Quantum of Admiration

November 25, 2008 • 8:33 pm • POSTED BY David Burden

This past weekend I saw the new James Bond film, Quantum of Solace. The movie was absolutely breathtaking, from the opening credits to the stuntwork to cinematography to the locations, including the Floating Stage at the Bregenz, Austria Festival House and the actual Palio di Siena bareback horse race in Italy.  The franchise took a first quantum leap forward with 2006’s Casino Royale, introducing Daniel Craig as the brooding, vengeful, ripped Bond who actually bleeds, amazing stunt sequences based on French Parkour Gymnastics and a ultra cool theme song by the guy from Soundgarden and Audioslave (wisely, the only holdover from the previous films was dame Judi Dench as M, or “Mum”).  Quantum of Solace is yet another step, perhaps most notably for the aforementioned credits and title designs, created by a Kansas City firm called MK12 (MK12 previously worked with Quantum director Marc Foster on The Kite Runner).  The theme song, “Another Way To Die”, a collaboration between Jack White and Alicia Keys, is also probably the best theme song since “Nobody Does It Better” or “Live and Let Die”.  Its amazing how the world’s longest running film franchise has been almost completely reinvented, dispatching the silly clichés, innuendo and product placement – Bond had recently taken to drinking Smirnoff and driving a BMW (?!) instead of the trademark Aston Martin – and attracting a whole new female audience without alienating its core male base.  This is more than an example of making a brand current, but about and trimming away the lazy fat that had sustained it for decades to reveal the lean, ripped form that made it successful in the first place.