Movie Review # 390: 007: Quantum Of Solace (2008)

Good evening everyone! Tonight, we are back on the James Bond wagon for just a couple more times after this? Wow, I can’t believe that after only three, or four months of first starting this particular marathon, we are nearing the end before the newest film hopefully gets released in the next couple months. Not to mention that I also have ten more films to review in order to get to my 400th review. I must say that I was not expecting that to happen so soon. Glad that is the case, though! Anyway, tonight, we are going to be talking about the next 007 film that stars Daniel Craig as James Bond, as well as the twenty second installment in this franchise. Wow, only two, soon to be three more to go after this! Man, does time fly! Without further ado, released on November 14th, 2008, the movie is 007: Quantum Of Solace.

Plot: Shortly after the events of 007: Casino Royale, James Bond (Daniel Craig) finds people, who are connected to the death of his former live, Vesper Lynd, including a terrorist named Dominic Greene (Mathieu Almaric), who works for an organization called Quantum. After Bond discovers that Greene is planning to negotiate a deal of giving a water supply to a Bolivian General (Joaquin Cosío), which could potentially endanger Bolivia, and the world, can Bond thwart Greene’s plot once and for all?

Wow, once again, there are plenty of things that make this James Bond worth watching either once, or even more than once. First off, one should give 007: Quantum Of Solace credit for making this film a little shorter. No, that’s not to say that it wasn’t a good thing that the other James Bond movies were around two hours, or more in the past, or likely even after. However, in this case, seeing as 007: Casino Royale seemed to drag out to over two hours at some points, in some ways, it may have been for the best that this film had a running time of a hundred and six minutes. However, in other ways, that may have served as a downside as well. But more on that later! In addition to this, most of the characters are very well fleshed out. So much so that you likely see yourself getting behind them. Sure, there are times where you may not like some of the motivations behind some of the decisions that certain characters make in this film. On the other hand, however, at least you seem to have an understanding of where they’re coming from. Next, we get to find ourselves in some of the cultures with some of the countries that James Bond travels to, most notably when it comes to the country of Haiti, despite our main characters spending as much time there as with the other countries that they go to. Additionally, it’s good to appreciate that James Bond is willing to do the right thing no matter what. Heck even if that means that he has to make the uneasy decision of disobeying orders for the greater good, there are points in this film, where he’s willing to go to extreme measures to do so. Best of all, he’s not afraid to ask for help from anyone who might be able to help him out with certain tasks. Yeah, that’s a valuable lesson that we can learn from this film, especially for those of us who have been reluctant to ask for help in certain situations. One other thing to mention is that there are moments from this movie that could probably be applied to real life situations.

However, there are a couple areas, where this film could have improved. First off, there are the villains of this film. Oh, they’re fairly well developed, don’t get me wrong. However, when one is to compare them to other villains that James Bond had to deal with in previous films, they don’t seem to stand out quite nearly as well as those other ones. The other issue is that the climax, while very good, night have seemed to be a bit underwhelming. Oh, the climax is still good. It just could have probably been a little better.

And that’s my review for 007: Quantum Of Solace. So, with the couple flaws that I just mention med in this review, should this film have had a shorter running time in the end? My guess is either that should have been the case, or they should have gone through one, or two more drafts, and still kept the same running time in the end, however that could have been pulled off. Nevertheless, despite those couple issues, this film is very well done in terms of story, mostly good character development, aside from the antagonists, some good lessons to take away from this film, and helps the audience think of certain situations that could be applied to real life. Once again, definitely see 007: Quantum Of Solace if you haven’t yet. This is one of the many films in the James Bond film series that has plenty to like about it.

Final Grade: A-