Screen Vistas: BONDATHON: QUANTUM OF SOLACE

Casino Royale was the best thing to happen to the franchise in years. It had a more nuanced story that took itself seriously and immediately established Daniel Craig as one of the best Bonds in the franchise's now 50 year history. But the problem with making a more sophisticated Bond is that we now expect the sequel to continue in the same vein, but the franchise hasn't managed two good ones in a row since Johnson was in the White House.

That sad trend continues with Quantum of Solace. The film is a direct sequel (a franchise first), and starts up five minutes after Royale with Bond (Craig) searching for revenge on the people who killed Vesper, who turn out to be part of a mysterious criminal organization called Quantum (which explains half the title I guess) who are engineering a coup in Bolivia. I want to pretend that there's more to this film, but there isn't.

There's a girl (Olga Kurylenko) and some half-hearted attempts to show Bond working through his grief, but it's pretty thin gruel. The arc with Bond and Vesper was pretty well covered in the last film, and as a result there isn't much room for Bond to grow here, which wouldn't be a problem if Casino didn't just get done saying that this is now a franchise where people have arcs. So all that's left is to watch Bond rampage through exotic location after exotic location, killing potential leads left and right and annoying M (Judi Dench). The only interesting character is Bond's CIA counterpart Felix Lieter (Jeffery Wright), who has to find a way to covertly help Bond when he realizes that the CIA is in bed with Quantum. The filmmakers aren't entirely to blame, the screenwriting process was interrupted by the 07-08 Writers Strike and it seems that they were forced to shoot a first draft.

But the weak script does not excuse the action sequences, all of which have have been filmed in Confuse-O-Vision, that trendy process where the editor cuts quickly between shots of the camera shaking, turning everything into an abstract, indistinct blur. When used well, this technique can create tension, giving the audience a visceral you-are-there feeling. Here it just gets tiring. It's strange that the set pieces feel like bad copies of Jason Bourne films as the Bond producers poached some of their talent to shoot the action sequences.

It's a shame, because whenever the camera stops shaking it's quite a pretty film. It's wonderfully photographed by Roberto Schaefer to look like an enormously expensive perfume ad. A lot of this is due to stylized title cards and amazing sets by production designer Dennis Grassner who gorgeously updates the Ken Adams look. The best set is the Andean Grand Hotel, a completely black & white hotel that looks like it was designed by CoCo Chanel. I also liked some of director Marc Foster's visual flourishes, such as the shot in the prologue where we first see the car shooting at Bond reflected in the door of his Aston Martin.

With the film being so striking, I really want to call this film a triumph of style over substance, but unfortunately editing counts as part of the style. Despite some good sets and a kick ass title song by Jack White and Alicia Keys, this is a dull, muddled film, that barely gets the audience from point A to B. It's reassuring to know that for Skyfall, the producers have kept the production designer and fired the editor.

Grade: C

If you liked this review you can check us out on Facebook and enjoy these other Bondathon entries:

Dr. No

From Russia With Love

Goldfinger

Thunderball / Never Say Never Again