There were those who felt that Christopher Nolan's Batman franchise reboot, Batman Begins, was a little underwhelming. While the film successfully reinvented the character by putting the caped crusader through a sublimely sinister reality filter, Nolan seemed to be holding something back. But without that element of restraint, the film's sequel, The Dark Knight, would not have had its impact. If anything, Quantum of Solace suffers from the reverse situation.The film's predecessor, Casino Royale, was a rare opportunity to take James Bond back to his roots. Pierce Brosnan's final outing, the haplessly commercial Die Another Day had been roundly trashed, allowing Daneil Craig to carve out a lean, mean origins story with almost scant regard for the established cliches and stereotypes.
For the next film, Quantum of Solace, Eon productions wisely chose to ride on Casino's perfectly tailored coat tails, but no matter how much the critics seem to have enjoyed themselves watching it, and no matter how jaw-droppingly brutal the central performance of Daniel Craig, there remains the nagging feeling that the new film is not quite up to the standard of its predecessor.
Of the main broadsheets, the Sunday Times has the most scathing review:"It's James Bond, licence to bore," writes Richard Brooks. "Casino Royale's strength lay not just in Daniel Craig's acting but the fact that it was based on a fine book with which it kept faith. [But here] Bond is a boorish oaf who simply rushes from country to country with the manic speed ofJason Bourne.Quantum of Solace lacks any wit, ironic or otherwise, which has been a strength of so many 007 films."
"One wonders if director Marc Forster and screenwriters Paul Haggis and Neal Purvis haven't tried a little too hard to distance the film from traditional Bond plots," Wites the Telegraph Mark Mongham "The expository dialogue scenes can be dull, and cram in so many machinations and double-crossings that it's easy to lose track of who's duping whom. And yet, several times - just when you're tempted to consult your watch - the movie suddenly surprises."
Our own Peter Bradshaw is rather kinder, while noting that the film "didn't excite me as much as Casino Royale".
"The villain is especially underpowered," he writes. "But Craig personally has the chops, as they say in Hollywood. He's made the part his own, every inch the coolly ruthless agent-cum-killer, nursing a broken heart and coldly suppressed rage. This is a crash-bang Bond, high on action, low on quips, long on location glamour, short on product placement."
Empire's King Newman calls the new film "a pacy, visually imaginative follow-up". "If it doesn't even try to be bigger than Casino Royale, that's perhaps a smart move in that there's still a sense at the end that Bond's mission has barely begun and he'll need a few more movies to work his way up to destroying the apparently undefeatable Quantum organisation," he writes. "The only real caveat is that while it's exciting, it's not exactly anyone's idea of fun. To keep in the game, perhaps the next movie could let the hero enjoy himself a bit more."
The Independence Geoffery Macnab that Quantum Of Solace "doesn't seem like a major entry in the Bond canon". But he praises the film's frenetic tension and "demented energy". Once again Craig is highlighted as the best thing about the new Bond. "[The actor] plays him with a gimlet-eyed intensity that makes his first turn in the role in Casino Royale seem lightweight," he writes.
Personally I think Quantum of Solace may have suffered from the overwhelming hype surrounding it. Casino Royale was a pleasant surprise for critics, and director Marc Forster was always going to be facing a tough task to top it. His movie does an excellent job of portraying the newly damaged and dangerous Bond, and I particularly liked the way the screenplay deliberately tramples all over certain 007 cliches, while wholeheartedly welcoming others like old friends. The image of one Bond girl found smothered, lifeless, in oil, recalls Gold Finger's most disgusting habit, but there is another moment where the suave seducer of old comes up wonderfully short in the ladykilling department. Throughout the picture you never know quite how like the Bond of old this new incarnation is going to turn out to be, and that uncertainty alone was enough to keep me intrigued.
Fans of Casino Royale are not going to be disappointed here. Those expecting an even better movie probably will be. But I think putting Craig's Bond into a straight fist fight with any of the three films in the Bourne trilogy would result in Mat Deman being rapidly dispatched into the middle distance, tail between his legs. Perhaps that's a fairer comparison - what do you think?
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