Goodness, is it ever easy to lose track of time and ignore one of these things, especially when one is burdened with my debilitating lack of focus on, dedication to or interest in anything. Alas, Poor Yorick (that's what I call the blog*), you'll have to learn to live with neglect, just like my bookshelf, running shoes and exercise equipment.
Anyway, a few thoughts, observations, opinions and ruminations.
Quantum of Solace. I'm sure anyone with an interest has already either 1. seen the movie or 2. read a review of it, but goddamnit you're here for a reason, and it certainly isn't my stylish prose. A friend told me he liked the laid-back tone to the thing, that it was just there to say "Hey everybody, I'm a fucking James Bond movie, remember how fun these can be?" I think making that argument in the movie's defense is just as lame as Ebert saying he enjoyed Kingdom of the Crystal Prairie Dog because it felt like Indy was in the seat next to you, laughing knowingly. Quantum of Solace isn't a winking throwback to the old-school style of Bond's heyday in the '60s, it's a regressive slump back into his dreadful outings in the 90s.
I say that and I actually liked the movie. The new movie continues the relaunched series' trend of ripping off the Bourne films as much as possible, but that's a good thing. Bourne (mostly the sequels, though props to Doug Liman for setting the standard that Greengrass so brilliantly expanded, contracted and perfected) has been the best thing to happen to action movies since Die Hard (why not) , so why shouldn't the all-but-dead (creatively) Bond franchise adopt and absorb Matt Damon's kinetic fights and foot chases and hyper-real no nonsense tone? Of course, I'd rather future Bond-helmer's were a little less transparent in their "homage" to Jason B. than director Marc Forster is here. We have all the requisite Bourne beats: super-fast hand-to-hand combat that becomes knife vs. (insert random weaponizable object), hectic foot chases, a hectic foot chase across rooftops, an agent on the run from "the good guys," and emotional impotence. You might contest that the James Bond character has always been emotionally impotent, but at least he always got laid; this go 'round, the dude only nails one of the two wicked hot Bond girls, and has absolutely zero chemistry with the neglected one, despite an obligatory kiss at the end.
Really though, I liked the movie! (Okay, I'm going to get through the next paragraph without saying anything negative...) There really is plenty to like here. With the exception of a fucking horrific boat chase and an absurd fight amidst an inexplicably** exploding hotel at the finale, the action is terrific here, even better than in Casino Royale. Marc Forster has a nice eye for shooting action (actually I think he borrowed one of Paul Greengrass's), making for one of the better looking Bond films. More importantly, Forster keeps things moving along quickly, never letting (most) audiences notice how crushingly drama-free the movie's A-to-B-to-C plot is. On the topic of the screenplay (staying positive), we're two movies in now and I feel like Paul Haggis' highly publicized re-writes were for dialogue only (which remains as sharp as last time), never actually tackling the dreadful structure of the Craig-era scripts.
Really, I was trying to be positive.
Still, Forster smartly uses the movie's not so secret secret weapon: it's star. If Daniel Craig owned Casino Royale, then he fucking whips the shit out of Quantum of Solace and puts it to work in the goddamn fields. The guy is the ONLY thing keeping this movie from falling to fucking pieces. He's so good in this part that he's able to cobble together a slight character arc from nothing, expressed only through his performance. The script gives him nothing, and Craig makes nothingade. If you see it (or have seen it), just consider where Bond is emotionally at the beginning and the end of the film, and show me where that's developed in anything other than Craig's eyes.
For what the script fails to achieve in plotting or character, it succeeds in giving James Bond his first ever complex world view. The movie all but abandons the franchise's traditional cartoon villains and broad-stroke international landscape, instead opting for shades of gray all over. There's a neat (if wholly unoriginal) twist where the Americans turn out to GASP! be in bed with shady mother fuckers (the titular "Quantum," which itself has nothing to do with any solace) in exchange for oil. Nothing new, I know, but it was fun was watching M discover that the Brits are just as cock-hungry for oil as the movies' new go-to villain, the CIA. The whole thing dies when Quantum's inane plan is finally (and poorly) revealed, but it was nice to see James Bond grow up just a little bit.
Yes, I've completely failed to be a helpful reviewer, especially since I've done nothing but rag on a movie I really did like. The action kicks ass (even if James Bond has discovered super-human strength), Craig rules, the supporting cast is way better than the script deserves and the movie offers more to chew on than Bond flicks usually do, though far less than the superior Bourne sequels. It's still a huge step backwards from the refreshingly character-driven Casino Royale, but Quantum of Solace delivers the bare minimum of a Bond film: action, espionage, and Bond. We could do worse.
*Because its occasionally resurrected from a filthy grave and gazed upon mournfully. Obviously.
**At least, it would be inexplicable in an older Bond film, but this more grounded take on 007 feels the need to explain to the audience why the building is perpetually exploding, even though anyone who's ever seen a noisy action movie already knows why - because it has to.
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