His quest to root out agents of the mysterious Quantum organization leads James Bond (Daniel Craig) to Dominic Greene (Mathieu Amalric), a businessman who is buying up huge swaths of land across the globe, ostensibly in the name of environmentalism. With the help of Camille Montes (Olga Kurylenko), a lover of Greene’s who is using his political and business connections to avenge the murders of her parents, Bond uncovers Greene’s true motives and discovers that Quantum’s reach extends to the highest levels of power.

CRITIQUE

There are a couple of things you should know about Quantum of Solace. You shouldn’t watch it if you haven’t seen or don’t remember much about Casino Royale. You also shouldn’t watch it with someone who hasn’t seen or doesn’t remember much about Casino Royale. I made the mistake of doing the latter half of the latter (if that makes sense) and spent much of the movie trying to help this other person recall what had occurred in the previous Bond outing.

Quantum assumes you’re familiar with the first movie, picking up almost immediately after the climax of that movie and barreling ahead while providing only a minimal refresher course. This isn’t a sequel to Casino Royale inasmuch as it is the final act of the first tale of the new Bond. And an immensely satisfying final act it is.    

This without a doubt the meanest Bond flick so far. It’s like For You Eyes Only, Licence to Kill, and the opening of Diamonds are Forever rolled into one, then injected with a cocktail of crystal meth and HGH. And that’s exactly what it should be. The Bond we saw at the end of Casino Royale wasn’t ready for a nap, nor was he ready to go chase down some heretofore unseen megalomaniac who’s constructed a death ray or some other such nonsense.

That Bond was ready to hunt down the men responsible for the death of Vesper Lynd and make them pay. His position in MI6 affords him the means to do just that, so the plot of Quantum features him balking at being ordered by M (Judi Dench) to turn in his gun and passport and instead using his training and connections to avenge Vesper’s death. The fact that doing so also means he’s technically performing his duties for Her Majesty makes it all the better.

Quantum of Solace is also the leanest Bond flick so far. It runs one hundred minutes before the final credits start to roll, never taking its foot off the gas until the final scene. It opens with a car chase, climaxes the main part of the story with a pyrotechnics display, and in between features a foot chase, a boat chase, a shootout, and an aerial showdown (only the last one disappoints).

The plot seems rather straightforward, but it throws a lot of information at you in short, staccato bursts. Blink, turn away or yawn and you’ll likely miss something. This information is essential, though, as the world in which this Bond exists is still being constructed. The villains here are more attuned to the truth of the modern world, existing in the shadowy overlap between the worlds of global finance and international terrorism, and it looks as if the filmmakers are trying to create a believable framework on which to hang these tales (finally!).

You more or less just have to accept it when some old nut has a lair hidden at the bottom of the ocean or has his own personal space station, but if the bad guys are messing with financial markets or helping to set up puppet regimes, you want to know more of the particulars of how they operate.

I have to admit I wasn’t bowled over by the movie to begin with. It initially struck me as being nothing more than an addendum (or perhaps parenthetical response) to Casino Royale, a lazy way of playing off loose ends in that story. But there came a point where I realized Quantum of Solace was putting the final bricks in place, completing the creation of this Bond. The way he acts here is clearly influenced by the events of the first movie, and that includes his different ways of treating Camille and the other Bond Girl, Gemma Atherton’s Agent Field (be sure to watch the closing credits to see why she refuses to divulge her first name).

The person he started becoming in the last movie is whole by this movie’s end (notice how the coda here mirrors the pre-credits sequence of Casino Royale, succinctly showing up just how much Bond has changed), and the Quantum organization has been set up as the modern equivalent of SPECTRE or SMERSH. Put these first two outings together and you have one excellent entry point into this universe, as well sturdy groundwork for a continuing set of adventures.

Many people have complained about the way director Marc Forster (of Monster’s Ball and Kite Runner fame) and the 2nd Unit team shot and pieced together the action sequences here, pegging them as hard to follow. I personally didn’t have any problems keeping up, but maybe this is because I favor action that seems dirty and non-choreographed.

It’s true that the action here is very quick and cut together in a rapid-fire style, but pay attention and you shouldn’t have any trouble following it. Foster and his team do supply enough coverage to create the geography of any given scene, but they don’t do it with standard establishing shots. They don’t break away from the main focus of any scene to set up what’s coming, but rather do so within that main focus. The style here is simply an evolution of the way things have been progressing in action filmmaking for the past several years. Just stay on top of it and you shouldn’t have any problems.

THE VIDEO

The 2.40:1/1080p transfer--encoded with AVC onto a 50GB disc--is a stellar effort.

Forster and longtime cinematographer Roberto Schaefer play with both extremes in the contrast (naturally), brining a subdued, desaturated look to the talky scenes and a burnt, baked look to the action. While the latter extreme does flatten out some shots and obscure some of the very finest detail, this method does allow the transfer to shine when it comes to color reproduction; all of the grays and blues look great, as do the slightly oversaturated oranges, yellows, and reds.

Blacks are consistently deep. Forster and Schaefer also chose to boost the grain level, but not to an overbearing or patently unnatural level; unfortunately, though, there is some noise mixed in with the grain.

THE AUDIO

You’d have to be crazy to complain about the quality of the DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track. From the action scenes to the quieter moments, it simply never flags in performance. The movie’s mix is modern-action complex, layering in sound upon sound and shifting with each rapid edit.

The audio here recreates this perfectly; just listen to the revving engines (each one distinct) in the opening chase or the opera sequence and subsequent gunfight. Dialogue-heavy scenes are beautifully atmospheric, and great care has been taken to recreate the subtle sonic qualities of each setting (listen to the echoes and reverb in the tunnel during the early interrogation or in the sinkhole later in the movie). Bass action is consistently low, deep and tight. Dialogue retains a natural quality throughout, and its presentation is always crystal clear.

French, Spanish, and Portuguese Dolby Digital 5.1 tracks are also included. English SDH, Cantonese, Korean, Mandarin, Portuguese, and Spanish subtitles are available.

THE EXTRAS

Remember how Casino Royale was first released in a rather light-on-content edition and was then reissued in a meatier version just before Quantum of Solace made its way into theaters? Well, it looks like the same will happen here, as the extras included on this disc are repetitive and insubstantial.

With one exception, all of the extras are presented in high-def.

Bond on Location (25 minutes) is an EPK-style making-of featurette, featuring the usual behind-the-scenes clips and cast/crew interviews. It earns its “on Location” moniker by providing production footage from all of the various locales in which the movie was shot.

Start of Shooting (3 minutes) redundantly combines footage from the “on Location” piece with footage from the early stages of shooting.

On Location (3 minutes) redundantly combines footage from the “on Location” piece with more footage from the shoots various locales.

Olga Kurylenko and the Boat Chase (2 minutes) is unenlightening footage of Kurylenko preparing for some of the stuntwork her role required.

Director Marc Forster (3 minutes) is a short talk with Forster in which he discusses his directorial decisions and what he hoped to bring to the movie in terms of character and themes.

The Music (3 minutes) is a short talk with composer David Arnold, who discusses how his scoring methods here differed from his work on previous Bond movies. 

Crew Files (46 minutes, presented in standard definition) provide brief looks at various members of the crew, who discuss their jobs and the day-to-day workings of the shoot. Originally produced for the movie’s official website, these pieces, which combine short interview clips with snippets of production footage, are far too brief to be worthwhile (even when taken as a whole).

Also included is a music video for “Another Way to Die,” the movie’s Jack White-penned theme song, which White performs with Alicia Keys. (I know this tune was a rush job, thrown together after plans to have Amy Winehouse compose and perform a tune were scrapped, but I have to say this is the worst theme in the franchise’s long history.)

Closing out the extras are the movie’s teaser and theatrical trailers.

FINAL THOUGHTS

This release of Quantum of Solace earns a recommendation...a qualified recommendation. I’m dead certain a more elaborate release will hit stores when the next movie hits theater screens, so holding out for that one may not be such a bad idea.