So, yeah, I went and saw the new Bond film, Quantum of Solace (whose true fans will forever remember it as Something of Boris) with Amy. First date we’ve been on since Olivia was born. So, was it worth the whopping $18 we spent on movie tickets (jeez, I am getting old. I remember when it was only $3.50 to go to a movie)?  Yes, but just barely.

This new Bond, which is a direct sequel to the previously awesomest Bond film ever: Casino Royale (with cheese- sorry, couldn’t help myself). It literally picks up where the last one left off. Honestly, I don’t know how to say this, but I find it difficult to do a review of a movie that I needed to take notes on just to get the plot straight.

I don’t want to gush about Casino Royale, since this isn’t a review of that movie, but what I liked about it was that it, much like Batman Begins, establishes how an iconic character became iconic. We saw a man who was driven by his passions to do his job, until his passions got in the way of his job (Vesper, his girlfriend). By the end of CR, we see the very beginning of what looked like the Bond we are all now familiar with, what with him holding a sub machine gun, in debonair suit giving his famous quote, “Bond, James Bond.”  It was a character study with a bunch of action thrown in- GOOD action at that. It is the first James Bond movie that I have truly liked and wanted to watch over and over again. It did what it was supposed to do- gain new fans.

The Direction

Now, does Quantum stack up? Not quite. But, not because it didn’t have good material to work with. Rather, it was because of the terribly directed “shaky-cam” action sequences, the less than stellar dialogue, and the lack of anything that brought out the Bond brand. You know it’s bad when, during the movie I’m thinking about how I can make a scene better, if I were the director. I hate doing that, but if the movie doesn’t flow well, it immediately takes me out of the experience and causes me to remember that I’m watching a movie.

For example, I would not have opened the movie with that chase scene. It was terribly filmed and edited and failed to give us a reason to care about what was going on. Instead, I would have opened with Bond opening the trunk with Mr. White in it and would have done the whole chase scene with the church bell (which was one of the few action sequences I enjoyed) and right when Bond looked up to shoot his would-be assassin, cut to the opening credits. You see? Don’t tell me that wouldn’t have worked better!

The Plot

The rest of the story was interesting to me, but since it was told as a pit stop between action sets, I didn’t get to enjoy much of it. I liked Camille and although I thought that her revenge story was a little weak, the idea of dual revenge stories unfolding at once was a great idea with poor execution. Watching Bond react to how unfulfilling it was for Camille to complete her quest for revenge was a great way to handle that plot element, since it gave him the right moral direction when he confronted Vesper’s killer, but the revelation from Camille to Bond as to what she was after came, I think, a little too late in the movie. 

I didn’t care for Greene all that much. His quest for power was interesting (the environmentalist turns out to be the bad guy for once), but nothing about him in particular made him stand out. At least Le Chiffre from CR cried tears of blood. Judi Dench as M was good as usual but wasn’t given much to do other than yell at Bond for killing yet another terrorist.  Bringing back Mathis was a pleasant surprise but short lived due to his abrupt departure.

CR set Bond up as a man who was driven by his passions. QOS shows him as a man who is just… driven. His rising body count, his sloppy spy maneuvers (honestly, didn’t Greene’s goons find it odd that a white man in Haiti on a motorcycle, was staring intently at them in broad daylight?- am I the only one who thought that was odd?), reckless stunts, dumping Mathis’s dead body in a dumpster, and so on show a Bond who was out to accomplish a mission and NOT have fun doing it.

The Verdict

Bottom line, I will wait to see how the third in Craig’s little trilogy here pans out before I hail or poo-poo QOS. What it needs is the style and flair we are used to seeing in Bond films. Not total cheesecake, ala Roger Moore era, but SOMETHING! There can be ways to fit in Bond’s sarcastic humor, his charming women, and the little “Bond” moments like Q’s gadgets, “shaken not stirred”, etc. It can totally fit in this newer, grittier Bond if you know how to work a script right. Spiderman 3 missed the boat on working Parker’s humor in. Matrix 3 missed the boat by totally sucking the life out of the characters. Batman 3 will miss the boat after The Dark Knight if it doesn’t lighten up as well. See the pattern?

I really wanted to like QOS better if anything just to justify buying the really cool poster as seen here.

The verdict?  It’s worth seeing once in the theater and once again on DVD (if only to catch all the plot points).

Nathan DeFalco’s rating:

6 out of 10.