Movie Review: Quantum Of Solace

8/10

Yay! I got to see it real soon after release thanks to Mr N of our band so thanks, N-Pod!

Regular readers will know I am a huge Bond nut, I own all the movies, and have seen every single bally one at least 5 times each, so I know my subject today and hope you'll come on the ride with me. You may want to be wary of spoilers so here is a one line summary:

It's really very good, though some of the editing is tiresome, and features the most gorgeous Bond femme-fatale since, well, forever.

There we go. If you like Bond, go see it.

Right, for the full review as always, click below:

Ok then folks who are still here, Bond has seen something of a resurgence in cool in the last couple of years and hooray for that. Anyone who, like me, spent Die Another Day looking at the clock and hoping (in vain) that it would end without getting any worse will find that this instalment, like its predecessor Casino Royale, has far more to get your teeth into than Brosnan managed in at least 3 of his 5 films.

Bond had, for a long time, a serious problem. This serious problem was that, unlike in Flemings day, people aren't half as racist or sexist as they used to be, and you couldn't just have a whole nation as the enemy any more simply because they were foreign.

The Bond solution was, starting with You Only Live Twice, to have a big non-specific-nationailty villain with a huge scale yet seemingly undetectable base, intent on destroying the world with a henchman and a female accomplice who Bond would bed and turn nice etc etc. Bond would, in the course of the movie, investigate the entire organisation, infiltrate the base, sleep with some women, kill the baddie and drink some martinis.

As far as You Only Live Twice goes, its pretty weak, but not terrible. The serious trouble starts when you think about The Spy Who Loved Me, which has an identical rich crazy villain with a big base, a femme fatale, schemes for world domination and a henchman. Actually, so did Man With The Golden Gun, Licence To Kill, Octopussy, Moonraker, On Her Majesty's Secret Service (though this does have the best source material), Tomorrow Never Dies, Die Another Day (though with a plane as the big base). They were simply changin the minimum bits and keeping the plot.

Actually, I'm being unfair. This actually is, in a protypical form, the plot of Dr No as well.

All of these movies end the same way (inventive death after showdown), have appallingly similar pacing, twists and turns and really are harmed immeasurably by the conventions that make up the Bond "formula". At best (like Dr No) they're slick and cool, usually they're still great fun (Like The Spy Who Loved Me), or at worst (Moonraker, View To A Kill) an inoffensive way to pass the time, but mostly they are not truly great movies in their own right on the level, say, that Once Upon A Time In The West or 2001 are.

It's telling that my favourite Bond movies are the ones that subvert or ignore these conventions. From Russia With Love, the second Bond Movie, is a fantastic thriller which sticks closely to the book and is a proper sequel to, or at least references, the earlier movie - an idea which is swept aside by the time of You Only Live Twice. The plot and pace is markedly different from the iconic No's investigations and jungle shenanegins and really feels like a new adventure.

How do you spell shenane.. sha... sheni...? Ah well...

Throw into this mix Daniel Craig as Bond in Casino Royale and the differences are immediately apparent. For a start we finally have a Bond who looks like a killer and not just any killer - the absolute most efficient killer you could imagine. And there's no big showdown with the head of an evil empire, no resolution, no particularly happy ending and absolutely no "OH, JAMES!".

The villain of the piece is a relative nobody. A money man at the absolute edge of the organisation he represents. His connection to the big picture is tenuous and Bond is at the start of a very long journey even once he has overcome this man. There's no spectacular death for this villain (that's reserved for someone else entirely). He is simply shot dead. And not by Bond, who is at this point utterly defeated and naked in a torturers chair.

It's a great take on our man... hard as nails, yes, but not Superman.

And here is the crucial point and the centre of what I am trying to get over - Quantum Of Solace is, finally, after 20 abortive attempts, an actual SEQUEL to what has gone before. In this film he works to establish more about the sinister organisation Le Chiffre worked for and in this investigation he begins to discover just how big his problems are getting.

Many reviews in the press have labelled the plot hard to follow or incoherent. I'm not sure what film they had gone to see, but it's perfectly obvious that if that is their genuine opinion they are, in Brick Tamlin's words, "Mentally Retarded".*

It's like this. At the start of the movie mi5 want to know more about this organisation. At the end of the movie they do. What's hard to follow about that? Each scene follows the last in chronological order, characters are introduced, including our focal "baddie", Dominic Greene who has some money making scheme underway in Bolivia involving becoming the country's utilities provider(!), clues are followed, answers are sought and a lot of stuff gets shot at and blown up.

And this is my point again - this time we're only one rung up the ladder from the bank employee that was Le Chiffre. Greene is more powerful, yes. But in the end he is just a guy out to make his organisation some money, like the guys who try and sell you pirate DVDs in the KFC on Old Kent Road. He's another nothing, only good for his information.

See? Not so hard to understand at all.

Throw into this mix a woman with a grudge and we're on more complicated territory than Bond really has been for a long time.

Oh and about the song... it seems to me that the inexplicable reason for a duet title song when the two singers are singing THE SAME MELODY is perhaps more obviously a thematic rather than a musical decision. I also found this particular arrangement (less guitar more strings) far less disagreeable than the version on MTV. By the way, is there any other type of movie where the theme has to be part of every review?

By a thematic reason for the duet, I mean that since Camille (sigh... she's outrageously beautiful) is an equal partner in the endeavour, at least in the final third of the movie they wanted to convey something of that in the song. In any case, she is definately the best and most capable actress to play a "Bond Girl" (god I hate that phrase) in ages. I'm not just saying that because of how she looks. You may think so, and she is distractingly attractive, but she really is very good.

So why don't we go all review speak and say Quantum Of Solace's climax is a "duet of death". How's that? Can I get a poster quote guys?

Nothing majorly spoilerific so far so woohoo for that.

So, enough about the plot. Is it any good?

Yes.

Daniel Craig is simply superb in this role, a perfect fit you could say. It's funny but all of the previous Bonds with the notable exception of Connery couldn't really convince in both a Tux and a fist fight, Brosnan and Moore were the Tux guys, Lazenby and Dalton were more rugged in my opinion. Dalton especially spends more time in an opennecked shirt than a tux.

I like Dalton a lot, and looking back especially Licence To Kill is more in keeping with the new Bond's tone, though hampered still at that stage by a tendency for playing things for laughs with Q and all his little toys. Actually, the lady in that was rather lovely.... I feel a hottest Bond Girl Poll coming on...

In this film, unlike the last, his counterpart is much more convincing. I think Eva Green may well be a good actress, but if so I have yet to see much evidence. Olga Kurylenko is perhaps not much better, but is perfectly suited to this role of damaged young woman out for revenge and in scenes where it would be oh so easy to overplay the juxtaposition of beauty and rage, she manages to convince being, like Craig's Bond, a deep and entrancing screen presence - her eyes tell a story all their own.

Mathieu Almaric as Dominic Greene is less interesting. With the reduction in the villain's standing comes a little loss of entertainment value (no great loss in my opinion but there you go). He's clearly not a very nice man, and one who has tunnel vision when it comes to his duty, but I'm not really sold on this performance. There's no question he is a great actor, who I look forward to seeing very much in The Diving Bell and The Butterfly, but there's simply not very much for him to do.

Though Gemma Arterton's "Strawberry Fields" character is a bad joke out of Brosnan era movies (â la Christmas Jones) and like the awful self-referencing in Die Another Day (sigh), a scene from Goldfinger is invoked in her exit, the rest of the cast are good,and there are solid performances all round.

I was sad to see Michael Kitchener hasn't been asked back to his role as Tanner, it instead being played by the very capable Rory Kinnear who looks far too junior to be M's main Aide, but that's just, like, my opinion, man. (spot the quote)

The film's not perfect. Oh no. It suffers from what I will kindly call "overediting". A sort of quota system where no shot can last more than a second during action so the most impressive sequences, including a truly excellent fight in a renovated church (I think) between Bond and an assassin is rendered very adrenaline buzzing, but not very cohesive.

Another quota it labours under is a "no five minutes without chase action" one, which is doubly irritating since it is such a short film (only 1hr and 46 minutes) that to have very few periods of calm makes it a little exhausting with no respite.

That being said, the chase sequences and gunfights and in particular a setpiece at the Opera stand out as truly excellent pieces of "Bondage" if you will, and establish Craig as a true action behemoth, he was injured many times on set and its no surprise given some of the stuff you see up there on screen. Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if the Opera sequence as a whole goes down as defining the Craig era.

Bond has had many years to go through ups and dwns. Like Dr Who he has had many faces, some more popular than others, and has faced criticisms for repeating himself, like the man from Gallifrey (Cybermen AGAIN this christmas?) but like his Science Fiction counterpart he is now REBORN!

This fight against the villanous organisation... look they're called Quantum, in an excuse to explain away the dumb title.... is set to go on for many episodes yet. I can't wait.

As for who'd win in a fight between Bond and Bourne I'm not sure, but smart money would be on them teaming up and kicking the living snot out of anyone who tried to make them fight. I'd steer clear if I were you.

I want to make it clear I am not advocating a crossover movie. That would be arse.

So in short, the new Bond movie is not better than, nor probably as good as, Casino Royale, but is still a great film and ten times better than most other action films out there. In the Bond collection I would place it below Dr No, but above Live And Let Die. Go see it, enjoy it and thanks for reading!

A

*If you don't know who Brick Tamlin is. Shame on you. Go watch Anchorman.