18. Quantum of Solace (2008)
QUANTUM OF SOLACE (2008)
Henry Cavill IS James Bond
“GRÜN: It was; how does one say? A mirage, Mr. Bond. That’s all it ever was.
BOND: It meant something to me.
GRÜN: Pity.”
Henry Cavill IS James Bond
“GRÜN: It was; how does one say? A mirage, Mr. Bond. That’s all it ever was.
BOND: It meant something to me.
GRÜN: Pity.”
Barbara Broccoli had a problem. Ever since she had him on the screen on the recent film Layer Cake (2004), she and others at EON had become convinced that English actor Daniel Craig was the right choice to replace Pierce Brosnan as Bond. In this they had to fight the skepticism of many others who, while judging Craig to be talented, just couldn’t picture him as Bond. More importantly, they also had to fight Craig’s own reluctance, as the actor also wasn’t enthusiastic about playing the role nor particularly interested on the script for Casino Royale, a reboot for the franchise after the perceived excesses of the previous era. And although Broccoli managed to finally drag Craig into a screen test, the actor had arrived so exhausted that director Martin Campbell – of GoldenEye fame – joined the chorus of those unconvinced by him. Allegedly, what pushed Craig over the edge was his distaste for the next drafts of the script, though it has been said he simply wasn’t willing to be Bond for what could have very well been a decade if things went absolutely right. This, of course, left a disappointed main producer without what she felt might have been the ultimate gamble.
On the brighter side, Craig was far from EON’s only choice for the role, and they had also tested or considered well over twenty or so actors, ranging from the longest of long shots to some reasonably popular or more established choices. And one by one they had discarded them, all the way to three finalists: Henry Cavill (22), Goran Visnjic (32), and Sam Worthington (28), all of them possessing their own clear strengths and weaknesses. In the end, the casting process culminated in a re-run of what was already the “gold standard” for Bond auditions, repeated by EON over and over again over the past few decades: the famous meeting between James Bond and Tatiana Romanova during From Russia with Love. Visnjic impressed many with his demeanor, and fell apart the moment he opened his mouth, his still accented voice dooming his chances. Worthington, while showing less charisma, didn’t display any evident weaknesses, but didn’t impress either. Cavill, almost inconceivably young, apparently excelled, and immediately won over director Campbell as his biggest cheerleader. There was a new frontrunner in place, but it took weeks – if not months – for Broccoli and other holdouts at EON to relent, finding Cavill’s young a near impassable barrier.
Still, none of the alternatives had dazzled as much or were willing to change their minds, and so they had been forced to make the announcement on October 2005. A passionate – and decidedly mixed – public frenzy followed, splitting the public and the fan base between those who felt he had the looks and the potential, and those who dismissed him – like a late night comedian put it - as “Bond, Baby Bond” on account of his age. The successful yet not triumphant start of his tenure in Casino Royale (2006) earned Cavill his fair share of supporters over his charismatic yet inexperienced portrayal of the secret agent, but it did not entirely clear doubts about his future. If anything else, it looked like audiences feared having to wait too long – longer than EON expected them to – to find Cavill credible as a James Bond in his prime. Still, the movie was a clear financial success and the far grittier take on the franchise well received, so shortly after the release a sequel was immediately greenlight for as early as mid-2008.
Unable to persuade director Campbell to return for a third Bond film – for he felt he had done about as much as he could with the character -, an internal debate soon took place regarding whether the franchise would benefit from an action-centered director, or whether less conventional choices might be worth a shot. And yet, the right choice seemed to elude Broccoli and her team in terms of the latter alternative, with Roger Michell, who wanted a high-stakes, nuclear-centered plot, ruling himself out due to misgivings about the script; and Marc Forster being unavailable. In the end, they went for experience in terms of action, and hired Tony Scott (Top Gun, Crimson Tide, Enemy of the State). Having left Bond in a bitter, hurtful state after the death of Vesper Lynd in Casino Royale, Broccoli and main scriptwriters Neal Purvis and Robert Wade decided to center the sequel as a direct follow up, tracking Bond’s revenge against the organization which employed Le Chiffre and orchestrated Vesper’s death.
Subsequent rewrites by Paul Haggis – who had also polished the Casino Royale outlines and scripts – caused controversy due to his proposed ending for the film, which – allegedly – were bitterly resisted by EON from a creative standpoint yet enthusiastically embraced by director Scott, who wanted to further explore Bond’s character. Haggis won the battle for the ending and his version of an unusual main heroine, yet lost the fight for the title after his suggestion of “Sleep of the Dead” went down in flames. For his part, and while lacking creative control, Cavill made an effort to move the rebooted Bond closer to Ian Fleming’s literary version of it, unsuccessfully pushing for unused scenes from the novels to be included in the script. Still, his suggestion of a Fleming title to be used paid off in an unexpected direction: rather than his preferred choice of “Risico”, Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson picked the much derided and still unused “Quantum of Solace”, which they felt expressed Bond’s state of mind and soul during the film.
All these internal creative conflicts resulted in the film being pushed back to late 2008, a delay that could have gone even further – so it is speculated – had a potentially disastrous strike by the Writers Guild of America not been averted at the last moment in 2007. Moving into casting, and impressed by his performance as Adolf Hitler on Downfall (2004), EON signed up Austrian actor Bruno Ganz to play main villain Dominic Grün. Scott brought in Alexander Siddig to play secondary antagonist Yusuf Kabira, and Jasper Christensen became one of the few Bond villains to return via reprising the role of Mr. White. Virtually all of the remaining supporting cast returned in the sequel, including Jeffrey Wright, Giancarlo Giannini, and Judi Dench. The search for Bond girl Camille Montes was exhaustive and extensive, and culminated on then 22-year old newcomer Gal Gadot surprisingly securing the role after being persuaded by a casting agent to audition. On the musical front, and after unsuccessful attempts to secure either Amy Winehouse and/or Jack White and Alicia Keys to perform the main title, composer David Arnold was able to recruit Dame Shirley Bassey to sing her fourth Bond song – the first since 1979 -, the Arnold-written “No Good About Goodbye”.
Filming took place across England, Italy, Austria, Albania, Switzerland, Tunisia and Morocco between late 2007 and early 2008, a prolonged and grueling process due to the complex action sequences involved and the wide variety of locations, quickly earning Quantum of Solace a budget which surpassed that of its predecessors. By all indications, neither Gadot nor Ganz were particularly comfortable – Gadot felt unready, and Ganz doubted whether the movie was worth the effort -, but relations on set were reported to be cordial as Gadot and Cavill in particular displayed convincing chemistry. For his part, Siddig, who had played a Bond-like version of a character of his on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, was reportedly very amused to participate on the film. Finally, much fan speculation surrounded the rumors which had Olivia Wilde appearing on set despite the death of her character in Casino Royale, in what turned out to be a limited return as a “hallucination”.
Quantum of Solace’s pre-title sequence starts a few hours after the ending to Casino Royale, with James Bond (Henry Cavill) recklessly driving across the streets of Rome at night while carrying the mysterious Mr. White (Jasper Christensen) on the back of his trunk while pursued by enemy operatives. Following a high speed chase, Bond successfully dispatches all of its pursuers, triggering the gunbarrel sequence after shooting the last of them.
At an MI6 safe house in Rome, Bond, M (Judi Dench) and her new Chief of Staff Tanner (Rory Kinnear) unsuccessfully interrogate Mr. White, whose mysterious organization has been recently identified as “Quantum”. Mr. White, who is to be transferred to CIA custody, refuses to give in and mocks 007 for his “ignorance” regarding Vesper Lynd’s betrayal. Bond then sabotages the transfer, allowing White to escape so he can follow the trail to Quantum. At the Palio di Siena horse race, Mr. White – well aware of his impending doom – is killed by Dante, a Quantum assassin (Anatole Taubman). While Bond is able to overpower and accidently kill the assassin, he has lost both of his leads. Unable to reign him in, M has 007’s travel means revoked, forcing Bond to go rogue. Moving into Tuscany, 007 seeks out the now freed René Mathis (Giancarlo Giannini) – revealed to have been innocent – and enlists his assistance, planning to assume Dante’s identity to infiltrate the Quantum organization. He successfully retrieves the latter’s orders regarding his new target: Camille (Gal Gadot), a foreign operative that trades trafficked antiquities in Syria.
Entering Damascus thanks to Mathis’ local police contacts, Bond meets and verbally spars with Camille and her high profile contact and lover: businessman and environmentalist Dominic Grün (Bruno Ganz). Grün, it turns out, is the one who request the assassination, having learned that Camille intends to betray him. Camille, for her part, is revealed to be planning to assassinate Grün’s close associate Hamid (Amr Waked), a brutal general responsible for the murder of Camille’s family, and who Grün intends to install as dictator of an unnamed Middle-East country. Despite intense initial mistrust, 007 is able to save Camille from Grün and his leading henchman Yusuf Kabira (Alexander Siddig) in a violent chase, but he loses Mathis when he is betrayed and killed by his police contact. While recovering from a wound and suffering from a high fever, Bond hallucinates with Vesper (Olivia Wilde) and is nursed back to health by Camille, both agreeing to work with each other to stop Quantum. Camille has learned that Grün has obtained from general Hamid the cession of large tracks of land thought to contain oil.
Whilst Grün negotiates a non-interference agreement from the CIA to the muted distaste of agent Felix Leiter (Jeffrey Wright) in return for a partnership on said oil, Bond leaves a trail for M and Tenner to follow regarding Grün, and he enters the unnamed country alongside Camille. Flying over the concerned lands in a private aircraft and being shot down, both learn the lands actually contain enormous reserves of water contained by a major secret dam, currently causing a severe drought. Seen by Kabira and other Quantum agents, Bond is captured and brought to the dam, where Grün is making the final preparations for the Hamid coup. Admitting his intentions to start controlling the water supply of vulnerable countries through puppet rules, Grün decides to emotionally torment Bond before his execution. Revealing that Vesper had actually been blackmailed after being seduced by a Quantum operative, Kabira rubs salt in the wound by gleefully identifying himself as the culprit. Grün departs via helicopter and leaves Kabira in charge, all while Camille – assisted by Leiter, unwilling to doom his friend – is able to infiltrate the subterranean dam and free 007 in time.
Bond confronts, beats and almost tortures Kabira for information before being stopped by Camille. After Kabira begs for mercy and makes an inaudible confession to a briefly unsettled Bond, he throws Kabira off the dam and they proceed to blow it up, ending the local drought. The couple then fly to Switzerland to assault Grün’s private resort atop the Alps, wreaking havoc on the Quantum security detail. Camille is able to avenge her family by dispatching General Hamid, and Bond successfully captures a now cowering Grün. Dragging him into the snow, 007 forces Grün to give up his comrades and proceeds to ask him: “where is she?”. Taking a suitcase with money from Quantum, Bond and Camille leave the mountain, leaving Grün stranded in the wilderness. Shortly after, at an opera house in Bregenz, Austria, the Quantum high command is meeting in plain sight at a Tosca performance via earphones. Savoring the moment, 007 mocks the Quantum leadership with a stolen earpiece, just before CIA and MI6 operatives enter the building to quietly take them into custody.
Outside the opera, Camille expresses her hope that Bond will be able to overcome his demons, and they bid farewell to each other after sharing a kiss. The agent disappears like a shadow, and then travels to an old religious orphanage in Albania, where he finds a little girl revealed to the audience as Vesper’s child: her real reason for betraying Bond. 007 gives the orphanage nuns the recovered money he won from Le Chiffre to ensure the child will be cared for, and walks away. M is waiting for him outside the orphanage, and after discussing the issue of Vesper’s daughter and Bond’s forgiveness of her, she informs him that Grün was found dead atop the mountain. After asking him to return to active service, Bond replies: “With pleasure.”
Quantum of Solace premiered on November 2008 to significant commercial and critical success, surpassing Casino Royale’s already impressive box office returns and sparking some debate as to whether CR or QOS were the better entry. As some noted, it appeared that those who were more unconvinced about Cavill’s portrayal and his previous romance with Olivia Wilde’s Vesper (which not everybody found believable) were likelier to prefer QOS and his expanded background on the previous film, whereas those more favorable to CR felt the direct sequel was arguably unnecessary. And while immediate praise was directed at the action sequences, the pacing, Dame Shirley Bassey’s return and the performances of Cavill, Dench and Siddig in particular, others criticized Gadot or Grün’s portrayals while praising their characters, the extremely high level of violence, and the dark tone of much of the film. Indeed, even critics who spoke highly of it expressed their hope that Bond would leave his more “depressing” phase in future adventures, rather than double down on the gritty take on the franchise.
Faced against those expectations, Cavill would seemingly flounder in his less than successful third entry – the lowest point of his tenure – before making a triumphant return in 2013’s Risico. Despite a record seventeen years on the role, Cavill has not yet reached Sean Connery and Roger Moore’s record of seven Bond movies (if one counts Never Say Never Again), but his six entries in, and possibly a seventh depending on contract negotiations and his remarkable youth – only 38 this year – he has certainly left his mark as a prolific 007. Still, having expressed frustration after having played the secret agent for such a large part of his life, there are those who expect him to quit the role after finally vanquishing Chiwetel Ejiofor’s Blofeld in All the Time in the World (2021). Highlights of the film include the pre-title sequence, the Palio di Siena scenes, Bond’s tortured journey, Camille’s relationship to Bond, and the opera scene.
Author’s Notes: It’s a combination of factors here, some of which are probably mutually exclusive. Cavill instead of Craig in Casino Royale (thus a lesser success), Scott instead of Forster (no excessive Shaky Cam), some of the alternate casting in action (Ganz, Gadot), and, of course, many of the unused story ideas, including the infamous proposed ending by Haggis. “No Good About Goodbye” was apparently never considered because the song wasn’t written until after “Another Way to Die” was selected… but I couldn’t resist. Just assume Arnold wrote it earlier in TTL. Whether Dominic Greene would have retained the name had they cast Ganz I don’t know, so I shifted it to “Grün” on account of his background. It’s almost certain Camille Montes wouldn’t be named Camille in this version, but I couldn’t think of a name. Thus we get a “better” Quantum of Solace, but that’s because TTL’s Casino Royale was not as successful as in OTL.
On the brighter side, Craig was far from EON’s only choice for the role, and they had also tested or considered well over twenty or so actors, ranging from the longest of long shots to some reasonably popular or more established choices. And one by one they had discarded them, all the way to three finalists: Henry Cavill (22), Goran Visnjic (32), and Sam Worthington (28), all of them possessing their own clear strengths and weaknesses. In the end, the casting process culminated in a re-run of what was already the “gold standard” for Bond auditions, repeated by EON over and over again over the past few decades: the famous meeting between James Bond and Tatiana Romanova during From Russia with Love. Visnjic impressed many with his demeanor, and fell apart the moment he opened his mouth, his still accented voice dooming his chances. Worthington, while showing less charisma, didn’t display any evident weaknesses, but didn’t impress either. Cavill, almost inconceivably young, apparently excelled, and immediately won over director Campbell as his biggest cheerleader. There was a new frontrunner in place, but it took weeks – if not months – for Broccoli and other holdouts at EON to relent, finding Cavill’s young a near impassable barrier.
Still, none of the alternatives had dazzled as much or were willing to change their minds, and so they had been forced to make the announcement on October 2005. A passionate – and decidedly mixed – public frenzy followed, splitting the public and the fan base between those who felt he had the looks and the potential, and those who dismissed him – like a late night comedian put it - as “Bond, Baby Bond” on account of his age. The successful yet not triumphant start of his tenure in Casino Royale (2006) earned Cavill his fair share of supporters over his charismatic yet inexperienced portrayal of the secret agent, but it did not entirely clear doubts about his future. If anything else, it looked like audiences feared having to wait too long – longer than EON expected them to – to find Cavill credible as a James Bond in his prime. Still, the movie was a clear financial success and the far grittier take on the franchise well received, so shortly after the release a sequel was immediately greenlight for as early as mid-2008.
Unable to persuade director Campbell to return for a third Bond film – for he felt he had done about as much as he could with the character -, an internal debate soon took place regarding whether the franchise would benefit from an action-centered director, or whether less conventional choices might be worth a shot. And yet, the right choice seemed to elude Broccoli and her team in terms of the latter alternative, with Roger Michell, who wanted a high-stakes, nuclear-centered plot, ruling himself out due to misgivings about the script; and Marc Forster being unavailable. In the end, they went for experience in terms of action, and hired Tony Scott (Top Gun, Crimson Tide, Enemy of the State). Having left Bond in a bitter, hurtful state after the death of Vesper Lynd in Casino Royale, Broccoli and main scriptwriters Neal Purvis and Robert Wade decided to center the sequel as a direct follow up, tracking Bond’s revenge against the organization which employed Le Chiffre and orchestrated Vesper’s death.
Subsequent rewrites by Paul Haggis – who had also polished the Casino Royale outlines and scripts – caused controversy due to his proposed ending for the film, which – allegedly – were bitterly resisted by EON from a creative standpoint yet enthusiastically embraced by director Scott, who wanted to further explore Bond’s character. Haggis won the battle for the ending and his version of an unusual main heroine, yet lost the fight for the title after his suggestion of “Sleep of the Dead” went down in flames. For his part, and while lacking creative control, Cavill made an effort to move the rebooted Bond closer to Ian Fleming’s literary version of it, unsuccessfully pushing for unused scenes from the novels to be included in the script. Still, his suggestion of a Fleming title to be used paid off in an unexpected direction: rather than his preferred choice of “Risico”, Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson picked the much derided and still unused “Quantum of Solace”, which they felt expressed Bond’s state of mind and soul during the film.
All these internal creative conflicts resulted in the film being pushed back to late 2008, a delay that could have gone even further – so it is speculated – had a potentially disastrous strike by the Writers Guild of America not been averted at the last moment in 2007. Moving into casting, and impressed by his performance as Adolf Hitler on Downfall (2004), EON signed up Austrian actor Bruno Ganz to play main villain Dominic Grün. Scott brought in Alexander Siddig to play secondary antagonist Yusuf Kabira, and Jasper Christensen became one of the few Bond villains to return via reprising the role of Mr. White. Virtually all of the remaining supporting cast returned in the sequel, including Jeffrey Wright, Giancarlo Giannini, and Judi Dench. The search for Bond girl Camille Montes was exhaustive and extensive, and culminated on then 22-year old newcomer Gal Gadot surprisingly securing the role after being persuaded by a casting agent to audition. On the musical front, and after unsuccessful attempts to secure either Amy Winehouse and/or Jack White and Alicia Keys to perform the main title, composer David Arnold was able to recruit Dame Shirley Bassey to sing her fourth Bond song – the first since 1979 -, the Arnold-written “No Good About Goodbye”.
Filming took place across England, Italy, Austria, Albania, Switzerland, Tunisia and Morocco between late 2007 and early 2008, a prolonged and grueling process due to the complex action sequences involved and the wide variety of locations, quickly earning Quantum of Solace a budget which surpassed that of its predecessors. By all indications, neither Gadot nor Ganz were particularly comfortable – Gadot felt unready, and Ganz doubted whether the movie was worth the effort -, but relations on set were reported to be cordial as Gadot and Cavill in particular displayed convincing chemistry. For his part, Siddig, who had played a Bond-like version of a character of his on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, was reportedly very amused to participate on the film. Finally, much fan speculation surrounded the rumors which had Olivia Wilde appearing on set despite the death of her character in Casino Royale, in what turned out to be a limited return as a “hallucination”.
Quantum of Solace’s pre-title sequence starts a few hours after the ending to Casino Royale, with James Bond (Henry Cavill) recklessly driving across the streets of Rome at night while carrying the mysterious Mr. White (Jasper Christensen) on the back of his trunk while pursued by enemy operatives. Following a high speed chase, Bond successfully dispatches all of its pursuers, triggering the gunbarrel sequence after shooting the last of them.
At an MI6 safe house in Rome, Bond, M (Judi Dench) and her new Chief of Staff Tanner (Rory Kinnear) unsuccessfully interrogate Mr. White, whose mysterious organization has been recently identified as “Quantum”. Mr. White, who is to be transferred to CIA custody, refuses to give in and mocks 007 for his “ignorance” regarding Vesper Lynd’s betrayal. Bond then sabotages the transfer, allowing White to escape so he can follow the trail to Quantum. At the Palio di Siena horse race, Mr. White – well aware of his impending doom – is killed by Dante, a Quantum assassin (Anatole Taubman). While Bond is able to overpower and accidently kill the assassin, he has lost both of his leads. Unable to reign him in, M has 007’s travel means revoked, forcing Bond to go rogue. Moving into Tuscany, 007 seeks out the now freed René Mathis (Giancarlo Giannini) – revealed to have been innocent – and enlists his assistance, planning to assume Dante’s identity to infiltrate the Quantum organization. He successfully retrieves the latter’s orders regarding his new target: Camille (Gal Gadot), a foreign operative that trades trafficked antiquities in Syria.
Entering Damascus thanks to Mathis’ local police contacts, Bond meets and verbally spars with Camille and her high profile contact and lover: businessman and environmentalist Dominic Grün (Bruno Ganz). Grün, it turns out, is the one who request the assassination, having learned that Camille intends to betray him. Camille, for her part, is revealed to be planning to assassinate Grün’s close associate Hamid (Amr Waked), a brutal general responsible for the murder of Camille’s family, and who Grün intends to install as dictator of an unnamed Middle-East country. Despite intense initial mistrust, 007 is able to save Camille from Grün and his leading henchman Yusuf Kabira (Alexander Siddig) in a violent chase, but he loses Mathis when he is betrayed and killed by his police contact. While recovering from a wound and suffering from a high fever, Bond hallucinates with Vesper (Olivia Wilde) and is nursed back to health by Camille, both agreeing to work with each other to stop Quantum. Camille has learned that Grün has obtained from general Hamid the cession of large tracks of land thought to contain oil.
Whilst Grün negotiates a non-interference agreement from the CIA to the muted distaste of agent Felix Leiter (Jeffrey Wright) in return for a partnership on said oil, Bond leaves a trail for M and Tenner to follow regarding Grün, and he enters the unnamed country alongside Camille. Flying over the concerned lands in a private aircraft and being shot down, both learn the lands actually contain enormous reserves of water contained by a major secret dam, currently causing a severe drought. Seen by Kabira and other Quantum agents, Bond is captured and brought to the dam, where Grün is making the final preparations for the Hamid coup. Admitting his intentions to start controlling the water supply of vulnerable countries through puppet rules, Grün decides to emotionally torment Bond before his execution. Revealing that Vesper had actually been blackmailed after being seduced by a Quantum operative, Kabira rubs salt in the wound by gleefully identifying himself as the culprit. Grün departs via helicopter and leaves Kabira in charge, all while Camille – assisted by Leiter, unwilling to doom his friend – is able to infiltrate the subterranean dam and free 007 in time.
Bond confronts, beats and almost tortures Kabira for information before being stopped by Camille. After Kabira begs for mercy and makes an inaudible confession to a briefly unsettled Bond, he throws Kabira off the dam and they proceed to blow it up, ending the local drought. The couple then fly to Switzerland to assault Grün’s private resort atop the Alps, wreaking havoc on the Quantum security detail. Camille is able to avenge her family by dispatching General Hamid, and Bond successfully captures a now cowering Grün. Dragging him into the snow, 007 forces Grün to give up his comrades and proceeds to ask him: “where is she?”. Taking a suitcase with money from Quantum, Bond and Camille leave the mountain, leaving Grün stranded in the wilderness. Shortly after, at an opera house in Bregenz, Austria, the Quantum high command is meeting in plain sight at a Tosca performance via earphones. Savoring the moment, 007 mocks the Quantum leadership with a stolen earpiece, just before CIA and MI6 operatives enter the building to quietly take them into custody.
Outside the opera, Camille expresses her hope that Bond will be able to overcome his demons, and they bid farewell to each other after sharing a kiss. The agent disappears like a shadow, and then travels to an old religious orphanage in Albania, where he finds a little girl revealed to the audience as Vesper’s child: her real reason for betraying Bond. 007 gives the orphanage nuns the recovered money he won from Le Chiffre to ensure the child will be cared for, and walks away. M is waiting for him outside the orphanage, and after discussing the issue of Vesper’s daughter and Bond’s forgiveness of her, she informs him that Grün was found dead atop the mountain. After asking him to return to active service, Bond replies: “With pleasure.”
Quantum of Solace premiered on November 2008 to significant commercial and critical success, surpassing Casino Royale’s already impressive box office returns and sparking some debate as to whether CR or QOS were the better entry. As some noted, it appeared that those who were more unconvinced about Cavill’s portrayal and his previous romance with Olivia Wilde’s Vesper (which not everybody found believable) were likelier to prefer QOS and his expanded background on the previous film, whereas those more favorable to CR felt the direct sequel was arguably unnecessary. And while immediate praise was directed at the action sequences, the pacing, Dame Shirley Bassey’s return and the performances of Cavill, Dench and Siddig in particular, others criticized Gadot or Grün’s portrayals while praising their characters, the extremely high level of violence, and the dark tone of much of the film. Indeed, even critics who spoke highly of it expressed their hope that Bond would leave his more “depressing” phase in future adventures, rather than double down on the gritty take on the franchise.
Faced against those expectations, Cavill would seemingly flounder in his less than successful third entry – the lowest point of his tenure – before making a triumphant return in 2013’s Risico. Despite a record seventeen years on the role, Cavill has not yet reached Sean Connery and Roger Moore’s record of seven Bond movies (if one counts Never Say Never Again), but his six entries in, and possibly a seventh depending on contract negotiations and his remarkable youth – only 38 this year – he has certainly left his mark as a prolific 007. Still, having expressed frustration after having played the secret agent for such a large part of his life, there are those who expect him to quit the role after finally vanquishing Chiwetel Ejiofor’s Blofeld in All the Time in the World (2021). Highlights of the film include the pre-title sequence, the Palio di Siena scenes, Bond’s tortured journey, Camille’s relationship to Bond, and the opera scene.
Author’s Notes: It’s a combination of factors here, some of which are probably mutually exclusive. Cavill instead of Craig in Casino Royale (thus a lesser success), Scott instead of Forster (no excessive Shaky Cam), some of the alternate casting in action (Ganz, Gadot), and, of course, many of the unused story ideas, including the infamous proposed ending by Haggis. “No Good About Goodbye” was apparently never considered because the song wasn’t written until after “Another Way to Die” was selected… but I couldn’t resist. Just assume Arnold wrote it earlier in TTL. Whether Dominic Greene would have retained the name had they cast Ganz I don’t know, so I shifted it to “Grün” on account of his background. It’s almost certain Camille Montes wouldn’t be named Camille in this version, but I couldn’t think of a name. Thus we get a “better” Quantum of Solace, but that’s because TTL’s Casino Royale was not as successful as in OTL.
THE DEATH COLLECTORS will return in
“THE SPY WHO LOVED ME”
“THE SPY WHO LOVED ME”
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