Quantum of Solace Review

[Paladin]

Quantom of Solace, starring Daniel Craig, Judi Dench, Olga Kurylenko, Giancarlo Giannini, Gemma Atherton, Mathieu Amalric and Jeffrey Wright. Directed by Marc Forster.

Bond. James Bond.

Quantom of Solace picks up about an hour after the end of Casino Royale, where Bond has confronted the man behind the death of Vespa in the previous movie and is now fleeing from his pursuers. It quickly becomes clear that this man was part of a much larger organization, leading to Dame Judi's best line of the movie: "When someone says they have people everywhere, you expect it to be a metaphor." If the Bond in Casino Royale was cold and ruthless, the one in this movie and angry and ruthless. He is out for revenge, and soon crosses paths with Camille, a woman on a similar mission for revenge against the despot who killed her parents and sister.

The previous Bond movies, from A View To A Kill onward through the end of the Pierce Brosnan era all seemed to involve a rogue billionaire out to conquer the world. Casino Royale introduced the hints of a shadowy organization pulling the strings behind world events. Quantum of Solace lifts much of the veil, but where I expected a return of SPECTRE from the Sean Connery days, we instead get QUANTOM, where the movie gets it's title. Made up of movers and shakers in world industry and government, QUANTOM pulls the strings behind governments and makes it's members rich from the minerals and cheap labor unstable countries can provide. It's a bit of a breath of fresh air in that it provides a more rational enemy than a meglomanical billionaire, yet it still isn't as cool as cold war Russia provided for later Connery and much of Moore's Bonds.

Apparently Casino Royale was criticized by some people for being slowly paced and lacking in action. Quantom skips most of Bond being dashing and suave, in favor of amping up the action level. The action scenes are good, if nothing new, and use the fast cut editing which make them hard to follow. There is a boat chase which would have been at home on any of Moore's movies, yet actually made less exciting because it's spliced together too quickly instead of using loger shots to follow the action. There's a rooftop chase which could have been taken right out of any of the Bourne movies, or straight out of Casino. Still, Quantum is a good Bond movie and a worthy followup to Casino Royale. Daniel Craig is definitely an excellent James Bond, and now that his opening chapter is done, I look forward to seeing where he goes from here.

[jackrabbit]

Just got back from this. I liked Casino Royale, but lost interest with the Vespa storyline. When I watch it on DVD, I turn it off before the chair torture scene. As far as I'm concerned, the interesting stuff ends there.

Solace starts out fast paced, gives youe three villians to keep up with, two women (Olga Kurylenko may be the most beautiful woman on the planet, and the only reason to see Max Payne), and keeps the action going to the very end. There's very little retrospective, but when there is, it's subtle and clever. I feel this is a far better film than Casion Royale, and it certainly builds towards a better Bond experience in the future. I'd rate this in my top ten films (as as Paladin compares, it's right up there with Bourne).

I heard a few people complain about the film on my way out of the theater, and that disappointed me. This film doesn't hold your hand or slap you with its obviousness. There are several homages to past films, classic films (Casablanca), and historic (Iam Fleming) Bond. If your typical frat boy and his bleach blonde girlfriend don't like it, it worries e that they'll adjust the future films for the biggest box office draw (read: idiots).

I also think the days of arguing over whom is the best Bond are at an end. Daniel Craig's Bond makes you instantly forget there ever were any other Bonds, and helps you forget the painful one-liners, comic book villains, and outlandish gadgets.

Hopefully this new Bond is here to stay.

[Patton]

I've heard many reports of bad shaky-cam and terrible cuts. This worries me, but I will still likely see it. Casino Royale was a must-own for me, and I am a huge fan of Craig's (Layer Cake is a must-see if you missed it.)

[jackrabbit]

Layer Cake was on TBS this weekend. It's not a very good movie when the swears and violence are cut out. I think it was 20 minutes long. Otherwise, I agree, great movie and perhaps the best ending ever in film.

Some scenes in Quantum are close, quick edits, and it's difficult to follow. The opening car chase in particular has you attempting to piece the action together, and with the information they provide you, it's really more of an outline of a chase. I also think this is either the point of the edits, or a sacrifice to pacing. I know the film is shorter but still has something like 90 locations, so to keep the pace or not make it overly long, they probably stripped a lot of the establishing shots.

[Paladin]

The fast editing is one the bane of modern cinema. I hope someday, in the not too distant future, some cinematographer beats the living shit out of an editor who butchers there shots and everyone figures out that you don't need that kind of crap in a 2 hour movie. That's what happens when you let music video directors direct movies. They use the same film tricks they would for a 3 minute video, and it doesn't work when people are trying to take in everything on a 100 foot wide screen.

One of the great things about earlier Bond films were their locations. You got slow, panning shots to establish those locations and gave you a chance to get a feel for it before launching into the action. Much of this movie looked like it could have been shot in the same place. One thought I had while watching this movie was that they have completely "Americanized" James Bond. That's not entirely fair, the character is still British, but without displaying a lot of the charm other incarnations have had combined with all the action scenes, that's how it felt. There was only one shot, a boat ride lasting all of 10 seconds, in which I still saw the European-ness of the character.

[Reaver]

Finally watched this film, since Casino Royale was not one of my favorite movies, to put it nicely. Solace was surprisingly enjoyable, and while I wasn't convinced Craig was a good Bond in the first movie, it feels like he's fitting into the role now.

I agree with the other comments about some of the action editing and the location shots. There was only one sequence that was annoying me (hotel inferno) with how ridiculous it was getting, otherwise the film had a good suspension of belief factor.

Olga looks freaking amazing. Definitely gonna be rubbing one off to her later. I liked this movie enough to go see the next Bond installment at the theater before I read up on any critic reviews.