Recently I asked you who your favorite big screen werewolf was and that got me thinkin’ about some other popular characters portrayed by multiple leading men in the movies. This discussion must always start with the character of agent 007 James Bond, best played by Sean Connery. Other popular Bonds were Pierce Brosnan and Roger Moore while Timothy Dalton and George Lazenby aren’t

remembered so fondly for their portrayal of the famous secret agent. Currently carrying the torch and ordering shaken martinis is Daniel Craig who seems to make a lot of people happy; I prefer him on the other side of the law as he was in Layer Cake and Road to Perdition.

Then there’s Dracula, or vampires in general. The list of actors who have played a vampire on film is a long one. So here are a few that come to mind, please remind me of any as I’ll most definitely leave some out – Leslie Nielsen (Dracula: Dead and Loving It), Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise (Interview with the Vampire), Willem Dafoe (Shadow of the Vampire),  Robert Pattinson (Twilight), Bela Lugosi (Dracula), Gary Oldman (1992′s Dracula), Frank Langella (1979′s Dracula), Christopher Lee (1970′s Count Dracula), and Kiefer Sutherland (The Lost Boys). Needless to say, all of these guys suck, but who is your favorite?

Second in big-screen adaptation popularity to Dracula is  Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes who, along with Dracula, has been in the movies since the very beginning. Personally I’ve got a John Barrymore’s Sherlock Holmes (1922) waiting for me on my DVR, which I recorded after seeing Robert Downey Jr. play the part this past Christmas. I also watched a slew of Sherlock films from the late 1930s into the 40s starring Basil Rathbone, the man most of us think of when we imagine Holmes. Robert Stephens played the part of Holmes in what I consider to be one of the worst Holmes films The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes. Probably the most popular Holmes story The Hound of the Baskervilles has seen many leading men including Peter Cushing (1959) and Peter Cook (1978) in the role of Holmes. My favorite Holmes adaptation is Disney’s The Great Mouse Detective (1986) starring Barrie Ingham’s Basil of Baker Street as a Holmes-like mouse.

Another Hollywood mainstay that’s been around almost as long as Sherlock and Dracula is Robin Hood. Russell Crowe will be slinging arrows this May in theaters as Robin Hood. My favorite Hood is a tie between Kevin Costner’s Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves and Disney’s foxy 1973 adaptation voiced by Brian Bedford. Douglas Fairbanks first wore the tights and feathered cap in 1922′s Robin Hood followed by Errol Flynn in 1938′s Robin Hood. Mel Brooks didn’t play the part but he did direct Cary Elwes as he had fun with the part in Robin Hood: Men in Tights. One Hood adaptation that I’ve not seen and as a native Texan am dying to see is Gene Autry’s 1947 Robin Hood of Texas! I can only imagine…

Honorable mention goes to Batman and Superman, both qualify for this discussion but I really don’t think either are very interesting as the best/worst in each case are pretty black and white. Don’t agree with me? Say so!

Gone are all the high-tech gadgets, flashy and weapon-equipped cars and even the trademark line “Bond, James Bond”.  Everything that many Bond fans remember and associate the spy series with has indeed been dropped and replaced with more realistic and modern-day elements as a way to reinvent the series.  But probably the most notable change lies in the character of Bond himself.  British actor Daniel Craig is the current person filling Bond’s tuxedo and he has brought more humanistic aspects to the secret agent.  While some may not be too pleased with these changes, preferring the old-school, more gadget-laden Bond films to these new ones, I’m actually finding myself enjoying the Daniel Craig films more than I have any Bond film released since Sean Connery retired from the role.

Casino Royale, Craig’s first appearance as James Bond, may have to be my favorite Bond film period, no joke.  While admittedly overlong at 144 minutes, it was still an engaging take on the character, so my expectations were reasonably high walking into the surrealistically titled Quantum of Solace. I’m going to come right out and say it: the film is definitely a step down from Royale, choosing this time to focus more on the action sequences, which clearly have been inspired or even copied in a way from the Bourne franchise.  The film seems to reflect the emotional state Bond is in this time around.  When we pick up the story, Bond is still grieving over the death of Vesper Lynd, the love interest from Royale who betrayed Bond and so he has decided to go on a killing spree against the people whom he believes were working with Vesper.  As a result, Quantum of Solace winds up being a more brutal Bond film and that pretty much hurts it in the long run.

I will admit that while I appreciate the level of realism being brought to the series, James Bond has never been this violent of a person.  Bond fans may have the same reaction to this as I did, simply because there’s no reason for him to be so bloodthirsty.  Granted, he is upset over his lover’s death, but when has James Bond ever lingered on a past love?  What made Vesper so special since she ended up betraying him?  I personally just didn’t buy that, along with a few other minor things in the film.

Quantum picks up just one hour after the final scene of Casino Royale, with Bond engaged in a high-speed car chase with the goons of Mr. White.  Mr. White is, if you’ll recall, the member of a ’shady organization’ whom Bond cornered at the tail-end of the last film.  White happens to be in the trunk of Bond’s car and after Bond evades the henchmen, he takes him to a covert location in Sienna, Italy where he’s to be interrogated by Bond and M (Judi Dench).  As it turns out, White is merely one of many people who this organization “has everywhere”, so this revelation prompts Bond to chase down the leads he can obtain concerning this group.  Bond’s new mission first takes him to Haiti, where he comes across a femme fatale named Camille (Olga Kurylenko), who has ties to conniving environmentalist Dominic Greene (Mathieu Amalric), who is also a member of this all-reaching organization that’s later revealed to be known as Quantum.

Greene’s sinister plot involves him orchestrating a coup d’etat in Bolivia at the behest of a General Medrano (Joaquin Cosio) in exchange for a seemingly barren piece of desert land.  Next, Bond finds himself rescuing Camille and chasing Greene from an opera performance in Austria, to Italy (where he acquires the help of MI 6 defector Rene Mthis) and finally to Bolivia as he attempts to stop Greene and receive a quantum of solace for his feelings about Vesper.  But along the way, M restricts Bond’s movements by having his passports and credit cards revoked, which further complicates matters.  It all leads up to a very rushed climax in an eco-hotel in the middle of the desert.

As I mentioned earlier, I found running time to be an issue with Casino Royale and the same thing can be said for Quantum of Solace.  This may just be the shortest theatrical Bond film to date, clocking in at only 106 minutes, and as a result, most of the film feels rushed.  Director Marc Forster, whose previous credits include more muted works such as Finding Neverland and The Kite Runner, has previously stated that the short running time was intentional.  I can see the reasoning behind wanting to make a more linear and tighter thriller this time around, but seeing as the film has quite a few elaborate action sequences, it makes everything feels as if it’s built around the action.  There is a story to Quantum of Solace, rest assured, but it absolutely doesn’t hold its own against the story of Casino Royale.  The plot just feels like it’s something there to fill the gaps between each action scene.  A longer running time actually might have proved beneficial in this case, because it would have allowed for more time to catch our breath.

And the amount of action packed into a 106-minute movie inevitably makes it all feel rushed.  This can especially be said for the  film’s literally explosive finale, which felt like it was over all too soon.  However, the rushed action does have one good aspect to it, in that it ensures that nothing is dragged out, which is the case all too often for some of today’s action films.

But the disappointingly thin and rather predictable story is helped out a lot by the yet again solid performance by Daniel Craig, whose stoicism is matched only by his violence.  I hate to reiterate what most people have already said, but Craig is easily the best Bond since Connery.  Craig brings out the best in Bond because for the first time in quite a while, we are able to sympathize with him; by this movie, he’s nursing a shattered heart and replacing it with a cold one while going on a manhunt that endangers his future with his agency.  I think it goes to say that Craig carries this film, making sure that Quantum of Solace never deteriorates into a pure action film.  I can’t wait to see Craig’s next Bond film simply because he’s so good in the role.

In the end, Quantum of Solace could have been a lot better than it turned out to be.  But that’s not to say that it’s a bad film; it’s still a very fun ride that satisfies our thirst for a solid action film.  With a bit more focus on the story, I think it could have been on the same level of the upper-tier Bond films, but at least it’s not as awful as Die Another Day.  Here’s hoping that the Bond films never venture into that particular territory ever again.

Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆