Still reeling from the suicide of the femme fatale who left his heart in a puddle of Dom Perignon sweat on the gambling floor in 2006’s Casino Royale, Bond seeks answers to the secrets Vesper took to her watery grave – and no cost is too great (mortal or otherwise).
Accompanying the updated tripod-on-a-tireswing ADHD actionography, is a welcomed sense of realpolitik as Bond faces off against tinpot dictators, compromised CIA spooks, and a transnational organization out to privatize natural resources and reap the profits –more shades of Dick Cheney’s Haliburton than Blofeld’s SPECTRE.
Aside from an overblown climax which seems to have been constructed without a hint of Austin Power post-modern secret lair irony, 'Quantum of Solace' sits comfortably alongside Timothy Dalton’s paired-down entries in the series. A thoroughly engaging, if slight, thriller with enough “only in a Bond movie” moments to make it worth the price of admission.
In his second turn as the government sanctioned merchant of destruction, Craig provides the film’s real center of gravity. With a jutting bone structure suggesting an unspoken affair between the Neverending Story’s Rock Biter and Craig’s dear old mum, this Bond seems less interested in seeing the sun never set on the British Empire, than he does patrolling the royal grounds keeping two-bit crackheads from stealing the Buckingham Palace TV set.
However, it is precisely through those protruding jetty brows that we may peer into the hardened heart of a spy who doesn’t necessarily want back in from the cold.
3/5
Edited by Roger Moore's Bad Facelift, 17 November 2008 - 09:40 PM.