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Release Date: Nov. 14
Director: Marc Forster
Writer: Paul Haggis, Neal Purvis, Robert Wade
Starring: Daniel Craig, Olga Kurylenko, Mathieu Amalric, Judi Dench
Studio/Run Time: MGM/Columbia, 106 mins.
Purists complained when Daniel Craig was cast as 007 (A blonde Bond?!?), but the semi-reboot Casino Royale proved them wrong. Craig's take on Bond turned out to be lean and vicious. He's a far cry from any other version of the character, but no less magnetic. Apply Trainspotting's assessment of Sean Connery's Bond years: He's a muscular actor. Too bad the muscles are most of what Craig has to leverage in his second turn, Quantum of Solace.
Picking up mere minutes after the end of Casino Royale, this film seemingly aspires to be little more than a Bourne-inspired thrill ride. An opening car chase is followed by a boat chase, which is eventually followed by a sequence with planes. There's a motorbike in here, too; it's like an action movie made by the Department of Transportation. Unlike Casino Royale, however, characters rarely triumph in the fight against motion. Even dialogue scenes are paced like high-octane setpieces. There's very little downtime in this tale.
Bond begins by interrogating one of the men responsible for the death of Casino's Vesper Lynde. Turns out he's part of an organization called Quantum, which features businessman Dominic Greene (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly's Mathieu Amalric) as a prime mover. Assisted by the vengeful Camille (Olga Kurylenko) Bond stumbles into a plot to control part of South America's water supply. Despite a few perfectly staged moments (like Bond's surveillance of Quantum at an overblown opera), the story feels barely stitched together. It's not the silly Paul Haggis dogmatic political dialogue that hurts, but the sense that there's as little thought behind this effort as possible. Luckily, that's par for the course with Bond, whose movies must almost be judged on their own scale, and Quantum of Solace is far from the least entertaining MI6 movie we've seen this decade.
Watch the trailer for Quantum of Solace:
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Quantum of Solace was entertaining, but it could have done with six or seven fewer chase scenes
That was some kind of early pre-production trailer with no actual footage of the movie in it. Weird.
I appreciate that the producers are not afraid to take chances and make changes to the 21st century version of James Bond. He is harder and more serious than previous Bonds, ruthless at times but still compassionate. His character is still developing based on what happened to him (re: Vesper) in the previous film. Daniel Craig captures this new attitude perfectly. There is more going on in Quantum Of Solace than what occurs in dialogue exchanges. Very lean on exposition, Quantum makes the viewer process the information along with Bond, as it is being discovered. Fortunately, Bond processes rapidly and makes his decisions quickly. I like when everything isn't exactly spelled out for the viewer and you have to work at it. I'm in for more. Bravo.
What's wrong with chase scenes? You movie elitists avoid action sequences like the plague. Quantum does a good job developing Bond as well as M, surprisingly. Give, some more development of Camille would have been nice, the movie is more than a sufficient sequel to Casino, furthering the re-definition of what is "Bond." And to its credit, there are moments when the film slows down, i.e. when they are stuck in the cave and talking about how Vespar died/how vengeance feels etc. Although there is less down time than Casino, there still is some, and it is used wisely by the filmmakers. Stop dogging on the preeminence of action sequences and missing the forest for the trees...
I agree with Matt. The action in this movie was great and Daniel Craig is a great re-definition of Bond.
I do see them slipping away from some of the classic Bond elements and phrases so that is the only thing I would liked to have seen more of.
I think it was a great piece of work and I'm ready for another!