If the absence of traditional Bond staples like Q and Moneypenny weren't an additional tip-off, Quantum of Solace isn't operating under the same structural or stylistic rules expected of Bond movies. In the end, it's not just this peculiarly unfamiliar mentality of Bond's that so remarkably sets the James Bond movie apart, but the precise methods that director Marc Forster chooses to express it to the viewer. Rather, it's primarily about Bond grappling with his own unresolved fury and despair, simultaneously forced to remain 'functional' as he sleepwalks his way through whatever next mission his work demands.

Quantum's plot isn't about the actual villains Bond's uncovering and thwarting, antagonists whose motivations are greater macguffins than ever before. Thus, from minute one, the movie speeds through otherwise familiar Bond-movie trappings like a driver with a death wish. As a result, the viewer is, for the first and only time, thrown directly into the headspace of a Bond caught midway through an arduous grieving process. Therefore, the movie's follow-up stands as the Bond franchise's first true sequel, with Quantum of Solace taking place only one hour later. With Casino Royale having already made such a splash for humanizing Bond more than ever before, simply sweeping the fallout of Vesper's death under the rug was not an option going forward.

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