QUANTUM OF SOLACE

CAST: Daniel Craig, Judi Dench, Mathieu Amalric, Olga Kurylenko, Gemma Aterton

DIRECTOR: Marc Foster

This 007 had everything going for it: Daniel Craig, who wowed audiences and critics alike in his first outing as Bond, not a mean feat considering how long the hunt was for the new MI6 agent; Judi Dench in a meatier role as M; Paul Haggis (Crash, In the Valley of Elah) as writer; and Marc Foster (Monster’s Ball, Finding Neverland) as director.

However, Quantum of Solace ain’t no Casino Royale. That film gave us a Bond we had never seen before: a bruised and confused 007, as capable of getting hurt as hurting. He found and lost love in the film, going through a betrayal in the middle.

Though Quantum of Solace picks up from there, with a Bond determined to avenge that love, against unknown forces who killed her, it eventually turns out to be just an excuse to hang two hours of uninterrupted— interchangeable with convolute— action and some great actors on (including the two Bond women, with not a decent cocktail dress between them).

The plot, moving from Rome to London to Haiti to Austria to Bolivia, back to Italy, then to Russia, is so complicated that you better give up pretending you care. Greedy dictators, compromised governments and oil politics are thrown about.

It doesn’t help that the villain apparently running circles around half the world’s governments is an effete pretender (Almeric) who probably won’t be able to convince a classroom of kids of his eco-friendly intentions. To dress him up in Hawaiian shirts and a languorous gait is an insult to our intelligence.

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