MTV Movies Blog is earning its license to kill with a feature we call the Bond-a-Thond. Every Wednesday we're taking a look back at a single (official) Bond film, giving you the vitals and seeing how it holds up, right up until the release of "Skyfall" on November 9. Feel free to watch along with us and share your thoughts or just kick back and enjoy the Bond.
Quantum of Solace (2008)
Plot: Determined to find the men responsible for Vesper Lynd's death, Bond is on the trail of a far-reaching secret organization.
Title Meaning: The title comes from Ian Flemming's short story, "For Your Eyes Only," and within the context of the film, refers to the powerful group of string-pullers at the center of the plot.
Song: "Another Way to Die," performed by Jack White and Alicia Keys
Bond: Daniel Craig
Villain: Dominic Greene, an environmentalist, played by Mathieu Amalric
Bond Girl: Strawberry Fields, a MI6 agent, played by Gemma Arterton, and Olga Kurylenko, Greene's vengeful lover, played by Olga Kurylenko
"Bond, James Bond" Occurrences: 0
Martinis: 0
Card Games: 0
Cigarettes Smoked: 0
Explosions: 12
Tuxes Worn: 1
Kills By Bond: 15
Most Creative Kill: After the climax, Craig leaves Greene in the desert with only a can of oil. While this doesn't directly cause his death, it's pretty damn cold.
Gadgets: A gun
Mental State of Miss Moneypenny: Still missing
First Occurrence of Sex: 55 minutes
Sexual Partners: 1 (Strawberry Fields)
Most Unrealistic Moments: That moment when you realize how bad "Quantum of Solace" is.
Most "Bond" Moments: Fields' death recalls one of the most famous scenes of "Goldfinger."
Place in Bond History: "Quantum of Solace" marks the first time that the series directly continued a storyline from a previous movie.
Review:
Never has there been such a dramatic windfall as there was in the shift from "Casino Royale" to "Quantum of Solace." The series goes from one of its—if not its—strongest entry ever to what is, in all honesty, one of the worst.
It's not entirely fair to group "Quantum of Solace" with the dregs like "A View to a Kill" and "Moonraker," since those films actually had scripts that went through a full revision process. If one didn't know the story behind the script for "Quantum of Solace" before watching it, it wouldn't be too hard to piece together. The film is at best incomplete and plays like a cash-grab expansion pack for the in-all-ways superior "Casino Royale."
Almost every element of the film is half developed, from Kurylenko's character, to the confused plot and the utterly underwhelming villain and climax. The only redeeming element here is that "Quantum" offers another opportunity to see Craig as Bond, but with "Skyfall" certified as a success, you're left only imagining what a complete version of this film would have been like.
The Bond-a-Thond will conclude next week in "Skyfall."
What do you think of "Quantum of Solace"? Let us know in the comments below and on Twitter!
