James Bond descends into mystery as he tries to stop a mysterious organisation from eliminating a country’s most valuable resource.

Picking up the directorial reigns from Martin Campbell would be director Marc Forster, a filmmaker who was more known for his dramatic depth, but who seriously supercharged the action in this one. Where Campbell’s Casino Royale was a classic romantic spy film, Forster put his emphasis on the action and on a wounded 007 who was very much out for blood. Quantum of Solace moves forward at an explosive pace and of all of Craig’s Bond films, it’s the most action-packed and is a rather brutal watch with this slightly unhinged secret agent going straight forward to get his revenge. But what’s interesting is that even with all its high-end action, Forster still brings his dramatic lens to bare and in Quantum of Solace we’re seeing the cost of what it means to be James Bond, and how much of a heavy toll it can be to bare.

Forster’s direction also plays a serious part in moving the James Bond narrative forward and aligning it more to the classic structure of the Bond films. While Casino Royale was about becoming James Bond, Quantum of Solace is about what it means to be James Bond and that means inhabiting a dangerous new world that goes above rudimentary terrorist acts. While only briefing mentioned in Casino Royale, audiences come into contact with the mysterious and dangerous new organization of Quantum, who are bent on global domination and establishing their new world order. It’s fantastic to see Craig’s Bond begin to operate against much larger forces, while also having to go it alone and rely on his skills and instincts to get the job done. As an audience member, it’s great to see this classic Bond narrative structure made contemporary and Forster does a fine job with this.

After his exceptional work on Casino Royale, Daniel Craig again returns to the big screen as James Bond and this time the stakes get cranked up for cinema’s greatest super spy. Reeling from his betrayal at the hands of Vesper Lynd, Craig’s Bond is on the hunt and willing to get down and dirty when it comes to dismantling a dangerous and secretive new threat. Quantum of Solace is Bond with the choke chain taken off and Craig goes for the jugular. It’s a very direct performance from Craig, and while Bond does treat himself to a few treats, such as a tryst with the scintillating MI6 officer Strawberry Fields (Gemma Arterton), Bond is all business. While Bond does crack plenty of heads this time, Forster’s direction also helps pull out a very damaged performance from Craig and Quantum of Solace is very much about why James Bond does what he does and how this man justifies his profession and existence.

Stepping up as a new Bond girl is Olga Kurylenko as the salacious and headstrong Camille Montes, a Bolivian agent who comes into Bond’s world and whose own quest for revenge gets mixed in with his mission. Kurylenko’s Camille stands out amongst other Bond girls as she can go head-to-head with the debonair super-spy and can match his advanced combat skills and action. While she never becomes especially close to Bond, and there are no outward romantic feelings between the two of them, she essentially offers the audience a mirror image by which we can view Bond as both are suffering and consumed by a need for revenge. It’s Camille who opens Bond up to what he may become, asking him to reflect on this before it’s too late. Kurylenko cuts a great figure as the fearless Camille and her presence in Quantum of Solace helps to modernize Bond and give him a different type of woman to play off.

Quantum of Solace is also an important film for the emphasis that it places on the relationship between Craig’s Bond and Judi Dench’s M. While there was some interaction between the two of them in Casino Royale, this takes on deeper significance within Quantum of Solace and we begin to see the complex dynamics at work here. While they bicker back and forth between one another, and Bond’s straight and often to the point methods rile up M, it’s very clear that she trusts Bond completely and this film helps to illustrate this as the sharks begin to encircle them both. Both Craig and Dench are two of Britain’s most capable and respected performers and it’s fantastic to see them at work in a closer manner and it helps to establish a deeper level of trust and respect between the two characters.

Stylistically, Quantum of Solace is very much a throwback to the classic Sean Connery era Bond films and especially the design style of the great Ken Adam. While director Marc Foster is telling a modern story and making the classic Bond tropes contemporary, the film’s sense of style and design recalls the fantastic elements of classic Bond films like From Russia With Love and Thunderball. From its art deco and retro-future architectural design to a focus on classic vehicles and a throwback style in relation to the film’s costuming, Quantum of Solace is packed out with retro-cool. In addition to this classic design ethos, another incredibly important addition to the film was the pairing of Daniel Craig with noted menswear designer Tom Ford, who re-crafted Bond’s look for a new age with an ultra-masculine flair that signalled his dominance as a daring debonair man of action.

Of all of Craig’s turns as Bond, Quantum of Solace is certainly the most action-heavy and the intensity doesn’t let up for a moment. Craig ran the gauntlet here and the film kicks off with a bang with its explosive and adrenaline charging car chase that kicked up plenty of gravel and elevated the audiences heart rate. What followed was an onslaught of action, with Craig jumping from a daring rooftop gun battle to a brutal bone-breaking knife fight, followed by a jet boat collision coarse in Haiti with Kurylenko’s Camille. But it was the film’s epic aerial chase scene over the Bolivian desert that was the film’s show-stopping piece and this was a piece of action cinema that was epically shot and cranked up the volume with the spectacle it delivered.

Quantum of Solace was a great next stage in Daniel Craig’s career as James Bond. It’s the first time where he starts to mature as the character and introduces him into a more Bond-esque world. The action’s intense, the narrative’s crisp and the visual palette is packed together with a terrific mixture of both retro flair and contemporary style and it is an important step in Bond’s new mission for this new generation of cinemagoers.

No Time To Die will arrive in cinemas on October 7.

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In this special 45-minute retrospective, Daniel Craig candidly reflects on his 15-year tenure as James Bond. Including never-before-seen archival footage spanning from Casino Royale to No Time To Die, Craig shares his personal memories in conversation with 007 producers, Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli, in the lead up to his final performance as the iconic secret agent.

Directed by Baillie Walsh, Being James Bond is a unique 45-minute documentary that summaries Daniel Craig’s entire performance as the debonair super-spy and it offers a complete overview of what being 007 has meant to the actor. Bringing together Craig alongside longtime producers Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli, the film is an intimate discussion piece set against a collection of footage that goes into the extraordinary intricacies of what it meant to cast Craig in the lead role and what a rollercoaster ride it has been for him ever since.

Like all good stories, we need to start at the beginning. And Being James Bond takes us right back to the start of how Daniel Craig became James Bond. Regarded as one of England’s most talented and versatile performers, Craig is very upfront that he never saw himself leading a franchise on the scale of James Bond. But all of that changed very quickly. While many people will assume it was Matthew Vaughn’s Layer Cake that nailed Craig the role, it was in fact his turn as John Ballard, an intense, psychotic and zealous Jesuit priest in 1998’s Elizabeth that caught the attention of Babara Broccoli, and she knew she had found her man to take on the mantle of James Bond.

One of the coolest parts of Being James Bond is that long time 007 fans finally get to lay their eyes on actual footage from Craig’s secretive screen test for 2006’s Casino Royale. It’s very interesting to look upon the footage and see Craig playing with the role for the first time and you see shades of what is to come. Of course, after landing the role came an onslaught of very unwanted media attention and this is discussed at length by Craig, Broccoli and Wilson and it’s extremely interesting to hear Craig’s perspective on these troubling events, along with the shock, surprise and adulation that followed with the premiere of Casino Royale in 2006 and the return of an entirely new James Bond.

Being James Bond takes us inside the thoughts and mindscape of Craig throughout his journey as Bond through projects including Quantum of Solace, Skyfall and Spectre. With each new film, we learn of the challenges around filming and just exactly what Craig was thinking and feeling. With this conversation, we really find out how each film affected him, and how he evolved with the role. And audiences are further offered an incredible collection of previously unseen behind-the-scenes footage that pulls you deeper into the process of Craig’s performance.

But beset by growing injuries Craig readily opens up about how he was willing to throw in the towel after a very difficult shoot for 2015’s Spectre, where a persistent knee injury caused him agonising pain and resulted in a much-circulated media appearance. But feeling that he still had unfinished business he soldiered on and was ready for one final crack at it and that’s where we now are with No Time To Die, which has the makings of the ultimate James Bond film.

Craig, Broccoli and Wilson give a deep insight into the new film and its significance to the franchise and Craig’s performance as Bond. Fans will also be very excited to see an incredible new collection of previously unseen footage that is sure to have them salivating for the final completed project. This is utterly the most moving part of the documentary and audiences actually get to see his final moments and a passionate final speech thanking the crew and team who brought the project to life. It’s here that we truly hear and feel what the experience and character of ‘being James Bond’ has meant to Craig and you can’t help but be touched by what this has meant to him.

Being James Bond is a fascinating inside look into one actor’s journey and craft as one of the 20th century’s greatest ever heroic characters and just what it has meant for Daniel Craig to be James Bond. For fans of the 007 franchise, it’s a must-watch documentary and it will have them amped and excited for what comes next in Craig’s final turn as super-agent 007 James Bond in No Time To Die.

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