Quantum of Solace review

Title: Quantum of Solace
Director: Marc Forster
Cast: Daniel Craig
         Judi Dench
         Olga Kurylenko
         Mathieu Amalric
Certificate: 12A
Run time: 100 minutes (approx.)

I'm gonna keep this one kinda short for one simple reason; this is possibly my least favourite Bond film of the entire franchise (except ,subs for Die Another Day, which truly is an absolute disaster of a film), but this is certainly Craig's worst film as 007. To summarise, I can't believe I had to sit through this film again last night in preparation for Spectre just to write this review, so there's two hours of my life I'm not getting back any time soon.

Firstly, the film is a complete mess; within the first 20 minutes of the film there are three chase sequences, FUCKING THREE!! There is no point in this as the rest of the film is so delightfully boring and void of any form of excitement. A direct follow on from the excellent Casino Royale, Quantum starts with 007 in the middle of some sort of car chase whilst he has Mr. White, a character who I am blaming for me having to watch this (due to him being in Spectre), in the trunk of his car. Shortly after a terrible opening credits sequence (for which both the song and the accompanying visuals are drab and kinda tacky), we see Bond take part in yet another action sequence, which consists of a foot chase and a gunfight.

Let me just take a moment to talk about the Bond song; "another way to die" by none other than Jack White and Alicia Keys..... What happened. I love a bit of the White Stripes and Alicia Keys has proved to be a talented singer so why was this song so bad. It's not as if the accompanying visuals were any good either, they were really boring and just felt unmemorable. In the song's defence, it perfectly fits the film; illogical, dull and a bit of a mess, but still that could've been Quantum's saving grace.

And then theres the plot. One thing I have consistently loved about the Daniel Craig Bond films is that they feel like a continuing story, like one 4 film spy saga. That said, the fact that this was a direct follow up to the brilliant Casino Royale just made it all the more disappointing when it turned out that the plot was neither as gloriously simple in its execution as CR or as entertaining, but instead we are given a short, but not concise, revenge flick which feels void of any reason. Bond himself seems so divided in his intentions as a character, and the villain, philanthropist Dominic Greene has a diabolical plot that doesn't seem to be fully explained throughout the film. Simply put, just assume he's bad and watch him be the furthest thing away from intimidating.

As for the other characters, Judi Dench (who has been incredible as M), gets very little to do here other than provide the audience with a minimal amount of backstory and be snippy with 007 when he's supposedly going too far, to be honest, I found myself not really giving a damn about a single character in the film. By the end of Quantum of Solace they could have killed off Bond and I'd've just said "at least the films done". Neither of the Bond girls (Olga Kurylenko and Gemma Arteton), come anywhere near to being truly as developed or as interesting as Eva Green's Vesper Lynd.

In the end, I don't want to keep talking too much about this film because I really don't like it much, all I will say is it's just more entertaining to probably read the synopsis of the film than watch the feature itself. All you need to know about it in regards to Spectre is to do with Mr. White so it would be easier to just google him or look on some 007 Wikia.

4/10