Youniverse Movie Blog: Quantum of Solace [The Review]

After the death of girlfriend Vesper Lynd at the conclusion of Casino Royale, James Bond hunts down the shadowy group that blackmailed Lynd to betray him. Uniquely in the canon this is a follow-on mere minutes on from the former outing, a second time round for the slightly nasty Bond inaugurated by Daniel Craig. But what does Quantum of Solace actually mean?

Beginning with a car chase in Italy, the action doesn’t let up from the beginning as Bond fends of machine-gun wielding pursuing villains in their Alfa Romeos and ends up in an M16 base in Siena. There his captive reveals the existence of a sinister, clandestine organization which M (played again by Judi Dench) instructs Bond to investigate, horrified that she has no knowledge of this group or its scale of influence. M herself nearly dies as her own bodyguard springs the captive during questioning; the trail leads to Bolivia and a man called Dominic Greene (Matthieu Amalric) who is using the developing world eco-crisis to feather his criminal nest. This is a Bond film all about – water. Not diamonds, oil or uranium. Water.

There’s a long and glorious history of Bond villains but this is the first film to give them a reality check; this villain doesn’t weep blood, or sport titanium teeth, or even stroke a cat. This villain could be a Wall Street trader, a classic corporate psychopath adept at keeping ahead of the game. The Bond girl formula remains fairly unchanged – there’s Olga Kurylenko as Camille and Gemma Arterton as the tragic Agent Fields, whose death, already spread over the internet, references the ormulu assassination in Goldfinger.

There are plenty of chases, an early one through Siena during the Palio horse-racing annual event, and a pleasingly anachronistic one where Bond pilots an old cargo plane and is pursued by a propeller-driven fighter plane. Director Mark Forster doesn’t mess around with the editing – some of it is so fast it’s actually hard to follow, with edit upon edit lasting just a few seconds.

Craig, for my money, remains the best Bond since Sean Connery, and nothing about this film is going to damage that reputation. So much of the Bond films is not in its action sequences but its depiction of the international jet set high-life, and the luxurious hotels he checks into (in one amusing sequence refusing to settle to a flea pit because it suits his cover story) certainly fit the bill for vicarious pleasure. Craig brings a meaty charm to his Bond, who by this point is fairly demented from lack of sleep, grief and a desire for vengeance.

Memorable moments include a Godfather-like meeting of villains during a huge public performance of Tosca - this sequence recalls Moore-era Bond with a touch of Hannibal Lecter about it. Humor is fairly thin on the ground, but, despite the claims of Geoffrey Mcnab on The Independent, it’s there. There's a delicate balancing act between faintly preposterous situations and a genuine feeling of imminent peril. At least, post Bourne Identity, the actual hand-to-hand fighting is better to watch, and better choreographed. Bond deals in adrenaline, not life and death. Bond is never going to die.

The truth about Bond is that its machine. It's a huge, sleek vending machine. It may be famous for its product placements - its Omega watches, its high-end cars (Fords here - not very sexy), its suits and loafers, its hotels, its gold, its holiday venues. Fanciful gadgets have been phased out, mainly because you can't sell them.

The Bond franchise also a huge product placement for Pinewood, the British studio where it always takes place, and a single self-refreshing product for Eon productions who make it. Recently I met Marc Forster on a huge corporate junket; that I was supposed to interview him without seeing the film was proof to me that it wasn't ever intended to be a film. It's pure product. It's auto-merchandising taken to a level of art.

The feeling of watching Bond, unless you happen to be a psychopath, is being co-opted into a huge piece of rolling machinery with its destination always fixed and its definition of sexy corporate, glassy and ever so slightly dead.

Quantum of Solace? I’ve read up extensively on this title, and asked Forster when I met him a few weeks ago. It’s taken from a short fiction by Ian Fleming, the original writer of Bond. It means a fleeting moment of comfort. And in this Bond, the fleeting moments of comfort he gains come, without doubt, from the kills he makes.

Stars: *** Out of Five

Verdict: Bound to be overpraised, the fate of all Bond films.