When we were in New York visiting my mom we went to see a movie with my brother and his family. It was the first time he had seen the preview for the next (now) Bond film. When he saw the title he leaned over and said “Quantum of Solace?!? What the heck does that mean?”
Call me a fool but I typically read review of a movie before I see it. The general pattern was “Quantum of Solace is good but not as good as Casino Royale”. Rotten Tomatoes summarizes:
Brutal and breathless, Quantum Of Solace delivers tender emotions along with frenetic action. Not as good as franchise reboot Casino Royale, but still an impressive entry to the Bond canon.
I would suggest those reviewers are not getting the point.
“Quantum of Solace” is outstanding and should not be compared especially unfavorably to “Casino Royale”. It is not better or not-as-good. It is different. And therein lies its power.
It is one of only two Bond films that I can remember continue a story line from a previous film (here the death of Vesper Lynd). Despite his consistently brooding stone-face Daniel Craig manages to show that James Bond has… feelings. And is capable of being deeply wounded. He can admit he was wrong. Genuinely touching is the scene where he holds his dying friend. Also nicely handled is when he explains to Camille how to prepare yourself to kill someone. (Watch the clip here.)
The action sequences (chases and fights) are spectacular although one reviewer is correct to note that they are at times muddled and confusing (exactly what is going on? what did Bond do just then?). The new Bond films with Daniel Craig show violence as it truly is – brutal bloody and frightening. Forget the cartoon punch-them-out cartoon violence of the Moore era. Several times I cringed and even said “Ow!” when Bond slammed into a wall, landed onto a stone balcony 20 feet below, or sunk an axe into someone’s foot. This Bond does not smirk and adjust his tie after a grueling kill-or-be-killed hand-to-hand fight. He looks like h#ll.
One thing that always amazed me is how Bond adapts and improvizes when frankly he is deep in the poo and it is hitting the rotary air moving device. Steal a wooden fishing boat to take on two speed boats full of men with machine guns? Yeah sure that sounds like a strategy! And yet somehow Bond pulls it off. The way he flushes out the conspirators in the opera hall is simply spellbinding.
One small point about politics. The story line (which admittedly is a bit too complicated to follow easily) contains a subtle point about the environment. It is not entirely fictional either. But one does not feel the movie is pushing a political-environmentalist agenda. The point is simply there and the story stands on its own. That is how art should be I believe. Art can include politics (or theology or whatever) but the agenda must not define the art.
Finally – what does the film suggest about the motivations for sin and human violence? Yes there is genuine malice and the banality of evil (portrayed well in the character Dominic Greene). There is also dehumanizing brutality (seen more in the character of the general). But to what extent are violence and sin driven by our own brokenness? This is not to excuse it! But to help understand the helplessness of human beings in their sinful condition. As Judy Dench (playing M) says in one of the most memorable lines of the film:
I think you are so blinded by inconsolable rage that you don’t care who you hurt.
Watch the clip here.
Precisely.
