Not the same old Bond, but entertaining

Rating: 7/10 (16 November 2008)

Roger Moore came out this week and said that he doesn't like the new, ultra-violent Bond movies and that they were a sign of the changing times. Some moviegoers will probably feel the same way. "Quantum of Solace" lets us know in the first scene that Bond is a changed man, less concerned with cool and more with kicking ass. I recall only one scene, and a short one at that, where he beds a pretty Brit chick and I don't think I saw a shaken and stirred martini in the house. What I did see were some pretty nifty action sequences, surprisingly all of which look like director Marc Forster ("Finding Neverland," "Stranger than Fiction") lifted from director Paul Greengrass and the Jason Bourne series. They all have that shaky, hand-held, fly by the seat of your pants feel to them. I'll give Forster some credit though. I found the action impeccably realized, breathlessly fast-paced, and really suspenseful and new Bond Daniel Craig has brought toughness and swagger back to a character that seems to have been missing some of each in the past couple decades or so.
The plot is a little eh. It has something to do with the head of an eco-company named Dominic Greene (Mathieu Amalrac) putting together a master plan to promote some Bolivian general or something like that to president and in return he gets control of a Bolivian pipeline. It's supposedly a bad thing but I didn't really care that much. Bond gets involved because Greene is also responsible for the death of his love, Vesper Lynde, at the end of "Casino Royale." He teams up with latest Bond girl Camille (Olga Kurylenko), who oddly enough also has a score to settle and is sleeping with Greene in order to accomplish it. The two bounce around from Haiti to London to Bolivia trying to figure this whole mess out while M (Judi Dench) is under repeated pressure to get 007 under control.
The script, by Paul Haggis, Robert Wade, and Neal Purvis does what it sets out to do somewhat. It's a little weak but there are more than enough double crosses, red herrings, and frame-ups to distract from the fact that the story is underwhelming and hard to follow. Also a little hard to follow are the action sequences themselves, but like the "Bourne" movies, they also have adrenaline-pumping thrills. "Quantum" opens with what may be the best car chase of the year (cars narrowly evade other cars, smash into things, fall off cliffs, it's all fast-paced and brilliant) and from there goes to the best foot chase, going along rooftops and through windows and ending with two guys having a gunfight while dangling from ropes. It's undeniably impressive and I haven't even gotten to the boat chase or Bond narrowly escaping an attacked airplane. It's all really exciting thrill-a-minute stuff, and doesn't let up for a second.
Unfortunately a key plot device does get lost in all the mayhem. The idea of revenge and Bond's vulnerability at having lost his love never really come through as well as they should. It's too bad because Daniel Craig, along with being one of the most bad-ass, handsome, and lethal Bonds ever, also tries to dig a little deeper to find the vulnerability that comes with the super-spy job. It's not something you normally see and the filmmakers don't give you very long to see it here either. The rest of the cast is all game, the best being the always classy, dignified, and authoritative Judi Dench. Mathieu Amalrac does his best but his character represents one of the bigger problems with the Bond franchise in the last couple installments. We keep seeing the same average guy with a lunatic fringe and it's a pretty weak characterization. And Olga Kurylenko holds her own, being one of the hottest and most fiery Bond girls to hit the screen.
"Quantum of Solace," with all its flaws, is still entertaining due to some really nifty action sequences and Craig's overwhelming appeal. The posh locations and the OO7 name may be the only things that have hung around, and in trying to bring itself into the 21st century it may be trying too hard to be a "Bourne"-clone, but the series is still showing strong signs of life and for a guy coming up on his 23rd film, that's quite an achievement.