"Quantum of Solace"
by: Paolo Sardinas

After "Casino Royale" ended and he credits rolled, you were left feeling like, "Whats next?", "What else do they have to offer?". Well this was it. This is what they had to offer.. "Quantum of Solace" is not necessarily a bad movie, in fact I'd rank it somewhere in the middle between the Connery classics, and the worst of Moore and Brosnan. But it just doesn't offer us what all of the previous films did. Bond.

"Quantum of Solace", the craziest title to give a Bond flick, actually gives you a sense of Deja Vu. The whole movie gives off this sort of Bourne persona. It never really is its own movie, but rather a copy-cat of another. The story is what, in all essence, killed the movie. Sure it starts great but it quickly turns pretty pointless and stupid.

Directed by Marc Forster, "The Kite Runner" and "Finding Neverland, focuses more on the little details. Which there is nothing wrong with that, details are important, but the ones that he focuses on are abit pointless and too small to really care about. Throught the whole film you can tell where and what they cut. Thats why we were given a 90min running time. After the main credits we get the interrogation scence between Bond and Mr. White. Throught the whole conversation, Forster cuts back and forth between it and a race happening outside. I could frankly care less about whats going on outside.

The acting is not bad but it could of definitely been better. Once again Daniel Craig steals the show as the, internally, tormented and complex secret agent. Working the best that he can with the given material, he gives one of the better performances in the franchise's history. We once again return with two Bond girls, Gemma Arterton( Agent Fields) and Olga Kurylenko(Cammile Montes). Both of which deliver fairly decent performances. Even though I prefer Arterton's over Kurylenko's. Judi Dench once again returns as M. Once again giving a short but near perfect performance. But all in all the real show stealer is bad guy Mathieu Almaric(Dominic Greene). Absolutely steals the entire film with his superb acting.

The action sequences were what really saved the movie from being a total mess. Even though they are, once again, mediocre, they still give you that little satisfaction from watching things blow up. The special effects, mainly during the airplane scene, were pretty bad. Although very reminescent of the scene from "Moonraker", they still have differences between them. Mainly cause the one from "Moonraker" didn't use effects. They just jumped out of a plane. Another down side were the locations. Most of them were good choices, especially Haiti. But the worst one of them all was Bolivia. I honestly don't want see Bond in Bolivia. Of all the places to go they choose Bolivia. And on top of that they build a mysterious hotel in the middle of the Bolivian dessert. Who's genius idea was that?

"Quantum of Solace" is not terrible, its not bad, but its also not good. Its average at best. Even though it strives, mainly through its acting, the film does leave some questions unanswered. Such as the conversations between Bond & Greene and Bond & Vesper's Ex. Another question left unaswered was, "Who chose Alicia Keys & Jack White for the Bond song." The song truly wasn't that bad it just seems like a terrible pairing. C