This evening with friends I revisited the latest Bond flick, Quantum of Solace, having dutifully lived up to my lifelong affinity for the coolest of cinematic spies by viewing the film during its cinematic release. Since I knew this time around to expect more of an episodic installment than a compelling stand-alone story, I enjoyed the film much more. 
While the idea of eco-terrorism (ecological and economic) might potentially inspire a thrilling plot, here it serves only to confound and eventually disappoint, in part perhaps because it is too plausible. Traditionally, Bond villains strain credibility, if they don’t utterly destroy it. Looking to mirror the gritty realism now given the Bond character, the villainy to be found in Quantum of Solace is a bit too amorphous.
We start with Mr. White, since the action of the film starts literally seconds after Bond tracks him down at the end of Casino Royale, and then shift to Mr. Green, played by Mathieu Amalric, whose work in The Diving Bell and the Butterfly was superb. Here we’re supposed to be intrigued by the idea that no one knows whose dirty (or dirtier), but the Mr. Green character fails to excite or sufficiently entertain. The real villain, apparently, is the shadowy “Quantum” organization to which both color-named men belong. Again, we’re meant to be intrigued by the fact that we don’t know what the organization is about. Instead, it seems clear that the screenwriters haven’t yet developed a profile for “Quantum.”
As Bond, Daniel Craig continues to perfectly deliver the updated James Bond that, prior to Casino Royale, we didn’t know we needed. While not very well signposted as such, this film exists primarily for Bond to bring reckoning to those who wronged him in in the prior film. Keeping that in mind, and with the freedom to essentially disregard the plot that thinly envelopes the action, Quantum of Solace is good fun. Hopefully, though, the next installment will deliver on the high expectations created by the Craig’s first outing as 007. Hopefully we’ll also get more of Felix Leiter, since Jeffrey Wright is one of the most underrated actors working today.
Here are this morning’s Oscar-nominated films, alphabetically. The nominees for foreign language film and documentary feature are compiled at the end of the list. (Short format nominees are listed in a 
0 responses so far ↓
There are no comments yet... Leave one in the space below.
Leave a Comment