Movie Review: Quantum Of Solace

The movie left me satisfied but not in the James Bond way. The James Bond method of satisfaction leaves you at the end going "Woo! That was kickass!" But this movie sort of left off with a "Bleh." vibe. The movie did seem short. I heard it was short before I saw it and at about what I thought was 3/4 of the way through the movie it dawned on me. This is it. It's going to end soon. Imagine if Casino Royale ended right after the torture part, and that's what it felt like. It wasn't bad but it would leave you feeling sort of empty... wanting more rather. Which isn't what a movie is supposed to do in my opinion. That's for T.V. shows, but not movies.

Some of the sequences seemed too confusing early on. I'll list the scenes here so don't read the brackets if you haven't seen the movie.(first car chase, first fight, first boat chase)

The acting was good but I didn't feel all the characters were able to flesh out entirely. Especially the villains. They just didn't seem that evil. Pricks, maybe, but not evil or crazy. Another short fall was the lack of conflict. Revenge only gets you so far, in Casino Royale you felt something was at stake, be it a terrorist attack, a poker game or a girl. But here there really isn't much.

On a side note a thing I miss about Bond is his elaborate plans. Like when Bond (Pierce Brosnan) put a grenade in a jar and blew the crap out of everything. You can't really compare this to previous types of Bond movies or the Bourne movies like so many people have. I don't see the new Bond-Bourne connection, the big difference is that Bourne is working to rid himself of the government while Bond is working with MI6. So it makes them different by 2 bus rides, a 30 minute train ride, 3 hour flight and 10 minutes by taxi. That is to say not at all the same.

So was it a bad movie? No. It was good. But it felt like a step back from Casino Royale.

Acting: 8/10
Story: 7/10
Atmosphere: 8/10
Overall: 7.5/10
Rated PG (ONT) PG-13 (USA)

P.S. And yes, for a Bond film that was pretty crazy (torture) previously this felt extremely tame as evidenced by the PG-13 rating.