I wanted to love this film. I really, really did.
It's fair to say that Casino Royale reinvented the wheel when it comes to the James Bond franchise. A back to basics approach, showing a more gritty, down and dirty, rookie James Bond, just after getting his Double-Oh licence to kill. Lauded by critics and Bond fans alike, it's been pretty much classed as one of the best James Bond films of all time.
Ever since the end of Casino Royale I have been clamouring for this film. The teaser trailer was released. Excellent. Then followed the theatrical trailer. Bloody good work. Another Way To Die was next and thus the first bump in the road was hit. More recently, reviews started to filter in, most positive, but a few negative, and mainly highlighting the same flaws in the film - bad editing, too much action, a confusing story. My once high level of excitement had to be toned down a couple of notches just in case I experienced something that I wasn't particularly expecting.
I'm saddened to say that it was a good job I lowered those expectations.
Excitement was at fever pitch as around 200 people waited for the cinema to open their doors and allow them to be some of the first members of the public to witness Quantum of Solace. As the lights dimmed in a full screening, you could cut the electricity with a knife.
As the opening car chase graced the screen, complete with rapid camera movement and equally rapid editing, I could very well imagine those in the audience who hadn't seen Casino Royale previously wondering what the hell was going on. And for those of us who had seen Casino Royale, wondering where the hell the bad guys chasing Bond in the Alfa's had come from. Maybe an explanation would come later...
A quick freeze-frame on Bond would lead to the opening credits complete with title song by Jack White and Alicia Keys. The version of the song in the film is different to the one released to the public. Obviously shortened as the opening credits don't run to 4 minutes in length. I disliked the song before, this version was slightly better but instantly forgettable. As for the titles themselves, they were decent. Nothing mindblowing. Nice to see Craig feature so prominently in the titles again. And the girl emerging from the desert sand was a nice touch. Oh, different font too. Makes a difference to the usually boring Arial font (or whatever it is) that they usually use.
We're into interrogation territory now. I really like the Mr White character. He's got a certain creepiness about him that we don't see often now with the main villains. This interrogation is intercut with the Siena Palio race, and at this point I've really got to ask "why"? The race adds nothing to the narrative of the story whatsoever. Another chase involving Bond and an Quantum insider working within MI6. The bell tower fall through the glass ceiling is an impressive sight on the big screen. And bang, Bond pulls his trigger and the double agent is dead. This is soon followed by some dialogue from M that borders scarily reminiscent to the dialogue from Casino Royale when she scolds him for killing the bombmaker.
The film then zips to another country, Haiti this time, and lo-and-behold we witness Bond fight again. And kill again. Within the first fifteen minutes Bond has been chased and has given chase and what do we have to show for it? Nothing except learning that MI6 tagged some notes that LeChiffre handled. But bodies are starting to pile up.
And this is one of the main problems that I had with the film. Too many chases and not enough story. Car chase. Siena chase. Boat chase. Bar chase. Airplane chase. Throw into the mix other action scenes involving Bond doing a lot of killing and what do you get? An action film. Not a spy thriller or a suspense film, but an action film. I don't mind action. Heck, I love action. But unless you marry the action with a reasonable story and enough of a plot to warrant a story, then you're heading into Die Hard territory.
The emphasis on action is at the expense of suspense. Crashes and explosions have taken over from human interest. Not once did I feel Bond was in any kind of mortal danger and therefore I didn't connect with the character. In Quantum of Solace James Bond was a killing machine. And there will be some who say "what do you expect, he's just lost the woman he loves, he's out for revenge, of course he's going to kill". I accept that, but in Quantum of Solace, James Bond is a killing machine who appears to be invincible. Whereas in Casino Royale he actually got hurt and tortured, in this film, you could fire thousands of bullets at him and he'd still be the only one living at the end of the film.
Craig looks cool as Bond, but he never shows any depth or vulnerability. As I said, he's nothing but a thug and a killing machine. The script doesn't help in this department.
Greene is a weak villain and is not menacing in the slightest until the very end of the film when he and Bond fight mano-a-mano, but even then he comes off only as a psycho axe-weilding killer. Bond deserves better opponents than this. As I said before, Mr White is a good character and showed more menace in his short scenes than Greene showed in the whole movie.
The Bond Girls are nothing to write home about. Camille is nice to look at, but she doesn't have much to do that stretches her acting capabilities. I would have preferred to have seen more of Agent Fields. I noticed people here have said that her acting looks wooden. I don't know how they can say that as she's in the film for all of about ten minutes and has maybe ten lines of dialogue. Criminally underused comes to mind. Both are almost as instantly forgettable as the title song. M is ... well, M is M. She's there and she offers her usual mix of love and hatred for Bond. It's the same M we've seen since GoldenEye.
Leiter, much like Fields, is criminally underused. Jeffery Wright is a fantastic actor. Use him EON!! One of the best scenes in the movie involves Bond and Leiter discussing the joys of corruption in South America and how US intelligence will lie down with anybody. I loved that scene. I wished there were more like it. It's a shame that they seem to have killed off Mathis.
I enjoyed his character. He was like a father figure to Bond. There's a nice touching moment when Mathis is close to dying and Bond holds him. You can see the genuine love that Bond has for Mathis.
I see not many people, in their reviews, talk about Elvis much. There's a reason for that. He's hardly in the film. Actually, let me rephrase that. He is in the film, but you'd be hard pressed to notice he's there. What is his relationship to Greene? We never find out. Again, underused.
I really can't believe that I'm hating on the film this much. It actually hurts me to do so considering how much I loved Casino Royale.
There were a few scenes that stood out as gold and these weren't action scenes, they were more character moments. The whole Tosca sequence was probably the best thing in the movie. As mentioned earlier, the Bond/Leiter bar scene is great. Bond offering advice to Camille about the art of killing was nice. Any scene with Bond and Mathis was brilliant. The scene between Bond and Yusef was also good.
But those scenes are not enough to change my opinion of the film overall. The question remains, who should be the one to take the fall for the film's lack of quality. Well the most obvious choice would be Marc Forster, but he alone can not take the full responsibility. The script itself makes very little sense. It's obvious that whole scenes of exposition have been chopped from the movie. As for the story, that was weak. Something about Greene wanting to get some land in the desert so he can milk the water supply. If I remember correctly there was a news item about a Purvis and Wade script being thrown out and a new story started from scratch. I'd really like to know where they were taking the character and story.
To me, the film feels like it was made quickly because of the success of Casino Royale. Maybe Sony and EON thought that it would be best to strike while the iron's hot and get something out there before people lose interest in the reinvigorated franchise.
But when the familiar "James Bond Will Return" phrase came up I really couldn't care if he did or he didn't.
By the way, I'd just like to say that I'm not as eloquent with words like some of our other members here.
This does not match the standard set by Zorin Industries.
