movie review quantum of solace

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OK, I'll say it. Never again. Don't ever let this happen again to James Bond. "Quantum of Solace" is his 22nd film and he will survive it, but for the 23rd it is necessary to go back to the drawing board and redesign from the ground up. Please understand: James Bond is not an action hero! He is too good for that. He is an attitude. Violence for him is an annoyance. He exists for the foreplay and the cigarette. He rarely encounters a truly evil villain. More often a comic opera buffoon with hired goons in matching jump suits.

"Quantum of Solace" has the worst title in the series save for " Never Say Never Again ," words that could have been used by Kent after King Lear utters the saddest line in all of Shakespeare: "Never! Never! Never! Never! Never!" The movie opens with Bond involved in a reckless car chase on the tollway that leads through mountain tunnels from Nice through Monte Carlo and down to Portofino in Italy, where Edward Lear lies at rest with his cat, Old Foss. I have driven that way many a time. It is a breathtaking drive.

You won't find that out here. The chase, with Bond under constant machinegun fire, is so quickly cut and so obviously composed of incomprehensible CGI that we're essentially looking at bright colors bouncing off each other, intercut with Bond at the wheel and POV shots of approaching monster trucks. Let's all think together. When has an action hero ever, even once, been killed by machinegun fire, no matter how many hundreds of rounds? The hit men should simply reject them and say, "No can do, Boss. They never work in this kind of movie."

The chase has no connection to the rest of plot, which is routine for Bond, but it's about the movie's last bow to tradition. In "Quantum of Solace" he will share no cozy quality time with the Bond girl ( Olga Kurylenko ). We fondly remember the immortal names of Pussy Galore, Xenia Onatopp and Plenty O'Toole, who I have always suspected was a drag queen. In this film, who do we get? Are you ready for this? Camille. That's it. Camille. Not even Camille Squeal. Or Cammy Miami. Or Miss O'Toole's friend Cam Shaft.

Daniel Craig remains a splendid Bond, one of the best. He is handsome, agile, muscular, dangerous. Everything but talkative. I didn't count, but I think M ( Judi Dench ) has more dialogue than 007. Bond doesn't look like the urge to peel Camille has even entered his mind. He blows up a hotel in the middle of a vast, barren, endless Bolivian desert. It's a luxury hotel, with angular W Hotel-style minimalist room furniture you might cut your legs on, and a bartender who will stir or shake you any drink, but James has become a regular bloke who orders lager. Who are the clients at this highest of high-end hotels? Lawrence of Arabia, obviously, and millionaires who hate green growing things. Conveniently, when the hotel blows up, the filmmakers don't have to contend with adjacent buildings, traffic, pedestrians, skylines or anything else. Talk about your blue screen. Nothing better than the azure desert sky.

Why is he in Bolivia? In pursuit of a global villain, whose name is not Goldfinger, Scaramanga, Drax or Le Chiffre, but ... Dominic Greene ( Mathieu Amalric ). What is Dominic's demented scheme to control the globe? As a start, the fiend desires to corner the water supply of ... Bolivia. Ohooo! Nooo! This twisted design, revealed to Bond after at least an hour of death-defying action, reminds me of the famous laboratory mouse who was introduced into a labyrinth. After fighting his way for days through baffling corridors and down dead ends, finally, finally, parched and starving, the little creature crawled at last to the training button and hurled his tiny body against it. And what rolled down the chute as his reward? A licorice gum ball.

Dominic Greene lacks a headquarters on the moon, or on the floor of the sea. He operates out of an ordinary shipping warehouse with loading docks. His evil transport is provided by fork lifts and pickup trucks. Bond doesn't have to creep out on the ledge of an underground volcano to spy on him. He just walks up to the chain-link fence and peers through. Greene could get useful security tips from Wal-Mart.

There is no Q in "Quantum of Solace," except in the title. No Miss Moneypenny at all. M now has a male secretary. That Judi Dench, what a fox. Bond doesn't even size her up. He learned his lesson with Plenty. This Bond, he doesn't bring much to the party. Daniel Craig can play suave and he can be funny and Brits are born doing double entendre . Craig is a fine actor. Here they lock him down. I repeat: James Bond is not an action hero! Leave the action to your Jason Bournes. This is a swampy old world. The deeper we sink in, the more we need James Bond to stand above it.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

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Film credits.

Quantum of Solace (2008)

Rated PG-13

106 minutes

Giancarlo Giannini as Rene Mathis

Judi Dench as M

Mathieu Amalric as Dominic Greene

Gemma Arterton as Agent Fields

Jeffrey Wright as Felix Leiter

Daniel Craig as James Bond

David Harbour as Gregg Beam

Olga Kurylenko as Camille

Directed by

• Marc Forster
• Paul Haggis
• Robert Wade
• Neal Purvis

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Quantum of solace, common sense media reviewers.

Craig's 2nd Bond grittier, angrier than his first.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Revenge, espionage and corporate greed are glamori

James Bond is largely motivated by a thirst for re

From the movie's first scene, there's a nearly end

Bond passionately kisses two different women throu

Infrequent: "s--t," "bastard," "bloody," "ass."

Several cars: Aston Martin, Alfa Romeo, Ford, Volk

Bond characteristically drinks cocktails, wine, an

Parents need to know that the second James Bond adventure starring Daniel Craig is, like 2006's Casino Royale , full of non-stop action sequences and has a darker, grittier tone than earlier Bond films. Unlike his predecessors, who barely broke a sweat while sipping their precious martinis, Craig's 007 bleeds…

Positive Messages

Revenge, espionage and corporate greed are glamorized.

Positive Role Models

James Bond is largely motivated by a thirst for revenge and seems to have little regard for human life. He does save the life of a character he barely knows, however, because he senses she's in danger. Felix Leiter disregards a directive he feels is immoral. Several characters belong to a global crime syndicate involving multinational corporations and billionaires who can act like mercenaries and destabilize countries. A female foil to Bond is out for vengeance.

Violence & Scariness

From the movie's first scene, there's a nearly endless stream of action and violence. There are fiery explosions; bloody hand-to-hand battles using knives, guns, pipes, and other weapons; shootouts; disturbing scenes of a tortured woman and a dying character; and lots of death-defying stunts.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Bond passionately kisses two different women throughout the course of the film. In one scene he gets into bed shirtless and kisses a woman whose bare shoulders and back are visible. They've obviously just made love (off camera).

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

Several cars: Aston Martin, Alfa Romeo, Ford, Volkswagen, and more.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Bond characteristically drinks cocktails, wine, and beer at bars, in a plane, and at parties; other characters drink and smoke cigarettes/cigars.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that the second James Bond adventure starring Daniel Craig is, like 2006's Casino Royale , full of non-stop action sequences and has a darker, grittier tone than earlier Bond films. Unlike his predecessors, who barely broke a sweat while sipping their precious martinis, Craig's 007 bleeds real blood and gets into dirty, bare-knuckle, hand-to-hand fights. The violence includes knife fights, gun fights, fist fights, and fire fights. A liked character dies, a woman is tortured (off camera) in a particularly cruel manner, and dozens of characters die in explosions or shootouts. There are a couple of passionate kisses and one scene that obviously takes place after Bond and a woman have had sex (her bare shoulders and back are shown, and he's shirtless). Product placements are mostly cars, like Bond's signature Aston Martin, and language is relatively minimal ("s--t" and "bastard"). To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

Videos and photos.

Community Reviews

• Parents say (19)
• Kids say (70)

Based on 19 parent reviews

What's the Story?

In Daniel Craig 's second outing as James Bond, the brilliant British spy's mission is extremely personal. Picking up right where Casino Royale ended, QUANTUM OF SOLACE finds Bond determined to capture those responsible for the death of his beloved Vesper Lynd (Eva Green). The search leads him to billionaire Dominic Greene ( Mathieu Amalric , so memorable in Munich ), a member of an international crime syndicate that has the money and power to destabilize economies, depose uncooperative dictators, and install corrupt ones -- all for a steep price. With the help of Camille ( Olga Kurylenko ), a beautiful Bolivian Secret Service agent, and CIA counterpart Felix Leiter ( Jeffrey Wright ), Bond follows Greene around the world to uncover more about the mysterious "Quantum" group and ultimately avenge Vesper's murder.

Is It Any Good?

Craig continues to prove that his brooding, physical, broken take on Bond works wonders, even though he lacks a bit of the dashing sophistication so effortless in predecessor Pierce Brosnan . This Bond bleeds real blood, shows off a body full of scars, and feels deeply about Vesper's death. That doesn't mean he won't casually jump into bed with red-headed MI6 beauty Strawberry Fields ( Gemma Arterton ). But Craig's 007 isn't so much an unattached ladykiller as he is a tortured man willing to kill without much of a second thought. Some of his best scenes are opposite Kurylenko, whose Camille is also looking to settle a personal score with the Bolivian general negotiating with Greene. They're both angry and searching for the kind of closure that only a gun can bring.

Like all decent films in the 007 canon, Quantum of Solace has a heavy dose of explosive action, several humorous one-liners, and lots of horsepower -- although sadly, the signature Aston Martin gets trashed in the first car chase. There's even a cheesy opening credit sequence featuring Jack White and Alicia Keys' entry in the Bond flick theme song playlist, "Another Way to Die." But stock Bond elements aside, Craig's James seethes in a way that none of the earlier Bonds did, and after a while, it's actually a downer. Let's hope the next installment tones down the fury just a tad. Some of us prefer our Bonds the opposite of a martini -- stirred but not shaken.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about what makes James Bond "cool." Is it his remoteness? His amazing physical prowess?

Does Quantum of Solace use alcohol and cigarettes to support or take away from Bond's appeal?

What makes James Bond so appealing (and enduring) in general?

How are different women portrayed?

Movie Details

• In theaters : November 14, 2008
• On DVD or streaming : March 24, 2009
• Cast : Daniel Craig , Mathieu Amalric , Olga Kurylenko
• Director : Marc Forster
• Inclusion Information : Female actors
• Studio : Columbia Tristar
• Genre : Action/Adventure
• Run time : 106 minutes
• MPAA rating : PG-13
• MPAA explanation : intense sequences of violence and action, and some sexual content
• Last updated : December 29, 2023

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Movie Review | 'Quantum of Solace'

007 Is Back, and He’s Brooding

By A.O. Scott

• Nov. 13, 2008

A reviewer may come to a new James Bond movie — “Quantum of Solace,” directed by Marc Forster and opening Friday, is the 22nd official installment of the series in 46 years — with a nifty theory or an elaborate sociocultural hermeneutic agenda, but the most important thing to have on hand is a checklist. It’s all well and good to reflect upon the ways 007, the Harry Potter of British intelligence, has evolved over time through changes in casting, geopolitics, sexual mores and styles of dress.

But the first order of business must always be to run through the basic specs of this classic entertainment machine’s latest model and see how it measures up.

So before we proceed to any consideration of the deeper meanings of “Quantum of Solace” (or for that matter the plain meaning of its enigmatic title), we need to assess the action, the villain, the gadgets, the babes and the other standard features.

The opening song, performed by Jack White and Alicia Keys (an intriguing duo on paper if nowhere else), is an abysmal cacophony of incompatible musical idioms, and the title sequence over which those idioms do squalling battle is similarly disharmonious: conceptually clever and visually grating. The first chase, picking up exactly where the 2006 “Casino Royale” left off, is speedy and thrilling, but the other action set-pieces are a decidedly mixed bag, with a few crisp footraces, some semi-coherent punch-outs and a dreadful boat pileup that brings back painful memories of the invisible car Pierce Brosnan tooled around in a few movies ago.

Picturesque locales? Bolivia, Haiti, Austria and Italy are featured or impersonated, to perfectly nice touristic effect. Gizmos? A bit disappointing, to tell the truth. Technological advances in the real world may not quite have outpaced those in the Bond universe, but so many movies these days show off their global video surveillance set-ups and advanced smart-phone applications that it’s hard for this one to distinguish itself.

What about the villain? One of the best in a while, I’d say, thanks to a lizardy turn from the great French actor Mathieu Amalric, who plays Dominic Greene, a ruthless economic predator disguised as an ecological do-gooder. The supporting cast is studded with equally excellent performers, including Jeffrey Wright and Giancarlo Giannini, both reprising their roles in “Casino Royale.”

And the women? There are two, as usual — not counting Judi Dench, returning as the brisk and impatient M — one (Gemma Arterton) a doomed casual plaything, the other a more serious dramatic foil and potential romantic interest. That one, called Camille, is played by Olga Kurylenko, whose specialty seems to be appearing in action pictures as the pouty, sexy sidekick of a brooding, vengeful hero. Not only Daniel Craig’s Bond, but also Mark Wahlberg’s Max Payne and Timothy Olyphant’s Hitman.

James Bond is a much livelier character than either of those mopey video-game ciphers, but he shares with them the astonishing ability to resist, indeed to ignore, Ms. Kurylenko’s physical charms.

This is not out of any professional scruple. The plot of “Quantum of Solace” is largely propelled by Bond’s angry flouting of the discipline imposed by his job, and anyway when did James Bond ever let work get in the way of sex? No, what gets in the way is emotion. 007’s grief and rage, the source of his connection to Camille, are forces more powerful than either duty or libido.

Mr. Brosnan was the first actor to allow a glimmer of complicated emotion to peek through Bond’s cool, rakish facade, and since Mr. Craig took over the franchise two years ago the character has shown a temperament at once rougher and more soulful than in previous incarnations. The violence in his first outing, “Casino Royale,” was notably intense, and while “Quantum of Solace” is not quite as brutal, the mood is if anything even more grim and downcast.

The death in “Casino” of Bond’s lover Vesper Lynd (Eva Green), along with the possibility that she had betrayed him before dying, provides an obvious psychological explanation for his somber demeanor in “Quantum.” But while the exploration of Bond’s psychology makes him, arguably at least, a deeper, subtler character — and there is certainly impressive depth and subtlety in Mr. Craig’s wounded, whispery menace — it also makes him harder to distinguish from every other grieving, seething avenger at the multiplex.

Which is to say just about every one. And here, I suppose, the deeper questions bubble up. Is revenge the only possible motive for large-scale movie heroism these days? Does every hero, whether Batman or Jason Bourne, need to be so sad?

I know grief has always been part of the Dark Knight’s baggage, but the same can hardly be said of James Bond, Her Majesty’s suave, cynical cold war paladin. His wit was part of his — of our — arsenal, and he countered the totalitarian humorlessness of his foes with a wink and a bon mot.

Are these weapons now off limits for the good guys? Or can moviegoers justify their vicarious enjoyment of on-screen mayhem — and luxury hotels, high-end cocktails and fast cars — only if there are some pseudoserious bad feelings attached? The Sean Connery James Bond movies of the 1960s were smooth, cosmopolitan comedies, which in the Roger Moore era sometimes ascended to the level of farce. With Mr. Craig, James Bond reveals himself to be — sigh — a tragic figure.

“Quantum of Solace,” a phrase never uttered in the course of this film (though it has something to do with Greene’s diabolical scheme, itself never fully explained), means something like a measure of comfort. Perhaps that describes what Bond is looking for, or maybe it is what this kind of entertainment tries to provide a fretful audience. If so, I prefer mine with a dash of mischief.

“Quantum of Solace” is rated PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned). Its scenes of violence and sex are carefully edited to avoid showing too much gore or skin.

QUANTUM OF SOLACE

Opens on Friday nationwide.

Directed by Marc Forster; written by Neal Purvis, Robert Wade and Paul Haggis, based on characters created by Ian Fleming; director of photography, Roberto Schaefer; edited by Matt Chessé and Richard Pearson; music by David Arnold; production designer, Dennis Gassner; produced by Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli; released by Columbia Pictures. Running time: 1 hour 46 minutes.

WITH: Daniel Craig (James Bond), Olga Kurylenko (Camille), Mathieu Amalric (Dominic Greene), Judi Dench (M), Giancarlo Giannini (Mathis), Gemma Arterton (Agent Fields), Jeffrey Wright (Felix Leiter), Jesper Christensen (Mr. White), Anatole Taubman (Elvis), Rory Kinnear (Tanner) and Joaquín Cosio (General Medrano).

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Quantum of Solace Reviews

As always, Bond shines like a British señorito among luxury salons, good drinks, and pretty women, although in this new installment, the character allows himself to get dirty, his hair to get tousled, and he even perspires. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 6/10 | Feb 13, 2024

…a boring slog through various clichés of toxic male machismo…

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Sep 17, 2023

Ian Fleming’s James Bond franchise has a notorious hit-or-miss reputation on film, and Quantum of Solace rests somewhere in the middle.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Sep 5, 2023

A titanic drop in quality compared to its predecessor.

Full Review | Original Score: D | Jul 25, 2023

Quantum of Solace might not reach the same highs as Casino Royale, but in the context of the entire James Bond franchise, it is hard to say that the film is not one of the better editions simply considering it is overall competent.

Full Review | Original Score: B | Aug 28, 2022

Daniel Craig remains dutiful as ever, but following the franchise zenith that is Casino Royale, this should have been a lot better.

Full Review | Oct 2, 2021

Quantum of Solace isn't a bad film but it must be watched with the understanding that it was rushed into production to avoid a potential SAG strike.

Full Review | Sep 27, 2021

Casino Royale was a spectacular return to form, so it's not wholly unexpected that this follow-up has been tagged by some as one of the low points of the franchise. Nonsense.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Sep 25, 2021

Starts off alright but slowly becomes less and less interesting until it suddenly ends, plus the villain is more "mildly annoying prick" than Bond's big enemy...

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Sep 15, 2021

It's not the first Bond film to fall back into a rut that will require the changing of the lead actor to get out of.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/10 | Nov 28, 2020

I don't mind losing the groan-inducing puns and the gimmicky gadgets, but strip Bond down too much and he begins to resemble Jason Bourne - and I'd rather have a first-rate Bond than a second-hand Bourne.

Full Review | Nov 13, 2020

Quantum of Solace is how I imagined the sequel to On Her Majesty's Secret Service if it came to fruition.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jul 16, 2020

Quantum of Solace is one of the most listless Bond films I have seen.

Full Review | Original Score: C- | Apr 6, 2020

Quantum of Solace has style, and enough pursuit and pyrotechnics to please hard-core Bond fans. But it may disappoint those hoping for Marc Forster's distinctive imprint and a return to Casino Royale's top form.

Full Review | Jan 27, 2020

Bond is being further shaped into the character we've always known, and will most definitely be back to fight another day.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 31, 2019

Unfairly maligned in relation to its more colourful and emotive cousins of the Daniel Craig era, Quantum of Solace is actually the more cerebral and challenging piece of work.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 31, 2019

A plot of an unnecessarily complex development that fails miserably in something that its predecessor did very well: offer characters that seduce us. [Full Review in Spanish]

Full Review | Sep 10, 2019

This isn't a mindless blow-'em-up thriller, this is an intelligently crafted, superbly edited, lean, mean piece of work.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jun 6, 2019

While it's understandable that long-term Bond devotees may be left pining for the days when the puns were a bit more plentiful, and the punches a bit less lethal, I for one hope they don't go too far back in the other direction.

Full Review | Original Score: B | Feb 4, 2019

The angsty, truant Bond and his sulky ways get too irritating, the pout notwithstanding.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Jan 31, 2019

Quantum of Solace Review

31 Oct 2008

105 minutes

Quantum of Solace

Quantum Of Solace picks up moments after the credits rolled at the end of Casino Royale, with Daniel Craig’s bereaved and blooded Bond in Siena, wrecking his Aston Martin in a pre-credits car chase complicated by thick traffic, twisty mountain roads and emotional Italian drivers. In his car-boot, with a bullet in his leg, is Mr White (Jesper Christensen), a higher-up in the cartel (Quantum) which employed and then killed the baddie of the earlier film, and who Bond blames for the death of the girl he loved last time round. Mr White is taken to be grilled by M, just as the local horse race (the palio) is taking place (obviously, the filmmakers saw the documentary The Last Race too), only for the villain to sneer that MI6 and the CIA obviously know nothing about Quantum’s many well-placed agents, whereupon someone presumably trustworthy pulls a gun – and Bond is back in action, leaving wounded enemies and allies behind as he barges through crowds, runs up stairs, dangles from scaffolding and dodges swinging girders to get his man.

In an era marked by franchise bloat, it’s entirely admirable that Quantum of Solace is the shortest Bond movie to date – it drops a great many of the long-running series mannerisms (callous quips, expository lectures, travelogue padding, Q and Moneypenny) as it globe-trots urgently from Italy to Haiti to Austria to Italy again to Bolivia to Russia with stopovers in London and other interzones. The major gadget on offer is a neat trick with a mobile phone, which the film trusts us to follow without a pompous lecture on how it works, and there’s a nod to traditionally absurd Bond girl names in Gemma Arterton’s Agent Fields – she refuses to give her real, silly, embarrassing name which we only find out from the end credits (it’s not Gracie or London). Everything in this movie is edited as if it were an action sequence, which means that when the set-pieces come they have to go into overdrive to stay ahead of the game, with Bourne veteran Dan Bradley staging more brutal, devastatingly fast fights and chases. We get striking locations (including primaeval caves and a South American desert) and absolutely gorgeous, stylised art direction – but there’s little lingering on the backdrops, since a brief establishing shot is usually enough to set up the nimble, nifty, explosive action that takes place against them.

Previously, the Bond films have been a series, but this is an actual sequel – an approach Ian Fleming used in his books, but which was dropped from the movies because the novels were filmed out of order. This makes for a film which hits the ground running, but also means we get less to latch onto emotionally since Daniel Craig became the complete 007 over the course of Casino Royale, and here just has to be set loose. The sparks struck between the wounded hero and scarred heroine Camille – whose revenge-driven sub-plot owes a lot to July Havelock, the girl from the story ‘For Your Eyes Only’ – don’t match those between Craig and Eva Green last time round because this Bond is human enough to start worrying about how regularly his girlfriends get killed. The slinky, sultry Olga Kurylenko is in fact so fixed on murdering her enemy that it’s possible she technically doesn’t even count as a Bond girl – she’s good, but doesn’t get the breakout showcase Green landed in Casino Royale. However, for the diehard romantics, Bond does tenderly hug a dying male friend before disposing of his corpse in a dumpster (‘he wouldn’t care’) and gives Camille handy tips on professionally assassinating the extremely unpleasant would-be dictator who slaughtered her family.

Casino Royale had one of Fleming’s best plots to stick to, but Quantum of Solace is on its own, taking only its title from the 1960 story. Extrapolating from hints dropped in the earlier film about who ran the late LeChiffre, it introduces Quantum, a SPECTRE-type organisation which ought to be good for a few more movies. The notion of an international alliance of high-stakes criminals with heavy political ties is Flemingesque, but gets a credible, cynical 21st Century spin in that the American and British governments (and security services), above criticism in Fleming’s day, are perfectly happy to get in bed with killers and megalomaniacs so long as the oil keeps flowing – which forces Bond out on his own, pursuing a crusade either for utterly altruistic (helping drought-blighted Bolivian peasants) or utterly selfish (getting his own back on the one small fish directly responsible for Vesper’s plight) motives. Quick jabs evoke highlights of the earlier films, as Craig’s sea-bathing in Casino Royale referenced Ursula Andress in Dr No; one major character’s fate is a stark black updating of one of the most famous early Bond images, and signals which commodity has become most prized in a world where Goldfinger or Blofeld would seem like jokes.

Daniel Craig continues to be his own man as Bond, though this instalment scarcely gives him breathing room between strenuous activity to show off his more stylish or snobbish aspects. When he chugs his signature martini (take notes as the bartender rattles off the recipe) even devoted allies worry that seven brain-numbing drinks in a row might not be good for the agent’s long-term mental state or ability in the field. Craig looks good in a tux, blending into the crowd at an opera first night where the villains have convened to mutter evilly through Tosca, and wears his bruises and scratches like badges of honour. He shows a certain expense account flair in turning down a modest La Paz pensione to check into the poshest hotel in the city by insisting that the ‘teacher on sabbatical’ he is pretending to be has won the lottery. But, presumably coached by Bradley, he is at his most elegant in tiny action moments – upending an idling motorbike to send a minor thug flying, casually stepping off balconies and walking along ledges, efficiently crippling a liftful of agents trying to arrest him.

With all the ills of the world down to Quantum, the baddies we see are – like those in Dr No, From Russia With Love and Thunderball – junior associates of archfiends who operate at such a high level we don’t even get to meet their cats. The French Mathieu Amalric makes the smarmy fake environmentalist Greene a suitably loathsome character, as much for his persistently cruel treatment of his mistress Camille as his complicated scheme to overthrow the government of Bolivia and grab the country’s natural resources; like Mads Mikkelsen’s LeChiffre, he’s young and fit enough to hold his own in a scrap, but has a nice line in craven delegation, posing a minion with a gun to face certain death as he tries to escape the climactic spectacular conflagration, and gets some of the smart, threatening, witty script patches we assume Paul Haggis dropped in. A nod also to the Mexican Joaquin Cosio, who plays a South American would-be dictator whose filthy foreign habits (like celebrating a big deal by raping a waitress) Fleming would have enjoyed despising.

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The Movie Review: 'Quantum of Solace'

When the 16th James Bond film, Licence to Kill , was released in 1989, it was widely reported that its working title, Licence Revoked , had been altered thanks to a survey revealing that fewer than 50 percent of Americans knew the meaning of the word "revoked." How far we have come since then. Bond's last outing, Casino Royale , was not only his best in over three decades, it was also his smartest, and its franchise-record grosses evidently persuaded 007's custodians that we Yanks aren't quite such a load of morons after all. How else to explain Quantum of Solace , the year's most obscurely titled release not directed by Charlie Kaufman?

Like Licence to Kill , Quantum is a tale of vengeance; unlike it, the new film is also a sequel, in which the lethal debt to be paid off is held over from a previous picture. Specifically, Bond (Daniel Craig) goes off the grid to track down the shadowy villains responsible for the death of his Casino Royale lover, Vesper, who was in life a mouthwatering accountant and remains in death a mouthwatering martini . (Denied the consolations of the former in Quantum , Bond permits himself those of the latter.

The film opens with a breakneck car chase along the rocky Mediterranean coast in which British Aston outduels Italian Alfa, enabling 007 to arrive in Siena minus one car door but with the prisoner in his trunk--Mr. White (Jesper Christensen), whom we saw him shoot in the leg at the conclusion of Casino Royale --intact. Following an interrogation by M (Judi Dench), Mr. White ultimately leads Bond to one Mr. Slate, who in turn leads him to a Mr. Greene (Matthieu Amalric). That's right: The global conspiracy this time around isn't SPECTRE, but some rogue wing of the United Colors of Benetton.

Greene, it turns out, is an environmental activist whose company makes covert deals with corrupt governments and then strips their nations of natural resources. In this case, his group promises to return a deposed Bolivian strongman (Joaquin Cosio) to power ("We've already begun destabilizing the government," Greene informs him, as casually as he might report third-quarter earnings) in exchange for control of a remote desert which may contain oil or perhaps a still more precious resource. (It's not hard to guess which.) As Bond untangles Greene's plot, he crosses paths with Camille (Olga Kurylenko), a comely Bolivian pursuing her own parallel, but unrelated, mission of vengeance. (If his narrative is loosely borrowed from Licence to Kill , hers comes from For Your Eyes Only .) Jeffrey Wright and Giancarlo Giannini reprise their roles from Casino Royale as Bond allies legit and not-so, and Gemma Arterton makes a brief appearance as the Officious MI6 Handler Whom 007 Will Quickly Cajole Into Bed.

Moreover, there is evidence of backsliding toward a few of the more tired franchise tropes that Casino Royale had so sharply repudiated. Where that film made fun of the sex-pun sobriquets doled out to female characters (Bond teased Vesper that her cover identity was "Miss Stephanie Broadchest"), this one saddles Arterton's agent--herself a bit of a throwback to the 007-as-incorrigible-gigolo years--with the name Strawberry Fields. Even the title sequence brings back a hint of the PG prurience that was so pleasantly absent from Casino Royale 's stylish opener .

Yet despite such disappointments, there is solace in Quantum , and its name is Daniel Craig. Ever since Sean Connery first brought Bond to life onscreen, his successors had been imitators. Yes, Roger Moore was a little softer, Timothy Dalton a little harder, and Pierce Brosnan a little more dapper. But despite the variation, Bond had remained pretty much the same character, periodically changing faces. Craig is the first inheritor who has worn the role rather than let it wear him.

To a greater degree even than in Casino Royale , Craig's Bond is shorn of the frilly vanities and amusements that long dominated the character. His job is not to charm people, it is to kill people, and he does this not because he takes pleasure in it but because he knows he's better at it than anyone else. Creator Ian Fleming once described Bond in Reader's Digest as "an anonymous, blunt instrument wielded by a government department," and Craig's portrayal in Quantum is just that, minus the government control. This is probably the cruelest Bond of the series, and certainly the most murderous, shedding more blood during an average twenty-minute stretch than Roger Moore seemed to over the course of seven films. When, at one point, M chides him, "Bond, if you could avoid killing every possible lead, it would be deeply appreciated," she is not speaking metaphorically.

Under other circumstances, I wouldn't applaud the surfeit of brutality--which still doesn't approach what you can find elsewhere at the multiplex most nights--but, as in Casino Royale , it is a useful corrective to the flabby excesses of the franchise, which so often portrayed 007 as ass-chaser first and assassin second. Moreover, Craig is so very good as the hitman with a heart of lead that it's hard to begrudge him his lethal mandate. His blue eyes are colder than even Fleming could've imagined, and his spare but fearsome frame seems, unlike most Hollywood physiques, built more for performance than for show. (Most of the women I know will be disappointed--and most of their husbands relieved--to hear that Craig takes his shirt off a good deal less than he did in Casino Royale .)

Apart from Craig, the chief pleasure of the film is Dame Judi Dench. In her earlier collaborations with Brosnan, I could never shake the sense that she was holding back a bit, lest the quiet domination of which she (and sometimes it seems only she) is capable might overwhelm her leading man and throw their scenes together out of kilter. Craig, by contrast, can and does withstand the full-on Dench, and their scenes together crackle with amiable ferocity. Who needs Bond Girls when this Bond Woman is so much more compelling?

The film's direction, by arthouse refugee Marc Foster ( Finding Neverland , The Kite Runner ), will provoke strong reactions--positive, negative, and in some cases both at once. Following the temper of the time, Foster presents the movie's many action sequences in a wash of choppy, hyperedited shots, but he pushes the tendency to such extremes that he makes the Bourne films (on which Quantum is clearly modeled) look like Rope . The result is a near-total lack of spatial continuity--I have fifty dollars for anyone who can put salt shakers on a table and show me what took place in a particular boat chase--but an unmistakable visceral intensity. If, as it appears, this is where action filmmaking is headed, concession stands of the future will make a killing in Ritalin sales.

Quantum of Solace is not nearly as strong a film as Casino Royale , and the filmmakers seem well aware of this. It is, after all, set up as a kind of coda to its predecessor, an effort to extend its success rather than genuinely replicate it. (It's telling that Casino Royale was the longest of all 22 Bond films at 144 minutes, and Quantum is the shortest at 106. You'd think the filmmakers would understand that there's a happy medium to be found here.) Yet, thanks to Craig's ruthless performance, Quantum is still better than all but a few of the Bond offerings of the last 30 years. As Kurylenko tells 007 late in the film, "There's something horribly efficient about you." Amen.

This post originally appeared at TNR.com.

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Movie Review: Quantum of Solace (2008)

• General Disdain
• Movie Reviews
• 12 responses
• --> November 9, 2008

A rejuvenated James Bond is back for his 22nd feature film: Quantum of Solace . Building upon the blocks laid down in 2006’s Casino Royale , this movie further “evolves” the Bond experience — presenting itself strictly as a kick-ass, take no prisoners action movie, leaving in the dust the nuances that set 007 apart from being a Jason Bourne replica.

It only takes thirty seconds of viewing to come to that conclusion as Quantum of Solace starts off with an intense car chase through the Italian mountainside. Details and a cool focus on Bond (Daniel Craig) are a distant memory, replaced by frantic, sharp edits pasted together from multiple camera angles. There is so much going on at such a quick clip that if you sneeze, cough or blink you may very well miss the majority of an action sequence. Adrenalin junkies are going to love it though because there is a lot of these sequences (foot chases, car chases, boat chases and airplane chases) put in place of what I believe is a lack of a fully fleshed out, stand-alone premise.

And what I mean by that is there is little attention paid to the characters and their stories (which were staples in the plots of earlier works) — everyone is merely a stepping stone en route to make someone or something explode spectacularly.

The film itself is basically a hyped-up extension of its predecessor — Bond is smarting over the loss of his lady love, Vesper Lynd, and wants to exact revenge against those he feels is responsible for her death (a secret organization known as Quantum). His adventure takes him through various countries in the Carribean and Europe before he finally ends up in Bolivia as he hunts down Dominic Greene (Mathieu Amalric), the head of an eco-friendly corporation Greene Planet and a fellow Quantum member. It turns out Greene is involved with securing land rights in the Bolivian desert in exchange for seeing a coup through that would put the exiled General Medrano (Joaquà­n Cosio) back in power. Involved with this subplot is Camille Montes (Olga Kurylenko), a woman who wants revenge against the General for the killing her family. Together, Camille and James form an uneasy alliance to see their outcomes met.

Back on point, whereas I would have at least expected to gain a further understanding into these main roles, very little is offered up. Mathieu Amalric brings a fair amount of harshness to the role of Greene but he was lacking a certain flair that would have made him memorable to me. Ms. Kurylenko brings the pain as Camille, popping in and out of the movie when it was convenient to write her in but I couldn’t fathom how or why she was there. Bond is more damaged and Daniel Craig does a good job straddling the line between right and wrong; he just needs to not play the man like a too tightly wound clock — Bond should never lose his refinement. “M” (Judi Dench) is the only character that comes to life on the screen. I noted when she first took on the role of head of MI6, I didn’t think she was a good fit. I take that back now — she finally brands the character as her own, mixing together the perfect amounts of motherly care with hardened decision making.

It’s clear the next Bond flick will continue down this story line (very little is answered in this installment), and while I’m not necessarily against that, I can’t help but want some of the old mainstays to somehow make their way back into the fold. Gone, just like the last film, is “Q”, the head of research and development for MI6 and the lone source for lighthearted and humorous pauses between the life and death struggles Bond found himself in. Gone also is the patent womanizing the Bond of old reveled in. It too was missing last time around but I was certain the casting of Olga Kurylenko was going to fix that. Putting her in as a Bond girl was a brilliant move, but not having her flash some skin or fall for one of Bond’s cheesy hook-up lines is criminal.

All said, I still found the film fun to watch. It was easy to overlook the storytelling blemishes because much of the action it links is some of the more entertaining I’ve seen recently — the stunt coordinators really deserve a round of applause for their work here. As a fan of the series, I’ll end by noting that while Quantum of Solace isn’t the best the franchise has to offer, it’s still a great way to spend $12 and fill 100 minutes of your afternoon. Welcome back, Bond.

I'm an old, miserable fart set in his ways. Some of the things that bring a smile to my face are (in no particular order): Teenage back acne, the rain on my face, long walks on the beach and redneck women named Francis. Oh yeah, I like to watch and criticize movies.

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'Movie Review: Quantum of Solace (2008)' have 12 comments

November 9, 2008 @ 5:34 pm MP

I am totally psyched to see this. Sorry to see Q left out again though – I love the toys he comes up with.

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November 10, 2008 @ 11:50 am Mircea

Srsly…this was a below average James Bond film. :(

– he never ever says the quote that made him famous – The real James Bond would have banged Olga

November 11, 2008 @ 6:11 am Doyle

I completely agree with your review of Solace, up until you rate it. 2 piles??

You say it yourself, the film is nothing more than action scenes linked together with minor plot reveals. It is missing everything that would make this Bond film a real Bond film.

4 piles from me – at a minimium.

November 11, 2008 @ 9:27 pm General Disdain

…I love the toys he comes up with.

Can’t argue with the truth.

It is missing everything that would make this Bond film a real Bond film.

It’s missing a few key ingredients. I still like his newer, grittier persona — just needs a touch more refinement.

November 15, 2008 @ 9:50 am Alex

I culdn’t agree more. The action in this movie kept me on the edge of my seat. Who cares about Q? This is the best Bond yet.

November 15, 2008 @ 4:49 pm Aldo

As long as they don’t turn Bond into a fag, I’ll keep on watching.

November 26, 2008 @ 4:34 am Alex

“As long as they don’t turn Bond into a fag, I’ll keep on watching.” LOL..I have some doubts about this after watching this movie. :)

November 28, 2008 @ 4:16 am K

This is not a James Bond movie! Jambes Bond doesn’t ever say in the movie not for a single time “Bond, James Bond!”, it is the first movie without the appearance or even reference to Q, therefore no Bond cool gadgets, it’s the first movie, James Bond doesn’t sleep with the Bond Girl. Quite out of the frame this time.

January 2, 2009 @ 1:43 pm s

Without a doubt, Connery & Brosnan were the gold standard of Bond & my darkest days where during Moore’s farcical portrayal of our favorite 00. So I am pre-disposed not to accept Craig as a bone fide replacement. But even in both movies, Craig is not the problem, the producers & directors are. OK. Perhaps my last comments were really a review of Casino not having seen QoS. Now I have seen it and there are so many problems with it I do not know where to begin. All the chases are herky, jerky, shaky staccato film clips. You can never really see what is going on. This is contrary to the traditional Bond flick replete with detail. And if Craig is gritty, moody, mean & vindictive one can still see a path by which he becomes a cooler if not a cold, uber-professional agent with a dry, sardonic sense of humor. This Bond clearly appeals to a feminine perspective that escapes me. I understood him not becoming ‘involved’ with the other women in the 2 flicks as having high standards and was at least relieved to see his response to Fields as, what we would term a normal orientation! (The women seem to love that Bond does NOT ‘hook up’ with the main girl in either film and broods ceaselessly like a forlorn Hamlet for his unrequited lover from Casino). Even the opening chase, usually one of the best, is almost visually incomprehensible. Car chase, rooftop chase, sewer chase, apartment knife fight chase, boat chase, plane chase, Chase-Morgan, certainly they all were purloined from the Bourne genre but somehow Bourne’s were more believable.

The opening graphics were not as bad as I feared, but were definitely not 007 quality. Far too much of Craig shooting his Walther PPK .380; (don’t make me go into why that is a problem). We have grown accustomed to the sultry, sexual/sensual and awesome graphical intro to the Bond films. This one was not of the same caliber. Ditto on the theme song. It was not a good as past songs but I was fearing worse and it was actually passable relating somewhat to the general theme of the film. The barrel scene was placed at the end of the film. I prefer the beginning but in either case it should be presented with high quality graphics and punctuated with 007 theme song riffs. It was not.

Lots of chases. Most are barely watchable. I actually liked the reference to the traditional 13th century Italian Palio horse race in which the riders can use their longer wooden canes to encourage their steeds or discourage their opponents; and the actual event was supposed to be occurring outside of the chase area.

The knife fight was lame. How did the baddie die anyhow? Please tell me not with the little pair of cuticle scissors Bond had. And if the death blow was to the only wounded area shown, the left jugular, where did all the blood go as Bond let him ‘bleed out’. Not to worry the details because we are soon introduced to THE BOND GIRL. Well, a little anti-climatic because she is not quite as attractive as we are used to although she has very pretty lips. The rest of her seems strangely disproportionate for some reason. It’s also strange that she would return to the baddie who just tried to have her whacked. That has little probability for success for someone who we later learn is “Bolivian Secret Service”. Oh well, not to worry, we are off on another chase, this time with boats. It is perhaps the best done but for the last scene in which the grappling hook is somehow thrown onto the rubber speed boat and flips it from the front of Bond’s boat over the top to the rear…… can’t quite figure the physics out on that one. Not to worry, we’ve docked and Bond mysteriously hands the unconscious maiden who he has just rescued over to a dock attendant…what?

Well were off to track this baddie and somehow reconnected with the GIRL in Bolivia where we eventually learn that the baddie, Mr. Greene of the evil Greene corporation in conjunction with the even eviler Quantum Criminal Consortium LLC has concocted a plot wreaking with the venom of true corporate greed, evil capitalism and nefarious financier-ship; to wit, steal all the fresh water in where? Why Bolivia of course and sell it back to them Bolivians at double the price! MUAHHAHAHAHAHA (evil laugh). We learn at a big party that times are tough in Bolivia because it is costing a weeks wages for an average Bolivian to buy a gallon of clean water! As I remember, the average Bolivian earns about $0.25 per day making the water cost about $1.75 a gallon; pretty much on par with market values in Cleveland. Perhaps this is not the best country for our get richer quicker scheme.

No matter, we are off to the evil opera where the evil baddies are meeting to plan, well, evil. This is where we juxtapose a modernistic version of the Tosca operatic bloodshed whilst Bond dabbles in the real thing dispatching the body guards of the evil biggies who, now discovered & uncovered, are making a hasty retreat for the exits faster than attendees at an Al Gore speech.

No matter, while in Bolivia we are matroned by the closest thing to a real Bond girl, agent Fields. Unfortunately we never really figure out what is beneath that trenchcoat although it appears that Bond does. Also unfortunately for Fields and us, she is quickly eliminated by the baddies in what can only be termed as a ‘crude’ theft of the Goldfinger modus operandi. I would have expected more of a mess but why waste camera time on the slickened Fields when you can spend it on bathroom scenes with….who else….M of course. Perhaps the most difficult what seemed to be15 minutes of the film (as if minutes were hours Mr. Spock) was watching M in her bathrobe apply & remove cold creme. The threat itself would have sent Mr. Greene permanently into pro bono philanthropy. Not finished with us yet, M draws her bath and the tension in the theater built noticeably as we all began to fear that we would be greeted with an au natural scene of her slipping out of the robe into the tub. Fortunately we were spared that experience (wait for the unedited version coming to DVD soon!). However, it just calls into question what fob with a mommy complex of some sort is calling the shots in these films.

M continues to demonstrate why she should not be “M” vacillating from suspecting Bond to needing him back in 00 some 4-5 times during the movie. We did get a glimpse into the possible personality of M’s hubby when he meekly announced, “the calls for you dear on your private line”. Whatever.

M may welcome Bond back with open arms or have him captured or killed, no matter, the BOND GIRL is rescuing Bond in her getaway car, a 1964 VW Beetle. I guess the Bolivian Secret Service does not get to roll like the 00’s in MI6. At least it was a 40HP!

No matter. We are now off to a hotel in the middle of a high plains Bolivian desert. Time to charter a plane…no, not the little Beachcraft Bonanza that would actually be faster and more maneuverable. Choose the DC-3 with a load of cargo on board. Watch out though, you’ll get shot down by the Bolvian Air Force in a single engine Marchetti SIA1 (which I have been corrected on and is a fast little number) I guess the BAF doesn’t get to roll like the 00’s at MI6 either.

No matter because they are both jumping out of that crate with the only parachute. Somehow everything turns out ok after wrestling for 10,000 feet with the BOND GIRL & parachute falling at 120 MPH because the chute opens 20 feet off of our LZ, a nice big soft slab of granite. BTW, the BOND GIRL walks for miles on granite stones in her bare feat…she’s a hearty lass.

It’s off the hotel to find the baddies. The hotel, located in the high plains desert of Bolivia, is called the Plaza del Sol. It is completely self-sufficient and powered by…solar….no you idiot, hydrogen fuel cells. In fact, each room appears to have its own hydrogen fuel cell and its accompanying hydrogen supply tank. The maids must make your bed and refill your hydrogen tank when they replace the shampoo in the bath, I guess. Naturally the hotel, located in the high plains Bolivian desert is made substantially of steel & stone. Unfortunately, the steel & stone in Bolivia is not quite as durable as the steel & stone you and I have grown to love as we discover when Bond causes a baddie car to crash through a wall igniting a hydrogen tank. The rest of the hydrogen tanks ignite sequentially. Darn it, I hate when that happens, you just can’t get good hydrogen tanks anymore. Again, unfortunately, the Bolivian steel & stone burns more like paper mache. Bond battles the Greene baddie but aborts to rescue the BOND GIRL who is caught up in her own subplot vendetta too trite to be explained here. Mr. Greene escapes into the desert only to meet a cryptic fate induced by other unknown baddies and Bond’s 10W-40 payback for the treatment of luscious Agent Fields.

You would be better off waiting for this to hit DVD. At least then you can slo-mo or replay the chase scenes making sense of them, spend more time with the slick Agent Fields and most importantly, FFW or skip over M’s bathroom escapades. You have been warned.

August 10, 2009 @ 4:07 pm Richmond Hill

This is a great flick in the bond series. The series has seriously improved over the last couple movies into blockbuster hits.

November 13, 2009 @ 4:26 pm Julie

I didn’t think that this film was as good as Daniel Craig’s debut role as Bond in “Casino Royale”. It seemed to lack some of the rawness and pace that made his first film so special. Also, there’s not many gadgets and the end disappoints. That said, I’d agree with General Disdain – it’s not a bad way of spending a spare afternoon!

May 22, 2010 @ 4:13 pm Neil

Daniel Craig makes for a seriously good Bond – the most believable since Sean Connery. Like in “Casino Royale”, there’s no fooling around or many “Bond” gags. This is full-on action thriller. Strap yourself in.

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• DVD & Streaming

Quantum of Solace

• Action/Adventure , Drama , Mystery/Suspense

Content Caution

In Theaters

• Daniel Craig as James Bond; Olga Kurylenko as Camille; Mathieu Amalric as Dominic Greene; Judi Dench as M; Giancarlo Giannini as Mathis; Gemma Arterton as Strawberry Fields

Home Release Date

• Marc Forster

Distributor

• Sony Pictures

Movie Review

Smash! Squeal! Rat-a-tat-a-tat-a-tat! Crash! Argh! Kaboom!

So begins Quantum of Solace , the 137th movie in a big-screen saga that stretches back to the year 1524. Such boy-noise largely sums up the middle of the film, as well. And the end. And it’s the way your head feels as you walk to your car afterwards.

Quantum of Solace starts about where the last Bond flick, Casino Royale , left off. Bond, mourning the death of his girlfriend/rogue agent Vesper, is hot on the heels of the evildoers he blames for her demise—claiming, of course, it’s all for the good of Queen and Country. But he’s not fooling anyone, especially not M, his boss. Bond’s vendetta is profoundly personal: His rage spatters like 400-degree bacon grease, concealed only by his tailored tux and marble eyes.

As he cuts across Europe and South America, leaving a sizable swath of dead bodies in his wake, Bond unearths a vast shadowy organization called Quantum. Quantum wants—well, we don’t exactly know what Quantum wants. But it has something to do with bringing the world to its knees. (What else could it be?)

Bond’s self-assigned to-do list? 1) Battle the bad guys—fronted by one Dominic Greene, a lank, cavern-eyed schemer posing as an environmentalist. 2) Fight off the CIA. 3) Deceive and manipulate MI6. 4) Wreck cars, boats and airplanes. 5) Rescue one woman. 6) Seduce one woman. 7) Crack the occasional dry quip.

Positive Elements

Mr. Bond is not one to be easily dissuaded from the task at hand. His methods can and should be questioned. But his desire and determination to bring the bad guys to justice is well-honed. Even when his motives are selfish, he’s all about making the world a safer place.

That grit manifests itself in some pretty negative, vengeful ways. But by the end of the film, it appears that 007 understands that revenge doesn’t supply, well, even a quantum of solace. “I don’t think the dead care about vengeance,” he says. And just when you think he can’t help but kill everyone he meets, he decides to leave one very bad dude alive.

Spiritual Elements

In the wake of Bond killing a series of potential witnesses and M scolding him for it, he makes a flippant remark about a man the Americans wanted to question. He says, “If they wanted his soul, they should’ve made a deal with a priest.”

Sexual Content

In typical Bond-movie fashion, the opening theme is “illustrated” with nude women cavorting in various degrees of shadow.

Bond, still mourning Vesper, confines his usually boundless sexual energy to one proposition: He brings a British agent named Strawberry Fields into his hotel suite and asks her, “I can’t find the stationary. Will you help me look?” In Bond-speak that means, “Why don’t you come into the bedroom, take off all your clothes and have sex with me.” They do indeed wind up in bed, where we see them chatting afterwards, sheets covering strategic spots.

A nude dead woman is (fully) seen stretched out facedown on a bed. She’s covered in black oil. Quick flashes show audiences another woman screaming as a man begins to sexually assault her. She escapes, but her female rescuer is also handled roughly by their attacker. She bites his face as he presses close and, eventually, shoots him dead. She tells Bond that this assailant “did things” with her mother and older sister before strangling them.

We learn that Camille, the film’s designated “Bond girl,” slept with Greene to get close to her own target of revenge. Their affair is mentioned often, at times augmented by descriptions of how each “performed.” Greene later “gives” Camille to a would-be South American dictator, asking him to “dump her over the side [of the boat] when you’re done.” She wears revealing clothing.

A female character in a swimsuit tells her presumed lover that she wants his hands on her body. Bond makes a sexualized quip about handcuffs. Camille kisses Bond.

Violent Content

Bond uses his license to kill so much here that he might need to get it relaminated. And, presumably because he’s so embittered by Vesper’s death, his actions feel even more cold and callously calculated than usual. Frenetic and exceedingly visceral car chases, plane chases and foot chases set the stage for him to send bad guys hurtling off a cliff, crowd a small plane into the side of a mountain, shoot scores of adversaries and stab a man just to watch him bleed to death.

“If you would avoid killing every possible lead, it would be deeply appreciated,” M tells Bond. To which the only real reply he gives is to kill again.

When Bond doesn’t end someone’s life, he makes them wish they were dead. He shoves someone off a rooftop. (Bad guys then shoot the injured man.) He leaves another guy out in the middle of the desert with only a can of motor oil to drink. (The bad guys finish him off, too—but, we’re told, not before he downs the oil.) Bond dangles folks by their hair. And he puts his fists and feet into their faces. He specializes in creating massive, fiery chaos.

And it’s not just his enemies who suffer. Corrupt cops brutally kill Bond’s only ally as Bond—possibly unintentionally—uses him as a human shield. Then Bond roughly tosses the body into a dumpster, saying that the man wouldn’t care. He treats Camille roughly, rescuing her from a petty dictator by throwing her into a boat, where she’s eventually knocked unconscious. He carries her limp form onto a dock and unceremoniously hands her off to a stray hotel attendant, explaining that she’s seasick.

He and Camille jump from a falling airplane, both of them nearly plunging to their deaths before activating a parachute in the nick of time. Then it’s implied that he considers shooting her in the head to “save” her from burning to death.

Greene shows Camille a dead body floating in the water—his handiwork, apparently. He nearly pushes Camille off a balcony. He threatens a dictator with crude and murderous words. And he orders his henchmen to fill a fellow full of bullets. Trying to decapitate Bond with a fire ax, Greene manages to bury the cold steel in his own foot.

Crude or Profane Language

There’s far more crude violence than there is rude language. But there are still two or three s-words. God’s and Jesus’ names are misused at least once each. “A–,” “b–tard,” “h—” and the British interjection “bloody” round out the tally.

Drug and Alcohol Content

Filmmakers give us the recipe for an official James Bond martini—a beverage we’re told Bond drinks six of during an evening flight to Bolivia. Not that this 007 is particularly picky about his alcohol. He drinks whiskey, shares champagne with Fields and sits with CIA agent Felix Leiter as he sips a beer. He’s also offered drugs, if he wants them. Mathis, a Bond bud, says that he has “pills for everything. Some make you taller. Some make you forget.”

Felix puffs on a cigar or two.

Other Negative Elements

Did the British government laminate up a license for Bond to steal, too? He pilfers a tuxedo. A truck. A briefcase. A boat. He breaks into a hotel with a credit card and, of course, lies almost constantly—though he doesn’t seem to much care whether anyone believes him or not.

The good-guy governments, meanwhile, dabble in moral relativism. A CIA agent tells Felix that, if the United States just worked with good guys, they wouldn’t be working with many folks at all. A British official justifies playing ball with Greene by saying, “Right or wrong doesn’t come into it. We’re doing this out of necessity.” It’s said, with a bit of resignation, that these days “the villains and the heroes get all mixed up.”

Going all the way back to 1962 (it wasn’t really 1524, and there aren’t really 137 films—yet), James Bond is pretty much the antithesis of what Plugged In likes to see at the movies. He drinks. He sleeps around. He kills people. And he jokes about it.

So is the Quantum of Solace- Bond just new or is he improved in any way? Well, he doesn’t bed quite so many women, and I guess you could say that’s a good thing. And he definitely doesn’t find a lot of amusement in his work this time around. Indeed, I don’t think we ever see him smile.

This is 007 at his most ruthless, most frightening. In the franchise’s strange chronology, Quantum takes place early in Bond’s career, before he coated himself with a Teflon sheen of invincibility and carefree “professionalism.” Here, the spy is rage dressed in a tux, an assassin who only manages to suppress his desire to kill once—at the very end.

Bond, like Batman before him, has gone dark.

“I’m happy to have done it, but I’m sad that it has turned so violent,” Roger Moore, who played a far breezier Bond in the 1970s and ’80s, told the Daily Mail . “That’s keeping with the times, it’s what cinema-goers seem to want and it’s proved by the box-office figures.”

Previous Bonds made killing look cool. Daniel Craig makes it look cold. So could it be possible that a grimmer Bond is a better Bond? Certainly the consequences of his actions are more visible. Death is more visceral. And Craig’s Bond, so obviously scarred and hardened, is as much an object of pity as he is of admiration. You don’t necessarily want to grow up and be a spy after watching his Bond.

But he’s also flooding the screen with more raw brutality, something that has its own—significant—downside. And it’s not just that it sucks all the “fun” out of the superspy world.

Paul Asay has been part of the Plugged In staff since 2007, watching and reviewing roughly 15 quintillion movies and television shows. He’s written for a number of other publications, too, including Time, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. The author of several books, Paul loves to find spirituality in unexpected places, including popular entertainment, and he loves all things superhero. His vices include James Bond films, Mountain Dew and terrible B-grade movies. He’s married, has two children and a neurotic dog, runs marathons on occasion and hopes to someday own his own tuxedo. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @AsayPaul.

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Screen Rant

Quantum of solace review.

Quantum of Solace is the best James Bond film in over a decade.

Screen Rant's Niall Browne reviews Quantum of Solace

As a life long James Bond fan I always look forward to new adventures from the super-spy. My very first cinematic memory is watching Roger Moore's final outing as Bond in A View To A Kill , and my teenage years and early twenties were filled with Pierce Brosnan's daring-do.

When the Broccoli family ditched Brosnan in favor of the younger, more rugged Daniel Craig I was a bit annoyed (to say the least). Although I was a tad skeptical that Daniel Craig had what it took to slip into the tuxedo, I will admit that I was more worried about EON's idea to reboot Bond for the Bourne generation. Over the years the character of James Bond has been constantly reinvented, without having to start all over again.

In my opinion Casino Royale was an adequate beginning for a harsher and more realistic Bond, but its bloated running time; generic soundtrack and tacked-on finale left me hoping that the next film in the series would deliver the type of James Bond film that I wanted.

So... how does Quantum of Solace measure up?

It surpasses its predecessor in almost every way and delivers the best Bond film in over a decade.

Shorter and more action packed, Quantum of Solace is a James Bond film for the new millennium. Unlike Brosnan's swan song Die Another Day, the CGI is limited, and unlike Casino Royale the film doesn't try to be too hip and trendy. From the pulsating opening car chase - you know that you are watching Bond, and like the older movies in the series you feel that it is the end of another adventure (it is) and not a piece of grandstanding from the second unit and stunt departments.

Picking up mere minutes after Royale's climax the film hits the ground running (literally) and delivers action sequence after action sequence. Don't worry though, unlike many action movies today this doesn't feel like sensory overload - just damn good entertainment.

The plot is simple: Bond wants to discover more about the mysterious Quantum organization following his capture of Mr White. He also wants to get revenge for the death of his one true love Vesper from the previous film. Jet-setting across the Atlantic he finds that rogue environmentalist Mr Greene (Mathieu Amalric) has an affiliation with the evil group and whilst tailing Greene he meets Camille - a beautiful but deadly killer who wants revenge on one of Greene's associates.

It feels like Marc Forster went into directing Quantum of Solace with a checklist of greatest hits from other Bond movies: car chase - check; boat chase - check; roof top chase - check. There are a couple more I could add but I don't want to spoil the film - in any case you can bet they're in there. What's miraculous is that it all feels fresh and very real.

Forster also manages to bring back Bond's weapon of choice - the Walther PPK for the first time in years. There's even a death of a character that harkens back to Goldfinger . It's all classic Bond, but it all feels relevant, despite what Mike Myers says.

The supporting cast all fit nicely into their respective roles. Mathieu Amalric delivers one of the best performances of a Bond villain in years. While the part may not be as iconic as Blofeld or Goldfinger because he has no "gimmick," the actor does make Mr Greene real. The Bond girls Olga Kurylenko and Gemma Arterton do admirable jobs, but their roles are merely window dressing. At least the filmmakers have realized that Bond doesn't need a female partner a la Halle Berry. Having said that it would seem that Bond sees action everywhere but the bedroom. If he's not careful Craig's Bond could become as monastic as Timothy Dalton's "new man" of the 1980's -  and we all know how... ahem... wooden he was.

Judi Dench's M is much improved this time around and her relationship with Bond does show growth, but I still feel that if they were rebooting the franchise they should have dropped her too. Bond needs a father figure, not mothering. His relationship with Felix Lieter (Jeffrey Wright) is also warming up too and Leiter's character is more than Bond's one dimensional American buddy for the first time in years.

While there is much to praise about the Quantum of Solace I do have a few niggles. It wouldn't hurt to have more of that theme music in there and why switch the gun barrel opening to the end of the film? Also, if at some point they are going to have to reintroduce Q and Moneypenny - why keep holding it off? After all Moneypenny is only a secretary and Q is a piece of walking plot exposition. I'm sure Haggis, Purvis and Wade can fit them in without too much trouble.

Quantum of Solace is Bond at his best. Thrilling and entertaining, this new outing highlights yet again why this franchise has been around for over 45 years. While many will try and highlight the Bourne -ification of James Bond they seem to forget that this is the cold blooded killer created by Ian Fleming in the 1950s. Bond isn't aping Bourne - it's the other way around. While the action may be more visceral and frenetic it is still pure Bond.

Quantum of Solace puts Bond back on top. I really can't wait for James Bond to return...

• Cast & crew
• User reviews

Quantum of Solace

• James Bond descends into mystery as he tries to stop a mysterious organisation from eliminating a country's most valuable resource.
• Is there solace in revenge? James Bond and M sniff a shadowy international network of power and corruption reaping billions. As Bond pursues the agents of an assassination attempt on M, all roads lead to Dominic Greene, a world-renowned developer of green technology. Greene, a nasty piece of work, is intent on securing a barren area of Bolivia in exchange for helping a strongman stage a coup there. The C.I.A. looks the other way, and only Bond, with help from a retired spy and a mysterious beauty, stands in Greene's way. M wonders if she can trust Bond, or if vengeance possesses him. Can anyone drawn to Bond live to tell the tale? — <[email protected]>
• After managing to capture dangerous Mr White, MI6 agent James Bond walks right into a deadly trap mere minutes after the events of Casino Royale (2006) . And with his integrity compromised and revenge etched on his mind, lethal Bond embarks on a peril-laden mission around the globe to get even and uncover those responsible for the death of his beloved Vesper Lynd. Instead, billionaire Dominic Greene, an eco-friendly entrepreneur with a flair for crime and ties to a mysterious organisation, stands in the way of justice and closure. But now, there's no turning back. Can Bond survive the insidious machinations of Quantum and live to die another day? — Nick Riganas
• British agent 007 James Bond must do everything that he possibly can to stop an unknown criminal organization from destroying the main resource of a country. The mission will take James Bond to multiple locations that he was never expecting to go. — RECB3
• Following the events of the previous film Casino Royale, James Bond (Daniel Craig) is driving from Lake Garda to Siena, Italy, with the captured Mr. White (Jesper Christensen) in the trunk of his Aston Martin DBS V12. After evading pursuers, Bond delivers White to M (Judi Dench), who interrogates him regarding the mysterious organization, Quantum. M Thinks Bond is on a personal vendetta mission and warns him against going overboard. When White responds that their operatives are everywhere, M's bodyguard Craig Mitchell suddenly shoots one of the guards and attacks M. Bond chases Mitchell and eventually kills him and returns to the interrogation to find that White has escaped. After returning to London, and searching Mitchell's flat, Bond and M discover Mitchell had a contact in Haiti, Edmund Slate. Bond learns Slate is a hit-man sent to kill Camille Montes (Olga Kurylenko) at the behest of her lover, environmentalist entrepreneur Dominic Greene (Mathieu Amalric). Camille was instructed to pick up Slate from his hotel, but Bond got to Slate first and killed him and walked out with his briefcase. So Camille mistook Bond for Slate. Camille thinks Slate is a geologist hired by Greene, but Bond finds a gun in slate's briefcase which makes him an assassin. Camille drops Bond out of her car, who follows him on a bike. Camille goes straight to confront Greene. Greene takes Camille back, but says that he suspected Camille was using him to get to General Medrano. and he found that she was investigating his dealings behind his back. Observing her subsequent meeting with Greene, Bond learns Greene is helping exiled Bolivian General Medrano (Joaquín Cosío), who murdered Camille's family when she was a little girl, to overthrow the government and become the new president, in exchange for a seemingly barren piece of desert. Greene reveals Camille's past to Medrano and offers her to him, as part of the deal. Medrano takes Camille on his yacht with an intention to rape her. After rescuing Camille from Medrano (Camille was about to kill Medrano, but Bond's intervention lets him escape), Bond follows Greene to a performance of Tosca in Bregenz, Austria. Meanwhile, the head of the CIA's South American section, Gregg Beam (David Harbour), along with agent Felix Leiter (Jeffrey Wright), strike a noninterference deal with Greene for access to putative stocks of Bolivian oil, which the CIA believes to be the reason for Greene's interest in the land. Greene wants Beam to get rid of Bond for him.. Bond infiltrates Quantum's meeting at the opera, identifying members of Quantum's executive board, and a gunfight ensues. A Special Branch bodyguard working for Quantum member Guy Haines, an advisor to the British PM is killed by one of Greene's men after Bond throws him off a roof (when the bodyguard started shooting at Bond, he acted in self defense). As M assumes Bond killed him, she has his passports and credit cards revoked. Bond heads to Italy and convinces his old ally René Mathis (Giancarlo Giannini) (whose innocence was confirmed after the events of Casino Royale) to accompany him to Bolivia. They are greeted by Fields (Gemma Arterton), a consular employee who demands Bond return to the UK immediately. Bond seduces her, and they attend a fund-raising party Greene holds that night (Mathis got them in using his contacts). At the party, Bond again rescues Camille from Greene (Camille had infiltrated the party to confront Greene again and he was about to throw her off from the balcony, when Bond intervened) and they leave. The Bolivian police (who are on Greene's payroll) pull Bond and Camille over but discover Mathis unconscious in the car's boot. One of the policemen shoots Mathis before Bond kills both of them. Mathis dies in Bond's arms, urging him to forgive Vesper and himself. The following day, Bond and Camille survey Quantum's intended land acquisition by air; their plane is shot down by a Bolivian fighter aircraft, before being crushed in the mountains and ignited. They skydive into a sinkhole and discover Quantum has been secretly damming Bolivia's supply of fresh water to create a monopoly. Back in La Paz, Bond meets M and learns Quantum killed Fields by drowning her in crude oil. Bond meets Leiter and convinces him that he is fighting for the wrong side. Leiter discloses Greene and Medrano will meet in the Atacama Desert to finalize their agreement. Warned by Leiter, he evades the CIA's Special Activities Division. At a facility in the desert, Greene has Medrano sign a contract that will make Medrano the leader of Bolivia in exchange for the land rights. When Medrano realizes that the land rights make Greene Bolivia's sole provider of water at significantly higher rates, he refuses, but is forced to sign when Greene threatens him. Bond and Camille infiltrate the complex. Bond kills the police chief for betraying Mathis, and after killing the security detail, he confronts Greene. Meanwhile, Camille kills Medrano, avenging the murders of her family. The struggle leaves the facility destroyed by fire. Bond captures Greene and interrogates him about Quantum. Bond leaves him stranded in the desert with only a can of engine oil. Bond and Camille share a kiss, and she wishes him luck in conquering his demons. Bond travels to Kazan, Russia, where he finds Vesper Lynd's former lover, Yusef Kabira, a member of Quantum who seduces women agents with valuable connections and is indirectly responsible for her death. After saving Kabira's latest target (Katic), Bond allows MI6 to arrest Kabira, unharmed. Outside, M tells Bond that Greene was found dead in the middle of the desert, shot twice in the neck and some engine oil found in his stomach. M tells Bond she needs him back; he responds that he never left. As he walks away, Bond drops Vesper's necklace behind him in the snow.

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Quantum of Solace (United Kingdom/United States, 2008)

"Bond. James Bond."

Once, those three words stood nape hairs on end for fans of the action/adventure genre. A lot has transpired since 1963 when Dr. No was brought to the screen, but Bond has been a great constant through all those years. One thing that has kept the series fresh has been its frequent re-invention. While the stream of actors has represented the most obvious change - Connery to Lazenby to Connery (again) to Moore to Dalton to Brosnan to Craig - there have been other, less obvious alterations. For most of Brosnan's reign, Bond was trying to go toe-to-toe with superheroes and Michael Bay-inspired plastic creations. With Brosnan's departure, the decision was made to try something a little different. Casino Royale was, therefore, a departure from what 007 had become in the '80s, '90s, and '00s. It felt new and different but it was really a return to what Bond used to be. From a personality standpoint, Craig is more like Connery than any of the actors who played the part in between. And, from an emotional standpoint, Casino Royale is a cousin to Lazenby's only outing, On Her Majesty's Secret Service . Those are the only two films in which the unflappable hero fell in love. And both lead directly into a subsequent adventure in which revenge is served cold. Quantum of Solace (the unfortunate title is taken from an Ian Fleming short story, but nothing of the narrative remains) is more of a direct sequel than Diamonds are Forever was, but both films show Bond at his coldest. Deprived of love, he has become a formidable killing machine.

Quantum of Solace meets the Bond of the Moore/Dalton/Brosnan era halfway. It is not as intentionally low-key as Casino Royale, but neither is 007 the indestructible Superman he had become during Brosnan's watch. Prick him, he will bleed. But there is no Q and therefore no gadgets. This Batman has no utility belt. The only constant between the Brosnan and Craig eras is Judi Dench as M. Her presence creates headaches for continuity fetishists, but she adds just the right mix of acid and base to keep things balanced. And Jeffrey Wright is again Felix Leiter, representing only the second time in Bond history that an actor has returned to play this role. (The other: David Hedison in Live and Let Die and License to Kill .)

The plot is standard-order Bond, albeit with less heft than one usually expects. After all, the megalomaniac bad guy, Dominic Greene (Mathieu Amalric), isn't out to dominate the world - he only wants to cause a few droughts and control Bolivia's water supply. Bond gets involved because he's tracking down the people who were responsible for Vesper Lynde's death at the end of Casino Royale . Clues lead him to the sexy but dangerous Camille (Olga Kurylenko). She in turn, brings him to Greene who is, of course, happy to finally make Mr. Bond's acquaintance. Meanwhile, M is getting pressure from her superior to rein in 007… or else. This gives Judi Dench an opportunity to get out from behind her desk. She hops from country to country as easily as her subordinate, and there are about six location changes.

Sadly, there's something a little hollow about the proceedings. There's no real catharsis. In fact, the whole thing doesn't feel like a complete movie, or at least not a complete Bond movie. While there are plenty of nods to previous Bond outings (such as the Goldfinger -inspired human artwork), the missing staples leave unfilled holes. For example, there is no utterance of "Bond. James Bond." There are none of the verbal puns and one-liners we have come to relish. There's no bloody iris at the beginning (it's at the end). Monty Norman's "James Bond Theme" is relegated to subtle cues in David Arnold's largely generic score, with the "full play" occurring only over the end credits. At least one of the Bond girls has a typically outrageous name: Strawberry Fields (Gemma Arterton) - but you have to sit through the credits to learn that; in the movie, she's simply called "Fields."

The film's biggest problem is its director. Marc Forster is an experienced art house filmmaker with impressive credits (most recently, The Kite Runner ), but he is clueless when it comes to action sequences. His approach seems to be to shake the camera as much as possible and, to further obscure what's going on, to allow no cut to last more than about a half-second. Most of the action scenes, including a car chase, a boat chase, and a couple of fights, are so incoherent that it's necessary to wait until they're over to figure out who's still standing. (The plane chase is a little better, but not much.) We've seen this technique before, but never with Bond. And, to be frank, it's not something I ever want to see again in a 007 movie. Why bother with so many elaborately choreographed sequences if they're going to be ruined by the way they're shot and edited? Forster seems to have taken the phrase "shaken not stirred" too literally, applying it to every scene with a pulse.

As the film's chief nemesis, Mathieu Amalric is about as weak as one could imagine. Despite the creepy sneer, Greene is neither frightening nor intimidating. Amalric, an excellent actor, is entirely defeated by the role - although, in fairness to him, he's not aided by the writing. Model-turned-actress Olga Kurylenko (recently one of the best things in Max Payne ) is a perfect Bond girl - sexy, capable, and bound to Bond by ties that have nothing to do with love. She has a forceful screen presence and meshes well with Craig. I wouldn't mind seeing her in the next installment. Giancarlo Giannini shows up again as Mathis, although his character is treated even more shabbily here than in Casino Royale , as difficult as that may be to believe.

The SPECTRE-like Quantum, an organization that has members in places no one suspects, is likely being established as an umbrella villain for future stories. Their role here is shadowy, and the way they are handled is part of the reason why the movie feels incomplete. Then again, perhaps after Casino Royale , it was too much to hope that Bond films had reached a new, higher plateau. This is the least satisfying production since The Living Daylights , and that goes back a while (and it has what may well be the worst opening song of all time, making one yearn for Madonna). But, as has always been the case with good films and bad ones, there's comfort to be found in the one thing we can rely on: James Bond will return.

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Quantum of Solace

Review by brian eggert november 14, 2008.

Ian Fleming’s James Bond franchise has a notorious hit-or-miss reputation on film, and Quantum of Solace rests somewhere in the middle. Adequate for a few cheap thrills, the result should hide under the looming shadow of its most recent predecessor, which outdoes every other entry in the series and makes promises this sequel couldn’t keep. Instead, the 007 of yesteryear returns to his tired clichés, offering little compensation for those of us who’ve had enough of his promiscuity and remorseless violence.

Granted, Bond’s proclivity to punctuate stealthy reconnaissance missions by throwing someone off a roof, or more frequently, causing something to explode, has meaning. Perhaps you recall his lover, Vesper, from Casino Royale , whose death inspires Bond’s tirade of revenge-fuelled violence in this film. The double-oh is once again played by Daniel Craig, an actor with a more appropriate presence than evident versatility, a feature that lends his portrayal needed gravitas. Bond hunts down those responsible for Vesper’s demise, and he’s driven by emotions we must construe from Craig’s intense glare.

His search leads him to Dominic Greene (Mathieu Amalric, from The Diving Bell and the Butterfly ), one of those seedy supervillain types, this one without any funky scars or monocle to denote his super-villainy, thus he’s forgettable. Greene, frontman for an environmental protection firm, has brokered an oil deal with a Bolivian general planning a coup on his government. Bond and no one else believes Greene to be part of an ultra-secret evil organization that blankets the globe, so as our hero’s body count rises in attempting to expose them, M (the great Judi Dench) questions which side he’s on. Along the way, he meets Camille, played by Olga Kurylenko (best known as the hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold from Hitman and Max Payne ), who seeks her own revenge from the same folks Bond does.

Every action movie trope in the book is ripped from the page and pasted to this paper-thin yarn, including chase scenes involving every vehicle known to man. Opening with a car chase, we’re then subject to some fancy motorcycle jumps, battles on boats, and even an airplane dogfight sequence. Apparently, Bond has transformed into a singular action hero instead of the spy who occasionally engages in fisticuffs. Indeed, this Bond does very little spying and instead adheres to the Jason Bourne School of Badassery, where said spy kills everyone in sight without feeling. Unfortunately, such one-note motivation leaves meager room for Bond’s otherwise signature suaveness.

However lauded his dramatic efforts on Monster’s Ball and The Kite Runner , director Marc Forster struggles to construct an intelligible action scene, employing the shaky camera technique. Though, he can’t absorb the entire blame; much of the fault resides in the choppy editing, handled in part by Richard Pearson, whose talents for incomprehensible thrills also nearly ruined The Bourne Supremacy . Bond runs about shooting at bad guys whose faces we never see because cuts follow the customary action movie norm of .001 milliseconds per shot. The aforementioned vehicular chases, communicated via sloppy montage, end with resolutions we don’t understand.

With the greatness of Casino Royale still fresh in my mind, questions arise: What do audiences want from James Bond movies nowadays? Are they satisfied with rousing entertainment? Because this film has plenty of that, including some painful-looking hand-to-hand combat and a neat explosion or two. Or do they want traditionalized James Bond formula, complete with colorful villains and willing sex objects?

Just when Casino Royale re-envisioned the formula with a modern touch of low-key humanism, sans outdated womanizing and comic-book gadgetry, it spoils its progress by this underwhelming return to old conventions (for example, Bond meaninglessly beds a redhead named Strawberry Fields, played by Gemma Arterton, wasted). Then again, other typical 007 movie traits are strangely overlooked—like no bloody gunshot into the iris to introduce the titles, which feature the bland song “Another Way to Die” by Jack White and Alicia Keys. Next to previous Bond entries, the film seems more aligned with the Dalton/Brosnan eras, which are ample but not rightly satisfying.

From the outset, Quantum of Solace races ahead without considering its audience, forcing bravado action sequences we’re unable to follow. The proceedings rarely fall back on the script, itself of modest substance. No matter how enjoyable this action fodder may be, unfortunate and inevitable comparisons will be made to Casino Royale , and so disappointment comes naturally with the bar set so unattainably high. Some will apologize for the apparent faults and lose themselves in violent escapism; others will overlook this entry and hope Daniel Craig returns with a better director next time. Count me in the latter category.

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The Book of Clarence review – a rival Messiah or a very naughty boy?

The Harder They Fall director Jaymes Samuel’s Pythonesque spin on the story of Jesus and the apostles is a wildly indulgent, irreverent blast

P art old-school Hollywood-style biblical epic, part hipster pop-gospel groovathon, part playful Pythonesque satire: the wildly indulgent and thrillingly audacious second feature from Jeymes Samuel, set in AD33 Jerusalem, sees the director of The Harder They Fall having his loaves and fishes and making a fully catered last supper out of them.

LaKeith Stanfield stars as Clarence, twin brother of the apostle Thomas (also Stanfield), identical but for a few moral irregularities and the fact that, unlike Thomas, Clarence is pretty down on the whole idea of faith in a higher power, preferring the certainties of knowledge. His current certainty is the knowledge that if he fails to repay his chariot racing debt to Jedediah the Terrible (Eric Kofi Abrefa) within the next month, he’s a dead man. To complicate matters, Clarence is in love with Jedediah’s sister, Varinia (Anna Diop). Clarence has what he thinks is a brainwave, but given that he is so high on “ungodly herb” that he’s literally levitating, his judgment is probably not to be trusted. In the hope of wriggling out of his financial embarrassment, Clarence sets himself up as a rival Messiah.

For the first two of the film’s three chapters, the picture is driven by swagger, a rich Technicolor-inspired colour palette and plenty of irreverent humour. Mary Magdalen (Teyana Taylor) is a champion chariot-racer; the apostles stride through the city to a soundtrack of 70s-style power funk (Samuel composed the score). But in the third section, sacrilege gives way to sanctity, and the film starts taking itself and its faith-based message more seriously. It’s an unwieldy tonal swerve, but one that Samuel, directing with his customary showy panache, just about pulls off.

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