Cry me a river, and while you're at it . . .

Rating: 6/10 (8 November 2014)

. . . move it underground without anyone noticing, so I can sell it back to the weepers. QUANTUM OF SOLACE is oddly Q-less, with the "Bond. James Bond." line long gone, and the iconic gun barrel Bond view tacked on as a closing credits afterthought. Perversely, Agent 007's martini recipe has been over-complicated here. Sure, there's a car chase, a foot chase, a boat chase, a plane chase, and something big implausibly exploding at the end, but it's mostly a case of "been there, done that." Worse yet, many scenes are shamelessly cannibalized from earlier Bonds, none more jarring than Bond playmate "Strawberry Fields'" oily spoof of Shirley Eaton ("Jill Masterson")'s spray-painted demise in GOLDFINGER. One of the few mercies is that the loosely described "Quantum" criminal syndicate is NOT made into an awkward acronym here along the lines of S.M.E.R.S.H. or S.P.E.C.T.R.E. (HOW could the scriptwriters pass on the obvious "Quiet Usurpers of Aquatic National Treasure Using Murder"?) About the only original passage in the story's uncharacteristically brief 106-minute running time is the shootout during a violent scene from the opera TOSCA. The proverbial "Fat Lady" may not be singing to denote the end of the Bond series yet, but you can hear her loudly clearing her throat.