Quantum of Solace Review [2]

Posted by Matthew Motiuk on 11.16.2008

The title isn’t the only thing wrong with the latest Bond movie.

Cast:
Daniel Craig as James Bond
Olga Kurylenko as Camille
Mathieu Amalric as Dominic Greene
Judi Dench as M
Giancarlo Giannini as Mathis
Gemma Arterton as Strawberry Fields
Jeffrey Wright as Felix Leiter
Directed by Marc Foster
Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action, and some sexual content.
Running Time: 106 minutes

I did not like Casino Royale. I’m just going to open with that. I felt it wasn’t a Bond movie and had basically been a corruption of the movies to try and draw a bigger audience. But I went into this with an open mind, honestly expecting to be turned around and liking it.

As it can be derived from every scrap of evidence about the film, this is a direct sequel to Casino Royale, and when I say direct, I say if you haven’t watched it you will have no idea what is going on. This is not a standalone film.

As it’s a sequel to Casino Royale, the plot is predictable: Bond is trying to get revenge for the death of Vesper, but in the process of his search, he uncovers a large, powerful organization that he becomes intertwined with. The organization is known as QUANTUM and I suppose you could liken it to SPECTRE from the early movies, but only in the loosest sense. It is led or directed or invested in or something by Dominic Greene, played by Mathieu Amalric, and he is Bond’s nemesis for the movie.

You may have derived from the preceding paragraph a bit of uncertainty in the plot, and that’s because the plot is, to put it in the most appropriate word I can, godawful. It seems like it’s going fine while you’re watching it, as the action pulls the story along quickly and seemingly fluidly, but when the credits start rolling, you’ll start wondering how the hell anything connected to anything else. The story starts on revenge, switches to a more traditional Bond assassination-type story, and then reverts to revenge at the end. The middle part – the bulk of the movie – focuses on QUANTUM and Greene in particular, but never is anything really explained. It’s all very vague and you’re left to guessing what’s going on. Part of this may be their ‘big picture’ of turning QUANTUM into the main enemy of these new movies, but they could have at least explained better what was going on in this one.

And then there’s the ending, by far the worst part of the movie. I’m going to try and not tell you much so that you can weigh your own judgement, but I will say a few things. First, remember how Casino Royale seemed to end after Le Chiffre died and then they realized Bond couldn’t quit, so they threw in another half hour of action to keep it going? This one is the exact opposite. It just kind of ends; nothing is explained, what’s happening is left where it is, and that’s that. This is probably what leaves the sour taste in my mouth after seeing the movie; the ending basically unties the entire movie and makes it feel like you wasted almost two hours of your life for something they could have done in five minutes.

This is a Bond movie in name only once again, just like Casino Royale. It’s like they’re very, very slowly inching toward the old movies, as the title sequence actually has women in it, he shows a tiny bit of his seductive powers, and he says about one quip that could be taken as wit by someone who has never watched a Bond movie before. The title song, “Another Way to Die” by Alicia Keys and Jack White, also sounds more like a Bond theme song; it’s a harkening to the cheesy old songs, and it fits well.

But it’s not all bad. Daniel Craig is following the script and does what they wanted exceptionally well. He looks like a cold-hearted killer and he can balance both the action scenes with the mildly serious ones (except for one weird one with Camille near the end). Olga Kurylenko as Camille is a good fit, and she actually embodies the idea of revenge far better than Bond does. Judi Dench as M (referred to as ‘mum’ throughout the movie by most of the other agents) is what you expect and exactly like you’ve seen for the last five movies. Her and Bond’s relationship is actually one of the few remaining things that seem familiar in the movies; she doesn’t approve of how he works but she knows he’s the best. The best actor in the movie, though? Jeffrey Wright as Felix Leiter. The little he’s in the movie, he’s calm and cool, helps out Bond, and has the feel of a secret agent. He’s a better Bond than Bond, actually.

In the way of villains, we have Mathieu Amalric as the lead, playing Dominic Greene. With nothing special or sinister to his name besides business sense and bulgy eyes, his status as a villain rests entirely in his acting abilities. But just as Le Chiffre, he’s kind of an anti-villain; never do you feel threatened by him, half the time he looks scared for his life, and he can’t fight to save his life. Jesper Christensen reprises his role as Mr. White and is once again the only bad guy you actually feel like you might be scared of.

The action is the draw of this movie. With all this bad talk about the lack of a plot and mild acting, don’t let me detract the movie completely. There is double the action of Casino Royale and it’s glorious. There are chases by land, sea, and air; there are gunfights and brawls, explosions, everything. And it’s all great while you’re watching it. Especially the air fight; that was by far my favourite, despite part of it not making a lot of sense to me. Besides the usual movie magic, though, the action is great, over-the-top, gritty, and exactly what you want to see.

A few last random comments? The movie features a fast, quick-cut style through a lot of it, and while it suits the action scenes very well, anywhere else it feels like they’re leaving out huge chunks of movie, especially the end. The movie feels short, because it is short (it clocks in a hair over an hour and a quarter), and this is probably helped by the gratuitous amounts of fast-paced action, especially compared to the mind-numbing sequences of poker in Casino Royale. Part of the plot is environmentally themed, but just like the rest of the plot, only in the absolute loosest and vaguest sense. Also, ironically for me, a lot of similarities seemed to exist with Die Another Day, the movie that caused the switch to this new style of Bond. Finally, there are a couple of really, really weird scenes that seem completely out of place in a Bond movie, especially the fight scene that is run in parallel to the opera. I’m not sure what it reminded me, but it sure as hell wasn’t Bond.

The 411: Huge amounts of fast-paced and exciting action make this movie fun to watch, but an incredibly weak plot, a terrible ending, and the continued lack of anything even remotely Bond-like do irreparable damage. The reason I have to come down so hard is that the entire point of these new Bond movies seems to be to make a more serious Bond with a stronger story and feeling, and they just utterly failed with this one. This is just a big-budget action movie, nothing more.

Final Score:  6.0   [ Average ]