Quantum Of Solace

I was really looking forward to the second James Bond installment with Daniel Craig, as I absolutely liked his interpretation in Casino Royale and I was hoping for more of the same “new” style that Craig and director Martin Campbell impregnated to totally revive and actualize the 46 year-old movie franchise. Well, sometimes wishing for something creates expectations that are not fulfilled and that’s exactly what happened with the new installment.

Quantum of Solace with different writers, different director and almost the same actors from Casino Royale is a good action movie that will entertain you if you can stand movies with many action scenes and not much substance beyond the desire of revenge that is all mixed-up with the new plot about an ecological do-gooder that actually is a ruthless economic predator that heads a very secret organization that has some Latin American countries as his playground now that the Americans are busy in the Middle East and not paying attention to anything else.

But I find that it is a different kind of James Bond that plays too much with action sequences that are not that exciting as after all you know that always James Bond will win; lacks the emotion that some described as a “fast bullet” outstandingly exploited in Casino Royale and even when I liked the villain –well, I may be biased as I do like a lot Mathieu Almaric- I believe that the script didn’t allow him to go further into the character as he always does in many of his performances.

So, in my opinion, this is a messy James Bond that goes here and there with not much connection in the story (except his and Camille revenge desire) and long action scenes that become repetitive. But I do remember reading that due to budget constrain, the special effects were toned down and definitively I saw the special effects underdevelopment in the final product.

Still, one thing I really enjoyed in this movie: the opportunity to see Judi Dench's character M more often in the screen as in previous installments she was more a distant secondary character.

Now I’m looking forward to next James Bond installment, especially because Quantum of Solace closes the story that started in Casino Royale and now they have no excuse to not create an original screenplay that hopefully will have the outstanding style and production values of Casino Royale that totally disappeared in the current installment.

Critics and viewers are split, some like the movie, some say is so-so, and some did not like it. So, I wouldn’t be surprised if some of you readers do like the movie and some will not.

I had a very welcomed escape moment from unpacking, but definitively I missed the superb script, style and production values of the first Daniel Craig installment.

Enjoy.