Since the newest James Bond flick, Quantum of Solace is still fairly new, I’ll try to keep this as spoiler free as possible.

The weekend numbers are in. Quantum of Solace earned over $70 million dollars its opening weekend, a record best for the franchise, even adjusted for inflation. I hope you like the “new” Bond because with this kind of revenue, there will be no other “course corrections” for quite some time. Daniel Craig is under contract for at least two more films.

For my full thoughts on Craig as Bond, see my review of Casino Royale. However, it goes without saying that even with a second movie under his belt, how well Craig fits the role is still a hot topic of conversation and debate. And it’s not so much that Craig is new in the role or even that he’s blond. Rather, the debate continues because of how much the Bond character himself has had a complete makeover.

As I mentioned in my previous review, the old saying about Bond that “Every woman wants him; every man wants to be him” no longer applies--at least not the last part. I would not want to be this Bond. It would be too painful physically and emotionally. But it’s interesting now how many women are interested in Bond than ever before. This is especially true for those women who in the past, simply saw Bond as a “man’s” movie series. This is a Bond who is more vulnerable and can even be pitied. And yet this is also a more dangerous Bond. In one brief conversation about the movie I had yesterday, a friend of mine described Craig’s Bond perfectly in one word: tortured.

As Kathy and I were driving to the movie on Friday, we heard a less than positive review of the movie on the radio. The reviewer pointed out that in the new movie there are no fancy sports cars and the only love interest came in the previous movie. This is partially untrue. Bond does, in fact, drive the characteristic Aston-Martin at the beginning of Quantum, but to copy a title from an earlier Bond film, it gets the living daylights knocked out of it. When Bond arrives back to his MI6 hideout, the Aston Martin is missing a door and is scratched and dented enough to simply have the whole thing totaled. That car, especially the treatment given to it at the beginning of the movie is a good analogy of what’s been done with the James Bond character. He’s being completely deconstructed. No longer will he fight bad guys without getting his tuxedo dirtied. Now it gets dirty, torn, and bloodied--and so does the character himself.

Many will claim that this Bond is much closer to Fleming’s original vision. Maybe, but not quite. I’ve read most of the Fleming books as well as those of his successor, John Gardner. I can tell you that this Bond is probably closer to Fleming’s vision, but he goes even further. He’s much darker than Fleming imagined. Fleming’s Bond still liked his martinis “shaken, not stirred.” The new Bond, as you might remember from Casino Royale doesn’t “give a damn.”

All of this might leave you with the impression that I didn’t like the movie or that I don’t like the new Bond. Not so. But I admit that I think of this Bond differently. Almost as if he’s a separate character, and this is a separate series. In some ways, it really is. And at times I still miss the old Bond, and I will continue to wish that Brosnan could have made one final movie before the reboot. But enough about that.

Quantum of Solace picks up immediately where the previous movie left off, and I mean immediately. I had watched Casino Royale again a few months back, but it wasn’t recent enough. Ideally the best way to view Quantum of Solace is by watching the previous movie at home and then driving immediately to the theater.

Quantum has been billed as “Bond out for revenge,” but that’s too simplistic. Yes, Bond does go a bit rogue in this movie while M, head of British Intelligence is trying to reign him in, but the real question is whether Bond is motivated more by revenge or more by duty. The answer to that question becomes a bit more clear by the end of the movie.

Bond is certainly the most driven he’s ever been and downright angry in this movie. But that doesn’t mean that he’s dispassionate or even apathetic as demonstrated in a very touching scene in which he holds a dying character in his arms at a pivotal point in the movie. Also, Bond’s maturing relationship with M is very interesting. In the original movies, the Bond character always seemed like a bit of a nuisance to his boss, and the two certainly didn’t seem to have too much respect for each other. Not true of the new series. There is a growing sense of respect between M and Bond, and more importantly, trust.

As already mentioned, although there are a couple of “Bond girls” in this movie, the real love interest in Quantum is still Vesper from the previous movie and she’s dead. Bond obviously had feelings for her, but feels betrayed by her in this movie and the feeling stings. Although there are a few quips here and there, the traditional Bond humor is gone in this installment, but the action and suspense is heightened.

As for the villain, there not much I can say without giving away crucial plot points. However, I will say that this Bond villain will not go down in history as the most memorable bad guy James Bond has ever faced. But maybe that’s by design. Maybe Bond’s wrestling with his own inner demons is the more crucial conflict of the film.

My hope is that by now Bond has dealt with his anger and angst over the scenarios created in Casino Royale and that now he and we, his audience, can move on. I don’t expect we’ll ever go back to the Roger Moore days of nearly winking at the camera, but a bit of levity would be appreciated. Too much of what we see in Quantum to the complete exclusion of the “fun” of the traditional Bond movies could become tiring after a while.

Unless I’m mistaken, the title “Quantum of Solace,” one of Fleming’s short stories about Bond, has now exhausted all of Fleming’s original works (the movie had nothing to do with the story other than the title itself). I don’t want to give away the ending of the movie, but it seems to me that for the next time around, it might be a perfect time to start introducing John Gardner’s works beginning appropriately with his first title License Renewed.

Tags: Movies