Coming hot off the heels of Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace unfortunately is unable to live up to its predecessor’s heights in which it ultimately flounders. Quantum of Solace reverts back to the old James Bond tropes of a blandness villain stuffed with cheesy and cringe worthy moments making it another way to die for the iconic franchise
Picking up right where Casino Royale left off, and the first Bond film to do so in its franchise history, Quantum of Solace sees James Bond (Daniel Craig) seeking revenge for the death of his beloved Vesper. Bond finds a common ally in Camille Montes (Olga Kurylenko) who is also seeking revenge for the death of her family. They eventually find themselves face to face with Dominic Greene, a successful businessman who is a part of the Quantum organisation seeking to seize control of Bolivia’s water supply.
Daniel Craig and Judie Dench reprises their roles as James Bond and M in a satisfactory manner, however it’s the supporting cast’s performances that falls flat. Mathieu Amalric’s portrayal of Dominic Greene is uninspiring as he lacks the conviction needed to be an intimidating and calculating Bond villain such as the likes of Dr No. and Goldfinger. Olga Kurylenko breaks the mold as your typical Bond girl as her character defies Bond’s charming antics and disrupt his womanising ways, however the delivery of her lines often fall flat and monotonous which impacts the emotion the character is going through. Kurylenko does deliver fantastic physical performance, as just like Daniel Craig she performed her own stunts throughout this film. Looking back on Quantum of Solace, it may be an outlier in the Daniel Craig saga of Bond but it does introduce us to a new evil organisation in Quantum which has the potential to be explored in future installments past Craig’s time as James Bond such as the Spectre organisation which was explored further decades later in Spectre.
This time round David Arnold’s score doesn’t quite work throughout this film. He once again kept the iconic theme to a minimum except the difference between the two films is that in Casino Royale we were treated to the excellent ending scene where the theme slowly builds. In Quantum of Solace there is none of that, no teases or build of theme which only plays at the films credits. Jack White & Alicia Keys’ collaboration of “Another Way to Die” is a great song for the opening sequence in which snippets of the music are often used for the score throughout the film.
Quantum of Solace is quite easily the most forgettable film in the latest iteration of James Bond. It does make you wonder that if it had a longer run time and a more streamlined story, that it may have reached the similar heights as Casino Royale and Skyfall.
5.9/10
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