11 replies to this topic

[maibaum]

Hi,

I’m new here. I just wanted to add to the confusing QoS reviews. Reading the reviews does give the impression, that there are two completely different films.
And indeed, I don’t know, where to put it. Saw it yesterday and, well, I wasn’t exactly disappointed but neither was I completely happy with it. While CR was a perfect Bond film but with little Bond in it, QoS has Bond in it (yes there are Bond moments!), but is no overall Bond film concerning style. Strange! It is very down to earth, and you can clearly see that Forster isn’t used to handle big budget films. There are no big panorama shots to bring you to the next location into the scene. You just see e.g. a dirty backyard and there stands “Bolivia” or you see the opera entrance and read “Bregenz”. It doesn’t give you the glamorous Bond feeling. In that sense it looks cheaper than CR although the budget was much higher.
I will not comment on the shaky camera work because everything is said about that and most of it agreed.
The soundtrack is great and the Bond tune comes exactly at moments where it is needed. At times it sounds like old Barry stuff. Nice!
Very bad editing indeed, not just in action sequences!
The story isn’t that complicated but it is just thrown in between the action. I can not understand why the film is that short. Story could have been better developed, characters too. Especially after CR and with Forster as director.
Olga Kurilenkow looks good, nothing more.
The film seems to be under progress, not finished. Can not explain it further.
There are four clear similarities to Bourne 3 which can not be denied: the rooftop chase, the motorbike scene, the knife fight (most obvious) and the last scene in the flat in Russia. The problem is not that there runs a man across the roofs or drives a motorbike, but that it looks exactly like in Bourne. The hotel room where Bond has the knife fight looks exactly like the room in Tangier in Bourne, the choreography and cinematography are similar, even the killing of the man! There was a time when Bond was copied by others, now … well over the last 30 years (TLALD) it is the other way around.
But Bourne has one improvement for the Bond series (and others!): it brings him down to earth!
I’m glad, Bond the films are spy movies again. The films where Bond is a secret agent (not just an expert for explosives and girls) have always been the best (FRWL, OHMSS, FYEO, TLD)! I look forward to Bond 23 when we get a real and round Bond spy flick! Or is the character not finished yet? Where does the gun barrel come next time?
Daniel Craig is good, but I have the impression he can not be cool and suave. Killing people icecold, yes, but when he tries to walk a street and look like Bond he just walks like a Thug, a bulldog. I have to add, I liked Pierce Brosnan very much, but he was in the worst movies of the series. He has the arrogance and elegance (well, maybe he lacks the killer qualities) that Craig has not (so far).
Maybe after my second viewing my review would be less ambiguous. But something was missing in this film.

[stamper]

There are no big panorama shots to bring you to the next location into the scene. You just see e.g. a dirty backyard and there stands “Bolivia” or you see the opera entrance and read “Bregenz”. It doesn’t give you the glamorous Bond feeling. In that sense it looks cheaper than CR although the budget was much higher.

Excellent point. I agree, the money isn't on screen. All early Bonds had that travelogue feel. Here, it feels like an episode of The Saint where they shoot italy in the pinewood backlot with the big card ITALY all over a shot.

I went to see the movie a second time, and all the defaults are even worse second time around.

[Zorin Industries]

There are no big panorama shots to bring you to the next location into the scene. You just see e.g. a dirty backyard and there stands “Bolivia” or you see the opera entrance and read “Bregenz”. It doesn’t give you the glamorous Bond feeling. In that sense it looks cheaper than CR although the budget was much higher.

Excellent point. I agree, the money isn't on screen. All early Bonds had that travelogue feel. Here, it feels like an episode of The Saint where they shoot italy in the pinewood backlot with the big card ITALY all over a shot.

But SOLACE left Pinewood for a great deal of its main exterior work. And not being like "all the early Bonds" is exactly the point of it, isn't it? We don't need Bond to give us a travelogue when every other television show is a famous person touring the globe and cheap flights and the internet have made the world smaller. Bond has moved on from what went before. And if erecting three towering camera and stunt cranes in ancient Sienna isn't about showing off the location I don't know what is. Locations have to move the narrative along now in Bond. We don't live in those cinematic times where the story can stop to show off the budget. There are only so many establishing shots of airports the Bond series can get away with.

And I for one think SOLACE is better for not being tied down to the second unit car-park off Studio 3 at Pinewood (which incidentally didn't house THE SAINT - Elstree did).

[Royal Dalton]

We don't need Bond to give us a travelogue when every other television show is a famous person touring the globe and cheap flights and the internet have made the world smaller.

You might not need it. But I do.

[avl]

We don't need Bond to give us a travelogue when every other television show is a famous person touring the globe and cheap flights and the internet have made the world smaller.

You might not need it. But I do.

And that's exactly what we get - stunning locations, Sienna, Austria, and especially S America, rarely seen in cinema, and really evocative of place. QoS is the return of the travelogue Bond!

[Skudor]

There are no big panorama shots to bring you to the next location into the scene. You just see e.g. a dirty backyard and there stands “Bolivia” or you see the opera entrance and read “Bregenz”. It doesn’t give you the glamorous Bond feeling. In that sense it looks cheaper than CR although the budget was much higher.

Excellent point. I agree, the money isn't on screen. All early Bonds had that travelogue feel. Here, it feels like an episode of The Saint where they shoot italy in the pinewood backlot with the big card ITALY all over a shot.

I went to see the movie a second time, and all the defaults are even worse second time around.

I was rather pleased not to have those panoramas - I always felt they were a bit cheesy in the recent Bonds, and more an indication of not being on location than being there.

[avl]

Excellent point. I agree, the money isn't on screen. All early Bonds had that travelogue feel. Here, it feels like an episode of The Saint where they shoot italy in the pinewood backlot with the big card ITALY all over a shot.

Really? did we really see the same film? I'm genuinely baffled at this comment

[Royal Dalton]

We don't need Bond to give us a travelogue when every other television show is a famous person touring the globe and cheap flights and the internet have made the world smaller.

You might not need it. But I do.

And that's exactly what we get - stunning locations, Sienna, Austria, and especially S America, rarely seen in cinema, and really evocative of place. QoS is the return of the travelogue Bond!

Good.

[dee-bee-five]

Excellent point. I agree, the money isn't on screen. All early Bonds had that travelogue feel. Here, it feels like an episode of The Saint where they shoot italy in the pinewood backlot with the big card ITALY all over a shot.

Despite there being strong competition, this has to be the most bonkers thing you've written about QoS (thus far, that is).

[Mr_Wint]

We don't need Bond to give us a travelogue when every other television show is a famous person touring the globe and cheap flights and the internet have made the world smaller.

You might not need it. But I do.

And that's exactly what we get - stunning locations, Sienna, Austria, and especially S America, rarely seen in cinema, and really evocative of place. QoS is the return of the travelogue Bond!

No. CR, for example, had far more location shots.

[avl]

We don't need Bond to give us a travelogue when every other television show is a famous person touring the globe and cheap flights and the internet have made the world smaller.

You might not need it. But I do.

And that's exactly what we get - stunning locations, Sienna, Austria, and especially S America, rarely seen in cinema, and really evocative of place. QoS is the return of the travelogue Bond!

No. CR, for example, had far more location shots.

I have not counted up the number of shots. I'll let you do that. Do let us know.

[maibaum]

It is not a question of how many establishing shots are in the film, it is the execution of the whole thing. And if a Bond film looks like Amores Perros something is wrong. Not because AP is a bad film (not at all), but because the style doesn’t fit here. And I think, the Bond films should share a certain style.
What they did in CR was a reboot of the cinematographic Bond, they referred to the character, habits and attitudes of the character of the films and although CR was the biggest change in the series the style was the most bondian since TLD. Why change it after 46 years and bring in a “new” style, which is not new in general just new in the Bond series? The Bond films are recognizable at first glance because of bondian style (again: CR most of the films in the last 20 years!). Don’t tell me you didn’t like it in the 21 films. QoS was the first film which (at times) lacked that style. And I don’t know why. Can you see that point? I don’t think it to be that a big problem so far, but a change in style and atmosphere would change the series completely. And so the question arises if they start a new series about a MI6 Killer, jumping from continent to continent, killing small time crooks in dirty backyards (the Forster style perfectly fits this concept), a series that uses elements from the earlier one? And further: has this new series the power to last another 46 years?
I understood the things going on in CR as a development of the character, that they tried to show how Bond became the man we know (the hero of the most successful franchise in film history). And in the end, he became the man. But in QoS the whole series has changed to something different, different from CR. But there is relief in the film because Forster in the end claims, now Bond is finished. As far as I can see, there was no development in the character at all in the film, (SPOILER) he just doesn’t kill Yusef. No danger so far because the next director can start exactly where Forster started (as if QoS has never been there) and has the opportunity to do what Forster should have done: to bring back Bond!
Don’t get me wrong: Bond has very little to do with Q, gadgets, Moneypenny, one liners, Girls and maniac villains!
Maybe one should open a new thread for that.