Mad Atoms

“Quantum of Solace?” Really?

All right, look, I get it – action movies are going through a phase. No longer can we be content with Steven Segal righting the wrongs of Native American genocide with merely the power of a windpipe-crushing judo chop. These days we have to have deep character flaws and development, dense drama in between the knife fights. But is it me or did whoever is at the helm of the James Bond franchise go off take a hideous mental dump? “Quantum of Solace?” What the fuck happened there? Picture that title without the 007 logo next to it and what would you guess that film is about? “A tome about death and loneliness in the scientific community.” Something like that, right?

Truthfully, I like the new Bond. He’s got problems, tends to fuck up and shoot the wrong people – that’s great. But somebody has shit the bed here and has to be held accountable. Seriously, who came up with this title and who do they think they are appealing to? What, was “Tetrahedron of Remorse” already taken? Give me 30 seconds and I can come up with a better title for this movie: James Bond and the Bullet with Tits. Tigervulva. The Lethal Deadly Awesome. Ninja Brothel.

All of these could have been used and made me want to see a movie but no, we got “Quantum of Solace.” What else was on the list? “Portions of Baruim,” “The Nova of Penitence,” “Minutiae of Antipathy”?

What are you expected to believe this movie is going to be about? All we get is an image of 007 with a big gun, walking through the desert in a suit. From what I can tell, he’s going to discover some sort of scientific device in the sand that will threaten the planet by giving us all some sort of low-grade downer. But unless that device also generates women with perfect asses and deadly knife skills, who the fuck cares? Maybe, just maybe, he’s going to pork Dame Judy Dench – who turns out to be a robot, and that has something do with the title. That’s about the only working scenario I can see here.