Thursday, July 7, 2011

Bad..James Bad




QUANTUM OF SOLACE-2008-This is the second of the "new" James Bond films and takes up soon after the last one. Daniel Craig returns as the blond haired 007, a violent, no nonsense killing machine who although on the side of good mostly seems like some out of control cyborg from a Jeff Wincott video.

Judi Dench once again plays M, looking a lot less like she's smelling some foul odor than she did in previous outings and leading lady Olga Kurylenko (CENTURION) is pretty forgettable.

Bond is out to avenge the death of his lover from CASINO ROYALE but winds up getting involved with a guy who wants to help a dictator regain power in Bolivia so he can buy up the water rights! Though this is action packed it's ultimately a little disappointing. For one the filmmakers take several shots at the US especially that they are turning a blind eye to the events going on because they want oil. This coming from the country that let the Lockerbie bomber out of jail so it could get an oil deal from Libya?! Two, though Jeffery Wright returns a Felix Leiter, he's more or less a stooge/wimp and most importantly number three: What has happened to the Bond villains?

Toward the end of the Roger Moore series there seemed to be a deliberate shift away from a super villain type bad guy to some ordinary sneering known it all. Once there was Goldfinger, Dr. No, hell even Jaws but at least it was something. In this one we get Mathieu Almaric (THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY) as some bug eyed wimpy whiner who somehow almost manages to beat Bond in the climax with an axe!

Giancarlo Giannini returns from the last film also. The one woman Bond has sex with in this film winds up killed with fuel oil in a nod to GOLDFINGER. The end credits only say "James Bond Will Return". Director Marc Forster had made MONSTER'S BALL and FINDING NEVERLAND.

Thanks for reading!

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