Remember in the last
minutes of Casino Royale when Bond pegged Mr. White in the leg with his
assault rifle, walked up to him nonchalantly as he attempted to crawl
away, and announced himself for the first time ever as "Bond... James
Bond" before David Arnold let the iconic Bond theme christen the
saviour of the aging franchise? Remember how legendary it all felt?
Enjoy that feeling while it lasts, because Quantum of Solace certainly
doesn't come anywhere close to adequately reproducing it.
I have a theory that an early indicator as to the quality of any
given James Bond film lies in the theme song. Madonna destroyed Die
Another Day as if it was something to be proud of, and Shirley Bassey
made damn sure that Gold-FINGAAHH was something special. Jack White and
Alicia Keys collaborated to give Quantum of Solace an unbalanced
mishmash of themes to trumpet Daniel Craig's second shot with the
Walther PPK, and not surprisingly, Quantum of Solace is an unbalanced
mishmash.
Quantum of Solace picks up where Casino Royale left off, which was
apparently in a heated car chase. Bond lays waste to a few henchmen en
route to dropping off Mr. White for interrogation, and M be damned,
there's a mysterious global terrorist organization on the loose that no
one has even heard of. Cue exotic locales, beautiful women, and
improbably awesome action sequences.
This Bond film is action packed to the degree that you might be
mistaken for thinking you were watching a spliced-up Bourne trilogy.
While this wouldn't be a problem if the man behind the camera was Paul
Greengrass (or Martin Campbell who rebooted the Bond franchise twice
with Goldeneye in 1995 and again in 2006 with Casino Royale),
unfortunately for us Marc Forster decided that the hotly anticipated
22nd entry in the Bond canon would be the ideal action flick for him to
cut his teeth with. While Forster does lend an amiable panache to
moments of emotional weight between Bond and either Camille (Olga
Kurylenko) M (Judie Dench) or Felix Leiter (Jeffery Wright), high
octane action sequences are often incoherent and disorienting. You need
look no further than the boat chase in the film's first act for proof
of this. In a moment of ingenuity, Bond tosses a grappling hook/anchor
into an enemy boat to inflict some damage. The logic behind this move
escapes me, but apparently the action was enough to flip the boat
upside down and Bond was able to be on his merry way without much
consequence.
Far be it for me to tell Eon Productions how to make Bond movies
after having been doing it for 46 years, but you generally want to have
action director's direct action movies. Granted that Bond is more about
sleuthing around chemical facilities and elegant dinner parties than
running into to the evil bad guy lair guns blazing, but the emphasis on
Quantum of Solace is fixed squarely on rough and tumble action without
much subtlety, and it would be nice if the director could at least
convey this betrayal to the franchise coherently. Bond spends a great
deal of time getting his tuxedo stained with blood and grit, and while
I have no problem with the direction the films are taking, the camera
isn't quite able to keep the same pace.
Even in a white knuckle quest for revenge, Bond still finds time to get lucky.The finer details of the plot are mostly lost. Who needs a Deus Ex
Machina when you have an invisible multinational axis of evil to
conveniently cover up every betrayal and incongruency? Camille is cut
from the same cloth as Agent XXX from The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) and
there's one very obvious Goldfinger (1964) inspired dead body in a
hotel room, albeit not quite as symbolic. There are a few nods to the
long and illustrious history of the venerable super agent that coat the
film in a smidgen of fan service.
Quantum of Solace almost feels like James Bond as directed by
Michael Bay (Transformers [2007], The Island [2005]). At its core, the
movie is entirely adequate, but not nearly as polished as it should've
been. The criticisms levelled due to the inordinate amount of action
could easily be resolved if it were focused. The allure of the series
remains; it's just clouded by shrapnel.
(I wasn't able to squeeze this into the review, but there is one
truly authentic and inspired scene where Bond covertly disrupts a bad
guy meeting during an opera. I'll try to work it in somewhere later on)
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Maet's blogs, last updated : November 15, 2008
Remember in the last minutes of Casino Royale when Bond pegged Mr. White in the leg with his assault rifle, walked up to him nonchalantly as he attempted to crawl away, and announced himself for the first time ever as "Bond... James Bond" before David Arnold let the iconic Bond theme christen the saviour of the aging franchise? Remember how legendary it all felt? Enjoy that feeling while it lasts, because Quantum of Solace certainly doesn't come anywhere close to adequately reproducing it.
I have a theory that an early indicator as to the quality of any given James Bond film lies in the theme song. Madonna destroyed Die Another Day as if it was something to be proud of, and Shirley Bassey made damn sure that Gold-FINGAAHH was something special. Jack White and Alicia Keys collaborated to give Quantum of Solace an unbalanced mishmash of themes to trumpet Daniel Craig's second shot with the Walther PPK, and not surprisingly, Quantum of Solace is an unbalanced mishmash.
Quantum of Solace picks up where Casino Royale left off, which was apparently in a heated car chase. Bond lays waste to a few henchmen en route to dropping off Mr. White for interrogation, and M be damned, there's a mysterious global terrorist organization on the loose that no one has even heard of. Cue exotic locales, beautiful women, and improbably awesome action sequences.
This Bond film is action packed to the degree that you might be mistaken for thinking you were watching a spliced-up Bourne trilogy. While this wouldn't be a problem if the man behind the camera was Paul Greengrass (or Martin Campbell who rebooted the Bond franchise twice with Goldeneye in 1995 and again in 2006 with Casino Royale), unfortunately for us Marc Forster decided that the hotly anticipated 22nd entry in the Bond canon would be the ideal action flick for him to cut his teeth with. While Forster does lend an amiable panache to moments of emotional weight between Bond and either Camille (Olga Kurylenko) M (Judie Dench) or Felix Leiter (Jeffery Wright), high octane action sequences are often incoherent and disorienting. You need look no further than the boat chase in the film's first act for proof of this. In a moment of ingenuity, Bond tosses a grappling hook/anchor into an enemy boat to inflict some damage. The logic behind this move escapes me, but apparently the action was enough to flip the boat upside down and Bond was able to be on his merry way without much consequence.
Far be it for me to tell Eon Productions how to make Bond movies after having been doing it for 46 years, but you generally want to have action director's direct action movies. Granted that Bond is more about sleuthing around chemical facilities and elegant dinner parties than running into to the evil bad guy lair guns blazing, but the emphasis on Quantum of Solace is fixed squarely on rough and tumble action without much subtlety, and it would be nice if the director could at least convey this betrayal to the franchise coherently. Bond spends a great deal of time getting his tuxedo stained with blood and grit, and while I have no problem with the direction the films are taking, the camera isn't quite able to keep the same pace.
Even in a white knuckle quest for revenge, Bond still finds time to get lucky.
The finer details of the plot are mostly lost. Who needs a Deus Ex Machina when you have an invisible multinational axis of evil to conveniently cover up every betrayal and incongruency? Camille is cut from the same cloth as Agent XXX from The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) and there's one very obvious Goldfinger (1964) inspired dead body in a hotel room, albeit not quite as symbolic. There are a few nods to the long and illustrious history of the venerable super agent that coat the film in a smidgen of fan service.
Quantum of Solace almost feels like James Bond as directed by Michael Bay (Transformers [2007], The Island [2005]). At its core, the movie is entirely adequate, but not nearly as polished as it should've been. The criticisms levelled due to the inordinate amount of action could easily be resolved if it were focused. The allure of the series remains; it's just clouded by shrapnel.
(I wasn't able to squeeze this into the review, but there is one truly authentic and inspired scene where Bond covertly disrupts a bad guy meeting during an opera. I'll try to work it in somewhere later on)