Saw QOS at a charity screening last night and, for the most part, I have to echo many of the sentiments in Graham Rye`s review.
I had done my best to avoid reading anything about the film, whilst in production, hoping to be able to go into the screening with an open mind, but an hour and 46 minutes later I was left with the feeling of, "Is that it?"
Firstly, and this may come as a surprise to some, I felt that there was too much action, particularly in the first half hour, when the audience didn`t really have any time to get over the thrills of one action sequence, before being bombarded with another.
For those in the audience who perhaps couldn`t remember the ending of CR, I`m sure there were many who must have been confused at seeing someone, (Mr. White) appear inside the boot of Bond`s Aston Martin, at the end of the PTS, and wondering, "Who is he, and what was that sequence all about?" Personally I feel it would have been better to have opened the film with the gun barrel, (after all, the ending of CR had fully established Bond as Bond, so why was the gun barrel missing at the start of a new film?) and begin the film with the last scene of CR, and with Bond saying his name, before going into the shots of Bond in the Aston, being chased by White`s men.
As many have noted on this forum, the title song is poor and, whilst the title sequence by MK12 had nowhere near the touch and visual style of Daniel Kleinman, the images did help me forget the theme song playing in the background. Nice use of the gun barrel dots (in red) to help bring up the cast and crew credits, though I felt the font style was too large, which drew your attention more to the writing on screen than the visual images of Bond and the desert in the background.
The interrogation of Mr. White by Bond and M was nicely handled, and it was a surprise when one of the British agents suddenly turned out to be a member of Mr. White`s organisation. The rooftop chase was breathtaking, if not that exciting, and I agree with Rye that it was wrong to have intercut these scenes with that of the Italian Palio horse race.
The hotel fight scene between Bond and Slade seemed pretty pointless, (other than to include another action sequence) and I felt it would have been just as good had Bond just entered an empty hotel room, and found the briefcase. It seems highly implausible that somebody in this day and age could just walk up to a hotel reception desk, and receive a briefcase, without being challenged for some form of identification, before the briefcase is handed over.
The whole sequence of Bond first meeting Camille, and Camille returning to see Greene, (knowing that he wanted her dead) and Bond rescuing her, (why?) seemed pointless in both its set up and execution. (Perhaps the scriptwriters couldn`t think of a better way to introduce both the leading girl and villain to the audience). Nice use of the Universal Exports name on Bond`s business card, as well as Bond using the pseudonym “R. Sterling” a nod to “The Spy Who Loved Me”.
The boat chase was pretty ho-hum but it did produce at the end of it, the best line, (for me) where Bond hands Camille over to someone, quipping, “She was a little sea-sick!”
The ‘Tosca’ opera sequence in Austria was a good backdrop for the Quantum meeting and, whilst I can understand Bond revealing himself to Greene and his colleagues so as to take video phone images of the Quantum members, (which by sending them to M did at least push the plot forward) it just seemed ridiculous that he would then expose himself to Greene and his henchmen, simply to allow another shootout, (in a Matrix/John Woo style) for Bond to finally escape. Surely part of the job of being a secret agent is to be able to get in and out of somewhere, without anyone knowing that you were there? Bond achieved that in the first part of this sequence, but not in the latter part. This sequence also re-introduced us to Mr. White`s character, (last seen at the beginning of the film). His re appearance tells us, the audience, that he escaped from MI6 and survived, yet what happens? We never see him again! Is this just lazy scriptwriting or do the writers intend this character to appear again in Bond23? I hope the latter, as I found Mr. White`s character to be one of the more interesting QOS villains.
When M cancels his credit cards, leaving him stranded, Bond turns to the one person he feels can help him; Rene Mathis. Once again I concur with Rye`s thoughts on this. Why would Bond turn to Mathis, a person he believed at the end of CR might still be on Le Chiffre`s payroll, (and therefore was to be interrogated to find out if that was true or not) yet, in the intervening time between that happening and Bond meeting Mathis again at his Italian villa, neither Bond or the audience are told that Mathis was found to be completely innocent.
This could be confusing for those members of the audience who don`t remember Mathis` character from CR, (or the events that led up to why he was taken away by MI6 in the first place) and by not explaining what happened during that intervening time, some of the audience will just end up completely baffled by the whole scene. Bond just seems to accept that Mathis is innocent, and doesn`t even apologise for what MI6 did to him. At first, Mathis doesn`t want to help Bond, (which, after having been interrogated, tortured and deemed a traitor, is quite understandable) but it`s only after some cajoling from his girlfriend that Mathis is prepared to Live and Let Live, and agrees to go with Bond to Bolivia. His anger and resentment to Bond and MI6 is then suddenly forgotten, simply because Bond needs his help. So, that`s alright then.
In Bolivia Bond meets Agent Fields, (a cough and a spit cameo from Gemma Arterton) who`s screen time is so short that the actress has absolutely no chance of being able to develop her character, either by the script or by her performance, (which frankly isn`t much). And why does M send her, a girl from the office, to bring Bond back home? Hasn`t M learnt by now that sending a pretty girl to meet Bond is not a good idea, (a la Serena Gordon`s character in GoldenEye). Why first send a girl to bring Bond back, then later, (because surprise, surprise that didn`t work) three armed MI6 agents to do the same job?
It is here in Bolivia that Bond first meets Dominic Greene, (Mathieu Amalric) who, during the course of the film, turns out to be a very poor Bond villain. Bond has to have a villain that is comparable to himself, and coming after the wonderful performance given by Mads Mikkelsen as Le Chiffre in CR, Amalric`s performance barely registers above the zero level.
Bond meets Camille again, and after leaving and being stopped by the Bolivian police, Bond finds Mathis beaten up in the boot of the car. The police try to kill Bond, but Mathis takes the shot instead. After dispatching the policemen, Bond cradles a dying Mathis in his arms, with Mathis asking both himself and Bond to forgive each other. It`s a poignant scene which is then completely ruined by Bond callously throwing a now dead Mathis into a building skip! Why the hell would the producers/scriptwriters/Craig think that is what Bond would do? If Bond had made his peace with Mathis, (which I`m sure he had) then doing that to a so called friend would be entirely uncalled for and certainly not in Bond`s nature, (regardless of which actor was playing the part).
Bond finds M and her agents back at his hotel, along with a now dead Agent Fields, covered in oil from head to foot. Like the Robert Sterling/rooftop fall homage to Spy, here we have a nod to Goldfinger, and, as it was in CR, with the Aston Martin DB5 being reintroduced, it`s something the producers need to stop doing. These in-jokes don`t always get picked up by the audience, (who aren`t as knowledgeable as hard core Bond fans like ourselves), so if only a small amount “get” the joke, is it really worth it? Once again, I agree with Rye when he says that this sequence was so badly handled, both by EON and their publicity department, that for those that saw the pictures in the papers, way before the film was released, an effect which could have been stunning, was simply ruined.
With M telling Bond he`s suspended, we`re now back in “Licence to Kill” territory which, as it has been done before in that film, isn`t anything new or exciting. Although M`s line of “I don`t give a
what the CIA think. He`s my agent” gladdened by heart as I was thinking, “Yes. That`s a line that shows the nature of Bond`s relationship with M, and vice versa!”Bond and Camille travel to Greene`s Bolivian base in a large transport plane, which Bond is piloting. My heart sank at seeing Bond flying a plane again. After the realism of CR, it saddened me that the producers/scriptwriters felt the need to make Bond a superman again, simply to stage another action sequence and show off the fact that Bond can do just about anything. It is highly unlikely that a secret agent would know how to/or have been trained to fly a plane, (of whatever size) so why insult the audience and allow this to happen in the film?
Bond falling out of the plane was just another nod to Moonraker the film, and not done as well or as exciting. Like the boat chase, the air battle is a bit ho-hum, as is the ending in Greene`s base. The fight scenes between Bond/Greene and Camille/the general , echo the ending on the plane in DAD, as does the sequence where Bond is comforting Camille with the fire raging around them, which is similar to Bond comforting Vesper in the shower. Again, nothing new and nothing that exciting.
At the end Bond says goodbye to Camille, with a simple kiss, and no sex, (echoes of the ending of the Moonraker novel) and we learn that Greene has been killed by his own organisation. The film wraps with Bond encountering Vesper`s boyfriend and having a heart to heart with M, before disappearing into the night, with only Vesper`s necklace laying on a snow covered ground, to tell the audience that Bond has finally found peace with himself and with the woman he did in fact love. A poignant end is then slightly ruined by the sudden appearance of Craig`s gun barrel being tacked onto the end. It doesn`t sit right here and I can only hazard a guess it was put at the end to give the film a more upbeat ending, (a la OHMSS) to tell the audience that they have in fact been watching a James Bond film, and not some romantic drama.
Overall, I would give the film 4/10. The 4 is simply for the performances of both Craig and Dench, either acting together or separately. They alone make you want to stay with the film, when all around them, things plotwise seem to be falling apart. Olga Kurylenko is fine as Camille, and it would be interesting if her character does come back in Bond 23 or beyond, but with the exception of Giancarlo Giannini, (and to a lesser extent Jeffrey Wright in another almost cameo role) the rest of the supporting cast are poor, compared to the supporting cast that we had in CR.
I was hoping we were going to learn a lot more about the sinister QUANTUM organisation but alas, that wasn`t to be. We don`t even know if QUANTUM does, in fact, stand for anything, (as SPECTRE did). It seems to me that QUANTUM is not in the same league as SPECTRE when it comes to terrorism and extortion. They seem to just be a large organisation that wants to have many fingers in many financial pies, and in the case of this film, (wanting the rights to land) are happy to pay for it in the legal, (illegal?) way. Can`t quite see that Blofeld and SPECTRE would do business in the same way, somehow.
Apart from Italy, I didn`t think the locations suited a Bond film, and the lack of gadgets, (was there one?) may upset some of the audience used to seeing just the one in CR.
I had higher hopes for David Arnold`s music this time around. Having felt he had “come of age” with his CR score, it`s sad to report that much of the QOS music seems to have gone back to his TND-DAD days. We didn`t even get a stirring rendition of the Bond theme, when Bond was in danger or going through one of the many set pieces. After deliberately keeping the Bond theme out of CR, (until the end) it makes no sense not to showcase it in this film, bearing in mind at the beginning of QOS, Bond has become the Bond we know and love. Okay, he still has a few rough edges, but it`s still the Bond we know. Perhaps the time has come for a change in composer?
The worst part of this, however, is the script. Hardly any humour, (and less than in CR) and the dialogue in places was pretty dire. I was hoping there would be a line in the film explaining the film`s title, (for those not familar with Fleming`s short story) but alas that wasn`t to be. I noticed in the credits that Haggis was credited above Purvis and Wade, so I`m wondering if it was true when reports mentioned that P&W`s original script was thrown out, (with perhaps just a few things of theirs kept in) and Haggis was given free rein to create his own story. If that is the case, then Mr. Haggis, stick to just polishing a Bond script, and not fully writing one.
I don`t know where the producers will go next with Bond 23, but whichever way they do go, it has to have a storyline that adheres to the spirit of Ian Fleming. The difference between CR and QOS is simply down to the fact that the former is based on a Fleming novel, and the latter is completely made up.
There are elements from the Fleming novels that haven`t been used yet, and if the producers don`t want to go down that avenue then they have to craft a story that at least has Flemingesque elements in it, (a la Living Daylights). If they don`t, then the talents of people like Craig and Dench will be wasted, and Bond WILL become the next Jason Bourne, instead of it being the other way round. And that would be absolutely terrible.
Best
Andy
Edited by Auric64, 31 October 2008 - 01:30 PM.
