YouSeenThat.com: Film Review
Quantum of Solace
by Jamie - December 6th 2008
He's not a Bond villain. He's just a very naughty boy!
 |
I hate chores. I'll do them if I have to, but I sure as shit won't be caught whistling Zippity-Do-Dah while I go about them, akin to some sort of pale-skinned Uncle Remus on crack. I can't quite seem to be able to put my finger on it, but Quantum of Solace felt like one long 109 minute chore - a reaction that is surprisingly rare, especially given some of the tripe I often have to endure in the name of entertainment. This film was downright painful - about as painful as the three minutes I spent with my fingers in my ears, smashing my head into the back of cinema wall in order to block out that absolutely dreadful Bond theme song. I was smashing my head into the wall so hard that a friend in the same row about four seats down commented on the amazing bass vibrating through the sound system - it was just my brain trying to escape my cranium. As the theme song goaded, I really wish some prick would have offered me 'Another Way to Die', because I would have taken the option right then and there, without hesitation. The horror. In comparison, even slipping into the cinemas crappers and giving them a good scrub with a toothbrush would have probably felt about as satisfying as a threesome with Scarlett Johansen and Jessica Alba.
It almost felt like as painful as being repeatedly smashed in the pills with a piece of rope. Almost.
For all those lucky sods who have been living in a Unabomber-style shack in the middle of the woods for the last few years, Quantum of Solace picks-up almost immediately after the 2006 franchise reboot, Casino Royale. Seeking revenge for the death of Vesper Lynd, James Bond (Daniel Craig) must now turn his attention to stopping environmentalist, Dominic Greene (Mathieu Amalric), from taking control of a country's water supply. Cue the sound of tumbleweed and/or crickets.
 |
Bond reminds me of a bad relationship: you fall in love with this cool, fun guy, but you quickly see through the whole act, to the point where the guy just starts to get on your tits. Maybe it's time to go your separate ways? After Tomorrow Never Dies, I vowed to never watch another modern James Bond film again. Nothing against Pierce Brosnan, but after enduring the over-the-top rubbish that was being pumped out with our Irish friend at the helm, I gave up on 007 all together. I didn't want to have my heart broken again. Maybe it was the fact that I had grown out of the whole teenage fascination with the misogynistic martini-swilling agent, or maybe it was the fact that I was sick to death of watching Brosnan defeat an entire evil organisation without even getting out of his gadgeted car - regardless of the motivating factor, the whole shebang just wasn't doing it for me anymore. Let's face it, Bond films just regurgitate the same tired formulae over and over and over again. I craved to see a new, fresh take on Bond: I wanted dark and gritty action without the need to appease the popcorn-swilling morons via the use of enough explosives to level a third-world nation. It took almost a decade for Bond to finally change his ways, but Casino Royale rekindled my interest... well, at least enough interest to endure Quantum of Solace.
Watch what you wish for... taking Bond back may have been a major mistake.
Now let's get this straight, personally I really don't care about the new versus old Bond debate, I have no issue with Daniel Craig as Bond, I don't care about a lack of gadgets... but just about everything else the critics have said about this film is more or less true. Where do I start? Having polled a small sample of the Quantum of Solace audience, your average film goer is probably going to be in one of the two following mindsets by the end of the first reel: either scratching their heads wondering what the hell is going on, or two, finding themselves so disinterested in the film that they are going to tune out for the next hour and a half. The sample group were primarily entrenched in the latter camp, me included. Ten or fifteen minutes in and I already found it difficult to give a damn. You can only take so many pointless car and boat chases before you switch off.
 |
I'd like to believe that I'm a reasonably intelligent guy with a fair appreciation of film, so don't sit there chuckling into your Cup-o-Soup thinking that the whole plot went over my head - it was more the fact that I just couldn't give a flying fuck. The story lacked anything resembling an intriguing hook, it was all over the shop, and the villain was, for the lack of a better term, absolutely pissweak. Aside from tying up some loose ends with Vesper, the film consisted of Bond flit-farting from one part of the world to the other on the trail of a mysterious group called Quantum. Usually the word 'mysterious' would conger up notions of intrigue and excitement - negative, this group seemed to be about as boring as the operas they choose to convene their secret meetings at. I'm sure we will find out more about this Quantum group in the next film, but if they are all as limp-wristed as our featured villain, Dominic Greene, it would be safe to presume that I won't give a rat's proverbial by then.
I can't even call this guy a villain and keep a straight face - Bond dropping a bar of soap in front of Richard Simmons would have warranted a higher threat level than this croissant-eating joker. He's an insult to actual villains everywhere... in fact, he's so pissweak that he even makes the average Cockney geezer from a Guy Ritchie film look like a criminal mastermind in comparison. Our Bond 'villain' is nothing more than a French (well he looked like a smelly Frenchman anyway) environmentalist whose only real dastardly deed is to legitimately buy-up huge tracts of land in order to dam the water and sell it back to the inhabitants at exorbitant prices. Somebody call the Prime Minster, he's a Capitalist! No, this villain wasn't planning to destroy a country, let alone plotting for world domination... at least not in any traditional sense. Greene was just some scumbag businessman buying up land to make money - where the hell is the international threat in that? Where the hell is there any real threat worth the price of cinema admission? Sure, it's probably immoral, but since when did MI6 care about immoral? Quantum of Solace may have bloody well been better served as an episode of Scooby Doo - it sure as hell isn't worth James Bond's time! M (Judi Dench) should have just called an airstrike on this French douchebag and saved us all that time. Instant care factor zero.
 |
Plot and villain issues aside, Quantum of Solace did string together a few semi-decent action setpieces... well, that's assuming you could work out what the hell was happening. While I'm not going to blame the Bourne series for spawning the rapid-cut shaky cam hard-on in modern action films, rather merely bringing the technique back into vogue, let's just say that there were numerous times during fights and shootouts where the audience couldn't even determine who was getting shot, stabbed, punched or killed. It was so confusing at points I even heard a few people in the darkness of the cinema mutter phrases like 'was that Bond that just got shot?', or 'what the hell is going on?'. If you are claiming to be an action/thriller and your audience is struggling to follow those actions and thrills, you know you have a major problem on your hands. I'd like to quiz the director Marc Forster about whatever happened to good old long sweeping shots, or at least a shot that lasts for more than a thousandth of a god damn second - this bullshit trend of lightning fast action has to stop. Stop it! Now!
Actually, speaking of the Bourne series... yeah... I'm about to go there, girlfriend. The new James Bond series may as well just be retitled The Bourne Identity 2.0. While I've previously stated that I don't really care for fancy gadgets and pointless explosions, when you subtract the main elements from the classic Bond films that we are all familiar with, what you are left with is a womanising version of Jason Bourne without the convenient memory loss. Think about it: a spy involved in car chases, rooftop chases, a bit of hand-to-hand combat, fight scenes that were almost impossible to follow. It may as well have been Bourne... and to be honest, I never really saw what the big deal was about that franchise either.
Just before I wrap-up this scattershot review, I quickly want to mention a couple of small points about characters and characterisation. Firstly, the Bond Girl (Olga Kurylenko) was very bloody ordinary, both in talent and looks. Sure, I wouldn't kick her out of bed if she farted, but meh, try harder. Secondly, what was all that crap that Craig was spouting in promos about Bond using the death of Vesper to soul search and become stronger: I think the quote was along the lines of 'he needed a quantum of solace to find himself'. If looking into the camera and pulling a Muhammad-I'm-Hard-Bruce-Lee pose is Bond's attempt at soul searching and finding himself, and the writer's attempt at characterisation in order to make Bond a more fleshy character, shit, don't even bother.
Normally I like to be pretty thorough with my reviews, but as I touched on in my introduction, the critics before me have said just about all that needed to be said when it comes to Quantum of Solace. The plot is dull and can be difficult to follow, the villain is an absolute joke, and the action scenes were so hard to follow at times - like watching a Bourne film. After Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace was a major letdown. It almost feels like a filler film that will be wedged between two quality bookends? Guess we will find out.
The A.D.D. Version:
A dull plot, a pissweak villain, and hard to follow action scenes - a big disappointment after Casino Royale.
Random Observations:
See This Film If You Like:
The YouSeenThat.Com Popcorn Rating:
Rewatch Casino Royale instead.
How does the YouSeenThat.Com Popcorn Rating work?
Well, it works on the theory that the more you enjoy a film, the less likely you are to be aimlessly shoving salty corn kernels into your gob, and a little more focused on what is happening in front of you on the big screen. Therefore, the more popcorn in our scorers bucket, the better the film. Pretty simple, huh?. Think of it as an inverse scoring system.