Over the years, James Bond has needed to stop maniacs from
controlling many resources. These range from diamond smuggling, gold, oil, and
cocaine. Who would ever think that there would be such a commodity worth
controlling such as water? When the film franchise started in 1962, natural
resources, like oil, were in abundance but we knew that there is always a
limited resource. I doubt any one would think water could fall into this
category. Now, don’t get excited I am not saying that we are running out of
water but as so much of the world is focused on oil and other natural
resources, someone else was focusing on controlling water and we meet this
person in Quantum of Solace.
Quantum of
Solace takes its title from a short story of the same name written by
Ian Fleming and published as part of the book For Your Eyes Only in 1960.
After the success of Casino Royale in
2006, it would be an understatement to say that I was really looking forward to
the follow up film. For the first time in the franchise history, this Bond
would be a direct sequel. This would tie directly into the themes and plot from
Casino Royale. It was a very
exciting time to be a Bond fan. My favorite film franchise was getting a revamp
and it was the second installment of the new era. Was it going to be as good?
In my humble opinion, the answer is no. It couldn’t be. As I
mentioned last week, Casino Royale
was a triumph. I think it would be very hard to top that film. Re-watching it
again to write this article, it is not a bad film at all but it is flawed. Once
again, I remember sitting in the theatre and being slightly disappointed there
was no gun barrel sequence at the beginning of the film. What we do get is an
incredible car chase through Largo di Garda. At first, we don’t know why Bond
is being chased but the car chase itself is brutal. People are firing on Bond
just before they make devastating crashes into the side of the mountain or
other vehicles. It is seriously action packed. The problem is that director
Marc Forster shoots the action so close that it is nearly impossible to figure
out what is going on. There are moments that I truly think that Bond’s car
ploughed into someone else but that isn’t the case. I find this type of film
making to be difficult to watch. I do not enjoy it. My guess is that the point
is to try and make you feel like you are actually in the action. This happens
in fight sequences at the beginning of the film too. Why does everyone want to
be immersed into the action? Am I the only who just wants to watch it and not necessarily
be in it? That is why I am not a big fan of 3D, I just want to watch it; I don’t
want it around me. The whole chase scene ends for us to find that in the trunk
of Bond’s car is Mr. White. Remember at the end of Casino Royale when Bond shot Mr. White? This is a continuation of
that.
After all of that is figured out, we move onto the opening
credits. For the first time since GoldenEye,
Daniel Kleinman did not do the opening credits. This bothered me as I adored
his work. He is back for Skyfall.
MK12 did the opening graphics for Quantum
of Solace. They are different yet I think they are pretty good. I like how
the titles on the credits some time mimic the dots that go across the screen
for the gun barrel sequence. There is a part where the women in the opening
sequence start to spin around like a zoetrope. It is done very well and looks
super cool. It would be easy for me to not like these credits because they are
different but the truth is that they are pretty good. Now the theme music is a
little different. The theme song is called “Another Way to Die” sung (for lack
of a better word) by Jack White and Alicia Keys. It sounds like they were making
it up as they went along. It just doesn’t sound good to me. I think it works
better on the opening credits than it does as a song on its own. I also think
this song suffers the way some other Bond songs suffer. In my opinion, I don’t think
a Bond song should make reference to the clichés of the franchise. An example
of this is Sheryl Crow in “Tomorrow Never Dies”:
Darlin' you've won
It's no fun
Martinis, girls, and guns
It's matter on our love affair
But you bet your life every night
While your chasing them on the knife
Your not the only spy out there
It's no fun
Martinis, girls, and guns
It's matter on our love affair
But you bet your life every night
While your chasing them on the knife
Your not the only spy out there
Martinis, girls and guns
is the cliché of the franchise and to me pretty cringeworthy. In “Another Way
to Die” the song starts out:
Another
ringer with the slick trigger finger for Her Majesty
Another
one with the golden tongue poisoning your fantasy
Another
bill from a killer, turned a thriller to a tragedy
Now,
this shouldn’t be confused with something like Goldfinger which is indulging
into the villain. I personally have no problem with that.
As I
mentioned above, one of the things that really bothers me about this film are
the fight sequences. They are shot very close to the people who are in it. It’s
hard to see who is punching who and makes for a very confusing scene. Now, I
was starting to think I was an old fuddy duddy until I heard other people
making the same complaint. Leading to the first fight sequence is the
interrogation of Mr. White. M and some of her people are in attendance. There
is a really cool part of this film and that is that Mr. White is part of a
larger organization. They are called Quantum. It is kind of cool with what they
do; I don’t see them as a straight criminal organization. Now being in the 21st
century the organization may be involved with dictators or ecological
manipulation or amassing wealth and power. Quantum has apparently been around for some
time. The problem is that no one knows they exist or that members of Quantum
have even infiltrated the British Secret Service.
Now,
Quantum isn’t too far off from SPECTRE, the organization that plagued Bond in
many of the 1960s films. Once again, it is important to bring up Kevin McClory.
Remember, he and Ian Fleming came up with Thunderball to be adapted to
film. SPECTRE was a creation between the two of them. After things blew up
between McClory and Fleming, McClory got the film rights to Thunderball where Fleming got the
literary rights. I was thinking about this the other day. It is a shame that
McClory, Broccoli and Saltzman could not find common ground. McClory worked on Thunderball but never for Eon again. I
don’t think him working on the films would have been a bad thing yet because
there was no compromise he kept showing up at regular basis up into the early
21st century trying to re-make Thunderball
over and over again as a rival Bond film.
Aesthetically,
one of the more interesting elements of the film is the unique text treatment
when we move from location to location. Each treatment tries to convey the feel
of the country around it is featuring. The film really takes off in Port au
Prince. Bond is trying to follow a lead to figure out more about Quantum. He
tracks down Edmund Slate in a hotel. In Slate’s room, a fight breaks out
between him and Bond. Slate gets cut in the jugular and dies. It is a pretty
graphic death. Slate just stares ahead confused and shocked by what is going on
around him until he dies. It’s a very serious moment. Bond doubles as Slate as
a car pulls up outside the hotel. It is a woman named Camille. After Camille
thinks Slate (Bond) is trying to kill her, she gets away from Bond but he
follows her straight to Dominic Greene. We find out that Greene is part of
Spectre (oops I mean Quantum) and that he is going to help an exiled Bolivian
General named Medrano. If Greene can get Medrano back in power for Bolivia,
Greene will receive a piece of land which seems to have nothing important to
it. Camille and Medrano have a connection as Medrano murdered Camille’s family
when she was young. After Bond follows Camille to a dock-compound he is not
allowed in but hands the guy at the front gate a card. It is a Universal Exports
Card which is the code name for the British Secret Service. I may be wrong here
but I swear the last time Universal Exports was used was in Licence to Kill.
As
the film progresses, Greene becomes aware of Bond. Greene meets up with the CIA
to talk about bringing Medrano as the dictator. While there, Greene asks CIA
Section Chief Gregg Beam to take care of Bond. In attendance is Felix Leiter. In
Austria Bond tracks down Greene at a performance of Tosca. Not only does he
track down Greene but realizes that the opera is a meeting place for Quantum. Many
members of the secret organization are in the audience secretly speaking with
each other through earpieces and wearing a Q badge on their lapel. People get
injured and killed with Bond being blamed completely for it. M has no other
choice but to recall Bond but he goes on the run. It is not so much about the
mission but to track down Vesper’s boyfriend.
Bond
seeks out the help of Mathis. Mathis is still pretty angry with Bond for
getting him arrested. In Casino Royale,
Bond says Mathis was working for Le Chiffre yet apparently it was not true. Now,
Bond has come to Mathis for help. I really like Mathis. He is intelligent and
very human. In Casino Royale I
couldn’t believe he would be a traitor and was relieved that ultimately he wasn’t.
Together they go to Bolivia to track Greene further. On the plane, Bond is seen
drinking a Vesper, the drink he created in Casino
Royale. It would be cool if this was Bond’s new drink and is featured by
name in other Bond films. At the airport
a woman by the name of Strawberry Fields is waiting for Bond to take him back
to the UK. Obviously Strawberry Fields is a name like Honey Ryder. Ms. Fields
has Strawberry coloured hair. They get to the hotel where Greene’s company
invited Bond to a party that night. Bond goes and sees Camille there. Greene
and Camille were once lovers and ever since Greene has been trying to kill her.
Unfortunately in another attempt to frame Bond, Greene has Mathis shot and
place him in the trunk of Bond’s car for the police to find. Something very
similar to what Mathis was doing in Casino
Royale. Mathis dies. It is sad
because he was such a good character. Bond’s reaction is cold. He takes Mathis’
body and sticks it into a dumpster and then takes any cash Mathis has on him.
Eventually,
after being on the run Bond returns to his hotel room to find M and a
contingent from the UK there to take him home. Bond also finds another surprise
which is the body of Strawberry Fields but she is completely covered oil. Oil
is also found in her lungs. It is said to be an homage to Goldfinger but why would a Bond film need to have an homage to
other Bond films? I never like overly self-indulgent sentiment.
Bond
and Camille find out that Greene is with Medrano in the Atacama Desert to
finalize the coup that will bring Medrano back into power. Camille is going to
kill Medrano and Bond will find Greene. At a hotel in the desert, the two men,
Medrano & Greene, discuss the plans but as Bond infiltrates and starts taking
revenge. During the fight, the hotel starts on fire. Bond and Camille barely
escape. They track down Greene who got out a little earlier. Bond drives Greene
out to the middle of the desert only to make Greene walk back to civilization….
if he can. Bond gives Greene motor oil to drink if he gets thrirsty in the
middle of the desert. It doesn’t matter, Greene is found dead with a gunshot to
the head. I like Greene. I think there is something interesting about having a
Bond villain who is actually a wimp. Greene is not a very strong person and he
really isn’t a match for Bond. He has his muscle from the people he employs. I
think Elliot Carver from Tomorrow Never
Dies is similar to that.
One
last piece of business which brings us not only to the beginning of the film
where M is trying to find the whereabouts of Vesper’s boyfriend but also to
where we left off with Casino Royale.
Bond tracks Vesper’s boyfriend Yusef to Russia. Yusef uses women for their
powerful connections. Yusef works for Quantum. Bond could have killed him but didn’t.
The British Secret Service takes Yusef away. Bond finally understands Vesper
better and forgives her for her betrayal. In an unprecedented move the gun barrel
sequence is at the end of the film and not at the beginning. It’s weird that it’s
there but it’s nice to see the classic gun barrel sequence again with Bond
wearing a tuxedo. It’s iconic!
The
film had some nice guest stars in it. Apart from the obvious such as Olga
Kurylenko and Mathieu Amalric there are some of my favourite actors such as Tim
Piggot-Smith who plays The British Secretary of State for Foreign Common Wealth
Affairs. He is excellent as he usually is in anything he touches. There is also
Rory Kinnear as Tanner. His father was Roy Kinnear who was in so many British
series from the 1970s and into early 1980s. Rory plays Tanner. I remembered
that Tanner was played by Michael Kitchen in the Brosnan era films so I was
surprised to see that Tanner appeared in films starting all the way back to The Man with the Golden Gun. He next
appeared in For Your Eyes Only,
Tanner was Bond’s superior instead of M. The previous film, Moonraker was the last film for Bernard
Lee as M before he passed away. Albert Broccoli wanted to show respect to Bernard
Lee by not having M in the next film. After that Tanner appears in GoldenEye and The World is Not Enough.
Like
this article, Quantum of Solace is
only alright; it could have been better. Its heart is in the right place but in
my mind fails to capture the real grandeur of film making that we saw in Casino Royale. As usual Daniel Craig is
excellent in this. I think the main problems with this film are that the quest
for water isn’t particular compelling and I think the direction tries to be too
clever but doesn’t quite work. That being said, I cannot wait for Skyfall! Bring it on!
Have
a great week!
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