Bond fires a protective bullet for Camille (Olga Kurylenko).
discovered to mask his real goal of hoarding water underground while engineering a global drought.
In many ways, QUANTUM is analogous to TOMORROW NEVER DIES (1997), the flashy, teched- out successor to the successful Pierce Brosnan reboot GOLD- ENEYE (1995), which also paired Bond with an attractive fellow as- sassin (Michelle Yeoh) and pitted him against a crazed, megaloma- niacal billionaire (Jonathan Pryce). In both cases, the films suffer from a wealthy but other- wise unexceptional villain who stands to lose far more from his scheme than he can possibly gain—not at all like the larger- than-life villains of DR. NO, GOLDFINGER and THE SPY WHO LOVED ME. As a written character, Dominic Greene is scarcely more than the actor playing him—an edgy European who looks more at home in ca- sual than formal dress, and who needs armed flak to carry out
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orders he can hardly bear to ob- serve. Another misfire, this one more self-conscious, is the sup- porting role of Gemma Arterton as Fields, an MI6 office worker who volunteers to retrieve Bond and ends up, in a disturbing re- prise of GOLDFINGER, drenched and drowned in black oil and stretched nude across a bed. (The end credits give Fields’ ada- mantly unspoken first name as Strawberry, which is not only something a woman born circa 1986 is unlikely to be named, but, as a joke, 40 years staler than when Rialto’s West German Edgar Wallace series introduced a Sergeant Pepper to Scotland Yard.) Dame Judi Dench is given more to do than usual as M, and continues to play the role with a cold, contained bravado. The tri- umph of new casting is really the Ukrainian-born Olga Kurylenko, whose “Vampire Girl” from PARIS, JE T’AIME graced the cover of VW 144. Bronze-skinned, green- eyed and naturally glamorous,
she carries the role with grace, determination and vulnerability, creating one of the more com- plex Bond women. She may even be the first Bond Girl to stand independently of this epithet, as Bond sponsors Camille rather than seduces her, their entire ro- mantic rapport consisting of no more than a single goodbye kiss. Edited by Forster team mem- bers Matt Chesse and Richard Pearson (THE BOURNE SU- PREMACY), QUANTUM some- times moves at such a furious clip that it feels censored—notice how Fields’ deathbed nudity and instances of bloodshed are ab- breviated throughout—or, to be kinder about it, a feature-length trailer for a far more luxurious and pleasing entertainment. Often confusing and disorienting on the first pass, it actually plays better in subsequent viewings and may actually work best as a literal chaser to CASINO ROYALE. It’s actually quite a good Bond entry, better than the aforementioned Bond
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