Lynne Connolly‘s movie review of “Quantum of Solace”

I went to the first night of “Quantum of Solace” tonight. A strange mix at the multiplex. You could tell pretty easily who was going to see “High School Musical 3” and who was there for Bond.

This is the first film review I’ve done, so I’ll do it like I do books. A brief résumé without spoilers, and what I thought of it. And I get the totally delectable Daniel Craig as a picture here. That’ll do me!

The film starts about an hour after the end of “Casino Royale.” Bond is still raw from Vespa’s death, and he desperately wants to deny it. The brutal car chase at the start of the film presages what is to come, and for the most part the script is in the action, not in the words. If you took “scriptwriter” literally, Paul Haggis and his team had an easy job, but I don’t think they got their percentages (if they were lucky enough to get any) from just writing the words.

The whole film reflects Bond’s state of mind — he’s in denial. The death of the woman he loved hit him so hard he can’t really contemplate the blow, and he tries desperately hard not to. So he denies his grief and moves straight into anger. Every time M, who at one point in the film he refers to as like a mother (don’t worry, she isn’t, they haven’t moved so far away from the basic Bond story), says something like “I’m not sure you’re over her death yet,” or “Don’t go seeking revenge” (that’s in the trailer), he goes and kills somebody.

The violence in this film is brutal, although still spectacular and Bond-ish, frequent and close-up. In fact, at one point the hand-held camera work made me a tad queasy. But this is a hang-on-to-your-seats film with only a very few pauses. Characterisation is sparse, as it should be in a film where Bond refuses to enter his inner self and face his own demons. But it’s there, nevertheless.

The villain, Mr. Greene, played by Mathieu Almaric is a great villain in the Bond mold — he’s attractive, in a sinister kind of way, picks up and discards women like confetti, and can sneer a treat. The main Bond girl is Camille, played by Olga Kurylenko, nicely badass, and one I’d like to see more of, but I doubt we will in the Bond canon. Camille has a similar arc to Bond, in that she is after someone for revenge, but she is at the end of her grief cycle and there is an achingly sad nihilistic scene

I’d like to have seen the CIA agent Felix in more action, as he’s Bond’s counterpart in the books and earlier films. And yes, I know we’re not supposed to remember them but at a few points here there are definitely references to earlier films, most notably “Goldfinger.”

Me? I held on, gasped and whooped at certain points (the sound was so loud I would have had to have brought a megaphone to be heard), enjoyed the spectacular set pieces and yes, I’ll be getting it on DVD when it comes out.

A straight Grade: A from me.