Quantum of Solace Review

[The Dark Knight]

I finally saw Quantum of Solace, and here's my review:
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Under two hours long, Quantum of Solace is shortest and most intense Bond film ever made. The film picks up an hour after Casino Royale, in another bruising thriller that leaves you feeling both drained and exhilarated.

Betrayed by Vesper in Casino Royale, Bond battles his urge to make this mission personal. But ultimately, Bond?s revenge is a dish best served with six ice cold martinis. Quantum of Solace gets straight to the point and makes not apologies for it. With no flashback or overt recap to get you up to speed from the previous film, edgy close ups of Daniel Craig give way to an impressive high speed chase around a rocky and dusty Italian coastal road. Bullets fly, glass splinters, cars crunch. Cars are sent soaring into the rocky abyss, twisted into smashed debris. Bond swerves his battle scarred Aston Martin DBS around oncoming vans and lorries, blasting his pursuers with machine gun fire.

There are several things to be learned from this pre title sequence. The first is that this is going to be a stripped down Bond, comprised of chases and shootouts with the occasional timeout for a beating.

At the conclusion of this furious sequence, we learn the sinister Mr. White has been in the boot Bond?s car, nursing his blown apart knee cap. After no dialogue for five minutes, Bond opens the boot, looks down and snaps deathlessly ?It?s time to get out.? Bond?s steely gaze is freeze framed, ending the sequence and opening the film on a high.

A bright retro opening title sequence bursts to life. A shimmering mirage unfolds with a silhouetted Craig standing in front of a glowing sun. In perfect timing, Bond fires his pistol in tandem with the peaking strains of Jack White and Alicia Key?s duet Another Way to Die. Bond stalks through an isolated desert landscape set against glorious orange and blue colour backdrops. I rank this effort highly, it?s all very polished and it will be the only time you will be able to catch your breath.

The way the tortured psyche of Bond is explored is not through lengthy dialogue sequences ? it?s through action. Frenetic and full of chase sequences, Quantum of Solace has a demented energy about it that never lets up, as if it?s taking this feverish tempo from Bond himself. The action sequences never make the cardinal sin of being too long or boring, which is why the film gets away with having so many of them, whilst still having plenty of juicy dialogue to bite into.

The action also has something to say about the ugliness of violence. Near the start of the film, Bond is chasing the traitorous Agent Mitchell on foot. Mitchell fires at Bond into a crowd, and a bystander goes down. On goes the chase, but we return to the wounded bystander who is probably about to die. A point is being made here about the consequences of such violence. That?s right, a Bond film with repercussions.

Quantum of Solace uses a whip crack editing style that gets the heart pumping and keeps you on your toes, making it impossible to zone out or you will miss something. Your entire body and soul is required to pay acute attention. It is presented more about Bond?s state of mind, creating an atmosphere. By implementing this editing style alone, Quantum of Solace is really designed to age well. At the time, people begrudged the initial Connery films for their ?lightning fast editing?, and look how well they have held up.

Instead of lazily relying on a shaky camera to impart excitement, montage is used. Shots are quick and artfully assembled. Example being the opening car chase, which gains all its energy through vigorous cutting. Director Marc Forster is willing to do the work of building a sequence. Quantum of Solace also looks beautiful. Forster has done some inspired work behind the camera, implementing arty camera angles we have never seen before in a Bond film.

Nursing a broken heart and coldly suppressed rage, Daniel Craig drives this film. He plays Bond with such intensity that he makes his first turn in the role seem lightweight. If Bond was a cold killer in Casino Royale, here he is a mountain of boiling rage. He is whacking enemy agents in short, sharp, bone cracking bursts of violence when he should be bringing them in for questioning. At one point he becomes so bloodthirsty, M places him on MI6?s capture or kill list. Even the CIA threatens to take him down.

He is high on action and low on tacky quips. David Arnold?s rousing and often hauntingly isolated score seems to be driving him on. Most importantly, Bond uses Vesper to justify his actions, until ultimately he realises that the dead do not care about vengeance. Craig also has the mannerisms down pat. After knocking out two MI6 guards in an elevator, there?s a little moment where he kicks a stray guard?s leg back into the elevator as the door closes. He then swaggers off to subtle Bond theme.

New characters are introduced in a rather eccentric way, showing up in a conversational scene as Bond arrives in South America without explaining who any of them are. Their identities and their connections are revealed over the course of the next hour, which helps create an environment where there are few obvious good guys or bad guys, which ultimately allows to fully explore the film's central theme of ?Who can one trust in this new world??

Dominic Greene, a ruthless businessman in league with the shadowy organisation Quantum, is the villain of the piece and is played with subdued reptilian menace by Mathieu Almaric. The main villains in Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace are just cogs in a larger wheel. They are quieter, sinister types under pressure and not in complete control. They are also relatively normal people, making it harder to distinguish them. Greene has restricted airtime, but that is logical as Quantum prefer to stick to the shadows.

Greene runs a shell corporation called Greene Planet. He is tasked by his organization with securing a piece of land in Bolivia that is rich in natural resources. They plan on controlling the water supply. Freshwater is going to become one of the most intensely sought after resources. We are over consuming at an alarming rate, and in a few years, the strains are going to start to show. It is actually really smart of Quantum to try and get in in advance, they would make a fortune. To that end, Greene plans to restore an exiled dictator, General Medrano, to power, and in return Medrano will hand over this plot of land to the organization.

Like Casino Royale, James Bond himself has a story arc; the character actually goes on an emotional journey and changes throughout the film. That is why the villain?s scheme is largely redundant.

The fate of Greene is splendid, with Bond seeking a more imaginative way of disposing of him than simply shooting him. It is nasty, cruel and exemplifying a rather fine joke.

Bond leaves Greene in the middle of the desert with a badly mangled foot. Pleading to Bond that he has told him everything he knows about Quantum, Bond sticks to his word and lets Greene go. Throwing Greene a can of motor oil, Bond sneers that he will last for roughly 20 miles before he considers drinking it. Bond drives off and leaves Greene in a thick cloud of dust. Later, it is revealed that Greene was found dead in the middle of the desert with two bullets in his head and a stomach full of motor oil. It is strongly implied that the shadowy organisation has disposed of their failed agent.

Quantum of Solace is the survival of the fittest, and does not relent until solace is achieved. The closing couple of scenes have a tranquillity denied to the rest of the film, which is clearly deliberate. Bond meets up with Vesper?s boyfriend in an apartment building, but does not kill him. The point is not for Bond to kill him, the point is for Bond to realize that killing him is not going to make any difference in the grand scheme of things. After killing off leads throughout rest of the film, Bond hands this man over to the authorities. Therefore he grew as a character.

Leaving the building and after talking to M outside, Bond walks off into the distance, accompanied by a magnificent evocative last shot of Vesper?s Algerian love knot in the cold snow. The burden in Bonds soul is lifted, his duty in sight and his Quantum of Solace gained.

Because this film is a direct continuation, the traditional gun barrel sequence again does not open the film. It closes it. Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace are two parts of the same story, framed by gun barrel logos. The first, seen in Casino Royale, is the rougher, unpolished one. The latter is more traditional, though still experimental in nature. Bond storms across the screen in a business suit and before you know it, he fires. The blue tinged gun barrel soon is drenched blood red, with the blood dropping at lightning speed. The red circle then shrinks to the corner of the screen and forms part of the letter ?Q? in the film?s title ?Quantum of Solace?, giving the end credits a title card. Blood then proceeds to gush outside of the Q and pour down the screen. Bond, in silhouette, is then seen to turn and walk out of shot stage left.

To those complaining about the lack of Bond theme, it is all over the place. The Bond theme is not violently pushed down our throats to announce when something cool is happening. The Bond theme is instead smartly used, sprinkled throughout the entire score and allowing the fantastic lead actor take the limelight that he thoroughly deserves. Not for the music to steal his thunder and drown out the ultra-cool aura that he radiates. What we received was just fine, never once did I not feel like I was watching a Bond film.

By radically reshuffling the series? traditional elements, the series has received a shot to the arm and it feels like anything could happen. If people want the same old, they have the previous 20 films. Usually the series is criticized for being formulaic and predictable, here fresh ideas and a new way of going about things thrive. I hope this stance continues with the remainder of Craig?s era.

Quantum of Solace proves that by removing and reshuffling traditional elements, the franchise is not ruined, nor is it any less of a Bond film. Though the truth is, Bond trademarks are not disappearing - they are just being remixed, rested, and played with. The things that make a James Bond movie are not the gun barrel, theme or main titles. That is all window dressing, one could make an entirely worthy Bond film without them. That said, I do not really want to see them go, quite the opposite. I am just saying that the argument that removing such things destroys the franchise does not hold water.

Quantum of Solace is definitely one of the better Bond films and it gives you whiplash just looking at it. Slick, gritty and with its own stylistic twist, Quantum of Solace is a leaner and meaner animal that shows the franchise well and truly has not run out of juice quite yet.


Score: 8/10

[Paul (ral)]

Good review Dark Knight. I still have to see the movie - hopefully next week.

[DarkVengeance]

The movie is amazing, I absolutely loved it, good review!

[Batmoney]

Yeah, and I gotta say, in a totally heterosexual way, Daniel Craig is seriously a sexy motherf*cker!

The new Bond is amazing, my favorite scene is when he is drinking on the airplane. I really feel this film touched a little more on Bond's 'dark side' which I found very appealing. I saw the movie twice in as many nights.

[The Dark Knight]

I've seen it a second time, and while I liked it first time, second time it is a LOT better. I think this film will be a rare instance where people will enjoy themselves more second or third time around. This film has legs.

[DarkVengeance]

I've seen it a second time, and while I liked it first time, second time it is a LOT better. I think this film will be a rare instance where people will enjoy themselves more second or third time around. This film has legs.

"Ill Look into it!"

[The Dark Knight]

Any folks seen this yet?

[BatmAngelus]

I did. 
I enjoyed it for the most part, though I have to say that I liked the second half much better than the first half, where there was a lot of action and me wondering "Okay, that looks cool, but where's the story?" 

Thankfully, though, Bond's emotional journey became more dominant and the more into it, the more I liked it.  Perhaps the most satisfying, for me, was the untraditional final half hour.

[DarkVengeance]

I still think Casino Royale is alot better for alot of reasons.

[The Dark Knight]

I still think Casino Royale is alot better for alot of reasons.

CR is better, but I do like this film. I wouldn't be surprised if I watched it more than CR, just for the sheer entertainment value. I'm glad they are back in the business of creating quality films.