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seriousficSo, Quantum of Solace. Probably the most anticipated Bond of the modern era. After a string of mediocre Brosnan films (good Bond, bad scripts), Martin Campbell knocked one out of the ballpark with Casino Royale. The producers took a lot of risks, from rebooting the series all the way down to Bond’s hair color, but it paid off and gave us something new (Dalton: Yeahbutwhat?) after years of formula. Ending on the sorta cliffhanger of James fully becoming Bond, audiences couldn’t wait to see what happened next. With a huge budget and star Daniel Craig taking a hand in realizing his vision of Bond, what could go wrong?
Well, for starters, they put that mega-budget in the hands of someone who had never directed action before. Not a once. And you get exactly what you think you’d get if someone who thought they were better than action did action: when the results aren’t inept, they’re laughably pretentious. A foot chase is spliced with footage of a horse race for no reason other than to metaphor that Bond is going fast. A gun battle features more opera than bullets. I’d like to say that at least the drama is good, but it would take a heart of stone not to laugh when, after a beloved ally dies, Bond throws the body in the trash and rifles through his wallet. The title ‘Quantum of Solace’ ends up being emblematic of the movie as a whole… plowing straight past human-interest territory and into downright sophism.
Another area the movie fails is in the evil scheme. In Casino Royale, Le Chiffre’s plot was to recoup from stock market shenanigans by winning a poker game. That’s a pretty lame plan, but at least the movie’s upfront about it so you can move on. QoS treats the evil scheme as a big mystery, then Bond literally stumbles across the least dramatic reveal ever, and in the end it turns out all his adventure’s accomplished is save the Bolivian government some money on its utility bill. I’m dead serious here.
(I know, I know, he stops a coup, but that’s really just a side effect of the villain’s plan and if the movie doesn’t care about it, why should we? Plus, we’re really never given any indication that the current ruler of Bolivia is any better than the ousted dictator trying to regain power. Sure, he may be a psycho rapist, but he could really be able to balance a budget.)
It’s the least interesting cross between realism and high-stakes Bond movie you could imagine, with a hotel in the middle of the desert being a particularly poor substitute for Blofeld’s volcano lair. An exchange about highly unstable fuel cells is right out of the fucking Roger Moore era.
I remember speculating that the only way to really respect Vesper’s impact on James, especially in a movie that picks up five minutes after Casino Royale, would be for him not to get the girl. Well, he doesn’t, but they botch that twice over.
First, there’s this female agent who only exists for Bond to bed, then they kill her so Bond’s motivated to take revenge. Hmm, where have I seen that before? Oh yes, the entire last movie. It’s a shame, because she has more chemistry with Craig than the PC ‘this time he’s met his match’ blah blah dismissive wanking motion. Nothing wrong with Camille, but every Bond since Moore has had a ‘look, we’re not sexist!’ Bond girl and, honestly, the meaty role Judi Dench has is much more feminist than a spy who’s willing to sleep with people to get what she wants (hey, just like Bond!).
And second, a Bond girl arbitrarily not sleeping with Bond instead of arbitrarily sleeping with him is just subverting a trope, one that works no less, for no reason.
In fact, everything to do with Vesper is given painfully short shift. I know she’s the elephant in the corner, but she practically has a cloaking device. The main villain didn’t even have anything to do with her death. Good revenge movie.
There’s also a lot of moments where the movie tries to have its cake and eat it too, watering down the Bond movie coolness with Jason Bourne stupidity (sorry, Matt Damon, but someone has to speak up to your shakycam idiocy) like with the evil scheme that is simultaneously undramatically low-key and pulpily unrealistic. They play Bond not killing the villain as this big moment of character development, then he just grills the bad guy for information and kills him later. Delayed gratification? That’s the big lesson? What is this, Veggie Tales? Or how the movie suggests Bond really has gone psycho by having him accidentally kill a British agent, but he really just wounds the guy and gets coincidentally framed for killing him, which he doesn’t deny for some reason. You can smell the rewrite.
I know I’m making it sound like I hate QoS and I don’t, but I hate it for not being what it could’ve been, for being lazy and riding on the coattails of Casino Royale. There are moments where you’re watching a Bond movie, damnit, like when Bond crashes a clandestine meet and outs key members ofSPECTRE Quantum, but they’re few and far between.
I suppose we all should’ve seen it coming. There’s a reason why the big death/kidnapping to motivate the hero to say “this time it’s personal!” and go after the bad guy full-tilt usually happens at the end of the second act. A third act of the hero in a vendetta kind of mood is badass. An entire movie of it is tiring and oddly charmless, like you’re visiting some alternate universe where Jason Bourne is British and played by Daniel Craig. There, I said it. James Bond is ripping off Jason Bourne. There, are you happy?
Well, for starters, they put that mega-budget in the hands of someone who had never directed action before. Not a once. And you get exactly what you think you’d get if someone who thought they were better than action did action: when the results aren’t inept, they’re laughably pretentious. A foot chase is spliced with footage of a horse race for no reason other than to metaphor that Bond is going fast. A gun battle features more opera than bullets. I’d like to say that at least the drama is good, but it would take a heart of stone not to laugh when, after a beloved ally dies, Bond throws the body in the trash and rifles through his wallet. The title ‘Quantum of Solace’ ends up being emblematic of the movie as a whole… plowing straight past human-interest territory and into downright sophism.
Another area the movie fails is in the evil scheme. In Casino Royale, Le Chiffre’s plot was to recoup from stock market shenanigans by winning a poker game. That’s a pretty lame plan, but at least the movie’s upfront about it so you can move on. QoS treats the evil scheme as a big mystery, then Bond literally stumbles across the least dramatic reveal ever, and in the end it turns out all his adventure’s accomplished is save the Bolivian government some money on its utility bill. I’m dead serious here.
(I know, I know, he stops a coup, but that’s really just a side effect of the villain’s plan and if the movie doesn’t care about it, why should we? Plus, we’re really never given any indication that the current ruler of Bolivia is any better than the ousted dictator trying to regain power. Sure, he may be a psycho rapist, but he could really be able to balance a budget.)
It’s the least interesting cross between realism and high-stakes Bond movie you could imagine, with a hotel in the middle of the desert being a particularly poor substitute for Blofeld’s volcano lair. An exchange about highly unstable fuel cells is right out of the fucking Roger Moore era.
I remember speculating that the only way to really respect Vesper’s impact on James, especially in a movie that picks up five minutes after Casino Royale, would be for him not to get the girl. Well, he doesn’t, but they botch that twice over.
First, there’s this female agent who only exists for Bond to bed, then they kill her so Bond’s motivated to take revenge. Hmm, where have I seen that before? Oh yes, the entire last movie. It’s a shame, because she has more chemistry with Craig than the PC ‘this time he’s met his match’ blah blah dismissive wanking motion. Nothing wrong with Camille, but every Bond since Moore has had a ‘look, we’re not sexist!’ Bond girl and, honestly, the meaty role Judi Dench has is much more feminist than a spy who’s willing to sleep with people to get what she wants (hey, just like Bond!).
And second, a Bond girl arbitrarily not sleeping with Bond instead of arbitrarily sleeping with him is just subverting a trope, one that works no less, for no reason.
In fact, everything to do with Vesper is given painfully short shift. I know she’s the elephant in the corner, but she practically has a cloaking device. The main villain didn’t even have anything to do with her death. Good revenge movie.
There’s also a lot of moments where the movie tries to have its cake and eat it too, watering down the Bond movie coolness with Jason Bourne stupidity (sorry, Matt Damon, but someone has to speak up to your shakycam idiocy) like with the evil scheme that is simultaneously undramatically low-key and pulpily unrealistic. They play Bond not killing the villain as this big moment of character development, then he just grills the bad guy for information and kills him later. Delayed gratification? That’s the big lesson? What is this, Veggie Tales? Or how the movie suggests Bond really has gone psycho by having him accidentally kill a British agent, but he really just wounds the guy and gets coincidentally framed for killing him, which he doesn’t deny for some reason. You can smell the rewrite.
I know I’m making it sound like I hate QoS and I don’t, but I hate it for not being what it could’ve been, for being lazy and riding on the coattails of Casino Royale. There are moments where you’re watching a Bond movie, damnit, like when Bond crashes a clandestine meet and outs key members of
I suppose we all should’ve seen it coming. There’s a reason why the big death/kidnapping to motivate the hero to say “this time it’s personal!” and go after the bad guy full-tilt usually happens at the end of the second act. A third act of the hero in a vendetta kind of mood is badass. An entire movie of it is tiring and oddly charmless, like you’re visiting some alternate universe where Jason Bourne is British and played by Daniel Craig. There, I said it. James Bond is ripping off Jason Bourne. There, are you happy?
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Date: 2009-01-02 10:10 am (UTC)I love of Casino Royale with all my heart - there is so much about that movie that is good, and so I was expecting something on the same level from QOS. And I think I was more than slightly disappointed.
I totally agree with the anaogy of the alternative universe!Jason Bourne. I'm sure on the surface the idea to hire the guy from the Bourne films as the 2nd unit director (or whatever he was) was a good idea, but it really did make it just feel like a Bourne film.
And the action annoyed me - it wasn't awe inspiring like it was in CR, and there was too much of it. My friends and I decided that if you took out the action, you'd have a ten minute movie.
Which was something else that pissed me off - how short it was. They could have expanded on so many things, like Bond's discussion with Vesper's previous boyfriend, but they didn't.
Anyway. Admittedly, there were a few good things about it - Bond's relationship with M for one, but even that we've seen before.
I think I was just mightily disappointed.