Quantum of Solace

I will have to side with the "disappointed" crowd on QoS. I really like Marc Forster as a director, but he's totally wrong for the Bond franchise. He makes the mistake of amping up the chase scenes, but forgetting that these characters are human beings, not just time-fillers for an uninteresting thread-bare plot. There are quite a few brutal action scenes that need to show us that Bond is still human and not so Terminator-like because once Bond dispatches people, he just never seems to take a deep breath and say to himself "Blimey, I could have been killed..." and just moves on to the next plot point far too efficiently when no one is supposedly around him, it's like Bond is even aware of the camera following his every move, and afraid to not look cold and ruthless. Also, for some odd reason, I just find Daniel Craig's chemistry with practically anyone in the cast to be nill and lacking in charm (save for Agent Fields). Perhaps playing Bond with Terminator-like mannerisms just kills whatever chemistry that could develop between the characters, even though they almost achieve some chemistry between Bond and Mathis, but it was too little too late.

The main villain, Dominic Greene, just isn't quite menacing enough, and far too uninteresting given his end game in the film, as his part in the story development is simply poor and uninvolving. I did like Camile, played by Olga Kurylenko, as she and Bond were simply two ships passing in the night, without the requisite port dockage (probably a first in the Bond franchise). But Camile's own little story never quite meshes well with Bond's own personal vendetta following the events of Casino Royale, and again, story development is rather boring.

I did laugh when I found out Agent Fields' first name in the credits:

Warning Spoiler!
Strawberry
.

I want Q and the gadgets back in the Bond franchise, I need them. I am not all that enamored with Judi Dench as M, lose her if we have to in the next installment, I won't care. The theme song is at the bottom of the list for me in the Bond franchise as well.

Overall, the 105-minute running time felt like 125 minutes because the film drags when it's not involved with a chase scene, and that's not a good thing for a film attempting to re-vitalize the James Bond films for a new generation.

I give it 2.5 stars, or a grade of C+.