To be, or not to be the James Bond, that is the question

Rating: 8/10 (21 November 2008)

The Estonian premiere of the latest James Bond movie Quantum of Solace" took place last Friday, November 7th, 2008. It continues the gripping adventure exactly an hour after the end of Casino Royal". The Forum Cinema Coca-Cola Plaza" in Tallinn was full of people with great and certain expectations.
This film tells the story of James Bond cracking down on a corporation, which works with dictators, who like to get a share of precious natural water resources. The second layer of the movie is connected with the previous Casino Royal", where Bond was betrayed by Vesper, the woman he loved, whose deaf made 007" mournfully revengeful.
To talk about certain expectations, I primarily think about stylistic element of the old Bond movies: great title song, the lines Bond. James Bond" or Shaken, not stirred", beautiful girls coupling with 007, his cars and gadgets and furthermore Bond's vibrating sense of humor. Quntum of Solace is really controversial compared with previous Casino Royal.
Good things at first. Daniel Craig is once again a brilliant Bond, very believable and all the acting was magnificent. His vision of 007 is imposing, brutally unsentimental and close to the original Bond character. Judi Dench is always the reliable grand old lady, but her M. too dominates this time. Camille as a Bond girl was not outstanding, played by Olga Kurylenko, because of plot. Green, the villain, has played extremely well by Mathien Amalric, but it seems that he is just a person with a different character. Other roles are: Mr White and Mathis, played by Jesper Christensen and Giancarlo Gianni. They were excellent when they were on the screen, but they neither had enough screen time.
Secondly, in my humble opinion, the biggest problem is that the narrative is too simple and not unique. Also the camera work on all the action scenes is unstable and often out of control. Furthermore, fast-cut editing provide us with too many barely watchable scenes, like in the opening action sequences. This MTV style for great movie is too cheap. The most curious is that this movie is just an action one with no character development. It is clear that the director and screenwriter are to blame for those weaknesses.
The best scene, IMHO, of the movie is Puccini's opera sequence. The parallel gunfire with Tosca's first act finale is brilliantly synchronized. All actions, motions, gunfires e.g. is grounded by the logic of this powerful music. Another moving scene was Mathis' (Giancarlo Giannini) death. This was touchingly played by Gianni and Craig.
To sum up, all the previous, something is not quite right with the latest Bond movie. Anyway, it's a really good spy movie more then thriller, where Bond firstly is like a Batman, and then more like a Rambo  killing without blinking". And finally I think, Quantum of Solace is also fairly good action movie so that it is hard to dislike it.
Elmo Tiisvald