A tiny little bit of solace...

Tonight I finally saw the new Bond film and, after having read numerous critics express their opinions that it wasn't really a Bond film or that it had removed what made the series so loved, I can say with some confidence that much of what has been written about this release so far is utter bollocks.

Quantum of Solace is absolutely what the franchise needed. After several lacklustre outings, the villains growing ever more cartoon-like and the threats to world peace ever more preposterous, change was overdue to correct a serious loss of direction and focus.

Casino Royale was unmistakably Bond, and yet it was so much more. It’s follow up expands on this and, although the impact of the novelty factor has worn off to some extent there is still so much to enjoy, new and old.

Picking up where, literally as well as narratively, the previous film had left off QoS sees Daniel Craig continues to flesh out the human character behind the licence to kill, James Bond as opposed to 007. The increasingly complex relationship between the two is the film's central conceit and this, balanced against superb action sequences so up-to-date they make what has gone before look almost prosaic, works brilliantly.

James Bond is, as Maurice Greene puts it, "damaged goods" (making the attempt at a more humanised character in Die Another Day seem fairly flimsy in comparison) and this makes him more riveting and engrossing than ever. This is new Bond, with plenty of familiar and welcome hallmarks - not least Dame Judy Dench's excellent M - ably playing their parts.

Craig's Bond and the world he inhabits continues to reinvigorate one of the greatest mythologies in cinema and has managed to tick all the desired boxes and simultaneously subvert a whole raft of thematic and aesthetic expectations at the same time. For my money, a remarkably canny and rather accomplished piece of work.