Bond Unorthodox

Rating: 7/10 (15 November 2008)

After watching this movie, I did not immediately know what kind of judgement to pass upon it, but I thought that for a Bond film it is disappointing.
Watching Quantum I get the feeling that the movie-makers have run out of material/ideas for Bond movies and, in order to avoid the same hackneyed Bond game, decide to depart from traditional Bond and explore new territory.
The problem is that too much emotional depth is invested into Bond. He starts to have deep, complicated feelings for women. Take Vesper for example. His "love" for her motivates his desire for revenge on the General(the "adrenaline" part), but in the end he thrusts the necklace onto the snow. Or the way he is emotionally involved with Mathis, and rues his death yet dumps his body in the trash and saying something unfeeling... This is not the cool, collected, suave Bond we know.. He makes love with women, yes, but "love"? He kills people without so much as batting an eyelid, but feeling sad for loss of life? And he's not supposed to be so cruel to torture people with motor oil in the desert..
Clearly the Bond of Quantum is a much for emotionally-volatile one. Bond movies, I believe, aren't meant to explore such deep issues.
Also, the introduction of "politics" changes the game-plan. No longer is Bond safe in the right vs. wrong concept, with every action (including sleeping with beautiful girls) validated and warranted by the fact that he is doing his duty for King and country, but now good and bad isn't so clear-cut. The Americans(CIA) who are after oil, have they become the villains? To the point that Bond becomes for a while distrusted by M: Was he doing the right thing? The bond theme isn't even played throughout the movie(as far as I notice) except till the closing credits. And he did not say his classic "the name's Bond"-or-variation-of-it line.
Having said these the action scenes were excitingly and tantalisingly filmed, for example the plane scene( the parachute drop was rather incredible though), though the dialogues got rather cheesy at times, but all in all it is a decent film on its own. But as a Bond movie it defies our established expectations.