Bond, James Bond … yeah well we didn’t get that in this movie – and we didn’t get a bunch of other things also. 007: Quantum of Solace is a good film but it doesn’t quite live up to the bar that Casino Royale left for it to reach. Don’t get me wrong, I liked it and I’m sure the majority of the general audience liked it too, but I’m not sure if it was exactly what we wanted out of the next installment.

Synopsis:
Quantum of Solace is a short story by Ian Flemming this time around, so the director/producer/writers had a little more play with this one in order to get it to tie in to Casino Royale. We find our good ol’ pal James 1 hr. after we left off from Casino Royale and he has drug back the bastard that had a hand in his lady’s death. They go to question him only to get more questions rather than answers. This then leads to Bond having to track down yet another “bad guy” bent on taking over the world and along the way allowing James some woman fondling time etc. If you’ve seen one James Bond movie then by god you should already have an idea as to how the film pans out.

PROS of the FILM:
DANIEL CRAIG is the best BOND ever! – yes EVER! All you middle aged women in your 40s/50s can just keep quiet about Sean Connery and whatever, Daniel Craig is what Bond should’ve been from the get go. He has charm, wit, devilish good looks (yes I said devilish) and is able to achieve action stunts on his own most of the time without a stunt double. He seems to really embody what Ian Flemming set out for Bond to be. Now I’m not saying that Sir Connery was a bad Bond, how could’ve he been when he was the first and actually set the mold for all those to come…? Though now with Craig, I think that mold has a new face that some other actor will now have to reach towards.

Gemma Arterton (I think that’s how you spell it) is the main “Bond Girl” in this one and she is awesome. This is quite possibly the best one to date as well. She has character and a story and we could actually give a shit about her for most of the movie. She isn’t just there for the eye candy of it all, she has a purpose and something new to bring to the table. Granted Vespa in Casino Royale was a good character, but honestly I didn’t care as much for her as I did for Gemma’s character. I’m not sure why that is – but I’m sure that you will agree. (and if you don’t agree well then, you’re wrong and you need to get over it…)

Action, action and more action! When you get one con mentioned about Casino Royale it was that it seemed a bit slow in parts, and that was due to the fact that it was centered around a flipping game of cards for about a solid hour. With that, I think that the new director and writers wanted to give the audience less talking and more shooting. You definitely get that in this Bond installment and it’s a lot of good action sequences. You get it all from car chases, boat chases, a lot of foot chases, (come to think of it most of the action involves some sort of chase except the end I guess … ) Either way, I found it to be a welcomed addition and was really glued to my seat during these sequences.

Oh, and I for one liked the opening sequence of this Bond film with the music and girl silhouettes. Royale left the girl thing out (which was a traditional thing that all the other Bond’s had)…

CONS of the FILM:
I know that everyone has been comparing Quantum of Solace to Casino Royale, and why shouldn’t they be? It’s a story that is somewhat of a continuation from that film so in all honesty you should compare it directly to it because it should be on the same level, if not better than Casino Royale.

Well it’s not.

There were countless things they left out of this movie, one was the flipping tag line that has been used in EVERY James Bond film … “Bond, James Bond” – why would you leave that out!?!?! There were so many times in this movie you could’ve used it but nooooooo we had to do something different. Dumbass mistake if you ask me. Another thing that was left out (aside from his cell phone) were gadgets! At least in Casino Royale his car had some gadgets in it, even M6 had some gadgets they used on Bond – this movie gave Bond no gadgets, and just a gun and his wit. Granted it didn’t really detract from the film, but when it’s a Bond movie, you almost expect it now-a-days. (as I’m writing this, they might not want to do gadgets anymore since they don’t have ‘Q’ … and if that’s the reason then I might be able to understand it – a little …) Let’s see, what else was left out? Oh yeah, I remember. Was it just me, or did anyone else catch the name of the bad guy’s little henchman brother dude with the moptop hair cut? Who the hell was that guy?! Never were we explained anything about him – nor did I care, but he was always around and quite frankly I wanted someone to just blow his head off so I wouldn’t have to look at him. (if you didn’t catch that, the thing that was left out was that guy’s name or purpose)

Ok enough about stuff left out of the film, I must move on to more things that went wrong.

The villain in this film was piss poor and was hardly anything that seemed threatening. Honestly the guy is about 5 ft. nothin and was able to land a hot chic? Where does this seem wrong? Anyone? The guy has bug eyes that seem to shoot out from his face and were very distracting. I’d probably be somewhat intimidated by him if he were to have a starring contest but that’d be it. He just seemed weak and so non-threatening that I really was more scared of the sub plot criminal that we got to see just a few minutes on screen. (can’t tell you much because I don’t want to ruin it for you)

The fact that this is a first attempt of a Bond film to do a “sequel” to a previous film I should give it a Pro for effort, but the fact is that the story isn’t strong enough to hold up on it’s own. It seems so tied into Casino Royale that it can’t get away from it and never really stands out as it’s own film. Which sucks, because I honestly think that it could have.

James Bond is not, I repeat, is not Jason Bourne…so why should we have a movie that seems so much like it? Most of what resembled any of the Bourne movies was the action sequences. I know I said I liked the action, but it’s also a CON for one simple reason. I couldn’t tell what the hell was going on for most of them. Would it kill the cinematographer to pull back every once in a while from the shot to show us a pan of everything that’s going on, and then go back into the action? I felt like I was up Daniel’s ass half the time watching the action from his butthole only to see the ground and a few legs here and there. The action was intense, but I just didn’t know what the heck was going on or who was kicking/punching/dodging/shooting/ who …?

SUMMARY:
Well I went in really hoping that the critics were wrong about Quantum, I went in thinking to myself, “I like action and in your face stuff” but the movie fell short. I even left the movie trying to talk myself into liking it more than Casino Royale but to be fair – it’s just not. I hate to be another critic that is comparing it to Casino Royale but when you are a sequel to a film then you’ve got the task to at least live up to the film before you … and Quantum just doesn’t quite get there. That really sucks because in all fairness it had all the right things to be an awesome sequel.

FINAL MOVIE RATING: 7/10 (if you want to compare I would give Casino Royale 9/10)