Quantum of Solace

Quantum of Solace (***)



Two years ago, I saw Casino Royale and loved it, as did most critics. After the Pierce Brosnan films descended into a downward spiral of silliness-- culminating in stuff like Bond outrunning a laser from space across an ice shelf in his Aston Martin in Die Another Day--the stark, gritty realism of Casino Royale was a welcome breath of fresh air. Furthermore, Daniel Craig seemed to bring a new depth to the character that hadn't existed in a long time. I was therefore somewhat surprised to see the very mixed reaction to Quantum of Solace, despite the movie once again starring Craig and, by all appearances in the trailers, having much the same tone and style as its immediate predecessor. Having now seen the movie, I'll agree that the movie probably represents a half-step backwards from what Casino Royale, and that there's room for some negativity towards it, though not quite the level of negativity coming from some critics.

Quantum's most jarring change from the standard Bond formula is that its a direct continuation of the story from Casino Royale. Other Bonds have had recurring villains, like Blofeld, and his criminal organization S.P.E.C.T.R.E., but even still, they're essentially self-contained stories. Conversely, anyone who hasn't seen Casino wouldn't really have the full picture of what's going on in Quantum. After Casino ended with Bond tracking down the mysterious "Mr. White," the man Vesper contacted when she betrayed Bond and MI-6, Quantum opens with Bond racing his way to meet with M (as played by Judi Dench for... I guess this is the sixth time?), with Mr. White in his trunk. Bond is still pissed off that Vesper was killed, he still has a problem with killing people that really need to be questioned first, he's still seen as the rogue agent of MI-6, and the plot still finds Bond trying to infiltrate the same organization, though we discover its now much now much larger in scale and it has a name, Quantum, hence the title. That so many of the themes from the last installment are continued here is perhaps the movie's biggest downfall, even though they're themes that worked well in Casino Royale. It feels a little bit stuck in the mud, not willing to push this latest iteration of Bond much further than what the last movie showed us. The movie does give us a new villain from elsewhere within Quantum with a devious plan of his own to try and spark some new interest and give the movie at least some sense of being self-contained, but the villain is only mildly interesting and mostly forgettable.

The aforementioned villain is Dominic Green, the CEO of an energy company looking to install a new, business-friendly regime in Bolivia. The Americans in the CIA get the gist of what's going on, but don't care to intervene, except for Bond movie staple Felix Lighter, whose crisis of conscience about the whole thing gives him a role to play in the movie. The whole scheme leads to some decent pot-shots at U.S. foreign policy and big corporations who claim to be big on the environment but are actually pretty ruthless in destroying it. The villain himself, however, is rather uninteresting. He has the same sort of smartest-guy-in-the-room, "hey everybody, look at how ingenious of a business man I am" thing going on that Le Chiffre did in Casino Royale, but doesn't have much of a personality, and is only mildly threatening, really. He certainly doesn't have any interaction with Bond or with any other character long enough for him to have any truly endearing moments on the level of say, an Auric Goldfinger ("Do you expect me to talk?" "Oh no, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die!").

The action sequences are great, but there's not really enough going on in between them at times. Casino Royale was described by many as sort of the "Jason Bourne-ification" of Bond. I think this one has even more in common with the Bourne movies, but isn't quite as well executed. Part of what kept Casino Royale so interesting was Bond's very humanizing relationship with Vesper. In Quantum, Bond's lust for revenge and detached nature after Vesper's death was already reflected somewhat in Bond's conversation with M at the end of Casino, and wasn't really enough to play out over an entire second movie. In Quantum, the biggest female role is that of a woman whose family was killed when she was a little girl by the dude who's about to be reinstalled as President of Bolivia and is basically out to get even. The filmmakers try and create a whole juxtaposition between her and Bond as they both try and cope with a painful loss and a desire for vengeance, but it ends up feeling pretty shallow and buddy-cop-ish.

The continued move away from the cheesiness and cliches of the most forgettable of the Bond movies is much appreciated, but I want these movies to start incorporating at least some of the classic Bond wit, which right now we're only treated to brief moments of. This movie, while enjoyable to watch, felt far too nihilistic for a Bond movie. I'm not saying I want to see Q following Bond around at every moment in a goofy-ass fake beard dispensing exploding staplers or something, but I think the movie needs to gravitate a bit more back towards Bond as being the embodiment of cool, instead of a tortured soul.

The iconic gun barrel, "oh crap, Bond just shot me in the face," opening that once upon a time began each movie--but appeared only in a somewhat revised form in Casino Royale after its grainy black-and-white opening--appears at the end of Quantum of Solace. It's possible that this is sort of the symbol of the "prequel" story formed by Casino and Quantum coming to an end, and that the next movie will be more of a traditional Bond movie. In other words, that it signifies that this Bond has made the complete transformation into what we all know as 007. Or maybe I'm just reading way too much into it, I dunno.