James Bond Dossier: What We Know About Quantum of Solace
by Tom Burns

CASTING:

Going into Quantum, everyone knew that Daniel Craig was reprising the role of Bond, so, in terms of casting worries, Bond was pretty much a non-issue. However, there was a slight controversy when the usually-reputable Hollywood Reporter stated that Craig had signed on for four more Bond movies, a fact that Craig himself debunked in later interviews, telling reporters, "What I’ve done is I’ve signed up on the next movie, after that we’ll see. That’s the way I’m doing it, and certainly it’s not four more - that’s the truth. It’s certainly not four more." Casino Royale fixtures Judi Dench and Jeffrey Wright are returning in their respective roles as Bond's boss M and Bond's CIA buddy Felix.

It was also confirmed early on - and he's very visible in the trailer - that since this chapter was picking up right where Casino Royale left off, Jesper Christensen's Mr. White would have to return - i.e., Le Chiffre's evil contact whom Bond knee-capped in the final moments of Royale. Fox News' Roger Friedman beat Sony to the punch by announcing that Mathieu Amalric, star of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, would be playing 007's arch nemesis in Quantum, a baddie named Dominic Greene, a member of a mysterious organization and a ruthless businessman. And, in the ever-important role of Bond girls, this time, Bond gets two - Olga Kurylenko as Camille, a Russian-Bolivian agent who has her own score to settle with Greene, and Gemma Arterton as MI6 Agent Fields who we're sure helps out Bond in more ways than one. (That's exactly the kind of dumb entendres that almost sank the Bond franchise in the first place.)

OUR OPINION: Yeah, yeah, Craig, Dench, and Wright all rule, but did you see The Diving Bell and the Butterfly? Amalric was AMAZING, so we absolutely love the fact that Forster brought an actor of his caliber on as Quantum's Big Bad. For the Bond girls, Forster went the other way and gave us relative unknowns. Of course, they're both drop-dead gorgeous, but we've only ever seen Kurylenko in the completely ridiculous Hitman movie, and we're afraid that staring at online pictures of Ms. Arterton in her St. Trinian's schoolgirl outfit at work will get us into Pete Townsend-levels of trouble. Still, Gemma has a big UK fan following and the rest of the casting is so good that we'll give Forster the benefit of the doubt.

THE STORY:

Warning: This contains story details as released by Sony... SPOILER HEAVY. Turn back if you don't want to read.

Making our jobs that much easier, Sony sent out a press release for Quantum of Solace that offered, truth be told, an amazingly detailed plot summary. If you want to go in fresh, don't read ahead, but one would assume that Sony wouldn't spoil their own movie. Here's the text of the plot summary (as reported by MTV:

"Quantum of Solace continues the high octane adventures of James Bond (Daniel Craig) in Casino Royale. Betrayed by Vesper, the woman he loved, 007 fights the urge to make his latest mission personal.

Pursuing his determination to uncover the truth, Bond and M (Judi Dench) interrogate Mr. White (Jesper Christensen), who reveals the organization which blackmailed Vesper is far more complex and dangerous than anyone had imagined. Forensic intelligence links an MI6 traitor to a bank account in Haiti where a case of mistaken identity introduces Bond to the beautiful but feisty Camille (Olga Kurylenko), a woman who has her own vendetta.

Camille leads Bond straight to Dominic Greene (Mathieu Amalric), a ruthless business man and major force within the mysterious organization. On a mission that leads him to Austria, Italy and South America, Bond discovers that Greene, conspiring to take total control of one of the world’s most important natural resources, is forging a deal with the exiled General Medrano (Joaquin Cosio). Using his associates in the organization, and manipulating his powerful contacts within the CIA and the British government, Greene promises to overthrow the existing regime in a Latin American country giving the General control of the country in exchange for a seemingly barren piece of land.

In a minefield of treachery, murder and deceit, Bond allies with old friends in a battle to uncover the truth. As he gets closer to finding the man responsible for the betrayal of Vesper, 007 must keep one step ahead of the CIA, the terrorists and even M, to unravel Greene’s sinister plan and stop his organization."

That's a crazy amount of detail, eh? Well, we'll give the screenwriters credit for staying true to several Bond hallmarks - world-spanning adventure, jilted lovers, revenge, madmen trying to take over the world's resources. So, what can we add? Well, the cast and producers revealed a lot of fun little details to IGN during their visit to the movie's filming locations in Chile. As they reported back in April 2008, IGN discovered that Greene's secret organization (the one that was backing Le Chiffre in Royale) is called "Quantum," that Al Pacino will not be making a cameo as the head of Quantum, that Greene masks his evil motives by parading around as an eco-activist, and that the resource that Greene is trying to control is water itself. Bond producer Michael G. Wilson told IGN that, "Our particular man here is someone who is controlling the water in various countries and if you remember in Chinatown, if you control the water you control the whole development of the country ... [Greene has] found a way to inhibit the delivery of the water system without people knowing about it. What he wants to do is get control of the distribution system so then he'll provide the water."

OUR OPINION: We're a little torn about Greene's ambitions to control the world's water supply. Granted, Bond villains traditionally have similarly lofty ambitions, but the challenge for Forster will be making Greene's plans not seem silly or science-fictiony. Royale worked beautifully because the bad guys were fairly believable, not a golden gun or Moonraker space station in sight. Making parallels to Chinatown is a good thing, but let's hope that the plot can live up to such a comparison. To be frank, we're hoping that Bond's desire for revenge following Vesper's death remains the main focus of the script, with the globe-spanning international evil only acting as frosting on the cake. With the Bourne movies, Paul Greengrass proved beautifully that super spies are much, much more interesting when they actually have believable and understandable motivation as human beings (J.J. Abrams did the same thing with Mission: Impossible 3). Ideally, Quantum of Solace will be all about Bond trying to find some inner-peace through justice and ass-kicking and the evil, covert, water-grabbing bad guys will just make a great backdrop for his, to quote Jedi Dench from the trailer, "inconsolable rage."

FINAL OPINION: Do yourself a favor and go check out that trailer again. Isn't it cool? Not only does it pick up exactly where Casino Royale left off, but it immediately shows you how scary it can be when Bond decides to take something personally. Obviously, 007 goes off the grid in his search for justice (when does he ever stay on the grid?), and watching MI6 and Judi Dench scramble to locate Bond as he runs, jumps, and punches his way across continents lets the viewer know that things are definitely about to hit the fan. But beyond that, the trailer looks stupendously high-class - when you don't have to spend 90% of your budget on a CGI Iron Man suit, you really can go all out on locations and scope, apparently - and, despite Bond's hunger for revenge, there's still this slight-smirk cheekiness, which really does set the film apart from the increasingly mopey Bourne movies. Bond found the perfect balance of light and dark in Casino Royale and, from everything we're heard - and now, thanks to the trailer, with everything we've seen - we have no reason to doubt that Quantum of Solace will do exactly the same thing. Curses and confusing titles can't keep James Bond down, and we can't wait to see Daniel Craig back in action again.