Beginner’s Bond: Quantum of Solace
This “Beginner’s Bond” series is about closing the largest gap in this film nerd’s personal cinematic knowledge: the James Bond franchise. In pursuit of this goal, I am watching all of the Bond movies in order (mostly) for the very first time, and sharing my honest reactions here. In the last installment, I discovered that 2006’s Casino Royale was a little long, but had otherwise aged rather well and was still a lot of fun. Will 2008’s Quantum of Solace be able to avoid the sophomore slump and reach new heights?
Sort of. But not really.
Quantum of Solace begins with a bang, joining 007 in the middle of a high speed car chase through scenic Italy. Bond delivers his prisoner to a secret interrogation with M. They learn of the existence and the reach of a secret criminal organization, which is demonstrated when M’s personal bodyguard turns on them, killing the prisoner before attempting to flee. During a reckless pursuit that nearly destroys a historical building, the traitor is killed. Bond sifts through the traitor’s contacts until he finds a lead that sends him to Haiti. He “rescues” Camille Montes from her assassination attempt on General Medrano in an explosive boat chase. Once they are safely away, she reveals that so-called environmentalist entrepreneur Dominic Greene has agreed to help Medrano overthrow the Bolivian government in exchange for a barren stretch of desert. Bond follows Greene to the opera and uses a stolen earpiece to identify the key leadership of Quantum, the mysterious organization behind all of this. There’s another gunfight and 007 is blamed for killing a member of Special Branch who was actually executed by Greene’s bodyguard to hide his involvement.
M tries to recall 007, but he refuses to obey and stays on the hunt. She has all of his support—passports, documents, identities, payment cards—revoked. Of all the many times James Bond has “gone rogue” in the series, this is the first movie where that has any consequences. It’s only a minor convenience at first, with him having to charter a boat instead of flying to his next destination. Although he is back to wearing tailored suits and drinking martinis in expensive hotels rather quickly, Bond has to avoid the authorities and his former colleagues for the rest of the movie. It rarely happens, so it is quite interesting to see James Bond negotiate a situation where he can’t simply kill everybody.
When James and Camille try to survey Quantum’s Bolivian acquisition from the air, their plane is shot down. They make a crash landing in a sinkhole, where they discover what Dominic Greene is really after: an underground lake that represents over 60% of the country’s freshwater supply. Once General Medrano takes over the country, Quantum will make a fortune selling the Bolivians’ own water back to them at extortionate prices. All of this leads to an ultimate showdown in an abandoned hotel out in the middle of the Atacama Desert. Apparently the building ran on some seriously unstable fuel cells that were just waiting for the slightest tap to explode into flames. The bad guys get killed, the good guys escape. Camille gets her vengeance on Medrano. Dominic is left to die of thirst in the desert, which might be the most poetic end of any Bond villain in the entire franchise.
Quantum of Solace tries really hard to be an upgrade from Casino Royale. It wants to be a leaner, faster, more streamlined action movie. It starts with its foot literally on the gas, and never lets up. Bond rarely gets more than a page of dialogue before the next brutal fight or epic set piece begins. The movie begins in the middle of a car chase, which eventually turns into a foot chase. Then there is a boat chase, and an airplane chase as well! Honestly, I’m shocked they didn’t find a way to wedge another ski chase in there somewhere. Maybe Daniel Craig just doesn’t like to ski as much as Roger Moore.
Quantum of Solace also strives to be more relevant and grounded than its predecessor by making the villain an unremarkable businessman who simply sought to exploit a basic human need (water) for profit. Dominic Greene has no weird deformity, no notable skills, no remarkable henchmen, not even a funny accent. His final battle with Bond looks more like a child throwing a tantrum than a fight between adults. Unfortunately, this makes Greene’s evil so banal as to be completely forgettable, and as a result the main conflict of the movie gets sidelined by Camille’s personal grudge match with Medrano.
While Quantum of Solace is no doubt the faster, more efficient super spy action movie, it cut away a bit too much. The stunt work continues to be impressive, but there’s less story holding it all together this time. Bond’s entire character journey is completely internal—he’s trying to decide whether or not he can forgive Vesper for betraying him in the previous film. That’s a conflict for a novel, where you can spend paragraphs or even chapters interrogating a character’s innermost motivations. Not a movie where something needs to explode every fifteen minutes.
In conclusion, Quantum of Solace wasn’t as good as Casino Royale, but it’s not a bad movie. The fact that the script was finished during a writer’s strike definitely shows in a dragging third act. But I have consistently heard that 2012’s Skyfall is one of the best, so I’m excited to check it out!
