Quantum of Solace has a lot of the elements that comprise a great James Bond film: lots of action, beautiful women, beautiful locations, good one-liners. One area that it falls down a bit on a bit is the lack of gadgets. In fact it's M, not Bond who gets the best toy, a fancy computer. However, they rebooted the franchise with the previous movie, Casino Royale, so I imagine they'll get to the gadgets in the meantime.
One thing I do like about the new Bond is its stronger sense of internal continuity. You can probably enjoy most of the film without seeing Casino Royale, but there are certainly bits you'll enjoy more if you've seen that film (a character from the previous film is mentioned a fair bit). There's also a cute allusion to one of the most famous scenes in Goldfinger (since it's a reboot Bond doesn't comment on the parallels directly, but it's undoubtedly intentional). And there is a nice revenge subplot with Bond's most important allies.
In Casino Royale I thought Daniel Craig struggled a bit with Bond's more human side, but here I thought he handled that side of Bond better.
One nitpick I do have is that, even though the series has always played a bit fast and loose with the laws of physics, Bond should have at least been limping at one point (in the real world there would have been broken bones or death, but in Bond's universe, limping would suffice).
Overall though I thought it was a fun action movie. Now bring on the gadgets!
3 comments:
This is an awesome review Andy! I agree whole-heartedly. Especially about the lack of gadgets for Bond and the nit-pick about the absence of limping.
One fun way they could bring in the gadgets, since Bond and M seem to have a son-mother thing happening in the new continuity, would be to have Bond pester M for some toys until she finally relents and introduces him to Q.
That could work.
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