Quantum of Solace, round 1.

Geoffrey McNab notes that Quantum of Solace director Marc Forster has "talked about Bond as if the secret agent was a latter day Hamlet - a character who beneath his hard shell is vulnerable and repressed. The way he explores the tortured psyche of cinema's favorite spy isn't through lengthy dialogue sequences - it's through action. There is something desperate about Bond. [Daniel] Craig plays him with a gimlet-eyed intensity that makes his first turn in the role in Casino Royale seem lightweight. David Arnold's rousing score seems to be driving him on.... Quantum of Solace doesn't seem like a major entry in the Bond canon. Well under two hours long, it's shorter and more frenetic than most of its predecessors, and an often-jolting experience to watch. Loose ends about. What it does have, though, above all, is vigor. The franchise hasn't run out of juice quite yet."

Updated through 10/24.

Also in the Independent, Macnab offers a "brief history of the Bond villain," while James Mottram profiles the new Bond girl, Gemma Arterton, Charlotte Cripps chats with Roger Moore and Alicia Keys looks back on the good time she had making "Another Way to Die," this film's theme tune, with Jack White.

"What makes Marc Forster's film such an intriguing watch is that this is the first of the 22 Bond movies where the plot flows organically from the last instalment, and Quantum of Solace looks a far stronger picture for this rare continuity," writes James Christopher.

Also in the London Times, which has opened up a special section devoted to the movie:

• Joanna Lumley looks back "40 years, to my own dalliance with Bond, being brainwashed by Blofeld, and two months of luxurious captivity a hilltop hideaway in Switzerland. It was 1968, I was 22, George Lazenby had been picked to play James Bond for the first (and last) time, and I was about to become a Bond Girl."

• Kevin Maher talks with "new Bond baddie," Simon Kassianides.

• Nigel Kendall cringes at some of the worst moments in the history of the franchise.

"I've got to admit that this didn't excite me as much as Casino Royale and the villain is especially underpowered," writes the Guardian's Peter Bradshaw. "But Craig personally has the chops, as they say in Hollywood. He's made the part his own, every inch the coolly ruthless agent-cum-killer, nursing a broken heart and coldly suppressed rage."

"Craig's second outing as the famous so-called "spy" - actually, when you think about it, an assassin - turns out to be a tale of revenge." Mark Monahan notes that opening of Quantum, like many of its best scenes "owes much to the quick-fire editing of the Bourne thrillers. Also in the Telegraph: a James Bond "homepage."

"[W]hat this film does differently is to focus closely on an emotionally battered Bond, his mission and his motivation," writes Lizo Mzimba for the BBC. "As ever the end credits promise that James Bond will return, and thanks to Quantum of Solace, the sense of anticipation for this should be particularly high. Not to see what super villain Bond will be battling, but to discover what the next stage will be in a character that Daniel Craig has managed to reinvent and develop movie by movie."

Update, 10/20: Anne Thompson "had a great time at Quantum of Solace last night. Sure it's glitzy and glam and jammed with heart-stopping violent action. But it's also arty and elegant and beautiful. One of the main sequences is a lyrical homage to Alfred Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much, set during a performance of Tosca."

Updates, 10/23: "Continuing immediately after Martin Campbell's Casino Royale - a not so perfect Bond that derailed considerably in its final twenty minutes - Quantum of Solace sees Bond evolve from the suave and sophisticated womanizer of yesteryear into a ruthless bruiser with a taste of slamming the booze and killing overkill," writes Jay Slater at Film Threat. "As he plays his game of cat-and-mouse, cloak-and-dagger and butcher-and-bolt, full praise must go to actor Daniel Craig who sinks his teeth into the role; indeed, Craig performed many of his own stunts and appears suitably bruised and battered as he gives a performance of a lifetime."

Online viewing tip. David Poland talks with Forster.

Updates, 10/24: Ryan Gilbey in the Guardian: "The clincher for Forster was talking things over with Daniel Craig, the man who should be praised for bringing the first hint of nastiness to Bond, and blamed for causing an unhealthy upswing in the wearing of Speedos. 'Daniel and I are very much in sync; he's a highly intelligent and sensitive actor. His achievement has been to humanise Bond, so that he could be one of us - not a hero, but an antihero with a dark side. Meeting him made me want to jump in, take the risk.'"

"The shortest and certainly the most action-dense Bond ever, Quantum of Solace plays like an extended footnote to Casino Royale rather than a fully realized stand-alone movie," writes Derek Elley for Variety. "Producers Michael G Wilson and Barbara Broccoli, possibly knowing they couldn't immediately top the previous pic's sheer stylishness, have radically reshuffled the series' traditional elements, but also allowed incoming helmer Marc Forster to almost throw the baby out with the bathwater. Played with a cold, mechanical efficiency that recalls the Bourne movies, with almost no downtime or emotional hooks, Quantum will find some solace in beefy initial returns but looks unlikely to find a royale spot in Bond history or fans' hearts."

Posted by dwhudson at October 18, 2008 7:05 AM