Movie Review: Quantum of Solace

Bond is back.

He of the blue eyes, clipped Brit accent, steely resolve, wry sense of humor, impeccable Savile Row suits, black Aston Martin, cool handling of martinis, and gasp-inducing, stomach-churning, sucking-breath, death-defying stunts.

All the above are there in the 22nd James Bond flick, Quantum of Solace, where Daniel Craig reprises second innings as the legendary 007 super spy.

And in a first, he arrives in India a full week before his scheduled November 14 date.

Sunday afternoon had all the trappings of a very pleasant time for me - lunch with great friend from college, window-shooping (I've sworn off shopping for a while - touche), and the new 007 flick. All in all, it promised to be a very pleasurable afternoon.

However, that was not to be. While the former two went off rather well, I was miffed, cheated, and sorely disappointed with Quantum of Solace.

Daniel Craig, instead of looking suaveness personified, looks more like a sneering, ruthless trigger-happy street-fighter agent-cum-boxer, with a constantly contemptuous look on his face.

The perpetually snarling, curled upper-lip doesn’t help much to redeem him either.

While Marc Forster (of Monster’s Ball, Finding Neverland fame) deserves full marks for directing Ian Fleming’s most famous spy, the story leaves you a little cold and disenchanted.

So you have a still nursing-a-broken-heart, embittered Craig chasing a sinister Dominic Greene (Mathieu Amalric) over three continents, and six countries, with some stunning images of Chile’s Atacama desert. Greene’s character is based on French President Nocolas Sarkozy and former English PM, Tony Blair. The smirking owner of an ecological Organization that he is, has more than the planet’s green resources in mind, and is all out to crack a deal which would make him the undisputed controller of Bolivia’s water resources. He is also a member of the mysterious shadow Organization, Quantum, which has tentacles everywhere.

Bond, in characteristic style, is determined to splash ‘water’ over and ruin Greene’s ambitious plans. Pun intended.

Besides mixing an unforgotten sense of vendetta for the death of Vesper Lynd, the only woman out of the flock he had seduced and been seduced by (see Casino Royale).

So you have adrenaline pumping fight scenes, where a brawny, rippling muscled Craig battles it out, often bare-handed, with nimble-footed, deft adversaries. There are speedboat and bike chases, skydiving stunts, pumping bullets that leave one dazed, jet fights, glass-crashing-into-smithereens moments, car crunchings – all leaving you sitting on the edge of your cushy seats, looking wide-eyed at the almost impossible-looking, gravity-defying stunts.

Veteran Dame Judi Dench returns as M for the sixth time, this time a tad disapproving and resentful of Bond’s trigger-happy ways, trying her best to restrain the unstoppable Bond's reckless movements and ruthless killing sprees. But eventually re-imposes her complete trust and faith in him.

Moving on to the women.

You have the achingly-lovely, luscious-lipped Olga Kurylenko playing Camille Montes, a Russian-Bolivian agent, who harbours a mission to destroy Greene. While the fake tan is a dead giveaway, the lilting accent is pleasing enough, and she holds her own with Craig as a tough-as-nails agent.

The guys will be pleased to know that Craig only shares a brief lip-lock with her at the end of the movie, and not any steamy between-the-sheets encounter. Agent Fields (played by freckled, red-wigged Gemma Arterton) however does have an amorous shot with Craig dropping kisses on her shivering bare back, though in the next scene she is found dead on the same bed, daubed in oil – a shuddering pre-present of what horrors lie ahead, from Quantum.

The only other saving grace of Quantum of Solace besides Olga – is its length. Running for a maximum of 106-odd minutes, it marks itself as the shortest Bond movie.

Go catch the associated video game instead, its namesake, which also marks a release this weekend. Read more about it here.

Maybe you wouldn’t be that disappointed.

Ohh, by the by, Bond wields a Sony phone.

I can almost see that wiping the grins off the faces of the Nokia suckers. Ha!