Daniel Craig hasn't lost a step since Casino Royale and this James Bond still remains dangerous, a man who could earn that license to kill in brutal hand-to-hand combat while still looking sharp in a tailored suit. And Quantum of Solance itself carries on from the previous film like no other 007 movie, with Bond nursing his anger from the Casino Royale storyline and vowing blood revenge on those responsible. For the new plot, we have villain Mathieu Amalric (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly), intent on controlling the water rights in impoverished Third World nations and happy to overthrow a dictator or two to get his way. Olga Kurylenko is very much in the "Bond girl" tradition, but in the Ursula Andress way, not the Denise Richards way. And Judi Dench, Jeffrey Wright, and Giancarlo Giannini are welcome holdovers. If director Marc Forster and the longtime Bond production team seem a little too eager to embrace the continuity-shredding style of the Bourne pictures (especially in a nearly incomprehensible opening car chase), they nevertheless quiet down and get into a dark, concentrated groove soon enough. And the theme song, "Another Way to Die," penned by Jack White and performed by him and Alicia Keys, is actually good (at times Keys seems to be channeling Shirley Bassey--nice). Of course it all comes down to Craig. And he kills. --Robert Horton Starring: Daniel Craig, Jesper Christensen, Judi Dench, Lucrezia Lante Della Rovere, Tim Pigott-Smith Directed by: Marc Forster Written by: Produced by: Format: AC-3, Color, Dolby, DTS Surround Sound, Dubbed, Subtitled, Widescreen Language: English Subtitles: French Region: Region Aspect Ratio: 2.40:1 Number of Discs: 1 Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested) Studio : MGM (Video & DVD) DVD Release Date : 2009-03-24 Run Time : 106 minutes ASIN/ISBN : B001PPLIFU Retail $39.99 Quantum of Solace [Blu-ray]

A fantasy epic with more than a passing resemblance to the Lord of the Rings and Chronicles of Narnia film franchises, The Golden Compass takes place in an alternate universe where each human's soul is embodied in a companion animal called a daemon. Lyra (Dakota Blue Richards), an orphan who's lived most of her life among the scholars at Oxford, is intrigued when her uncle, Lord Asriel (Daniel Craig), announces his plans to travel north to investigate the source of some mysterious particles called Dust. Lyra has little hope of following her uncle until a mysterious woman named Mrs. Coulter (Nicole Kidman, at her most icily beautiful) asks Lyra to travel north as her personal assistant. All is not as it seems, however, and the disappearance of Lyra's friend Roger (Ben Walker) sets her on a dizzying adventure. She does have an alethiometer, or golden compass, that can help her see the truth, and a number of companions, including her shape-shifting daemon, Pantalaimion (voiced by Freddie Highmore of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory), polar-bear warrior Iorek Byrnison (voiced by Ian McKellen), Texas aeronaut Lee Scoresby (Sam Elliott), and witch queen Serafina Pekkala (Craig's Casino Royale co-star, Eva Green). Even before its release, The Golden Compass was the subject of controversy over its perceived anti-religious themes. While it does involve an oppressive institution called the Magisterium, it's not overtly religious, particularly to a young viewer. The movie's PG-13 rating should be taken seriously, however. Suitable for an older audience than Narnia (though younger than The Lord of the Rings), it deals with complex concepts, violence (though largely bloodless) and implied death, children and animals in peril, and an unrelentingly ominous and unsettling mood. Starring: Kathy Bates, John Bett, Jim Carter, Tom Courtenay, Daniel Craig Directed by: Chris Weitz Written by: Produced by: Format: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC Language: English, Icelandic, Russian Subtitles: English, Spanish Region: Region 1 Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1 Number of Discs: 1 Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested) Studio : New Line Home Video DVD Release Date : 2008-04-29 Run Time : 113 minutes ASIN/ISBN : B00139W3NE Retail $28.98 The Golden Compass (Widescreen Single-Disc Edition)