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We rejoin Daniel Craig's James Bond in "Quantum of Solace" with a car chase already in progress.
This is a bold move by director Marc Forster ("The Kite Runner") to grab the viewer by the throat and shove him into the passenger seat of Bond's Aston Martin as he rockets through the tunnels of Italy's Autostrada at about 150 mph. Do we need to know why those sleek Alfa Romeos are roaring after 007 with submachine guns blazing? Heck no, this is a Bond movie.
So, yes, give Forster points for his boldness. Then take them away because the car chase is a mind-scrambling, post-Bourne mess.
The individual shots of careening cars look terrific (they certainly do in the commercials) but editors Matt Chesse and Richard Pearson fail to assemble them into the coherent mini story that successful action sequences should be. It's all ZOOM ZOOM BANG BANG CRASH CRASH and just as you get a glimmer of what's going on, the chase ends without a climax.
The opening sequence summarizes everything right and wrong about "Quantum of Solace." The film is a series of bold moves by a director attempting to make an artistic James Bond movie. Half of these bold moves don't work, but the other half do.
Fortunately, while Forster dabbles in French New Wave jump cuts and "Godfather"-inspired montages of silent gunplay underscored by arias, Craig delivers a performance even more dynamic and decisive than his debut in "Casino Royale." With his cool blue-eyed gaze and assured athletic moves, Craig holds this insanely uneven movie together. His presence burnishes the stylistic experiments that work and alleviate those that fail.
Don't attempt to watch "Quantum" without seeing "Casino Royale," or the new film will make no sense. After rebooting the venerable series for the 21st century, "Casino Royale" ended with Craig finally saying, "My name is Bond, James Bond," as the familiar theme hit a crescendo and the credits rolled. At the time audiences assumed this signaled that the old James Bond was back, but it turns out Bond still has to work through some issues stemming from the death of Eva Green's character, Vesper, at the conclusion of "Royale." Wracked by guilt and tempted by revenge, Bond longs for that elusive quantum of solace (I applaud Forster for not explaining the title, which comes from one of Ian Fleming's short stories).
"Quantum," then, is the second half of a two-film origin story. As it begins, Bond and his chief, M (Judi Dench), learn that the organization pulling the strings behind "Royale" is more widespread and powerful than they imagined. Called Quantum (to at least partially justify the film's title), this secret society is devoted to overthrowing governments concerned with social welfare rather than corporate wealth. It is also a long-overdue successor to SPECTRE, which bedeviled Sean Connery once upon a time.
Screenwriters Neal Purvis and Robert Wade (first draft) and Paul Haggis (second draft) supply something akin to a traditional Bond plot. Dominic Greene (Matthieu Amalric), who heads Quantum's Latin American division, is spearheading a coup in Bolivia. His mistress, Camille (Olga Kurylenko), harbors a vendetta of her own and switches sides once Bond shows up.
The plot shatters traditions, too. Themes are unusually political, and unusually left-wing, for Bond. Satisfied that Greene will deliver Bolivia's oil rights to American corporations, the CIA signs off on the military coup and even offers to eliminate that pesky 007. This creates a crisis of conscience for CIA agent Felix Leiter (Jeffrey Wright), who befriended Bond in "Royale."
Bond is strangely detached from what normally would be the main plot. Determined to identify the man he holds responsible for Vesper's death, Bond is OK with preserving democracy in Bolivia, but it's an afterthought. Likewise, Greene is a weak villain because he is a functionary more than a criminal mastermind. It's like James Bond vs. Blofeld's accountant. And though Amalric is a fine actor, he is too slight to pose a threat to the muscular Craig.
Despite the focus on Bond's emotional turmoil, "Quantum" gives Craig little time to brood. At one hour and 46 minutes, this is the shortest Bond film. The pace is torrid and packed with action. While the opening car chase sputters, most of the set pieces are rousing, particularly a foot chase across the roofs of Siena, Italy, and a skydiving stunt that has been in and out of Bond scripts for two decades.
Choppy and idiosyncratic, "Quantum of Solace" will be remembered as the oddest of Bonds. It falls well short of "Casino Royale's" brilliance, but thanks to Craig's dominance it should hold up over the years in a way that Pierce Brosnan's movies have not.
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