Quantum of Solace

A bizarre name for a movie...and a blockbuster Bond movie, to boot. It is only surpassed by "The Rural Juror" in hard-to-pronounce-itude

But...

It's growing on me.

The "rebirth" of the Bond movie is to the rebirth of the Batman franchise as a tricked out Toyota Supra is to a Lamborghini. Batman Begins and the Dark Knight brought an element of realism, as well as a well-crafted story* and believably awesome characters. Plus, awesome action.

Casino Royale featured great settings, glitz and glamor, provided the best Bond girl ever in Eva Green**, as well as thrilling action sequences,. However, the mechanics of the story suck. Bond is without doubt the dumbest spy/killer ever, as I have talked about previously. The Thing from the Fantastic Four is more subtle than the new Bond, a killing machine who would have trouble outsmarting an inbred Southie street tough--which means that every other character and story element of the movie has to stoop to Bond's level.

But...

The new Bond movie picks up right where Casino Royale left off. Bond is killing people left and right to avenge his lady Vesper. Now the title starts to make a little sense, and even starts to have a decent ring to it.*** Mad with grief, he at least has a plausible reason for being a door-head-butting heavy...

But...

Wait a tic...

Scratch that. Didn't Casino Royale end with Bond killing Mr. White? Did he even try to question him? Okay, never mind. This movie will probably be more of the same. The title "Quantum of Solace" is just more lipstick on a pig.


*Though it did feature some clunker lines, like Ra's Al-Ghul's "We tried a different weapon [to destroy Gotham], Economics!" which caused me to pause the movie for five minutes while hysterics was had. In light of recent events, perhaps the last laugh is on me.
**I base this judgement solely on the movie The Dreamers. Wall to wall nudity.
***Especially after I stopped mispronouncing Solace as "Sole-ace" instead of the correct "Saw-lace". Now the assonance rings clear, and I have to give at least some props to a movie so sure of its ability to make money that the title would be in Latinate rather than Anglo-Saxon diction. (Hint: one is more markety.)