Bond Goes Pulp

Rating: 6/10 (14 June 2010)

It's not the best of the Bonds, but "Quantum Of Solace" does manage to disprove one common knock against the series: If you've seen one Bond, you've seen them all.
A gritty, tense little pulp-fiction thriller as far removed from a Roger Moore globe-jaunt as you can get, "Quantum" pits Bond (Daniel Craig) against his boss, his country, and even the CIA as he battles the people who killed his lover at the end of the last film. With its gray morality, fast cutting, and noir-ish shadings, it borrows less from other Bonds ("License To Kill" being the closest) than it does from the Jason Bourne series.
"When one is young, it seems very easy to distinguish between right and wrong," Bond is told. "But when you get older, it gets much more difficult."
Okay, so we're all a little older, and so you can accept Bond movies getting more complicated. It's easy enough with Craig in command. His signature jaw clench is getting to be as familiar and welcome to me as Connery's smirk and Moore's eyebrow. And since he's continuing the plot line from "Casino Royale", he has to be a hard-charging type. In fact he's even less humorous than he was there, dwelling as he does on past hurts, reinventing Bond as a man who feels.
The problem with "Quantum" the movie is it doesn't have much going for it beyond Craig's deepening of the role. Like a pulp-fiction tale, the emphasis is on action and speed, and the plot - something to do with resource-theft in Bolivia - is just an excuse for betrayals and hidden-body reveals. It's endearing to see a Bond movie that tries to be interesting for something other than being a Bond movie, but the quick-cutting approach works against any clear narrative flow.
Olga Kurylenko does stand out as the main Bond girl, a woman on a mission like Bond's so there's little time for dalliances. Giancarlo Giannini has another plum turn as Mathis, 007's suspicious ally. Judi Dench grows more into the role of M now that she has a sincere actor in Craig to play off of and isn't pushing the girl-power vibe so hard. It's hard imagining this film playing as well without her as Bond's disapproving yet sympathetic mother-superior.
Craig's electricity and economy with dialogue and motion ("There's something horribly efficient about you...") reminds me of Steve McQueen, and "Quantum" works best when it leans on that. But if Craig is truly to grow in the part - hoping Bond will return someday as there is some question about it now - he may need to ease up a bit, and offer occasional displays of humor and charm.
All work and no play could make Jim a dull boy. But it beats the other extreme any day.