QUANTUM OF SOLACE (2008, UK/USA, 106m, 12) ***
Action, Adventure, Crime, Thriller
dist. Sony Pictures Releasing (UK), Columbia Pictures (USA); pr co. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) / Columbia Pictures / Eon Productions / B22; d. Marc Forster; w. Paul Haggis, Neal Purvis, Robert Wade (based on characters created by Ian Fleming); pr. Barbara Broccoli, Michael G. Wilson; ph. Roberto Schaefer (Colour | 2.35:1); m. David Arnold; ed. Matt Chesse, Richard Pearson; pd. Dennis Gassner; ad. Chris Lowe.
cast: Daniel Craig (James Bond), Olga Kurylenko (Camille), Mathieu Amalric (Dominic Greene), Judi Dench (M), Giancarlo Giannini (Rene Mathis), Gemma Arterton (Strawberry Fields), Jeffrey Wright (Felix Leiter), David Harbour (Gregg Beam), Jesper Christensen (Mr. White), Anatole Taubman (Elvis), Rory Kinnear (Bill Tanner), Tim Pigott-Smith (Foreign Secretary), Joaquín Cosio (General Medrano), Fernando Guillén Cuervo (Colonel of Police), Jesús Ochoa (Lt. Orso), Lucrezia Lante della Rovere (Gemma), Glenn Foster (Mitchell), Paul Ritter (Guy Haines), Simon Kassianides (Yusef), Stana Katic (Corrine).
Daniel Craig returns as James Bond in this disappointing follow-up to CASINO ROYALE (2006). Following the death of Vesper Lynd, Bond makes his next mission personal. The hunt for those who blackmailed his lover leads him to ruthless businessman Dominic Greene (Amalric), a key player in the organization which coerced Vesper. Bond learns that Greene is plotting to gain total control of a vital natural resource, and he must navigate a minefield of danger and treachery to foil the plan. The film suffers more from comparison to the one it follows than to the rest of the franchise. The exceptionally tough action sequences are too frenetically shot and edited thus rendering them breathless as well as incomprehensible, save for one excellent sequence shot at the opera during a performance of “Tosca.” The characters and the plot are given little room to breathe as a result of Forster’s seeming insistence in prioritising style over substance, but Craig does continue to impress as 007. Followed by SKYFALL (2012).
