Quantum of Solace

So a long, long time ago, I told you guys that the next movie on my list was Quantum of Solace. I had just finished reviewing Casino Royale and I told myself that I was going to review all the Daniel Craig James Bond movies.

As you can see, that never happened.

But I don't know how long this James Bond/ Spy kick is going to last and I would feel more dishonest than I already do if I failed to sit through this movie and give you my honest opinion on it.

Quantum of Solace was the second installment of the James Bond franchise with Daniel Craig headlining as the main character. It came after the incredibly renown reboot Casino Royale and while it was good to get another Daniel Craig Bond, the world unanimously agreed that Quantum of Solace was just not as good as Casino Royale.

But is the unanimous cry of the world right? Is Quantum of Solace a bad film? Is it the worst of Daniel Craig's Bond films?

Well I'm going to answer that question right here and now, while I haven't seen Spectre, of the three I have seen, I can say with full confidence, yes it is the worst of Daniel Craig's Bond films. But I don't necessarily think its a bad film. Quantum of Solace is actually an interesting concept and direction for a Bond film. I will say however that the movie is overall... confusing and in a sense, incomplete.

The movie takes an interesting step and sets itself directly after the events of Casino Royale. Now sequels that choose this place in the movie's timeline do face a little bit of a complex of having a hand tied behind their back. It happened with Back to the Future 2, and while I consider that a good movie, it does suffer a little bit by not having the freedom to start their story however they want. They must begin at this point and make the beginning the other movie set up work for them in their own movie.

Is this Quantum of Solace's biggest problem? No. But it does create problems for later in the film.

M (played by Judi Dench) and Bond find themselves in the middle of an MI6 that seems to have been compromised by a secret organization. They never really reveal what this organization's name is (though I think it eventually ties into Spectre, but that's just speculation as I haven't seen it yet). But this organization was behind the events of Casino Royale.

This is an example of how the movie stumbles being chained to the ending of Casino Royale.

First off, the movie stumbles to make its own story because Bond needs to help explain to the audience how the events of Casino Royale connect to Dominic Green and the plot with Greene's organization (we'll get to that in a second)

Also, the movie stumbles on itself connecting this secret organization to Vesper (played by Eva Green in the previous movie) and Bond's apparent search for revenge. The connection is there, but the movie wastes time reminding us on how exactly their connected. And unless you watched the movies back to back, you may forget some of the key details connecting the two storylines.

So Bond eventually connects this organization to a businessman/philanthropist named Dominic Green (played by Mathieu Amalric). Now this is where the movie gets a little bit confusing. Greene's company is in the business of helping dictators take over countries like Bolivia. In return for his services, Greene is purchasing land that seems useless but is revealed to be quintessential locations of water, something that he will use to control these countries he holds land in.

Sorry if that's a spoiler, but its essential to tell you the plot in order for you to really understand why this movie is so confusing, and why it just didn't fly as well as Casino Royale and Skyfall.

See Dominic Greene is by no means any kind of evil mastermind. He's more a good example of a corrupt corporate mind. Which makes it very strange when he starts swinging an axe at Bond and screaming like Gollum.

There's this weird environmental warning throughout the film that even when I watched this movie in 2008 I thought was weird. I mean I get that he's kind of the environmentalist gone mad with power, but I guess you'd never think that James Bond would be going up against an eco-terrorist.

The other bad guy is a Bolivian dictator who really only has two scenes. He's important to the plot, but he's kind of more in the movie because they needed the big scary guy who kind of resembles the henchmen Bond used to go up against.

And so, Greene's plot is confusing in itself. But you put on top of that, the secret organization that is a big part of the first act and then disappear into the wind during the rest of the movie, and the movie desperately trying to tie in Bond's journey of revenge because of how he was scared by Vesper in Casino Royale.

And speaking of which, let's talk about that.

Listen, I loved the relationship between Bond and Vesper. I think its one of the biggest shames that Bond is such a ladies man and Vesper had to go because I would have loved to see her return.

However, this movie doesn't quite want to decide whether or not this is going to be a small personal story about Bond choosing between his duty to MI6 or his desire for revenge, of if its going to be a political action thriller about conflict water and environmentalism.

I would have loved to have this movie be a very personal story. Perhaps have Bond tracking down Vesper's boyfriend, that would have made the ending scene where you wonder whether or not he's going to kill him or not mean a lot more. Throughout that you can delve into a bigger plot that Bond needs to foil, but this could have been a more personal tale. Or it could have been Bond unraveling the mystery of this secret organization, the organization that was responsible for murdering the only woman Bond seemed to love, even that would have been more personal.

But instead they focus in on Dominic Greene, a guy who has literally nothing to do with the events of Casino Royale, and they deal with political coup d'etats and environmental messages. Everything that was hinted at being in the sequel at the end of Casino Royale was either totally forgotten, or shoehorned in whenever there was dead space and forgotten about when the writers wanted to talk about this weird Wormtongue looking guy.

But let's talk about the Bond woman in this movie.

Olga Kurylenko plays a Bolivian agent with a personal vendetta against that dictator that I mentioned before. And I'm gonna be honest, I kind of wanted to see her more than I wanted to see her and her story unfold more than I wanted to see whatever this movie was trying to pull with Dominic Greene.

I like Olga. I think around this time she was really the hip new thing and she was in everything right before she was in nothing, but unfortunately, this movie and its writing just doesn't help her very much.

Everytime I watch this though I do enjoy the relationship that her and Bond share. There's only a little bit of a sexual draw to the two of them and their more kindred spirits when it comes to their desire for revenge.

On a second watch, I liked Olga's performance a lot more and think its unfortunate her initial rise to fame was cut short by poorly written movies like this one. She just made some bad decisions.

And then there was Gemma Arterton. This was a character that always confused me because she really had an incredibly small part. On a second watch, I realize that she's not an Agent, she was never going to have any kind of action segment, and she's just kind of a spunky redhead... who gets brutally murdered with oil.

While I think Gemma was really just an opportunity the movie took to give a nod to some of the tropes of the original franchise, Gemma Arteron's character really had a very short run and I don't even think people really remember her that much. Which is a shame because I like her. She, like Olga, was kind of popular at the time and probably got roped into it because she thought it would be a good career move to get involved with a big blockbuster film franchise like Bond. Unfortunately, it had to be the one that was focused on the environment.

The one other performance I'll mention isn't even a woman. Its Giancarlo Giannini who reprised his role as Rene Mathis. I didn't mention it in my Casino Royale review, but I really liked Giancarlo's performance in that movie. I liked it again in this one and I thought it was an interesting to bring back a character like that.

The problem with it is that they reset everything that was set up in Casino Royale. I thought it was a great development that he was the one who betrayed Bond and I think they could have kept that going. It would have showed how far Bond was willing to go to get revenge, even if it meant working with someone who betrayed him.

And even if they didn't want to go down that road, they could have utilized Mathis a lot more instead of literally and figuratively throwing him in a dumpster when the plot no longer needed him.

He really only served the purpose to remind the audience that Vesper was a thing and that we'll get to that before the end of the film. A lot of this character is never explained and he goes away very quickly, just like a lot of the characters in this movie.

And that's the unfortunate part about this movie. It had a good cast, it had a lot of good direction, but it didn't take that direction. It was basically a lay up set up by the writers of Casino Royale but all that was thrown away for a totally different plot, which is weird because it was the same writers for both films!

But I think the part that gets a lot of the viewers the most is, this doesn't feel like a James Bond film.

Look back at my explanation of Dominic Greene's evil plan. He's helping a dictator take control of Bolivia so that he can have control of the countries water supply and control conflict and power in the area. This isn't the plot of a meglomanic or a criminal mastermind, this is an overly political plot. It involves the secret interests of the United States, the CIA, and England. It deals with international control and popularity. While this might make for a good Bourne flick, throwing a spy in the middle of a political thriller, it doesn't fit as a plot for a James Bond film. Even in the era of Casino Royale which was less campy and more gritty, this movie goes one step further and makes this about politics. Which I guess would have been okay, if it had made a lick of sense. But on top of the fact that it didn't, this isn't what we pay for when we order James Bond tickets, this isn't what we want when we put in a 007 feature. Definitely an interesting way to take the franchise and I think with different execution it could have possibly worked, but as it is, Quantum of Solace is a movie that tried to do something different and failed. And while I can't totally blame them for trying, the movie is the worst of the Daniel Craig Bond movies for a reason.

But those are my thoughts on Quantum of Solace. What do you think? Comment and Discuss below. You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @cmhaugen24, as well as requests for future movies I should review. If you want updates on future movie news and reviews, follow me. You'll also probably get live tweets and early thoughts that usually end up on these blogs from my live tweeting of movies I do every once in a while.

I'll leave you with this. In case you're like me and haven't seen Spectre, and need a recap of all the movies leading up to Spectre... for some reason, here's a video of Daniel Craig's career in 7 minutes. Enjoy!