Photo by Karen Ballard/Columbia Pictures, Karen Ballard/Columbia Pictures
James Bond (Daniel Craig) shields Camille (Olga Kurylenko) and fires at a fuel cell as flames engulf a suite in "Quantum of Solace."
Apparently, I was about the only person in the world who wasn't wild about "Casino Royale," the 2007 back-to-basics reboot -- and international smash hit -- that introduced Daniel Craig as a tough and relatively realistic James Bond for the post-9/11 world of cold-blooded counterintelligence. ("I miss the Cold War," mused Judi Dench's M in that film.)
In fact, according to the movie-review scorekeepers at RottenTomatoes.com, I was one of only 12 out of 211 critics to give "Casino Royale" a so-called "rotten" review. ("Disappointed" would be a more accurate appraisal of my mixed, 21/2 -star review.) Craig is a memorable and convincing OO7, but I found "Casino" curiously unmoving, even though it ended with what was supposed to be the most tragic death in the series. (The movie was, however, an improvement over the increasingly irrelevant Pierce Brosnan episodes.)
Video
John Beifuss reviews the new James Bond movie, "Quantum of Solace" and "What Just Happened?" Watch »
Photo by Karen Ballard/Columbia Pictures
James Bond (Daniel Craig) shields Camille (Olga Kurylenko) and fires at a fuel cell as flames engulf a suite in "Quantum of Solace."
Betrayed by Vesper, the woman he loved, 007 is determined to uncover the truth. He and M interrogate Mr. White who reveals the organization which ...
Rating: PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action, and some sexual content
Length: 106 minutes
Released: November 14, 2008 Nationwide
Cast: Daniel Craig, Olga Kurylenko, Gemma Arterton, Mathieu Amalric, Judi Dench
Director: Marc Forster
Writer: Ian Fleming, Neal Purvis, Tom Stoppard, Robert Wade
"Quantum of Solace" -- the obscure title is lifted from one of Ian Fleming's James Bond short stories -- opens immediately after the events of "Casino Royale," with Bond seeking vengeance on the crime cartel that caused the death of his true love (Eva Green). "I'm motivated by duty," he tells M, but she says Bond has become "a cold bastard," driven by "inconsolable rage."
The filmmakers and the impressive Craig continue to present Bond as a novice evolving into an icon. The movie opens with the British secret agent behind the wheel of an Aston Martin (the signature Bond car from the earlier films), but it takes him an hour to bed his first "Bond girl" (the term is now not only sexist but anachronistic) and almost as long to imbibe his first martini.
The action-spectacle (car chases, speedboat collisions, aerial dogfights) and globetrotting (the story jumps from Italy to London to Haiti to Austria to Bolivia to Russia) are almost nonstop. An early rooftop chase is influenced more by the legacy of Bourne than Bond, but a later murder offers a witty if gruesome nod to "Goldfinger," and a clever visual metaphor for the idea that dependence on oil could mean the death of the free world.
Nevertheless, "Quantum of Solace," like the James Bond films of old, peddles the oddly comforting notion that the enemies of freedom and democracy aren't wild-eyed suicidal radicals but corrupt, well-mannered Westerners (or at least would-be Westerners), motivated not by religion but by greed.
Some Bond fans had worried that director Marc Forster -- known for such character-driven, non-blockbuster movies as "Monster's Ball," "Finding Neverland" and "The Kite Runner" -- might not be able to handle the action requirements of "Quantum." Apparently, however, the Bond production and stunt team is the movie equivalent of Booker T. & the MG's: They're so expert, the frontman is almost irrelevant.
The contributions of Forster and his writers (Bond veterans Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, plus Oscar-winner Paul "Crash" Haggis) are probably easier to assess from the well-handled non-action scenes with Bond's CIA pal, Felix Leiter (the always welcome Jeffrey Wright), and with the story's villain, the ironically named Dominic Greene (Roman Polanski-lookalike Mathieu Almaric, star of "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly"), an ultra-rich faux environmentalist hiding his sinister schemes behind plans for a "global network of ecoparks."
Considering the real-life government and corporate responses to the control of oil and water resources, the script isn't just pandering to cynics when it broaches the by now clichéd notion that the good guys and bad guys are two sides of the same distressed coin. "We deal with the left or the right, with dictators or liberators," says Greene, a practical villain. That sentiment is echoed by Bond's pragmatic employers: "Right or wrong doesn't come into it," the prime minister's assistant tells M. "We're acting out of necessity."
-- John Beifuss, 529-2394
- |
Comments » 1
rcooper writes:
In theory, the "most tragic death in the series," should be Diana Rigg's at the end of "On Her Majesty's Secret Service." What with the not-being-a-double-agent-but-instead-Bond's-one-true-love and all.
(For those for whom I've ruined the twist ending of a 40-year-old film. Sorry.)
Share your thoughts
Comments are the sole responsibility of the person posting them. You agree not to post comments that are off topic, defamatory, obscene, abusive, threatening or an invasion of privacy. Violators may be banned. Click here for our full user agreement.