Almost as good as the flawless Casino Royale.

Rating: 10/10 (17 November 2008)

In 2006, James Bond was reinvented. After four decades of him being displayed as a suave, cheesy and one-dimensional spy, we finally saw a darker side of the man. In Casino Royale Bond was a brutal, vicious bastard with a heart colder than ice. But that changed when Vesper Lynd came into the mix and melted this man's heart. For the first time in history, we saw a Bond in love, and were then witness to the tragedy that came when he found out that she betrayed him and he had to watch her die.
For the first time in the franchise, Quantum of Solace is a direct sequel to it's predecessor. In fact, it begins almost immediately after Royale as Bond is in the midst of escaping with the man he found and captured at the end of the previous film. It's clear from the beginning that he is even more ruthless now and he's going to bring down anyone who stands in the way of his revenge. He's not 'out for blood' in the classic sense, but he won't think twice about tossing a man through a window and bleeding him out on his patio if the man attacks him. He wants to find whoever is ultimately responsible for the death of the woman he loved and, in the end, the person who allowed him to feel and then ripped that love away. Once again, this newly reinvented Bond goes beyond the rest of the franchise by pouring a strong amount of true emotion into this story.
A lot of the emotion on this new Bond comes with the help of Daniel Craig, who gives another flawless performance in the lead role. Last time he went through a range of emotions, but now he is just a wrecking ball of rage driving towards the people who hurt him. It's a visceral portrayal that, just like in Royale, shook me to the core. However the most surprising display of internal pain and heartache in this film didn't come from Bond himself, but from the woman who commands him. M usually takes a huge backseat to the action in the series and only pops in once or twice throughout the film to say 'Oh, Bond, you silly boy.' and then disappear. But she's given a lot more depth this time around and Judi Dench takes full advantage of this opportunity to pour emotion into a mostly underused character. At the beginning of the film, one of her men turns out to be a mole for QUANTUM, the organization that they are hunting but have no knowledge of, and he tries to kill her and Bond. This results in a phenomenal chase sequence as Bond chases after the man, but the even more interesting result of the scene is the impact it has on M. We get to see her as a fragile woman who has spent years putting her heart and soul into her job who is shattered when she is almost murdered by a man she trusted to be her own bodyguard. I loved getting the chance to see what's been boiling underneath M's surface all of these years.
Of course with every Bond film comes a Bond villain and here we get the cunning, malicious and intelligent Dominic Greene played with a quiet fury by Mathieu Amalric. I loved this character as, like everything else with the new Bond, he isn't typical to the series. He's not a recycled psychopath with a scar or a cat, to try and make him more menacing than he needs to be. Amalric embodies this man brilliantly by showing from the start that he will do anything to get what he wants and anyone who stands in his way will catch a bullet. His subtle nature and refusal to ever be extravagant or go over-the-top made him all the more frightening as a villain.
In Casino Royale, Eva Green's Vesper Lynd evolved the standard Bond girl that we get to see every film. She was different because she actually got Bond to fall in love with her. She wasn't just a tramp who fell for his charm and was tossed out of his room in the morning. In Quantum of Solace we see another evolution of this usually one-dimensional character with Olga Kurylenko's excellent portrayal of Camille, a woman out for vengeance of her own. Unlike the majority of Bond girls, Camille is a fully developed character with her own story of revenge that is displayed throughout the course of the film. Kurylenko's pure rage and desperate need for revenge against a man who killed her family and burned her house down around her as a child, is a surprisingly interesting subplot to this story and seeing how her and Bond relate to one another while trying to use Greene to get to the people they want is one of the most compelling aspects of this story.
As with every Bond film, there is beautiful scenery and masterfully extensive action scenes all the way through and they've never been better than they are in Solace. All of the action is brutal and whether it's a fistfight, a chase in the sea or in the sky, or a fight with an axe while a hotel is burning down around them, every scene is wildly commanding and had me on the edge of my seat. Daniel Craig's Bond is a much more compelling character than Bond has ever been and this tragically vicious story is what has made both of these films among my favorites of the decade. Quantum of Solace is a film that, while not being as epically flawless as Casino Royale, is still a masterpiece according to this viewer.