Coming off of Casino Royale, a critically praised reinvention of the James Bond series, expectations were high for Daniel Craig's second outing, Quantum of Solace. Would it be like The Dark Knight and improve on its predecessor? Would it hold up to action rival The Bourne Ultimatum? Or, with all the expectations, would it be bound to disappoint? The answer may well be the latter, but at least it disappointed in true Bond-ian fashion.
As irrelvant (and forgettable) as Bond plots are, I'll give it a shot. After the death of true love/betrayor Vesper Lynd in Casino Royale, Bond is on the warpath. A big chase scene leads to Bond interrogating Mr. White, a man involved in Vesper's death. When he hints at a powerful organization MI6 has never heard of, Bond's back in the field, getting answers and leaving bodies, much to M (Judi Dench)'s dismay. The plot all leads to Mathieu Amalric (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly)'s weak-willed businessman, Dominic Greene, out to exploit countries for oil, or water, or something (who cares). In pursuing Greene, Bond has MI6 and the CIA after him, including American buddy Felix (Jeffrey Wright). But he does have two lovely ladies to help him out: Camille (Olga Kurylenko) and Fields (Gemma Arterton).
More than villains and Bond girls, the biggest staff change here is behind the camera. Rather than employing a veteran action director like Casino Royale's Martin Campbell (Goldeneye), the producers went with Marc Forster, best known for subpar literary films like The Kite Runner, Finding Neverland, and Monster's Ball. To his credit, he handles the action surprisingly well. The chase scenes are fun and frequent, occurring by foot, car, boat, and plane(yes, that's right, plane). He does get too overzealous with the cutting though. In one scene, the movie cuts so rapidly between a shoot-out and an opera that it's hard to tell what's going on. This isn't The Godfather's baptism scene, it's a Bond movie. He needs to learn the difference.
With all of those chase scenes, comparisons with the Bourne movies are inevitable. I for one think they are largely overblown. Bond was doing chase scenes decades before Jason Bourne was hatched from his robot shell. It doesn't help though that two scenes are ripped nearly identically from the Bourne movies. When Bond chases a guy from rooftop to rooftop and kills another within a small apartment, you'll wonder which series you're watching.
The movie's greatest faults are less with copying Bourne and more from being too reliably Bond (beyond an obvious wink to Goldfinger). Amalric's villain fights Bond with the same crazed desperation as the Joker in The Dark Knight, but he seems unlikely to be remembered alongside Oddjob and Jaws. Kurylenko and Arterton are attractive enough, but can't hold up next to Eva Green. Quantum of Solace is even less memorable for being a bit of a middle child. The movie is all about tying up loose ends from Casino Royale and setting up new ones for the film to come. And while Jack White's "Another Way to Die" is hardly the travesty that was Madonna's "Die Another Day," it's a far leap from Chris Cornell's "You Know My Name."
So with all these faults, why do I give Quantum of Solace a B? Because it's a James Bond movie, and unless there's an invisible car I'm going to thoroughly enjoy it. He may not say "Bond. James Bond" or "Shaken, not stirred." There may still be no Q (hopefully they'll fix that for next time). But the action scenes, the witty one-liners, the parental interactions with M, and the amazing theme music are all still there. Like most Bond movies, I'll have forgotten everything about it within a month. But I'll remember having a good time while watching.
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