02
Justin does Quantum of Solace
Posted by Justin
“I don’t think the dead care about vengeance.”
The Scoop: 2008 PG-13, directed by Marc Forster and starring Daniel Craig, Olga Kurylenko and Mathieu Amalric
Tagline: Bond is Back
Summary Capsule: James Bond, still blatantly hurt by his true love’s betrayal, lives up to his 00-status by traveling the world to find out exactly who or what is trying to pull a whole lot of powerful strings
Justin’s Rating: Somebody needs anger management counseling…
Justin’s Review: With the advent of the movie remake/reboot craze of the mid-2000’s, filmgoers have been pleased and disturbed alike with the results. Pleased, because in many cases a remake/reboot of a franchise can shake a studio out of a tired or undesirable rut that it’s plowed into, and pave the way for great restarts like Batman Begins. Disturbed, because in even more cases, filmmakers go about their chore without the slightest clue as to what made the original so special and unique, and end up churning out something that just sullies the franchise even further: Rob Zombie’s Halloween, for example.
It wasn’t without a sense of irony that J.J. Abram’s rebooted Star Trek trailer appeared before Quantum of Solace, because Star Trek represents a massive gamble on Paramount’s part – do it right, and a whole new generation of fans await to hand you their dollars. Do it wrong or lackluster, and you won’t have many more chances, period. If Quantum of Solace had been the initial “rebooted” James Bond film instead of Casino Royale, I sincerely believe the franchise would’ve died right then and there.
Whereas Casino Royale did a lot of things right in restarting the James Bond series – making it grittier, more kinetic, less cheesy – I was a little unnerved at how it was taking its cues from modern spy thrillers like the soulless Bourne series, which were all action and no heart. For all the good or bad that Bond films have given us over the years, it’s always been about personality and memorable characters and groan-worthy lines and over-the-top villainy. Royale didn’t go far down that path at all, turning Bond into a relentless, invincible assassin who doesn’t even confront the big bad guys so much as get his man-parts smashed to prove his manliness.
Missing the point completely that people wanted to see Bond continue to become more like the Bond we remember as the new reboot developed, the makers of Quantum of Solace must’ve assumed all we wanted was action scene after action scene until the end credits arrived and millions were in their pockets. As completely stupid and outrageous as Bond films grew in the early 2000’s, now they’ve swung so far the other way that Quantum represents a Bond who is merciless, soulless and humorless – who, at one point, offloads a friend’s body in a dumpster with the explanation of “he wouldn’t care.” What, you and he had a heart-to-heart about post-death corpse dumping? How would you know? Saying that doesn’t make you any less of a jerk.
This is a James Bond who might be all jumping and marksmanship and never-say-dieness, but it is not a person, just a scripted program. He sleeps with the sexy woman not because there’s any spark there, but because it’s what is expected (and, c’mon, worst come on line ever). He backpedals away from all of the trappings that have made 007 what he is that so many of the Bond staples are glaringly absent – no pre-credit gun barrel POV, no “Bond, James Bond”, no gadgets, no Q, no Moneypenny, no double-entendres, no villains with overly elaborate schemes (the guy in here is just dull, has an IKEA fortress and steals – spoiler – water), and no “shaken, not stirred”. Instead, we get a gun-toting bunny rabbit who hop, skips and jumps through scene after scene, killing and smirking and killing some more until everything blows up and the movie ends.
In many ways, Quantum of Solace feels like both an epilogue to Casino Royale and a prologue to whatever film they conjure up next, but it never manages to be its own person. At 106 minutes, it might be one of the quickest Bond films ever made, but it’s also the emptiest.
Want a second opinion? Check out Kyle’s review of this film!
Didja Notice?
- In many of the posters, you see Bond with a giant-ass gun. Yeah, he only uses this in the pre-credits sequence, and just once. Everything else: tiny gun.
Groovy Quotes
- M: The Americans are gonna be none too pleased.
James Bond: I promised them Le Chiffre and they got him.
M: They got his body.
James Bond: Well, if they wanted his soul, they should have made a deal with a priest.
Camille: So, what’s your interest in Greene?
James Bond: Among other things, he tried to kill a friend of mine.
Camille: A woman?
James Bond: Yes. But it’s not what you think.
Camille: Your mother?
James Bond: She likes to think so.
M: When someone says that they have people everywhere, you expect it to be hyperbole. Lots of people say that. Florists use that expression. It doesn’t mean that they have people in the bloody room.
Camille: You sent someone to kill me?
Dominic Greene: Please don’t talk to me like I’m stupid… It’s unattractive.
M: You killed a man in Brigenz.
James Bond: I did my best not to.
M: You shot him in cold blood and threw him off a roof. I would hardly call that showing restraint!
M: This is about trust. You said you weren’t motivated by revenge.
James Bond: I am motivated by my duty.
M: No… I think you’re so blinded by inconsolable rage that you don’t care who you hurt. When you can’t tell your friends from your enemies, it’s time to go.
M: Ask him about Slate.
Tanner: She wants to know about Slate.
James Bond: Slate was a dead end.
Tanner: He says it was a dead end.
M: Damn! He killed him.
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Tiny gun? Boy, the innuendo you could squeeze out of that.
bourne at least has feelings, something bond never really seems to have. both bourne and bond have seeken revenge for the killing of the girl they loved. but with bourne i believed it and with bond i don’t. even in this reboot bond still has all the emotional depht of a robot
You should read the books, selena- it’s almost the opposite. Mr. “Cain is for Charlie, and Delta is for Cain” Bourne is practically a robot for most of the first book, at least, while Bond has a fair amount of emotional depth. Like in “The Living Daylights,” where he disobeyed orders and only shot that Soviet sniper in the hand because he was depressed and felt bad for her.
(Mind you, I thought Bond displayed quite a bit of emotion and inner turmoil in Royale, albeit veiled just beneath the surface.)
The best analysis of Bond I ever read, focusing on Casino Royale (courtesy of Dave’s Long Box), runs like this:
“Fleming’s James Bond is more conflicted and prone to self-doubt than his superhuman cinema counterpart. He’s a Cold War civil servant who has developed expensive tastes and bad habits, a hollow killer who immerses himself in sensual pleasures to distract himself from his inevitable violent fate. He drinks way too much, smokes too much, eats unhealthy gourmet cuisine, and pops the occasional pill to kill the pain or perk himself up. James Bond is not going to grow old, he’s going to die with a 9mm bullet in his lung or a knife between his ribs and he knows it. [...] Above all, Fleming’s books are about James Bond, the character.
This brings us to Casino Royale and how much it kicked ass.
Have you seen this movie? I don’t know if I’ve just been starving for a proper Bond film and it has skewed my critical faculties, but holy crap, I loved it. From beginning to end, Casino Royale was Bondian.
Daniel Craig captures the manly essence of a James Bond at the beginning of his career. He’s a callous, over-confident killer with a bit of an attitude who has developed some unhealthy coping skills to deal with the realities of his work. Unlike some previous Bonds, you really feel like this guy could die, that at some point he will die. He’s not ridiculously competent at everything he does, just most things. And he can run hella fast. We’re talking Robert Patrick-fast.
The thing I liked most about Casino Royale was that it treated James Bond as a character. He doesn’t just float through the movie, untouchable. Bond has an emotional investment in the events of the movie and has a definite character arc – he has changed from the beginning of the film to the end. He sincerely, deeply falls in love with Vesper (Eva Green) despite the raccoon eye make-up she wears all the time that makes her look like Darryl Hannah in Blade Runner.”
Ohh! I liked QoS much better than Casino Royale. Remember the xkcd strip about wanting a perfect 90-minute action scene? It was like that, but I actually enjoyed it. Casino Royale was very long, very dark, and completely incomprehensible (OK…well, I watched it while terribly ill, but still) but QoS was tight, light, and loads of fun. Maybe it’s just that I don’t expect much from my Bond movies…
And I thought the first two Bourne movies had plenty of soul (though I’ll give you the third one – a real disappointment).
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