However this fact has apparently escaped the most unexpected of people – the makers of the latest Bond flick. No doubt its very real and you can almost feel the shrapnel in your face, but some of the unreal magic is lost in the process. Its like a very real story waiting for the bit of the magic that usually came packaged with the previous line of movies.

Casino Royale still remains a high point in the franchise. And for good reason also. Firstly there was the new Bond. So we got to see the “new” grimace of pain. We saw the “new” passion to follow people in the French style of parkour. We saw a “new” love story involving our man and a very “modern” depiction of a Bond woman. But apart from the “newness” there was a sense of realism in the movie. A subtle moving away from the gadgets to the raw sex-appeal of sweat, blood and devious espionage.

Quantum of Solace moves on the same trajectory but the story is not as tight and the music is a little frayed. Although we see a return to some “advanced” gadgetry, the effort to retain the isolation of Bond from technical excesses is evident in the movie. We usually see Bond in the thick of things with just a high-tech cellphone. While most of the funky stuff remains in M’s office.

It begins a little too fast and stays that way for most of the movie. Alicia Keys is a letdown with the opening song – trying to pull out octaves like Sheryl Crow or Shirley Bassey, but only managing a weak croak in the end. And the opening car chase (although filmed in great realism) is just too arduous to begin with. Well we all know that espionage is hard work – but we like to see our Bond using a bit of his noodle to get things done. Realism doesn’t have to mean bone-headedness.

The rest of the story is a little “unexplained” but still bearable. The famous Bond Villain is also more real – like our hero. He doesn’t have a facial tick or a funky island with lasers all around. He is an everyday weasel who made it big by selling his friends on the way. Well so much for that ultimate villain we keep waiting to see every time.

The movie saver is Olga as the new Bond girl … no wait … the she-Bond. She is not a sex kitten or some lethal arm candy for the Bond Villain. Shes just a woman who wants to get some personal joy in killing a parallel character in the movie. I say parallel because the character of the General (wanting to become the Ruler) is exactly like that. I cannot really understand why he was very important in the scheme of things and I presume the director also felt the same way. That is probably the reason why he put in a two dimentional character to complement the main villain.

To come back to the character of Olga – it is at the least very refreshing to see a Bond girl having an obsession other than Bond. And she does justice to the role as well, painting the nuanced picture of a determined woman who doesn’t mind being vulnerable. For his part, Craig also has immense screen presence and those beady expressive eyes. He is more like a reluctant hero, carrying out the dirty work in spite of his personal loss. And as usual he is good at the “physicals” – running and jumping around so much that I was having difficulty imagining how he “could not sleep” in that bar room scene with another parallel character. This guy gets murdered in the end, but not before giving a good “the last words before dying” routine. The audience is shown a soft Bond who hugs a close friend (wasn’t he responsible for his love’s death in the previous flick ?) as he is dying on a deserted city street. Aint that sweet ?

All in all an average Bond movie. Not because Craig is unbelievable. Or Olga in the new she-Bond avatar. But because the action set pieces seem to have been added only for effect and the music fails to impress. A realistic story which like reality seems quite boring in the end.

Lets applaud Craig and Olga and throw out the script writer. Also the crew needs to do some magic to get Bond’s mojo back into him. Alicia Keys singing symbolises the movie – tried hard but failed to impress !

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