QUANTUM OF SOLACE

Release Date:	November 14, 2008
Directed by:	Marc Forster
Genre:	Action/Adventure/Thriller
Starring:	Daniel Craig, Olga Kurylenko, Mathieu Amalric, Judi Dench, Gemma Arteron & Jeffrey Wright
Approx. Runtime:	106 min.
MPAA Rating:	PG-13 for Intense Sequences of Violence and Action, and Some Sexual Content

“A grim man and a grim movie for grim times?”Though it’s unmistakably Bond in the leading role, Quantum of Solace–the second 007 revival of the Daniel Craig era–barely feels like a Bond film. Gone now is the electric synergy and glow that made its fabulous 2006 predecessor, Casino Royale, one of the long running series’ most predominant stand outs. Gone, too, is the Bond we’ve come to know and love from the 60's, 70's and 80's through the varying interpretations of Sean Connery, George Lazenby, Roger Moore and Timothy Dalton. While even the worst of the Bond pictures before it had a style to distinguish them from their genre cohorts, newbie director Marc Forster and his producers have crafted a super-serious, often narratively incoherent ramshackle of an action thriller, mapped as a pathetically immodest travelogue of revenge, anger and philosophical deliberation.

The 22^nd installment in the series canon since its inception in 1962, Quantum of Solace picks up more or less where its predecessor left off: one very pissed off James Bond seeking revenge for the death of his lover, Vesper Lynd, fighting the unstoppable urge of making his latest mission a personal one.

Pursing their determination to uncover the truth behind her betrayal and death, Bond and M. interrogate the mysterious Mr. White (no Reservoir Dogs connection), who reveals that the organization who blackmailed Vesper prior to her murder is a more complex and dangerous threat than they possibly could have imagined. When forensic evidence links Vesper’s murder to ruthless businessman and environmentalist Dominic Greene, Bond is inadvertently lead to the sexy but dangerous Camille, played by the quickly blossoming Ukrainian talent Olga Kurylenko. Meanwhile, M. is given an opportunity to get out from behind her desk when she is pressured from her superiors to rein in 007–which has become to Bond franchise what Hogwarts has long been for that of J.K. Rowling’s respective Harry Potter universe.

Allying with a handful familiar friends in his seemingly apocalyptic search for truth, Bond moves closer to finding the men responsible for the tragedies whilst keeping one step ahead of the CIA and a covert terrorist operation to unravel Greene’s sinister plan and expose his foes–all in the name of vengeance.

Basically, where ever Bond goes he’s pissed off. He’s Pierce Brosnan on steroids. He’s Chuck Norris on speed. No audience member would ever want to have to endure what Mr. Craig has to go through in the mass chaos that is the summative entirety of Quantum of Solace: a car chase, a car wreck and an upside down ninja duel strung from a rope, among other harsh atrocities–and we’re only talking the first 20 minutes here! With focus drawn so narrowly upon its high octane action sequences, the majority of the set pieces–plentiful in their noisy abundance–are frantic and disoriented and hard on the senses. Playing plot fiddle to its incoherent–if elaborately theorized–action set pieces, Quantum of Solace strips its predecessor of whatever wit, elegance and class it sought so desperately to achieve.

Even before breaking into its stylish opening credits sequence (performed by the dueling young talents of Jack White and Alicia Keys), Quantum of Solace lays its brutality on thickly, hewing into the previous pictures breathtaking finale with a high speed chase with lots of collisions and things exploding in spectacular spirals of flame and fire through shots of split second intervals with strategic urgency and thrill but little genuine energy. An inexperienced refugee of modern art house cinema, I suppose the main fault to be dealt in regards to the pictures many failures goes to its director Marc Forster, who received strong critical acclaim for his less commercial fare of late, Monster’s Ball and Stay. Having never directed an action sequence in his life, Forster would appear to be taking ques from veteran Bourne director Paul Greengrass with little or none of the same success: shake the camera as much as possible and, to obscure things even more, allow no individual cut to last more than half of a second. It’s an approach we’ve never seen in relation to Bond and it’s one I hope never to confront again. Like its protagonist, this is a Bond with a great body, but no soul.

Anchored by the sure handed craftmanship of Bond returnees Daniel Craig and Judi Dench, Quantum of Solace will forever be remembered as the Bond that took the ingredients of vintage Bond cocktail and all but discarded them. Void of the franchises trademark catchphrases–"Bond. James Bond," "shaken, not stirred"–this latest picture shows Bond at his coldest. Sullen and pessimistic, perhaps this is the right Bond for our time. If not merely somber of his recent personal disposition and philosophical inclination, there is a perpetual undercurrent of disaster stalking his every footfall. Bond has lost the love of his life. He’s depressed and half mad in his state of jaded emotional derangement. Where, then, is the Bond that I happened to know and love growing up as a child? The smooth, sexy burly beast of a man who wanted to save the world from catastrophic self-demise, engage in hot casual sex with beautiful women, travel to exotic locations and take out the bad guys with a few cleverly devised gadgets whilst allotting time for a few heated sessions of Baccarat along the way?

A grim man and a grim movie for grim times, you say? If that be Mr. Forster’s intent, I fear this territory already conquered within the anemic inner catacombs Chrisopher Nolan’s morally motivated masterpiece The Dark Knight–a full blooded crime epic as teeming and toxic as the mind of its psychologically convoluted villains, material or lack thereof.

No one here is going to be calling Quantum of Solace a must see. So call it a could see. For, though you’d hardly know it, it’s still Bond–as sleek and stylish as ever–and that alone that should make it worth the full price of admission.

B-