Robert Leverington

This afternoon I went to the cinema with my mum and step-dad to see the new James Bond film, Quantum of Solace; while I am disappointed overall, it was worthwhile to go and see it. Here I have outlined what I thought about the film, avoiding any spoilers, so you can continue to read even if you have not yet seen the film.

What was lacking the most was exciting action, there were three or four occasions that I can recall involving proper explosions, gun battles and car chases - much fewer than previous Bond films (except, perhaps, Casino Royale) - and the way they were filmed was quite poor in my opinion. This was perhaps most apparent in the opening sequence, where the camera was very close which made it difficult to see what was going on, and angles changed so frequently it was almost impossible to keep up with the order of events. It reminds me somewhat of Cloverfield, which also had this problem (although much, much, worse).

The plot itself was ultimately flawed by the fact it tried to be a continuation of the previous film in the series, while it was possible for me to follow it - having seen Casino Royale - my step-dad did comment that he had no idea what was going on for much of the film. Being a sequel makes it not fit in to the franchise particularly well either. Bond films are supposed to be one offs, with a very amorous ending - neither this nor Casino Royale had this. Hopefully the next installment will be an improvement; Daniel Craig mentioned about this being to tie off loose ends in the prequel, but this should never have needed to happen in the first place - at least this should be the end of it.

Another somewhat lacking feature was that there was no real Bond girl, no wild sex scenes, and most importantly no romantic ending. My favourite part of the film was Agent Strawberry Field’s short section; Gemma Arterton is an amazing actor, and it’s sad that we couldn’t see more of her in the film. “Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry.” - best line ever.

To summarise, the film was overall quite poor; but at least it gives a black canvas as it were for the next film to succeed where this one has failed.