As the first true sequel in the film franchises 45 year history, the movie breaks the mould in a more fundamental way than CR, which didn't reinvent the character but simply told his story in a new way. It both honored history while dispensing with it. Took iconic Bond elements and paid them lip service or used them in ways we might not expect.
Quantum of Solace is a whole film that we could did not expect. It's emotionally honest, action heavy, lean in its storytelling and builds from the previous film's foundation. If the previous twenty-one films were any of these things, none of them were all of these things. Even CR suffered from some padding late in the film - probably its single weakness; forgivable simply because it's so close to the Fleming original.
Beginning an hour after Bond finds Mr White at Lake Como, director Marc Forster gives us a thrilling car chase that would be worthy of another action movie's climax - this is the opening scene. All we need to know is that James Bond is James Bond; it's not even explicit how it fits with Casino Royale until just prior to the opening titles and song.
After the extraordinary opening titles of CR, I must say that these ones - designed by long-time Forster collaborators MK12 - aren't exactly up to scratch. They are much more traditional - like some of the set design and direction in the film itself, but it's a step back in quality. The images are bland; the colours faded and dull. The song by Jack White & Alicia Keys almost seems daring in comparison - though I'm still not a fan.
Back into the film and the interrogation of Mr White is set in an underground bunker - intercut with a horse race that is happening above ground. Forster is priming us for a later sequence that is shot and cut in much the same way - we are given a wider context even before we understand how the narrative puts both places and all characters together. There is a moment in the film No Country for Old Men that is shot inside a hotel room (in fact there are more than one) - it's claustrophic and we don't see what is happening outside, but the directors have already shown us the context. We know what the horse race and crowd looks like, so when we get there it's not jarring. Until then, it keeps the audience on edge - horses charging above ground; tension simmering under the surface.
This film will be compared to the Bourne Trilogy even more than Casino Royale because some of the action sequences are choreographed in a similar way - and the emotional territory isn't too far removed because of the lost love and revenge. Admittedly the blunt instrument Bond is a call back to Fleming, but no doubt the Bourne films are influences here - Bond uses his locations to tell him how to fight; rarely is about the weapons he is carrying. And is there a single gadget in the whole film? Nothing that Sony isn't already marketing...
Unlike the Bourne films, some Bond action sequences are still more about visual flair and flourish than trying to depict even a heightened reality. Hanging from ropes and boat chases are Bond-esque and have tradition in the franchise. In fact, there are a number of elements that refer directly to scenes in older Bond films; Casino Royale took on the icons - Quantum of Solace occasionally reinvents and in one very bold moment, directly homages Goldfinger.
The style of the whole film is also influenced by the franchise's history - the cool, minimalist sets are nods to Ken Adams work in the 60s and 70s; a homage that works where the 70s rip-off opening credits does not. But in keeping with the reinvention of the series, the Bond villain is played straight, the Bond girl is practically unique and his relationship with colleagues - M, Leiter and Mathis are more clearly defined and developed. None of this has been done for the character since the Fleming novels.
Leiter, while underused here, must figure prominently in any further sequel - given his promotion in the CIA. And the character of M might be even more layered here than even in the novels; a reference to Judi Dench's character being like Bond's mother finally explains what he meant in CR when he wondered what M stood for, alluding to the idea she doesn't like him thinking of her like that. Late in the film she gets to see him work in the field - an extraordinary moment of action in an elevator tells us all we need to know about Bond's state-of-mind and all M needs to understand about what happens next. I have never felt M respected Bond any more than that moment - well, perhaps once more in the very film scene of the film.
Bond girl Camille's entrance into the movie is simple and very effective; Bond doesn't know who she is - playing undercover himself, neither of them understanding their own objectives let alone the other persons'. Her compact car uncomfortably alludes to Melina's Citroen in For Your Eyes Only and that whacky car chase - or maybe that's just me? With both of them jumping into a VW Beetle later, the comparison seemed even more clear.
The action highlight of the film is the Tosca sequence - which is part Hitchcock, part John Woo and yet all Marc Foster, too. There is simply no action sequence in the history of the Bond franchise that is so delicately or complicatedly layered in set up and execution. The dialogue - as in much of the film - is sparse. We watch what is happening to understand; the film doesn't need to tell us when the visual clues are so strong. There is back stage, the audience, the cocktail party and back at MI6 - all artfully intercut as Bond enters the theatre, steals a tuxedo, tracks down a member of Quantum, acquires his listening device, listens in on a discussion of their plans while Tosca plays out in a beautifully post-modern way inside the auditorium. Bond's off-hand comment on their needing to meet some place better scatters panicked Quantum members - and he's able to pick them off one-by-one, with photographs uploaded to MI6 and M.
The ensuing chase sequence ends in another homage to another Roger Moore film - clearly a lift of the "Where's Feckish" sequence from The Spy Who Loved Me. Watching these moments done refreshed might be the only way to watch them now in this Daniel Craig is Ian Fleming's James Bond world. And Spy and Eyes Only were two of Moore's best films!
World politics finds its way in subtlely again - last time it was about moving cash around for terrorist organisations, this time it's about a sort of eco-terrorism played out by the underground group Le Chiffre was laundering money for in the first film. Even the group's name, Quantum, is barely discussed - though a modern day SPECTRE without the Cold War or Russian allusion. In fact the word itself isn't too far removed from Al-Qaeda, which quite simply means "The Base". While Bond searches for his quantum of solace or measure of comfort, Quantum themselves are unmeasurable - as Mr White tells Bond at the beginning, they are everywhere.
After a brief scene with Felix Leiter (whose own story continues in the film without Bond), Bond and Camille are off to confront one man each - Bond is looking for Greene and Camille wants to kill the man who murdered her family. While Greene sums up both characters as damaged goods, the characterisation holds to that assessment too - this is not a villain simply calling the characters on their flaws; both are significantly
ed up by their pasts. This is what keeps them out of bed, really - even though most of the emotional beats late in the film play out between them, they are so broken up by what has happened to them before neither of them seem interested in the other.While the name Vesper recurs throughout the film - one photograph and her Algerian Love Knot necklace are other reminders, the most telling moment is when Bond is on a plane with Mathis, drinking the variation of the Martini that Bond christened "The Vesper" in Casino Royale. When asked what he's drinking, Bond tells Mathis he doesn't know and it's up to the bartender to rattle of the very specific ingredients. There were moments in the Timothy Dalton and Pierce Brosnan films that tried to pick at 007's emotional scars, but often those moments seemed shoe-horned in. During Goldeneye, Bond tells the girl he is distant because it "keeps me alive". "It's what keeps you alone," she retorts. For the pre-Craig era, that is what passed for emotional depth. In this film, it's the unspoken. He does know what he's drinking. Or he does and cannot say.
The climax of the film is suitably tense, beautifully designed, choreographed and shot - but the emotional core is not so much in the defeat of the bad guys, but in Bond's rescuing Camille in the way he couldn't save Vesper. There is even a direct reference to the shower scene in CR, where Bond holds Vesper; here he holds Camille in a shower of fire and she begs for the end to come quickly. As they part company later, another moment of allusion - Vesper touched Bond's face and spoke of his armour, but he had none left; here Camille touches his face and talks of his prison. The armour is back on. Bond is toughened and yet there is a kiss that is short and brittle; desperate and - in a way - that small moment of solace Bond has been looking for.
The last scene is a coda to all that has come before - with Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace forming not only film and sequel but a beautiful couplet. Bond confronts the man who was ultimately responsible for Vesper's death - putting her in the position to betray her people to begin with. Admittedly, it plays almost like the end of The Bourne Supremacy where Bourne goes to apologise to the daughter of man he assassinated. Here though, Bond gets both a quiet sort of revenge and some forgiveness.
The trailer promised I would see the most beautifully shot Bond film ever. Forster is a real auetuer - probably the first whose imprint was allowed to permeate the franchise. Martin Campbell's work on CR was strong; Forster's work simply elevates the franchise - much like Alfonso Cuaron's work on Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban makes that film the most visually interesting of the series.
What I couldn't know was if or how the film could live up to or exceed Casino Royale which stands in good company with my favourite Bond films of all time - From Russia with Love, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, The Living Daylights and Licence to Kill.
Quantum of Solace is better than all of them.
