Bond 22 was always going to have a hard road.
Even without the compressed schedule, and the writer's strike, the film had the shadow of its predecessor Casino Royale hanging over it.
The opening few moments are great.
And then the car chase starts. I am not sure if it is necessarily the shot selections, but the editing is ruinous. Also it is nigh-on impossible to distinguish the dark grey aston from the black pursuit car.
In a sign of things to come, the end of the chase is underwhelming - Bond just picks up a gun and blasts away.
The foot chase is not worth considering since it has the same problems as the car chase. The editing is so bad this is the first time I caught the joke of the elderly bystander who gets bumped.
Apparently Dan Bradley scripted all the action scenes and you can feel the disconnect from the rest of the movie. It feels like you could cut out most of these scenes and the film would not be that affected.
It’s a rare Bond movie where you look forward to any non-action scene, and it is frustrating because there are moments that hint at a more interesting take on Craig’s Bond.
There are moments throughout the movie which hint at a slightly more comic take on Bond as a one-man-army (Bond ripping the door handle out in the Opera House scene). There are a few moments like this in Casino Royale, and it was one of the few carryovers from its predecessor that I appreciated.
The one running joke I wish they made more of is Bond killing every lead, making M even more exasperated.
One of this film’s most interesting elements, which has never been dealt with in the other movies, is the idea of the United States (and the UK) being onboard with a villain because of a potential intersection of interests.
It is a unique idea, and obstacle, that the franchise had never contemplated before.
It also gives us David Harbor’s glorious performance as Greg Beam. I had no idea who the actor was before that movie, but his snivelling, cocky CIA spook stood out.
The idea of a rogue James Bond having to contend with both a traditional villain and the intelligence agencies of the most powerful nation on the planet is the movie’s most radical notion.
The film also seems more willing to deal with the UK’s status on the world stage. The minister’s conversation about the UK's diminished status in world affairs is a striking jab of realpolitik.
I do not know this for sure but after listening to Tanzy Gardem’s Going Rogue podcast about Quantum’s writers, I have a feeling I could pick out the chunks of the movie that script doctor Josh Zuetemer had written.
There is a cynical sense of state and spycraft to certain scenes that feel completely unique to this film - and I noted most of them (M’s confrontation with Bond in the hotel, Bond’s meeting with Felix, Greene’s smug blackmail of Modrano) take place in interior sets.
I wonder if they happened later in the shoot when the filmmakers could bring on a new writer. I noticed there were a few key exchanges which take place as voice-over, intercut with other scenes (Bond’s monologue about making your first kill, which plays over the arrival of the villains at the hotel), which could have been the result of re-writes.
It is these moments which stand out the most, puncturing the fantasy of Bond and his world.
I used to wonder how this more tarnished take on Bond could have been developed if the scriptwriting process had been given more time. After this viewing, I wonder if the lack of time was the factor in preventing revisions that would have sweetened its sourness.
A related element that is more embryonic is Bond losing his traditional support system. My memory of the film was foggy enough that on this viewing, when his credit cards declined, I was curious to see how Bond improvised his way out of trouble.
Instead, the film cuts to Italy. Bond is even dressed in stylish new clothes.
After all the physical punishment Bond takes, and the film’s aversion to anything formulaic, it is bizarre that the film does not make a meal of Bond doing it rough.
This is an issue the film shares with its spiritual sibling Licence to Kill. It is not the only one.
Like Quantum, Licence to Kill is a second film, set in Central/South America, and it is a story of personal vengeance and Bond going rogue.
It is also a rejection of the Bond formula, and sadly, it was also a casualty of the producers’ unwillingness to give up a release date, when a writer’s strike prevented veteran screenwriter Richard Maibuam from contributing to the script.
Speaking of which, the weakness of the writing in Quantum really shows in the first scene with Mathis.
This scene is trying to accomplish two contradictory goals since then, trying to establish distrust AND re-establish the familiar dynamic.
He also acts as exposition, providing a way to bring Bond up to speed on Haines and provide an entree to South America. Mathis’s whole role feels cheap - he is basically reduced to being a vehicle for telling Bond to forgive Vesper (didn’t she betray him?).
Olga Kurylenko’s Camille Montes is the one aspect of the film that I wish I could be more invested in. It works for the film to have Bond paired with someone who is not a love interest. I know the intention is that she is on her own mission, but I wish the film put them together sooner so the character has more screen time.
It might have benefited the movie to have someone on a clear arc - Bond’s quest for vengeance is muddier, while her plan has a clearer thoroughline.
Kurylenko is fine, but I have a feeling she would resonate in a film that was less frenetic and globe-trotting.
Villain Dominic Greene was criticised as unmemorable and nonthreatening at the time, but I have always liked Mathieu Amalric’s performance.
The character also feels somewhat evergreen (har har). His hypocritical double dipping into token environmentalism while plundering natural resources for short-term profit is probably the closest a Bond villain has ever come to the relative banality of real-life corporate greed.
I even like the final fight between Greene and Bond - Amalric has been playing the character like a stick of dynamite with a short fuse, and finally we get to see what happens when he does not have to keep up a charade.
I think that contrast would have worked better if he had better muscle to back him up.
One major issue with this movie is that the film has no concept on how to match Craig’s physicality.
He gets into a lot of fights with other professionals of similar skill set, but there is no one to outmatch.
At least in Casino Royale, we get Molaka the freerunner.
There is no one in Quantum of Solace who can force Bond to improvise his way out of trouble.
Or maybe the movie would have just benefited from action sequences with a clearer sense of internal narrative, with obstacles to be overcome. Whatever their intentions are vis-à-vis ‘realism’, the lack of imagination in the action sequences is fatal.
The fight with Slate is fine, but the boat chase is pointless (why does he dump Camille and wander away?).
The one action sequence that is vaguely original is the aeroplane chase, which at least has an intriguing concept - Bond trying to improvise using an old slow relic against two modern jets. But the scene is narratively tenuous. It is no wonder this is the one set-piece I can never remember.
The production design for the film is marvellous. Retro and futuristic, it is the one element of the film, aside from David Arnold’s score, that evokes Bond without embarrassment or a slavish sense of homage.
The hotel interiors of Hotel Perla de las Dunas, particularly the meeting room where Greene and General Modrano sign their deal, feel straight out of Ken Adam’s sketch book.
The ending is fantastic - and also completely undermines its reason for being.
Bond learning not to kill everyone is something he learned that lesson in the last movie - it is literally the last scene of Casino Royale.
This is the first movie to unpick the Bondian sense of closure.
Instead of ‘new girl, new mission’, it is ‘dead girl, no mission’.
While the previous movie ended in a way that felt like Bond was locking himself off from pain, in Quantum Bond makes peace with Vesper - this movie deals with time and the way memories and pain do not go away but evolve and change.
When this movie first came out, I remember thinking of this movie and the financial crisis.
Since the film was made while the crisis was taking place, it is referenced obliquely throughout the film, and the story of corporate greed felt all too of the moment.
I have really come around on this viewing.
This movie has always been intriguing - every time I see a think piece or podcast about it, I check them out.
This is the first time I have watched the movie and truly enjoyed it.
The film has problems, but even those problems seem to work in the movie’s favour.
The way the action sequences are designed goes against the way they are supposed to work in an action film (like establishing a clear sense of geography), and the introduction of real world stakes negates the sense of Bondian fantasy.
But all these negatives work as features for Bond’s sense of loss, the absence he is feeling.
After this viewing, Quantum made me think about the future of the franchise.
While it fumbles, Quantum is forward-facing in a way that the succeeding Mendes duology would not be. No Time to Die goes far in its risk-taking, but it feels more embracing of tradition and nostalgia (particularly of OHMSS).
The lack of a love interest, the villain who is intertwined with the establishment Bond seeks to uphold. Maybe these ideas are too radical to work with the Bond template, but their clumsy application in Quantum feels like a promise I would still like to see fulfilled.
A masterpiece? Hell no. But there is more to pick over and dissect in this Bond than most.
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