Film Review: Quantum of Solace

Quantum of Solace @ IMDB

Bond is back. Again.

So it'ss fair to say that the anticipation for the second Daniel Craig Bond film has been intense, to say the least. And I'll include myself in that as Casino Royale was a great film that came out of nowhere.

And this is the problem, but we'll get to that shortly.

Hot on the heels of the end of Casino Royale, Bond is on a mission to find the people behind the actions of his last Bond Girl, the traitorous Vesper.

Now, I've stopped the plot description there before it gets too confusing because the plot is a tad confusing. The Bourne Influence casts a mighty shadow over this film, including the labyrinthine plot that doesn't make that much sense. The reason why this worked in Bourne is that Bourne himself was on a straight line, trying to find the people out to get him. It was around him that all the double crossing CIA stuff happened so it didn't overwhelm the plot. Meanwhile in Bond, he's right in the middle of plot which puts the not very clear story right at the front of the film. Not ideal.

The bad guy isn't that good either, he's hardly a threatening presence in the film and not the big enemy that Bond needs.

The real problem is that this isn't the film we were expecting. We all wanted Casino Royale 2 but this isn't it. Whilst the action sequences are great it just doesn't connect the way Royale did. This is possibly down the humanising aspects of Bond that are missing from this film. I know he's supposed to be a grief stricken revenge obsessed super spy but he's so emotionally distant from us in this film that it detracts from the whole experience.

That isn't to say that Craig isn't a good Bond because he really really is. The few real Bond moments in the film he makes his own, he just needed a better script to support him.

It is a great action film (as you would expect as the Second Unit Director who did the action sequences worked on the Bourne films) but Casino Royale was a great action film with a great story.

This only gets it half right.

In a word? Bland.