With Bond 25 right around the corner, I set about the task of re-watching every Daniel Craig Bond movie. I’m eagerly awaiting No Time To Die and thought it appropriate to have this incarnation of Bond’s full arc in context going into Craig’s final installment. Upon rewatch, I confirmed several pre-held feelings about most of these movies. I still really like Casino Royale and Skyfall, and I still wish Spectre hadn’t been made. The movie that surprised me the most, however, was 2008’s Quantum of Solace.

The cultural perception of the Bond franchise has seen ebbs and flows since Daniel Craig took over. They hit big on their first bet (pun intended) with Casino Royale, which made $606,099,584 worldwide. Coming off the successful heels of “Casino”, Marc Forster’s Quantum of Solace was highly anticipated and opened strong. It made $67,528,882 domestic on its opening weekend, higher even than the opening weekend Casino Royale had. Unfortunately, “Quantum” fell short in its critical reception. As of today, it has a 65% Tomatometer and a mere 58% audience score.

My experience over the last decade has resoundingly cast “Quantum” as the lame bird in the Craig-Bond series. Nearly everyone I’ve asked has said they like the first and third offerings but that Quantum didn’t really work for them. And, in the past, I would typically affirm their apathy toward Quantum. It didn’t stick in my mind upon first watch like the others. There isn’t anything quite as directly memorable in Quantum as there is in the other recent installments. Casino Royale had poker and a brilliant performance from Mads Mikkelsen, Skyfall had a chase sequence on top of a train and perhaps the most electric Bond-villain performance ever in Javier Bardem, and Quantum of Solace simply took a backseat for most people.  (Side note: I have nothing to say about “Spectre”. I think it’s awful and it’s hardly worth comparing to the first three Craig-Bond installments.)

This 2021 rewatch made me suddenly and enthusiastically change faith about Quantum of Solace. I tried my best to watch it with open eyes and an open heart. It proved my assumptions wrong as I found myself enjoying it far more than expected. I had anticipated a serious letdown and was met with a pleasant surprise. Here are my top five reasons why Quantum of Solace isn’t actually bad: 

The Plot Is Sneaky Interesting

Underneath the tried and true Bond bravado, car chases and femme fatales included, Quantum unearths a surprisingly resonant plot. The main antagonist, Dominic Greene (played by Mathieu Amalric), seeks to buy up substantial Bolivian property in an effort to secure a majority of water rights in the country. In doing so, he can then exploit water necessity, blackmail the Bolivian government and extort them into paying exorbitant sums for use of his water. This plot line is somewhat cloaked throughout the film, taking a backseat to the aforementioned chase sequences and general pomp of MI-6, but it’s also the backbone for this installment.

I came away from this rewatch impressed by how a Bond film took on a plot of this nature, that is, one dealing with issues related to nature. Water usage and availability is a terribly real-world issue. The idea of someone being able to greedily manipulate water rights scares me more than the classic “I want to kill everyone” bad guys we see so often in action films. Mathieu Amalric’s character isn’t an evil genius, mass murderer, or genocidal space alien, he’s a businessman and bureaucrat. In our 2021 climate, I find that type of villain far more relevant and intimidating.

The Cast Is Superb

Of course, it almost goes without saying, but Daniel Craig is my favorite actor to have played Bond. His steely eyes and bravura are impeccable. He is at once profoundly cool and delicately vulnerable in his performance. He proved his qualifications for the role in Casino Royale and affirmed them in Quantum. I fully expected to love his performance in Quantum, if nothing else.

What I was surprised by, though, was how great the rest of the cast is. As mentioned, Amalric is sneaky good as Dominic Greene. He has the unnerving aura of someone who gained power not by physical intimidation, but financial imposition. He might take a backseat to the performances of Mads Mikkelsen and Javier Bardem, but he fits right in with them. He’s formidable as a villain because he doesn’t want to kill Bond, he merely wants to get rich. Amalric deftly handles this tactful, seedy, and avaricious character.

On top of Amalric, Quantum is stacked with wonderful performances from Judy Dench (reprising her role as ‘M’), Giancarlo Giannini, Olga Kurylenko as Camille, Jeffrey Wright, and David Harbour. I was particularly invested in what we get from Wright and Harbour. It was refreshing to see them dazzle the screen long before they both rose in fame from Westworld (Wright) and Stranger Things (Harbour). They play relatively small roles in Quantum, but they bring a level of prestige to the cast.

Also, I was extremely impressed by Kurylenko’s rendition of a Bond girl. She inevitably suffers he same fate as most Bond girls, but she is given far more latitude and depth than most. She’s a stronger female character than we’re used to seeing in Bond films. She’s given an opportunity for revenge against her oppressor and she works with Bond to take it. All these performances make Quantum of Solace an altogether impressive and riveting ride.

Bond Is More Vulnerable Than Ever

In Casino Royale, we saw James Bond lose a woman he truly loved. What results in Quantum is a story about a man who was nearly broken, now intent upon taking revenge. The famously impenetrable fortress of charisma that is James Bond allows itself to show cracks in Quantum. Rather than allowing Bond to move on without comment on his loss, it doubles down on Casino and shows a man with emotional layers unlike any we had really seen before from the character.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of Quantum is the thread about M being unsure whether she can trust Bond, cutting him off from MI-6, and positing him as showing questionable morals and decision-making. These are all things that are setup in Quantum then paid off (perhaps more effectively) in Skyfall. The entire story of Skyfall is how Bond has lost a step, he’s getting old, and perhaps he should leave his spy days behind. This is what makes Skyfall my personal favorite Bond movie, it ground Bond as a real person who can be broken, but it’s all set up in Quantum.

Bond is still fighting for heart and country, still attempting to use his training and judgement to do what’s right, but he’s also playing with a chip on his shoulder. He acts not only out of duty in Quantum, but out of passion. He seeks to avenge Vesper’s death in Casino Royale and also to prove to MI-6 that he’s still got it. The cracks show in his morality, leading to M’s questioning of his effectiveness, and making him more human than ever. This is the Bond that I love. He’s an ultra-suave, martini drinking, killing machine but he’s also a person who has been through hell. His emotional journey in this film makes Quantum an indelible installment of Craig’s run as 007.

The Locations Are Fun and Unique

Something I personally adore about Quantum is the locations. It starts out where Casino Royale left off, at Lake Como in Italy. This sets Quantum off on a classically joyous globe-trotting adventure. Bond traverses through Italy in the first act, stomping through Sienna and then meeting Giannini’s character in Tuscany. The Italian views alone are enough to leave me drooling. But then 007 makes his way to Austria, then South America. The better part of the film is set in Bolivia although the Bolivian scenes were actually shot in Panamá and Chile. This latin influence makes for a supremely unique Bond backdrop.

We’re accustomed to seeing Bond trot through classic European cities, London to be sure, and to whereabouts like Russia and Asian hubs. I applaud Quantum for taking us in a different direction (south) and infusing some Spanish culture. This setting is what gives us the wonderful performance from Olga Kurylenko and another from Joaquín Cosio as General Medrano. The Spanish language lends well to Bond’s classic globe-trotting espionage, proves him as an expert spy when he drops some Spanish one-liners, and does so without retreading old ground. The Bolivian plot line is unique and gives Quantum its own specific feel. Casino has the poker den, Skyfall has Scotland, and Quantum has Bolivia.

It Has Style

Finally, Quantum of Solace impresses me with its style. It exposes many of the classic Bond trademarks while also doing so with some distinctive flourishes. For one, I love its use of text supers when introducing new locations. Most Bond films (and all action films) use text to introduce new locations, that’s not uncommon. But most of them will do so in a brutally boring manner. They are usually in white, blocky text such as the ones in Skyfall. Quantum, however, uses beautiful text and creative fonts when introducing Austria, Bolivia, and more. This is a very small aspect of the film, but it adds a lot.

Quantum also features some overlooked sequences that I think stand up to any others in the Bond franchise. It starts out with a chase sequence as most Bond movies do and, only fifteen minutes in, we find Bond dangling upside down with his foot caught in a rope. He gets the gun and ends the sequence with a bang, as expected, but in a fun and unique manner. Then, at the 30 minute mark, Bond straight up crashes a boat into another boat, hijacks it and rescues Camille, then sets off on a boat chase. We’ve seen dozens of car chases over the years, but how many boat chases have you seen? Last, at 70 minutes into the runtime, Bond and Camille fall out of a damn airplane. This is just a great moment of action and signals that Quantum is a well-above-average action movie, drawing upon other action franchises of the era, like Mission Impossible, while doing it with a dash of classic Bond bravado. Small aspects like this are what sets Quantum apart and makes it a truly worthwhile installment.

Considering Quantum of Solace

In the end, Quantum didn’t fare quite as well as Casino Royale had. It earned just under $600M globally where Casino had made just over that mark. Quantum wasn’t a smash hit, but it was certainly a success. It did well enough to position Bond in a positive light for audiences, setting up the film which followed, Skyfall, for tremendous success. Skyfall, rebounded off of Quantum by making over a billion dollars worldwide.

This is largely due to the fact that Skyfall is a superior film, laying benefactor to Sam Mendes directing and Roger Deakins behind the camera. (My word is Skyfall beautiful to look at) Skyfall is my personal favorite Bond film and it will likely remain in our memories as the prestige installment from Craig’s run as 007. That said, it couldn’t have accomplished what it did if it weren’t for what Quantum set up. Mendes took the reins from Forster with the Bond name is pretty good shape. He was handed a bruised and battered Bond with more emotional wounds than physical ones. His revenge plot line in Quantum made him ripe for an epic emotional revival in Skyfall. No, Quantum of Solace will never be known as the best James Bond movie. That said, it’s a far better installment than most people give it credit for. 

The world waits to see how No Time To Die will fare both critically and commercially. While we wait, I recommend you rewatch Quantum of Solace. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.