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New Bond Movie Takes 'Quantum' Leap In Action

By KEVIN WALKER | The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 13, 2008

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As it turns out, you really don't want to break James Bond's heart.

"Quantum of Solace" opens on a wild car chase through the Italian countryside, but emotionally it picks up where "Casino Royale" — the 2006 Bond movie that was the first to star Daniel Craig — left off. If you don't recall, that movie ended with the death of British agent Vesper Lynd, who Bond loved but who also betrayed him.

That's not a good place for a guy's head to be, especially a guy with a gun and license to kill.

Craig plays Bond with a quiet intensity, displaying an outer sheen of cool under which anger and maybe even a touch of craziness reside. This is not Roger Moore wisecracking or Pierce Brosnan trying to look tough by squinting. Craig's Bond doesn't even say his name in this film (for the first time in any Bond film, by the way). That's a nice touch, as is the fact that cars made in Britain — Aston Martin, Jaguar, Land Rover — are featured in the film, unlike the BMWs Brosnan's Bond drove.

The opening scene shows Bond dispatching some bad guys in a car chase outside Sienna, Italy, and then going into town to help interrogate a captive who is part of a secret, worldwide organization called Quantum. The shadow cabal is bent on (you guessed it) profit and world domination. But the interrogation is immediately interrupted by an attack, and the movie moves into another long action sequence as Bond battles a bad guy over the rooftops of the city.

There is a lot of action in this movie, even by Bond standards, and our favorite secret agent manages to, ah, dispatch quite a few people. In fact, his propensity for killing bad guys becomes a sort of subplot, with his boss, M (Judi Dench), asking him repeatedly to try and restrain himself so maybe they could have someone around to question.

Bond eventually follows a serpentine trail that leads him to Dominic Greene (Mathieu Amalric), an environmentalist who is hiding his sinister plans behind the guise of helping the world "go green" (an evil environmentalist? How un-PC!). Greene also has information about Vesper's killer, information that Bond is willing to "go rogue" to obtain.

Amalric, probably best remembered by American audiences as the French mobster in "Munich," plays Greene with just the right amount of nasty cynicism. He's definitely an above-average Bond villain.

Less successful — although strikingly beautiful, of course — is Olga Kurylenko as Camille, who is tracking down one of Greene's associates for very personal reasons. Although she and Bond's interests dovetail nicely, her story adds little to the film and distracts from Bond's relentless pursuit of Greene.

All this leads to a climatic scene involving Bond, Greene, Camille and lots of explosions. But director Marc Forster also manages to find time to wrap up of issues from both this film and "Casino Royale." Here's hoping that he and Craig can stick around for a third installment.

MOVIE REVIEW

Quantum of Solace

MOVIE BOARD RATING: PG-13; intense sequences of violence and action, and some sexual content

STARS: Daniel Craig, Olga Kurylenko, Judi Dench, Mathieu Amalric

DIRECTOR: Marc Forster

LOCATION: See movie times, Page XX, for local showtimes.

PLOT SUMMARY: A heartbroken Bond is a relentless and brutal Bond as he mourns the loss of his love (see the last film) and tracks down a bad guy wanting to corner the market on a scarce natural resource

RUNNING TIME: 106 minutes

ON THE WEB: www.007.com

Reviewer Kevin Walker can be reached at (813) 259-7975 or kwalker@tampatrib.com