Bond Retrospective: "Quantum of Solace"
Released: 2008
Actor: Daniel Craig
Villain: Dominic Greene (Mathieu Almaric)
Henchman: none worth reporting
Allies: Felix Leiter (Jeffrey Wright)
Bond Girl: Camille (Olga Kurylenko)
First Appearance: Craig's official barrel shot, at the end
Notable Reappearance: universal exports
Precredits sequence: Bond speeds away with Mr. White in his trunk, chased by a car that doesn't survive the chase.
Plot: Bond and M question Mr. White, but he laughs them off, revealing he had a man on the inside. M's bodyguard for years, no less. White escapes, and Bond kills the inside man. A search of his apartment reveals a contact in Haiti, so Bond heads there, killing the contact, Mr. Slate, and encountering Camille. She is on Greene's team, but actually works for Bolivian secret service and is on a personal mission to kill General Medrano of Bolivia, who's trying to get leadership in return for some land that Greene wants. Bond rescues Camille, and she can't kill Medrano, who killed her entire family. Bond kills a special forces member unknowingly during an opera performance, and is stripped of his stuff by M. However, he goes rogue, recruiting Mathis, who was actually innocent. They go Greene's party there, with Ms. Fields, an MI-6 member who was supposed to bring Bond in. Fields dies, as does Mathis, and Bond is set up to be killed by the CIA. Leiter warns him, and tells him where to meet Greene. Bond does, with Camille. She kills Medrano, Greene is left stranded in the desert after interrogation, and Bond goes to Russia to find Vesper's supposed lover, Yusef. Yusef works for Quantum as a honeypot, seducing women to get secrets. Bond, however, lets him live, which surprises M, and with his vendetta compete, he's free to truly become Bond, symbolized by the barrel shot at the end.
Thoughts: QOS isn't the same level of filmmaking that CR was, but because of that, I think it gets a bad reputation. I'd rate it among the Dalton films, very serious, dark in tone, and with revenge a undercurrent theme. It's also the first Bond to continue almost directly after its predecessor. DAF sort of continued the end of OHMSS, but this is more what that film should've been. Bond didn't make love cavalierly to multiple women her; he actually seemed to remember Vesper, and this gave him the serious tone the entire way. And unlike Camille, who had to kill the general to be set free, Bond had to let Yusef live to be free. It's a unique part of his character that I wouldn't expect, and I wonder if they'll show any of that part in future films. Overall, the story with Greene wasn't the most interesting, but I liked it because it started to show us how Quantum functions, how it starts taking over things. I really dislike the shaky camerawork, though. Overall, QOS is under appreciated, and ranks among the middle to second-quarter of Bond films, I think.
Actor: Daniel Craig
Villain: Dominic Greene (Mathieu Almaric)
Henchman: none worth reporting
Allies: Felix Leiter (Jeffrey Wright)
Bond Girl: Camille (Olga Kurylenko)
First Appearance: Craig's official barrel shot, at the end
Notable Reappearance: universal exports
Precredits sequence: Bond speeds away with Mr. White in his trunk, chased by a car that doesn't survive the chase.
Plot: Bond and M question Mr. White, but he laughs them off, revealing he had a man on the inside. M's bodyguard for years, no less. White escapes, and Bond kills the inside man. A search of his apartment reveals a contact in Haiti, so Bond heads there, killing the contact, Mr. Slate, and encountering Camille. She is on Greene's team, but actually works for Bolivian secret service and is on a personal mission to kill General Medrano of Bolivia, who's trying to get leadership in return for some land that Greene wants. Bond rescues Camille, and she can't kill Medrano, who killed her entire family. Bond kills a special forces member unknowingly during an opera performance, and is stripped of his stuff by M. However, he goes rogue, recruiting Mathis, who was actually innocent. They go Greene's party there, with Ms. Fields, an MI-6 member who was supposed to bring Bond in. Fields dies, as does Mathis, and Bond is set up to be killed by the CIA. Leiter warns him, and tells him where to meet Greene. Bond does, with Camille. She kills Medrano, Greene is left stranded in the desert after interrogation, and Bond goes to Russia to find Vesper's supposed lover, Yusef. Yusef works for Quantum as a honeypot, seducing women to get secrets. Bond, however, lets him live, which surprises M, and with his vendetta compete, he's free to truly become Bond, symbolized by the barrel shot at the end.
Thoughts: QOS isn't the same level of filmmaking that CR was, but because of that, I think it gets a bad reputation. I'd rate it among the Dalton films, very serious, dark in tone, and with revenge a undercurrent theme. It's also the first Bond to continue almost directly after its predecessor. DAF sort of continued the end of OHMSS, but this is more what that film should've been. Bond didn't make love cavalierly to multiple women her; he actually seemed to remember Vesper, and this gave him the serious tone the entire way. And unlike Camille, who had to kill the general to be set free, Bond had to let Yusef live to be free. It's a unique part of his character that I wouldn't expect, and I wonder if they'll show any of that part in future films. Overall, the story with Greene wasn't the most interesting, but I liked it because it started to show us how Quantum functions, how it starts taking over things. I really dislike the shaky camerawork, though. Overall, QOS is under appreciated, and ranks among the middle to second-quarter of Bond films, I think.
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