Belated Review

In 2008 I watched all the Bond movies and wrote a series of reviews for another site. The aim was to watch them in order in the run up to the premiere of QOS. I succeeded and the reviews were well received.
However, subsequently, I have re-read my reviews and re-watched a number of the movies (the BFI had a whole 007 season earlier this year and I saw quite a few on the big screen again!).
This is my updated review for Quantum of Solace.

QUANTUM OF SOLACE
REVISED REVIEW 23/1/2010

After the spectacular commercial and critical success of Casino Royale, the new Bond epic, Quantum of Solace, became the most eagerly awaited 007 adventu[re since Thunderball: rarely had there been such media frenzy about all things James Bond. It is disappointing, therefore, to find the end result does not match the expectation.

Taken at face value, Quantum of Solace is entertaining and a modern filmgoer who is potentially not steeped in “Bond tradition” will revel in the prerequisite chases, fights, gun play, exotic women, even more exotic locations and the general blood and thunder on display. What the film unfortunately lacks is a coherent plot and significant characters, the two important ingredients in the very best Bond films. This is particularly frustrating given how carefully these elements were re-introduced for Daniel Craig’s debut.

The premise of Quantum of Solace appears to be that Bond is out for revenge, hunting the killers of Vesper Lynd, the woman he loved. Bond’s investigations lead him to the shady eco-entrepreneur Dominic Greene, who is a front man for the mysterious criminal co-operative called Quantum. Greene is stock piling water for profit using underground reservoirs in South America and is negotiating land deals with dictators-to-be and the CIA. Bond follows him everywhere, globe trotting to Haiti, Austria, Italy and Bolivia, killing everyone who gets in the way. It’s a relentless, downbeat, serious, soulless affair, accompanied by the merest ripple of humour and a conspicuous lack of irony.

However Bond’s lust for vengeance was never apparent at the end of Casino Royale and the writers make several unsuccessful attempts to introduce the theme. During these uncomfortable scenes, Daniel Craig’s impassive expression and unblinking cold blue eyes resemble an impenetrable mask and hides any development of Bond’s personality. It isn’t always his fault. Writers Paul Haggis, Neal Purvis and Robert Wade are so determined to present Bond as a ruthless single minded killer they forget to give him anything personable to say. Craig’s best moments come when he is swapping acid tongued barbs with Judi Dench’s M. He has plenty of opportunity, for this is Dench’s best and biggest turn to date, as M joins the jet set in pursuit of her errant operative.

Unfortunately M’s constant presence squeezes out the potential in the other supporting roles, of which there are many. Mr White, Mathis and Leiter all return, there is a CIA bigwig, a discredited general, a bent police chief and Vesper’s ex-boyfriend, Yusef. If any of them has anything interesting to say, and most don’t, it’s the odd sentence, inserted to chivvy the story along a little. This drip-drip explanation of everybody’s circumstances doesn’t aid the clarity of events, which is muddled at best. The traditional reveal-all confrontation between Bond and the chief villain does not feature here; in fact the two hardly meet. There is a brief exchange at a party and another at the finale, although we are deprived to witness this final desert-bound conversation.

What this serves to do is underline the fact that Dominic Greene, like Le Chiffre before him, is not the head of the organisation he represents. The element of menace is missing and subsequently Greene is a poor adversary. He isn’t even a conventional villain, more a businessman with a lack of respect for people’s lives. Mathieu Amalric tries to present him as arrogant and threatening, but only succeeds in making Greene aloof, weasely and slightly pathetic. It’s no surprise he ultimately betrays his conspirators in an attempt to spare his life.

Bond is aided by two beautiful women, but in an almost de-sexed film, they also disappoint. Gemma Arterton has the smaller role as a British consul agent who sets out to entice Bond to bed – possibly on orders, it isn’t clear. She meets him at the airport dressed in nothing but a raincoat. For her boldness she’s drowned in oil. Olga Kurylenko’s Camille is given a revenge background similar to Bond’s, but despite this connection there is no emotional warmth between the two; her (and his) determined facade destabilises any sexual subtlety.

Like the two actresses the film looks wonderful, being well photographed and designed, particularly Bond’s black and white hotel suite in La Paz and a solar powered resort in the Atacama Desert. David Arnold’s score still owes much to John Barry, but it blends well with the action and is one of his best efforts. Not so the theme song, which is dreadful. During a musical low point, lost for words, the singers perform some obnoxious wailing. Horrible.

This stodginess also applies to the sound and film editing. It’s noisy, brash and difficult to follow. Frequently the dialogue becomes indecipherable under the music or special effects; Bond’s visit to the Opera is an example of this over dubbing and the result confuses rather than clarifies. Similarly the bewilderingly rapid fire editing means we often fail to identify what is happening and to whom. Sometimes it isn’t even clear which person is Bond. These mishaps ruin what should be some excellent early sequences: the pre-title car chase, a rooftop pursuit in Siena and a speedboat joust in Port au Prince. There’s no let up throughout the movie and gradually the action becomes a blurry diversion.

Amongst all the killing and chasing and exploding there’s no time to concern ourselves with Bond and Camille’s plight. There is a rare quiet moment when Bond gets drunk and is consoled by Mathis, yet the scene feels contrived and out of place. I would have expected this discussion to have been between Bond and Camille; when they do talk of their hurt, it is in a scene reminiscent of Honey’s childhood recollections in Dr No and comes not in a moment of calm, but one of crisis. Their dual motivations have also ceased to interest the director, Marc Forster, who is more preoccupied with Bond and M’s furtive mother-son relationship that rears its ugly head again during the films epilogue.

It’s hard to find the moment of comfort, the quantum of solace, for Bond in this film. It probably arrives in the final scene when he disposes of Vesper’s Algerian love knot, but it’s hard to tell. Having toiled to resurrect Ian Fleming’s hero as a human individual, the producers, writers and director seem to have forgotten all about him. For all the thrills and spills delivered here, James Bond is plunging into a characterless chasm again.

RATING 5 from 10

The premise of Quantum of Solace appears to be that Bond is out for revenge, hunting the killers of Vesper Lynd, the woman he loved.

To use this as a jumping off point, I still believe the film is about revenge from one perspective: Bond as patriot, exacting some measure of professional revenge (civic duty in Bond's eyes) on an organization that has violated the sanctity of his own by turning friends against each other and stripping even the cheapest sense of trust out from under his feet.

This carries on a theme that was strongly established in CR, with Bond feeling betrayed by both Vesper and Mathis. At that point he just knew something was bubbling beneath the surface, and by finally getting a chance to introduce himself to Mr. White it's clear he intends to find out what.

And I don't have to elaborate much on Bond's gung-ho "take 'em down" approach to terrorists, as evidenced by his repeated disregard of protocol when he was on an enemy's trail, his initial comments to M regarding Le Chiffre ("clean kill or make a statement?"), and his impassioned demand that Vesper give him the additional buy-in lest terror prevail.

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