Quantum of Solace

2008, dir. Marc Forster. Star. Daniel Craig, Mathieu Almaric, Judi Dench, Jeffrey Wright, and various pleasant looking women.
1h 47m


The 22nd "official" James Bond film came out on Friday to packed, sold-out theatres, but Steph and I managed to see it with Noah and Paul at Silvercity. Steph and I split some peanut butter M&Ms and a diet Pepsi.

QoS is the first James Bond sequel, beginning right after the last scene of Casino Royale (though somehow Bond lost the vest of his suit in that short time), and that is inherently the problem. The movie is more focused on wrapping up loose ends of the CR, and not concrened enough with it's own plot, which is almost arbitrary. Another issue is that supposedly, Le Chiffre (the villain from CS) is merely an employee for Dominic Greene (villain of QoS), yet Greene is kind of a pushover and far less bad-ass than Le Chiffre. Overall, I feel like Casino Royale in 1 1/3 movies, but Quantum of Solace is only 2/3 of a movie. The play well back to back, but Casino Royale is too long, and QoS too constricted.

3 stars out of 5

Upcoming movies in the next week

This Friday, the 22nd official James Bond film hits theatres. It is called Quantum of Solace, and sure, that doesn't make sense, but neither do "You Only Live Twice", "Live and Let Die", and plenty of other titles. A note, though; Quantum of Solace is a direct sequel to the last Bond film, Casino Royale, the first time this has been done in the series, so you will need to have seen Casino Royale to understand it. If you haven't caught Casino Royale, go pick it up on Blu-Ray, or DVD, both of which come with a coupon for free admission to Quantum of Solace. (I should work for MGM).
Dir. Marc Forster (of Monster's Ball, Finding Neverland, Stranger Than Fiction, Kite Runner)
Star. Daniel Craig, Mathieu Almaric (from The Diving Bell and the Butterfly)

Other movies coming out this week:

The Class.
The 2008 Cannes Palme d'Or winner is playing at the Canadian Film Institute on Friday, as part of their European Union Film Festival

Tron
This 1982 Disney film, one of the first movie sto contain computer animation, is playing this Sunday, also at the Canadian Film Institute, for no apparent reason other than it's a really cool film, and it stars Jeff Bridges.

Jules and Jim
This classic Truffaut film is playing at the Bytowne on Monday, but I have to admit that I'm not a big fan of it, and will probably be skipping it myself.

And for those of you into this sort of thing, at select Cineplex theatres, High School Musical 3 is being shown in a sing-a-long edition.
No, seriously.