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[Joey Bond]

I was debating whether I should even bother writing this seeing 90% of you have already seen it, but geekiness dies hard.

It's always difficult to make a sequel. It's worse when you're making the first Bond sequel after 21 standalone pieces. It's even worse when you're making a sequel to the best Bond film since 1969.

Quantum of Solace begins, like Casino Royale, without the traditional gun-barrel, but with a car chase that nearly took the lives to the stuntmen while filming. Daniel Craig explodes into the film with an Obama-like coolness coupled with his rugged looks. I heard someone in the audience describe him perfectly: Ugly Sexy.

Then we go in to the title song. Jack White (of the White Stripes) and Alicia Keys' "Another Way to Die" was a good song, not as good as Casino Royale's "You know my name" by Chris Cornell though, but the edited version that appear in the titles were atrocious. It was very poorly edited, and the graphics (done for the first time by MK 12, a company associated with director Marc Forster, whom I'll get in to in a minute) were very generic and at times felt cheap.

Now, Marc Forster. Forster was known for smaller, dramatic films like "Stranger than fiction", "the Kite Runner", "Monster's ball" and "Finding neverland". His direction for Quantum was good, except he tried to put too many Forster-stamps onto the film, the most annoying of which were the location cards (worst one being London). Another decision of his was to cut out 40 minutes of the film, resulting in the shortest Bond film in history. This hurts the film a lot. One of Casino Royale's greatest strengths was it got back to the good old Bond days of exploring locations. Here, one moment you're in London, then it's Haiti, Austria... next thing you know, it's the climax.

The story was solid. In fact, this is probably the first time a 'revenge story' in Bond has been done properly (License to Kill got silly when Q came in, Die Another Day... don't get me started), until the end. The end left a very strange taste in my mouth. Firstly, the gunbarrel which looks very amatuer. I understand the point of putting it at the end, as it would appear that now Bond has finished any unfinished business with Vesper and is now the complete article. But why, then, is Mr White still alive? And why (I am almost certain) is Quantum going to return in the next film? Forster had an original, Casino Royale-type ending with the roles switched (White shoots Bond) which would have been a much better ending. But they dropped the ball.

The camera work, especially during the bell tower fight felt very Jason Bourne-like an most of the time loses the audience, ties in to the point of the movie being too fast. The stunts were good, but there were too many, it reduces the tension in the climax.

Enough with the bad, let's look at the positives.

Daniel Craig IS James Bond. If I had any doubt following Casino Royale, they were gone. Connery was overrated, Lazenby only did one film, Moore was a joke, Brosnan was just a pretty boy. Timothy Dalton was, prior to this, my favorite Bond, but Craig possessed a much more realistic air to him. His scene with the dying Mathis proves this.

Mathieu Amalric plays the seething, sinister Dominic Greene. Under a less capable actor, the villian would have fallen flat. Greene was not a physical villian (like Red Grant), nor was he a psychological (Le Chiffre). He's just a plain, sick, creepy guy, and Amalric pulls it off.

I've heard a lot of stick about Olga Kurylenko as Camille. Sure, she does not look as good as Eva Green, but she makes Camille a truly complex woman. The problem with most Bond girls is they're either bimbos (Stacey Sutton, Mary Goodnight) or are too much of this so-called 'new Bond girl' type who tries to be Bond's equal (Jinx, Wai Lin). Camille could have easy been just another one of these 'new Bond girl's, but Kurylenko brings a vulnerable edge to her.

Gemma Arterton's Agent Fields was cute, and a great homage to Goldfinger. Many wished her more screentime but I thought she was in just about enough to make her memorable.

My Casino Royale review of M called for Judi Dench to be replaced, as the whole deal of her getting annoyed at Bond was getting old, but that strangely didn't come up here. Jeffery Wright as Felix Leiter is the best portrayal of the CIA agent in the franchise's history. Jesper Christensen's Mr White is almost-Health-Ledger-Joker-like creepy.

David Arnold's score is one of his best here, particlarly his homages to the Connery era, as well as bringing back Vesper's theme.

In all, Quantum of Solace did not thrill me as much as Casino Royale, but it holds its ground. Compared to the other Bond actors' second outing, Daniel Craig tops everyone except Connery's "From Russia With Love".

In terms of where it fits in with other Bond films, it sits in 9th place for me, just below "Live and let die" an just above "You only live twice" (Casino Royale, for your info, is 3rd).

6/10