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| PHOTO COURTESEY COLOMBIA PICTURES Daniel Craig plays a humor-optional James Bond in “Quantum of Solace.” |
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Quantum of Solace has lots of action, no martinis
By Paul Jones
Wednesday, November 26, 2008 2:49 PM PST
News Editor
To do a worthy James Bond film requires keeping track of a certain balance of qualities. The film can’t veer off into the farcical sci-fi nonsense of “Moonraker,” with spaceships and hokey sets galore. But “A Quantum of Solace,” the 2008 sequel to franchise reinvention “Casino Royale,” veers away dangerously from recognizable Bond staples, from Martinis to Q. The style itself, evident in “Royale,” is generally welcome: Bond films became somewhat procedural after a while, lacking the innovation necessary to thrill audiences. But if films like “You Only Live Twice” overemphasized the hokey aspect of the spy genre, with volcano forts, mystery spacecraft and armies of ninjas, “Solace” comes close to killing its own potential for fun by bleaching out the spy chic entirely, and becoming a common action/conspiracy movie.
Criag’s Bond is still out for revenge, mainly against the shadowy, terrorist-sponsoring organization, “Quantum,” that killed his last girl. Apparently, this model of Bond can remember women from the previous episode. In working with MI6 to track down their agents, we discover: They are secretive, powerful, and have people “everywhere.” Quantum is clearly the new SPECTRE, and tracking down their money transfers lands Bond in Bolivia. While the body count continues to rise to M’s dissatisfaction, Bond goes after seedy Al Gore/Richard Branson-styled environmentalist, Dominic Greene, who’s working to overthrow the Bolivian government and reinstate a junta leader in exchange for apparently worthless desert. Wouldn’t you know it, unusually attractive Bolivian local Camille Montes (Olga Kurylenko) joins Bond, and rejoins him after his handler, “Strawberry Fields” (sent by a nervous M, as Bond’s killing of every lead begins to smell like revenge), is killed in a tacky homage to “Goldfinger.” After making a startling (and rather profound) discovery about Greene’s intentions, Bond evades MI6, bucks the corrupt aims of the British Parliament and CIA, kills more people, gets revenge, and stuff blows up. It’s a satisfying ending, both emotionally and viscerally. But juding an action film and a Bond movie are two different tasks.
To be blunt, at no point does a car launch a rocket. We learn next to nothing about “Quantum.” And portraying Britain and the U.S. as incautiously gung-ho to see an entire coupe go down for a single, unconfirmed oil-find transcends unrealistic and tends towards Hollywood’s typical preachy left-wing moralizing. Perhaps the biggest dissapointment is that Bond cracks exactly one, count ‘em ONE “guess how I just killed this guy by fact that I said ‘break,’ or ‘drop’ or ‘shocking’ or ‘hot’” line.
Quantum of Solace is fun, but it’s easy to forget it’s a Bond film after a while.
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