Quantum Of Solace
I kinda like Bond films, but for the most part I'm happy to take or leave them, certainly compared to the real fans. The good things about them are mainly the gadgets, the humour, the entertainingly OTT baddies, and the attractive women. The bad things include the over-extended action set-pieces, the excessive reliance on car-chases, the borderline sadism/misogyny/might-is-right-attitude, and the tendency towards over-complicated plots. Sadly, Quantum Of Solace omits pretty much all the good things and strongly biases towards the things I enjoy much less - far more so even than Casino Royale, which I thought decent but rather over-rated.

We start with an extended car chase. Which has more original moves than most, but is still a bad start. We then have too many extended set-pieces throughout the film, a slightly-too-brutal Bond, a plot that is simultaneously rather involved and also remarkably inconsequential, a distinct lack of fun gadgets, and almost all of the wry humour is missing. Which is very disappointing. There are some short, fun moments - but they pass all too quickly, and we're left with yet another quick-cutting, overly-close-shot fight scene that lacks inspiration or heart. In many respects reminiscent of The Dark Knight (my review), not least in its unrelenting darkness, this achieves the heights of being a reasonable action film, but as a Bond film it fails quite significantly.

Daniel Craig has the potential to be a very good Bond, but he needs a script that allows him to be lighter more often, and retain the hard, violent darkness for a few key moments in the film (rather than pretty much all of it). Mathieu Amalric - who I really liked in the rather odd Heartbeat Detector (my review) - is badly underused here. The few occasions he gets to show real menace he is very effective, but his opportunities are sadly very limited. Olga Kurylenko leaves a very neutral impression (and isn't especially good-looking in my book, at least not compared to some of the better previous Bond girls). Gemma Arterton isn't in the film enough to form a strong opinion, but I wasn't exactly impressed. Judi Dench is of course fine, but she's hardly intended to be the lynchpin of the film (and yet, to some degree, she wrongly is).

There are things to like here, but it doesn't feel much like a Bond film, and the relentless darkness doesn't really suit, nor the over-enthusiastic roller-coaster direction. Lighter and more fun next time please. 6 out of 10.