the movie already had a release date set before the last one was even out of theaters was never a good sign. They rushed into production with an inexperienced action director and an unfinished script, trying to capitalize upon the fleeting hype of Casino Royale without stopping at any point to ask themselves why that film was so well-received.
The high expectations audiences were left with after the closing shots of Casino Royale were never going to be met under these circumstances, and — in spite of all its flaws — Quantum is still an enjoyable action flick that, hopefully, a few years from now, will be remembered for having served as a somewhat disappointing bridge between two fantastic Bond films, and not as having been the beginning of the end for the Craig's run as cinema's iconic hero. He deserves better, and so do we.