Quantum of Solace (***½)

Directed By: Marc Forster
Starring: Daniel Craig, Olga Kurylenko, Judi Dench,
Seen: November 19th 2008 and January 5th 2009

***½ Out of ****

Casino Royale ends with Bond introducing himself to Mr. White after shooting him in the leg. Quantum of Solace kicks of with him racing from the scene in his stunning Aston Martin, which he once again proceeds to trash, with Mr. White in the back of the car, still bleeding.

Casino Royale did not complete the full reboot of the Bond franchise. And neither did Quantum of Solace, I rather suspect. Casino Royale was the love story, it was all about the girl (and the $100 million poker stakes, of course). Quantum of Solace is a revenge story, and must be seen in an entirely different light from Casino Royale. And then there are the die-hard old-school Bond fans who will hate this, because it’s not exactly the same as the other 20 Bond films in the series.

Have we come all this way just to have the fans stubbornly refusing to realise that the times are changing? This Bond is real, visceral, and barely keeping up. This is what I believe the spy world to be like (or at least the more pseudo-realistic image of it we’ve been presented with by Hollywood over the years). I think this Bond, apart from a rather weak villain, is a brilliant achievement in the Bond saga.

Over the decades Bond has gotten carried away with gadgets and Bond’s eternally suave nature, i.e. it has become a more serious version of, say, the Austin Powers movies, it started mocking itself. Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace has put an end to this, things are serious again, and Bond has at his disposal a small arsenal of very real weapons and technology, and brute force. We have a few homage’s to the Bond’s of old: a reminder of Goldfinger (this time in oil), and allusions to the Vodka Martini, shaken, not stirred, but it’s all

Daniel Craig does a magnificent job once again, conveying the sense of loss Bond feels from the loss of Vesper Lynd while still trying to figure out what is going on. In the past Bond ways always way ahead of the villains (example: Golden Eye – Bond has a tank ready and waiting to stop the train the villains are trying to escape on way ahead of time), but in this one he is barely keeping up, running after “old intelligence” most of the time, because that’s all he can get his hands on. We have something all the more sinister growing in this film, upping the ante from a girl and $100 million, to a slow burning realisation that something bigger is trying to control the governments of the world, and MI6 is only catching on now. But Bond sure stays determined to get the job done…

Olga Kurylenko is Camille Montes, who, similar to Bond, is out for revenge, but they have to realise that they have a shared goal first, as they initially do make things difficult for each other. Rene Mathis is back in the mix again, and the story around this character also packs quite an emotional punch for a Bond film. Mathieu Amalric as Dominic Greene is the film’s weak spot. A diminutively built villain that builds his reputation on environmentalism. Never during the film do you feel threatened by him, or do you come to really despise him as the true bad guy. There’s just a small sense of pity that rises out of the depths, but also never fully realises. Maybe he is part of the larger impending doom surrounding Quantum (SPECTRE?), if someone like that can become such a powerful figure, what else can Quantum do?

So Bond is after his quantum of solace after losing Vesper, and as he gets it, he also finds Quantum, which will give him many more headaches to come. I thought this was a fantastic film.