Quantum of Solace: James Bond Goes Green!
The new Bond movie, out today, is good. Not quite Casino Royale good, but still good: tons of great action scenes, and more of Daniel Craig's glowering young 007, an anti-playboy who kicks ass and seduces women with ruthless efficiency. ("I can't find the stationary," he says--and, whoops, she's in bed with him.)
This second Craig installment in the refreshed franchise couldn't care less about weapons of mass destruction. It's all about controlling resources--namely, water and oil. Oil is the new gold, and the scene in which the corpse of a beautiful, naked woman is found on a hotel bed, embalmed in oil, is an obvious allusion to Goldfinger. (Thankfully, there's no villain named Oilfinger. That would just be gross.) In a scene in the foreign ministry, the film takes a moment to basically blurt out that the West's thirst for petroleum prevents it from taking the morally correct course abroad--the consequence being that Bond (once again) has to go rogue for awhile to do the right thing. He also gets a bit unconventional in his choice of vehicles: after an opening-scene car chase featuring the obligatory Aston-Martin, Bond swaps it for a motorbike, a couple of compact cars, and finally a Ford hybrid SUV.
The movie's main plot twist, though, is that water is the new oil. French baddie Dominic Greene (Mathieu Amalric) is not after oil, as everything assumes, but Bolivia's water supply. In the movie's most artful set piece, his ultra-secretive cabal gathers at a performance of Tosca for an earpiece conversation. (Bond, of course, finds a way to listen in.) "This is the most precious resource in the world," one of them says. I almost laughed out loud when Greene (get it?) threatens to cut off a dictator's balls if he doesn't give him a utilities contract. But it kind of makes sense. And I was happy to see there's nothing here like the shower scene from Casino Royale--touching, to be sure, but so much wasted water!
I don't mean to take this whole eco-friendly thing too far. Quantum is, after all, an action movie, full of gas-guzzling chases involving boats and, at one point, an enormous cargo plane. All those wrecked vehicles aren't doing any good for the environment. And It's also worth pointing out that there's kind of green in this up-to-date Bond flick that's very out of fashion. It comes up when the bad guys deliver a suitcase of cash to that nasty dictator: "In euros, as requested."
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Not just a plot twist, it's true. Just try living without water. I hope I never live to see the day when there is a monopoly in the water market.
Only 7% of the Earth's water is drinkable, and most of that is in Antarctica.
Yeah, imagine the problem after the third world war. Bben there done that, ...not fun. Sorry -couldn't resist.
An excellent, thrilling film, although its emotional lines and plot lines are a tad murky at times. It's much more suspenseful than most Bond films, and Daniel Craig truly inhabits the part, making Agent 007 a real person, strange as that sounds.
The U.S. is portrayed in the film as a ruthless nation that backs villains, so it's also realistic in that sense.
It's "stationery" -- that's the stuff you write on -- "stationary" means standing still.
Saw Quantum of Solace yesterday. Really not very good at all. Action, yes -- far too much of it -- but no coherent plot. It left my friend with a migraine and me wondering where the plot had gone. WHAT happened?! Nothing fit together, a common outcome when there are 3 credited writers (among them the talented Paul Haggis, writer of Million Dollar Baby and other great films), whose hand was nowhere to be seen, along with that elusive plot).
The song was horrible. I challenge anyone to hum/sing it! Ah, for the days when Dame Shirley Bassey crooned "Goldfinger... " The Bond franchise -- this is the 22nd Bond film -- is in serious difficulty, from that awful song to the overdone action to the incoherent plot to everything that once made this entertainment venue such fun.
Daniel Craig is still gorgeous -- great eye candy for us girls -- as is beautiful Olga Kurylenko for the guys -- but he doesn't even get to bed her. (Big mistake.) Yep, the franchise is in serious difficulty. I read the mostly bad reviews -- check them out -- and thought, no, it couldn't be THAT bad! It is.
I saw the movie on Friday. It was not Casino Royale and I was a bit disappointed. But after I thought about it, I thought it was a good movie - lots of action. I am surprised that Craig was able to stand up after all that he did in those stunts although I'm sure he had help with some of them. I hear it is doing very well in Europe and Asia.
Saw the movie today... It was okay, but I think the "Bourne" movies are more interesting plot-wise.
Considering how much electricity and other forms of energy are used up to produce a film, this article comes off as incredibly naive.
And lord knows how much energy was wasted making the movie.
BUT it's interesting to see them bring this up as a subject matter. The U.S. has privatized far too much of it's water resources and that is WRONG. So maybe....
It's true that we need water the most but oil is the most precious, for now. Just to ship around the essentials of hybrids or zero-emissions vehicles or solar/wind generators an incredible amount of oil is used, so we would have to replace both the end products and the shipping, and even the greenest solutions have trouble with alternative sources for air travel.
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