Quantum of Solace - Bond 1G

Saw the new Bond movie last night and thought it was interesting enough to write about. Bond is probably the longest running movie series and although it looked to be in serious jeopardy with Timothy Dalton, it got back on track with Pierce Brosnan and has taken a turn towards almost serious movie making with the casting of Daniel Craig. A typical Bond movie is mostly fluff and about easy, low stress entertainment. It demands little of the viewer except to sit back and marvel at the stunts and gadgets. The mood is never heavy and while world annihilation is always on the cards, it is always done with a smirk, a wink and nudge of the elbow. Not so with QOS.

The average Bond movie fan (and I would be one) expects 3 'Gs' in every edition - Girls, Gadgets, and Goons. You get only one of them - Goons - in QOS. There are two characters that would fit the 'Girls' role, but while one spends all her time brooding and plotting revenge, a brief glimpse of the other's bare back is offered before she is rather unceremoniously drowned in crude oil. As for gadgets, there are exactly zero. The MI6 crew does make like John King and wave their hands over a large touch screen surface, but that is in-house and hardly counts as a Bond gadget. Now that I think about it, Bond does have a cell phone that is able to track a GPS tagged person and take close-up photos from across a stadium, but that seems almost mainstream these days.

There is almost no plot to speak of and unlike most other Bond movies, there is a lack of expansiveness - no sense of anything momentous or larger than life. It is less Ludlum and more Le Carre. Bond may be licensed to kill (& he certainly does plenty of that), but he may in fact be better off with a construction license - he is a one man wrecking ball in this movie. Almost every fight/stunt involved smashing walls, buildings, roads, tunnels, furniture, windows, you name it. The metaphor was stretched further - some of the action is set amidst actual construction.

There is a lot of action in the movie, but much of it is filmed so close up that it is very difficult to follow exactly what is going on. Perversely, this actually has the effect of putting the viewer in the midst of the action and may in fact have a greater impact. Of course, it also allows the director to not quite have to show how Bond gets away or finishes the action. Bond, being Bond, does go through most of the movie in a suit (once even in a tux, that in spite of being 'borrowed' from somebody else, fits him like a bespoke one), coming out of several intense action scenes with his outfit undisturbed. The locale tends to move around quite a bit - Italy, Haiti, London, Bolivia, Russia are all featured, but it is not always clear how Bond got from Point A to Point B, often seemingly instantaneously. The general lack of logic (or even any attempt at it) is rather stunning.

Why then do I still like the movie? Viewed as a traditional Bond movie, it is a failure. However, it is still a well made movie and ultimately the various elements add up to give a satisfying experience. It is going to fall apart if you try to dissect it even a little bit, but if you leave it alone, then I think you will like it. The filmmakers seem particularly prescient - the movie captures the zeitgeist almost perfectly and that gives it, despite all the obvious flaws, a visceral quality. Daniel Craig brings an increased physicality to the role, but his Bond is also mature enough to not actually enjoy the action. Even in the one mildly romantic scene he seems more duty-bound than entitled. Many of the settings are quite spectacular and in particular the desert scenes in Bolivia really stood out (especially after my recent visit to the Death Valley).

It would seem that the filmmakers are trying to break free from usual tropes of a Bond movie - a martini makes one fleeting appearance and I don't think he ever says, "Bond, James Bond." This portends a new arc for the Bond franchise and it would be interesting to see if this gives it a fresh lease of life or is just the last sputter of a dying fire.