Review: Quantum of Solace

Film: Quantum of Solace
Director: Marc Forster
Screenwriters: Paul Haggis, Neal Purvis & Robert Wade
Primary Cast: Daniel Craig, Olga Kurylenko, Mathieu Amalric

Review Summary: I still don’t like the new direction of the Bond franchise, and QoS is no where near as strong a movie as Casino Royale was.

I guess I didn’t review Casino Royale, so I’ll summarize my thoughts on it, as much of that initial review will apply to this one as well. First and foremost, I am not convinced that this was the right direction to take the Bond franchise. I understand the desire to rewind and start from scratch with a new generation of viewers, and the choice see the new, young, raw, vengeful Agent 007 transform into the smooth and suave James Bond that we all know and love is loaded with potential. But until that transformation begins – and so far, two films into the “new Bond” era, it hasn’t begun – until it begins the franchise is reduced to the “just another Hollywood action film” genre. And while Casino Royale was a decent Hollywood action film, it was a very poor Bond movie.

Quantum of Solace, on the other hand, wasn’t even a very good Hollywood action movie. The difference between the two falls on two serious shortcomings. The first stumbling block is the script. The only script element I didn’t care for was how heavily dependent it was upon Casino Royale, but make no mistake… this script is, from top to bottom, a classic Bond story. Extravagant chase scenes, evil masterminds hell-bent on world domination, you name it, the stuff that built Bond for 20 films is jam packed into QoS. But remember… they’ve rewound the franchise and started from scratch. You can’t just drop a new attitude on an old package and expect everything to fit. This would have been a terrific film for the Connery era Bond, or even the Dalton era. But with the changes in attitude of the franchise, it simply doesn’t work. At all.

And the reason it doesn’t work lies almost solely with the direction of Marc Forster. He’s a good director. I loved Monster’s Ball and Finding Neverland. But his lack of experience with action movies was evident from the very first scene. In fact, the action scenes continually caused me to flash back to the Jason Bourne franchise, and not in a good way. I found it disappointingly obvious that Forster set up QoS to emulate the style and rhythm of Bourne. And not only did he fail to pull it off, it’s a style that isn’t right for Bond, anyway. Bond isn’t reality. Never has been, and never should be. It’s over-the-top super-spy kind of stuff. It deals in extremes and stereotypes, not in nuance and idiosyncrasy.

And that is why, I think, this plan of transforming the franchise will ultimately fail. If they try to show some kind of character growth from film to film, they will need to explore the nuances of the Bond character. They will need to establish the why’s and wherefore’s that turned Bond into the cavorting, misogynistic playboy that we all, somehow, came to love. And I think that if those questions get answered in the current gritty, “realistic” style that they are pursuing, the character at the end of the transformation will appear to be more anti-hero than hero. And that, in my mind, just isn’t James Bond.