James Bond is back for 22nd mission. But does Quantum of Solace pack a license to thrill or a license to bore?
Quantum of Solace
Directed by Marc Forster
Starring Daniel Craig, Olga Kurylenko, Mathieu Amalric, Judi Dench
**1/2
There’s one sequence in the new James Bond adventure Quantum of Solace that ranks amongst the very best moments in the franchise’s four-decade history. In it, our favorite “00″ secret agent (played, once again, by Daniel Craig in his sophomore outing in Bond’s impeccably-tailored suits) has followed his latest target Dominic Greene (Mathieu Amalric)-an environmentalist, business tycoon and, of course, member of a top-secret organization bent on world domination-to a lavish opera house in Austria to attend a performance of the Verdi classic Tosca. Slipping unnoticed into the crowd, Bond spots Greene picking up a specially marked gift bag and uses his stealth (as well as his fists) to secure one of these bags for himself. Inside, he finds an earpiece, which he pops into his ear as he makes his way into the catwalks that hover above the audience.
Adjusting the frequency, he finds himself listening in on a meeting between Greene and his partners-in-global-conspiracy as they discuss their latest plot-overthrowing the government of Bolivia and handing the country over to a puppet dictator they can exploit for their purposes. But this meeting isn’t being conducted in some opera box or secret room; instead, all of the conspirators are sitting comfortably in the audience, watching the opera while planning the conquest of a sovereign nation. It’s a terrific, suspenseful scene that confirms what Bond has been told about this organization early on in the film from one of its members: “We have people everywhere.”
The reason this sequence clicks is that it’s really the only part of the movie where Quantum‘s director Marc Forster is able to successfully integrate his own style and interests with the rigid James Bond formula. And make no mistake, the 007 movies are all about formula. The producers have been able to churn out 22 of these things because audiences come back again and again expecting to see certain things: great action, hot girls, cool gadgets and witty quips.
Granted, Quantum‘s predecessor, Casino Royale, did away with some of the traditional elements, but director Martin Campbell otherwise provided a nearly flawless execution of the Bond formula, just as he did a decade ago with Goldeneye, the movie that got the series back on his feet after the ’80s dog days of late-period Roger Moore and Timothy Dalton. Forster, on the other hand, seems largely uninterested in sticking to the producers’ carefully designed playbook. He goes through the motions like a professional, but it’s hard to escape the feeling that he has another kind of movie in mind than the one he was hired to make.
Best known for small-scale dramas like Finding Neverland and Monster’s Ball, Forster has never made an action movie before and it shows in Quantum‘s near-incomprehensible chase sequences, gun battles and fistfights. One of the great joys of Casino Royale was the way Campbell and his crew designed each of the film’s big set-pieces with an eye towards practical stunts that required a bare minimum of CGI-assists. Think back to that awesome parkour chase through a construction site, the airport scene and that final shoot-out in Venice; all of the action was choreographed and edited with tight precision. Now look at the opening car chase in Quantum, which is shot and cut like an over-caffeinated outtake from The Bourne Ultimatum. Or check out an aerial dogfight between Bond and the bad guys that’s filled with so much CGI, it could have been made by Pixar.
I don’t doubt that Forster tried his best to master the language of action filmmaking, but he’s been thrown headfirst into a franchise that demands a skill set he just doesn’t possess yet. There’s a reason why many of the best Bond pictures have been made by directors with extensive backgrounds in second-unit and stunt work rather than dramatic features. They come in with the innate knowledge of how to satisfy the prime directive of any 007 adventure, namely dreaming up creative, memorable (and sometimes improbable) action sequences that leave audiences breathless.
Forster’s talents lie in an entirely different arena and it’s worth noting that, dramatically, Quantum of Solace is quite good. The director is genuinely interested in Bond as an individual and he gives Craig the opportunity to play a range of emotions his predecessors could only dream about. Picking up almost immediately after Casino Royale ended, Quantum shows as a bitter, furious, vengeful Bond who is more than happy to use his professional resources as means to settle personal scores against the men that killed his one true love, Vesper Lynd, who perished in Royale‘s final moments.
But 007 isn’t the only one who desires bloody revenge; Forster introduces a Bond Girl who finally has more on her mind than bedding England’s best-looking secret agent. Her name is Camille (played by Ukrainian stunner Olga Kurylenko) and she’s the daughter of a high-ranking Bolivian official and his Russian wife (hence the accent) who were murdered many years ago by the general that Greene plans to put in power. Save for a brief kiss in the film’s closing moments, Bond and Camille display little carnal interest in each other, which gives their relationship a completely different dynamic than what we’re used to seeing in a 007 movie. (Because the Bond formula dictates that the spy has to do the nasty at least once in every movie, he does get it on with a fellow MI6 agent tasked with dispatching him back to headquarters. But this character is a complete waste of screen time-her only function in the movie is to spread her legs for Bond and then meet an untimely end.)
Ultimately, all of Quantum‘s strengths and weaknesses stem from a common source-Forster wanted to make one movie, while the producers wanted another movie that was different…but not too different from every other Bond adventure. Given that impasse, the only way the film could have been a rousing success is if they had given Forster free reign to do whatever he wanted with Bond or just brought back Martin Campbell for a second go-around. Because what we’ve ended up with is a movie divided against itself; as a James Bond movie, Quantum of Solace disappoints, but as a drama about an angry, angst-ridden spy, it’s pretty solid. The one thing that unites these two very different films is Daniel Craig, who has officially become-and I’m being absolutely serious here-the best Bond ever. He’s not as effortlessly suave as Connery, nor as affable as Moore, nor as charming as Brosnan, but he accomplishes something even more difficult: he makes this superhuman…well, human.
Verdict: Rent It
