2008 | Dir. Marc Forster | 106 Minutes
"When you can't tell your friends from your enemies, it's time to go."
When a double agent within MI6 allows Mr. White to escape from custody, Bond discovers the traitor's connection to Dominic Greene, environmentalist entrepreneur and head of the nefarious secret organization Quantum. Greene plans to broker a deal with a corrupt general to seize control of the Bolivia's water supply. Bond partners with Bolivian agent Camille Montes, both driven by revenge against Greene and the general respectively.
While Marc Forster's Quantum of Solace is a direct sequel to Casino Royale, its opening moments occurring just minutes after the end of the previous film, the plot of the picture is woefully thin and underwritten. The narrative serves only to close out Bond's character arc established in the previous film instead of allotting him a fresh one, conceptually robbing the film of its ability to stand on its own. While the filmmakers provide Bond with a dramatic foil in the form of the vengeful Camille, the story doesn't have anything particularly interesting to say about revenge. The villains still end up dead while the heroes carry on without learning anything profound about the nature vengeance.
To make matters worse, as Quantum of Solace rolls through the dizzying cold open car chase followed by the first major choppy action sequence in Siena, Italy, it becomes clear that this entry's action direction is marred by ugly rough editing. While elaborately staged, particularly the opera house sequence and the climactic battle in the desert hotel, the action sequences are physically difficult to watch due to unnecessarily frenetic camera work and needless quick cutting. Any impressive stunt work performed for the picture is completely undermined by thoroughly poor presentation.
Daniel Craig once again fully commits to the role of James Bond, stunts and all, the action scenes clearly taking more of a physical toll during this second round. It's a shame that it doesn't translate more onto the screen as the camera work is so shoddy. Capably playing equal parts tough and vulnerable, Olga Kurylenko is convincing as the headstrong Camille Montes. Mathieu Amalric delivers the right amount of sleaze as human slime Dominic Greene while Anatole Taubman plays his henchman Elvis perhaps only memorable for having a stupid-looking haircut. Joaquín Cosío is appropriately despicable as the secondary villain General Medrano. Judi Dench makes her sixth appearance as M, while Giancarlo Giannini and Jesper Christensen return as René Mathis and Mr. White respectively. The indispensable Jeffrey Wright has the honor of being the only actor to play Felix Leiter in two consecutive Bond films. The film also features Rory Kinnear as M's aide Bill Tanner, Gemma Arterton making a strong charming impression as doomed MI6 agent Fields, and David Harbour as smarmy CIA section chief for South America Gregg Beam.
Quantum of Solace fails to satisfy as a stand alone picture. It is designed to serve more as an extended coda to Casino Royale, but it pales in comparison to that vastly superior Bond film. While it isn't awful, the feature is an odd underdeveloped misfire that doesn't offer anything significantly new or interesting.
THE COLD OPEN
The car chase that kicks off the film immediately gives the audience a sample of the questionable herky-jerky style of the picture's action direction. The inherent thrill of having a Bond picture open immediately where the previous one left off is pissed away as soon as you realize you can't tell what the hell you're looking at for more than a few seconds.
THE THEME SONG AND OPENING TITLES
Jack White and Alicia Keys' "Another Way To Die" is an interesting sonic experiment that never quite comes together. While the tune isn't terrible, their respective distinct styles simply don't mesh very well and the song just doesn't deliver. Composer David Arnold wrote "No Good About Goodbye" for classic Bond theme song singer Shirley Bassey and even works the tune of that song into the score for Quantum of Solace and though it was purportedly never in consideration to serve as the theme song for the film, it would've been a much better fit. The opening title sequence provided by graphic design company MK12 is quite impressive, energetically presenting Bond and the standard abstract feminine figures with an sandy desert motif.
THE BOND GIRL
Camille is the first female lead character of the franchise to be written more as a foil and decidedly not a love interest for Bond. General Medrano murdered her family when she was a child, providing her with her tragic backstory and quest for revenge. Unfortunately, aside from these details, there isn't much more to her character. As capable as she proves to be throughout the picture, Bond still has to rescue her from the burning hotel during the fiery climax of the film as her past trauma disappointingly completely paralyzes her. Two steps forward, one step back for what it's worth, I suppose.
THE BOND VILLAIN
Dominic Greene fits the mold of the standard Bond villain, a megalomaniacal magnate with a diabolical scheme. The problem is that he is far from menacing, more of a irritating nuisance than a convincing threat. In the grand scheme of the series, he hardly registers as anything more than a scoundrel driven by simple greed. The fact that he isn't even afforded and on-screen death says it all.
FEATURED HENCHMAN
Elvis kind of sucks and is far from memorable. His one moment to shine is Fields sending him down a flight of stairs. Though he is more of a secondary villain than a henchman, General Medrano is a notable adversary that deserves to be mentioned as much as Dominic Greene. He's a lecherous sadistic bastard that gets a much more satisfying death scene than the main villain of the film.
FLEMING FIDELITY
The title of the film is taken from Ian Fleming's short story Quantum of Solace first published in Cosmopolitan magazine in 1959. In the short story, a governor recounts the failed marriage between a British civil servant and an unfaithful flight attendant who settle down in Bermuda. Eventually, the man abandons his cheating wife in Bermuda with all of his financial debts, having cut all emotional ties with her when their "Quantum of Solace" dropped to zero. Bond's confrontation with Vesper's boyfriend in the film's epilogue is based on Fleming's short story 007 in New York first published in the New York Herald Tribune in 1963, in which Bond warns a female MI6 employee that her boyfriend is a KGB agent.
FRAGMENTS
- Produced during the writer's strike, director Marc Forster and Daniel Craig came up with much of the picture's story while filming with a bare bones script; Daniel Craig vowed that he would never perform in a picture with an incomplete script ever again
- Pre-Fast and Furious, Gal Gadot auditioned for the part of Camille Montes
- Pre-Game of Thrones, Oona Chaplin appears briefly as the hotel receptionist that General Medrano assaults in the last act
- Friends of Marc Forster, Alfonso Cuarón cameo appearance as a helicopter pilot and Guillermo del Toro provided additional voices for the film
- At the bottom of the end credits, the film advertises that "James Bond Will Return"
MCU CONNECTIONS
- David Harbour (Alexei Shostakov in Black Widow)
- Olga Kurylenko (Antonia Dreykov in Black Widow)
