Casino Royale 2: The Quantum of Solace
Daniel Craig is the ultimate James Bond and provides the iconic
portrayal of Agent 007 that Ian Flemming had in mind when he programmed
Goldeneye for the N64. Those other
twenty movies are a mistake and although I watched them all and they’re what
got me interested in reading the novels, I think that those films are, in fact,
rubbish. I hated all those puns and
gadgets and for all of us who know Ian Flemming and cite him regularly when
discussing a film series that we watched but found distasteful, we know that
back when Ian Flemming created this character in the 1950s he always wanted him
to tackle environmental issues in a post-Cold War world. I just watched those other twenty movies in
case the finally got it right, and by golly they finally did. God bless you, Daniel Craig!
Okay, now that I’ve summerized everybody else’s feelings on this
film in the first person, I feel like I have considered their point of view, so
now I’ll talk about the movie as myself.
The title Quantum of Solace
is Morpheus speak for ‘an amount of
comfort’. Once I translated the
title using my English to English dictionary I got worried that the pre-credit
sequence would be James Bond getting his flannel pyjamas warm out of the dryer,
putting them on and curling up by the fire with some warm cocoa and a quilt and
his dog jumping up and lying on his lap.
It turns out the film starts in the least comfortable situation
possible. James Bond is in a giant blender
full of cars. This sequence is pretty
intense and definitely solace-free, they don’t even play any Dido music or
anything. I wish they’d had a couple of
longshots to clearly show the giant blender, so that we in the audience would
have a better idea of how many cars are in the blender with James and if a
giant pair of hands are going to add kiwis or something. But it seems Bond has requested that his
camerawork be shaken and not stirred, so we get the whole thing shot from
inside the blender. I hope nobody died.
Bond finally escaped the blender and delivers the car to his boss,
Em. And it turns out he’s got this guy
Mr. White in the boot. Mr. White was in
the previous Casino Royale movie,
and according to the credits he performs the theme song for this one. And he does a pretty good job rocking out for
conservative-looking older man. I’m not
really into this garage rock stuff, but Mr. White’s song sounds better in the context
of the opening credit music video than when I just heard it on the radio to
promote this movie.
Bond and Em want to ask Mr. White some questions, but this guy
who’s introduced as Mitchell traitorizes them and frees Mr. White. Then this Mitchell dude bolts off and Bond
has to chase after him. I never really
got a good look at Mitchell, so I wasn’t sure if Bond was beating the right guy
or not. It’s a theme of this film that
Bond acts on emotion and fucks up so it’s quite possible he just went after an
innocent parkourist in training. The
camera kept shaking around and all I could tell was Mitchell was a dark-haired
white guy in a suit. So since his hair
and clothes were a different colour than Daniel Craig’s I could keep track of
who was doing what in the ensuing chase and fight scene across the rooftops of
Sienna, Italy. I think they should open
a Home Depot in Italy, because in the previous Casino Royale movie a whole building toppled and in this one pieces
of the buildings keep falling off as these guys try to run on them and climb
them. Especially since Bond likes to be
all smooth and shit he’d probably hate this place because he’s afraid to do a
sexy lean against a pillar or something and risk a Ben Stiller moment.
Some information leads Bond all over the world. Most of what’s going on seems to be going on
in this movie is related to a Bolivian coup d’état. We also get an idea of how big this evil
organization called Quantum is, seeing as everybody seems to work for them yet
nobody’s heard of them. Quantum makes
money from all sorts of evil activities, but this film does not reveal what
their big plan is for all this revenue.
I figured since in the previous Casino
Royale Bond plays poker against terrorists, that this time it would be
mini-putt or bowling, but this film is more about Bond just doing straight up
detective stuff.
I’ve heard people complain that the plot of this film is too
complex, including the people I saw it with claimed they didn’t quite follow
it. But as far as I could tell, Bond
just got on the trail of this Dominic Greene guy, follows him around, gets an
idea of what his operation is up to,
takes him down, and various hot chicks and beatings occur along the way.
One of the chicks is Olga, who has a nice deepdish tan, but missed
a spot on her back. She and Bond have a
lot in common such as revenge and going for long walks in the desert in
eveningwear. I know in Bond movies the
sex is always implied, but usually it’s at least hinted at a bit more strongly
with something like seeing Bond undressing a woman but cutting before there’s
any nudity or just starting a scene with Bond and some chick in bed
snuggling. This time though, I had a
hard time figuring out when he and Olga fucked.
I think it was either while they were skydiving away from a crashing
plane, or they did it in the front seat of that S.U.V. to taunt the badguy
before leaving him in the desert at the end.
The other chick is named Fields, and she’s really touchy about
revealing her first name. It’s probably
Sally and she just got sick of Flying Nun jokes. I think she’s in this film because test
audiences felt Daniel Craig didn’t look enough like a pedophile shagging Eva
Green in the previous film. I’ve got my
bets that the next film involves a girl scout uniform and R. Kelly will do the
theme song. Anyway, in this newschool
Bond franchise the characters’ names don’t have any significance, so Fields
isn’t actually a field agent. She’s just some embassy worker, but you’d
think that would mean she’d know how to use a pen. At one point she lies in bed and tries to
write James Bond a love letter but only gets the word ‘RUN’ down before the pen explodes and gets ink all over herself
and the bedspread. I hope the hotel
charges her for the cost of replacing the sheets.
The villain, Dominic Greene, kinda had me concerned. He wasn’t very menacing or even creepy, but
turned out to be one of those squirrelly little guys who, when pushed into a
fight, go all ball-kicky and eye-scratchy out of nowhere. The part I didn’t get was this finky-looking
dude with a hairpiece who followed him everywhere. I thought maybe he was his henchman, but the
guy never fought, he even got his neck sprained by Sally Fields. He never seemed to provide any skill to
Greene, so I wasn’t sure if we were supposed to infer he was Greene’s lover or
something. Seeing as the shakeycam
must’ve caused me to miss Bond and Olga’s sex scene, maybe I missed these guys
going at it too. You guys tell me, I
feel like I missed something here.
Overall, the movie is about as good as the last one. It has the same problems of being lost
somewhere between a smart and stupid movie.
It’s not a straightfaced moronic movie like The Transporter series, and it’s not a heavy serious action movie
like these new Batman features. It’s basically a heavy moronic film, a new
breed. A good example is this scene
where Mr. White, Mr. Greene and the other terrorists who presumably also have Reservoir Dogs inspired names, choose
to have a meeting by all gathering in the opera house during a show, but not
sitting together. They communicate
through little microphones and earpieces.
I can barely hear people on my phone when I’ve got my radio on, let
alone Pavarotti bellowing right at me.
And why aren’t people turning around every minute to say to say “Sssshhhh!!” ? Unless the whole audience
is Quantum staff and this event is a Quantum symposium, which is possible
considering how big they keep saying this organization is. I know if I were trying to watch a seven
dollar movie in the cinema and some asshole behind me just kept blathering to
himself about eco-terrorism ‘n shit I’d have the usher escort him out, let
alone if I’d paid for this giant opera show.
You see, this movie and the previous one are full of stuff like this:
sequences that are built well for suspense and well-filmed with a heavy tone, but
are incredibly stupid.
It doesn’t have the original premise or compelling character and
performance of the Bourne movies,
nor the ambitious absurdity of the old Bond
movies, yet it still turns out to be something I don’t feel bad about
watching. I had an okay time and would
actually watch this again eventually, but I can’t say I’m an enthusiast. I think when the best aspects of a film are
the score and Olga’s tan, I know I’m not talking about any indisputable classic. Of most of the other action series out there
this one is kind of the runt. I’m
definitely way more interested in whatever Batman
or Transporter or Rambo or Fast ‘n Furious does next, but I’ll continue to watch these films
waiting for the moment when Daniel Craig has to play croquet against a
terrorist and Q makes him an invisible mallet and this whole fucking circus
just implodes on itself leaving only the camera like a shaky version of Wall-E
to tell the story.
If you liked this, here are some other
recommended readings:
Rambo 4: The
Stallone Renaissance Part Two
Some
throats were made to be slit.
As in the movie is titled ‘Next’, not that
Cage is next for something or this is his next something.
DEBS: They’re Crime-Fighting Hotties with Killer Bodies
May
the Jordanafication and Brewsterization of Hollywood continue.