Running time: 106 minutes
Starring: Daniel Craig, Judi Dench, Olga Kurylenko, Mathieu Amalric, Gemma Arterton, Tim Pigott-Smith, Jeffrey Wright
Rating 7 out of 10
Daniel Craig's first outing as James Bond was in the longest 007 movie ever made (Casino Royale clocked in at 144 minutes), and now his second is the shortest the franchise has ever seen at a mere 106 minutes. Are Bond fans being short-changed?Yes and no. After a shaky start in which the film threatens to turn into the Bond Protocol - the influence of the Jason Bourne films is hugely evident as we are assaulted by three consecutive fight and chase scenes which, despite their technical accomplishments, do little to draw the viewer in - things settle down considerably to make this a thoroughly enjoyable and often very engaging piece. So much so that a little bit more would not have gone amiss.
Bond has two things on his mind in QOS: to avenge the death of girlfriend Vesper Lynd and to seek out and destroy new nemesis Dominic Greene (Mathieu Amalric) who is attempting (in a nod to the plot of Chinatown) to control much of the world's water supply under the umbrella of his oh-so-contemporary ecology company. Craig develops his Bond further after his impressive debut in Casino Royale - fewer wisecracks and more grief combine to give the character more depth than we have seen in some time.
Amalric is well-cast as the baddie. A star in France for some time, international audiences may have seen him in the lead role in The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, and his Greene is oily, charismatic and likely to go mad at any moment. It's one of the film's downfalls that he is not given an outrageously evil moment as he is very much one of those bad guys that it is fun to spend time with. Another negative is his introductory scene, a clumsily written piece of exposition.
But as well as Craig and Amalric there are plenty of good things, notably a couple of classic Bond set design moments. The first concerns the final scene of Agent Fields (Gemma Arterton), with whom Bond has a brief fling, and the second is the finale, set in an ultra-modern hotel complex in the middle of the Bolivian desert. Judi Dench brings her welcome mix of gravitas and world-weary comedy to the role of M, while Olga Kurylenko as Camille is given more depth than the usual Bond girl. Overall there is plenty to keep Bond fans buzzing.
Paul Hurley
