My Poor Brain

When I saw Casino Royale I fucking hated it. It was completely different than any other James Bond movie. It didn’t make sense that M was played by Judi Dench when it was supposed to be Bond’s first mission. I hated that the main focus of the movie was a fucking card game. And I wasn’t sure if I even liked Daniel Craig.

Then I watched Casino Royale again a few months later and fucking loved it. It was completely different than any other James Bond movie. M was played by Judi Dench, but it was considered a reboot a.k.a. we do whatever the fuck we want. The card game made sense, and it was less about the cards and more about the players. And the story was pretty good once I understood it.

I had no doubts going into Quantum of Solace that it was going to kick ass. And right from the start it does. The highlight of this movie is no doubt the action, and without making the story suffer. Being a sequel played well in it’s favor also. This way there was no extra explaining to do, we knew where we left off. Le Chiffre, working for a large organization, was killed by Mr. White who works for the same organization. Vesper, Bond’s love interest, betrays him and gives the money to Mr. White. She drowns and Bond hunts down Mr. White and shoots him in the leg. Quantum of Solace picks up immediately after that point.

I found the story in this movie to be a little easier to follow than Royale’s. It is half a revenge story and half a spy adventure story. IMDB Plot Summary. It was written by a few people, one of which is Paul Haggis who’s work I admire. Quantum was empty of any quips that have made Bond so famous in the past, and I don’t see that as a bad thing. This is a very serious Bond and I think it worked very well for this episode. If you consider this film to be a part of Bond’s entire career, then you can see it is a dark time for him. A lot of complaints have been that it is too dark, but the story calls for it. I won’t be surprised or put off to see some of that cheeky dialogue of his back in the next film.

Dominic Greene was the main villain in Quantum. He tied together the paths of Bond and the new Bond girl, Camille. Camille was out for revenge on a man who killed her family when she was a child, and Greene was doing business with the man. Bond was following the organization and Greene was his major lead. Bond and Camille had similar motives and worked together to get to Greene.

Daniel Craig was just fine as Bond. I don’t see him as the “BEST BOND EVER!” as some have surely said, but he is definitely not bad. I have to see him make a couple more movies to consider him for that title. Olga Kurylenko as Camille was very good. She is at the absolute beginning of her career, and this should give her a good leg up to stardom. The rest of the cast was also well performed. There were no over the top villainous performances that you may find past Bond films, it was all very real performances, and very realistic motives.

I was not the least bit disappointed by Quantum Of Solace. It delivered through and through.

The only bad part of this movie was the theme song that was completely created by Jack White. I still remain a huge Jack White fan, but this was just an awful mistake hooking up with Alicia Keys. She is great on her own, and he is great on his own, but together it just didn’t work right.

I give Quantum of Solace an 8 out of 10.