12 replies to this topic

[Captain Tightpants]

I literally just got back from seeing QUANTUM OF SOLACE. And, I have to say, the biggest dsappointment of 2008 was the marketing campaign: EON really droppedthe ball there. The film is actually pretty damned good, and a worthy addition to the series at the very least.

Allow me to explain (while laugh at all of you you thought I'd been crushed by the film) ...

WHAT'S IN A NAME?
This is where EON messed up: they marketed the film from the wrong angle. Everything we've seen and heard has been about Bond going out for revenge, but in reality, he isn't. Bond is going out for answers; it's everyone else who thinks he's in it for retribution. I'm not sure why they sold it that way, only that they did. As such, a lot of people seemed to walk in expecting something completely different.

STEADY AS SHE GOES!
Now what's all this I hear about excesses of steadicam and quick cuts? They didn't bother me at all. Either I have lightning-fast reflexes, or you people just blink really slowly. I'm glad there was no gunbarrel at the beginning, because it would have spoilt the incredibly opening across the lake. QUANTUM OF SOLACE presents us with the most pure car chase we have ever seen in a Bond flm; until now, everything has had something of a gimmick, be it the ejector seat, the remote controls, driving down train tracks and so on. Even the brilliant chase in FOR YOUR EYES ONLY seemd to be drawing attention to itself by scaling everything back in the wake of MOONRAKER. But here, the chase grabs you, pulls you in, and doesn't let go. Unfortunately, it's over so quickly that you don't really have time to register the fact that it's got you and has no intentions of letting up. I was a little disappointed that the sequence didn't end with the exploding lorry, as we'd be told, but I imagine the accidents during filming put paid to their efforts. The only time I hd trouble following something was during Tosca, but my mind slipped for a moment; I was worried about something else. In fact, the frantic editing really creates a sense of tension here that not even Jason Boune could achieve: James Bond has literally walked into Quantum's plans. In the past, he's had time to investigate, like in TOMORROW NEVER DIES or MOONRAKER. There's always been a clear objective until now: QUANTUM OF SOLACE comes across as like a scavenger hunt where the next clue on where to go is hidden within the next leg of the game. Quantum aren't just one step ahead of MI6, they've got leaps and bounds on them, and this is Bond trying to make up the difference.

THE SCARECROW THEORY
One of my favuorite authors put out a book a few years ago called SCARECROW. It was wall-to-wall action, and while some of the sequences were incredibly imaginitive - esecially the finale - they were let down by the fact that everything else had gone before it. It was quite literally wall-to-wall action, unlike QUANTUM OF SOLACE. Not once did I think the plot came to a halt simply to have an action sequence. Compare the boat chase here with the car chase on the glacier in DIE ANOTHER DAY. Here, the action has a reason for happening: Camille has ben taken by Medrano, and Bond wants her back. Of course, being a good dictator and all, Medrano never goes anywhere without an armed escort. However, in DIE ANOTHER DAY, Zao's car is loaded with gadgetry like Bond's Aston for no apparent reason, and the sequenc out on the glacier does nothing because they simply do a loop and go back to where they started. I felt the action was not only well-paced, but also underscored some of the more emotional moments.

BOURNE AGAIN?
Yeah, right. Not once did I get a feeling of Jason Bourne. The only time it came close to crossing my mind was during the Siena rooftop chase, when I thought "this is what Bourne was trying to do". Jason Bourne never had a fight that looked like it hurt, unlike the one with Slate. Jason Bourne never jumped out of an aeroplane, a sequence which I loved despite its shortcomings. The steadicam - that didn't bother me - was used apporpriatey. Where Bounre would have a shaking camera even if we were watching him sleep, here it only ever gets used when Bond is taking a hit, be it being sideswiped by the lorry, Mitchell collapsing the tunnel behind him or Bond ramming Medrano's boat.

LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION
Every single loction here was perfect. I loved the juxtaposition during the party. I thought the sterile interior of the Tosca hall reflected the fake friendliness that seems to seep through the ranks of the rich and shameless. I thought the forbidding Siena safehouse was perfect against Mr. White's maniacal delight. Even M's home looked good. I especially loved the title cards and wouldn't mind seeing them back in the slightest.

THE CARETAKER
Sean Connery was James Bond in his day, and no other actor has been able to hold a candle to him since ... until now. Daniel Craig proved that he is James Bond with this film, and that Sean Connery was just a caretaker of the role in the intermission between his departure and EON finding a worthy heir, and that man is Daniel Craig. There are line in this film - simple ones, like "Wel that's good, because there isn't any" and "I never left" - that I don't think any of the other Bonds could have gotten right.

SWASTIKA EYES!
Everyone else was perfectly casted, especially Mathieu Amalric. Some people say he's underused, but Dominic Greene has a presence even when he isn't in the scene: the death of Mathis, the dogfight; everything. He gets some of the film's best lines and makes no secret of his villainous streak. I think he nailed the very subversive role, and there's little touches, like the way he looks at the new contract whe Medrano points out that he changed the deal, as if there had been some mistake.

WHAT'S BOND WITHOUT WOMEN?
Okay, so the seduction of Fields was a little odd, and she was perhaps a bit wooden, but I think she got everything right: she's this naive office girl who is very by-the-book confronted with this reckless, renegade agent, and she intends to show him how things are meant to be done. There's none of the chemistry between her and Bond that has come across with previous Bond Girls, but again I think it's intentional: theirs is a needs-based relationship. It's not romantic, and it's not meant to last. And while Fields' death was a tribute to Jill in GOLDFINGER, I actually think it worked better here.

I WAS SOLD WHEN I LEARNED SHE WAS EASTERN EUOPEAN
Yeah, I have a thing for Eastern European accents, which is why I liked the casting choice of Olga Kurylenko. Like Greene, it's the little things about Camille that really make her character, like the way she loved her father even though she knew how cruel he could be, and the child-like fear in her eyes as the fires tak the hotel. We've finally got a "Bond's Equal" who is actually Bond's Equal, but moreso in the terms that she's got her own definitive character arc. Camille is one of the strongest Bond Girls in a long time.

POLARISING
I can see why this film has polarised fans. Some elements of the "Bond Formula" are gone; even moreso than in CASINO ROYALE. But you know what? QUANTUM OF SOLACE doesn't need them. CASINO ROYALE was very much divided into two "chapters", the Airport Chapter and the Casino Chapter. This, then, is the Bolivian Chapter, but that's not a bad thing. Not at all. Bu unlike its predecessor, QUANTUM OF SOLACE is very tightly edited. I noticed this when the action cuts from one location to the next without the bridging "arrival" shots, like the train in Montenegro and the yacht in Venice.

ARTHOUSE ACTION OR ACTIONHOUSE ART?
When EON made CASINO ROYALE, they made a lot of the reboot concept. But I think they only took it up to a point. There was enough of the old stuff to keep it familiar, but enough of the new to make it refreshing. I think QUANTUM OF SOLACE is more what they had in mind when they intended to reboot the series, butthey needed that one film to bridge the two. For someone who hasn't directed action before, Marc Forster proves more than capable. This film is filled with great cinematography, like when Bond is dangling on the ropes in Siena, or the way the Palio di Siena and Tosca are intercut with the action.

THE FINAL VERDICT
This is a tough one, because QUANTUM OF SOLACE isn't exactly a Bond film ... it's a Bond film, plus something more. It might be a little too tightly edited, and a few scenes could have been extended a bit, but the end product is perhaps the most beautiful Bond film we've seen in a long time. I give it 9/10.

[Matt_13]

Glad you enjoyed it.

[quantumofsolace]

I think the marketing campaign has been very good but sometimes misleading. If they had marketed the film as it actually is I think it would have failed at the BO. Unfortunately, thats the way it can sometimes be to get people to buy tickets.

[ImTheMoneypenny]

Glad you liked it. Yep you had me going with your title!! Great review!

[HildebrandRarity]

Well, before Daniel Craig's era began, My top five Bonds were:

Thunderball
The Spy Who Loved Me
From Russia With Love
On Her Majestey's Secret Service
and (*gasp*)
Tomorrow Never Dies

And along comes Daniel Craig and he just destroyes every other Bond actor.

Casino Royale went to the top of that list and now Quantum is even further ahead.

Quantum Of Solace makes every other Bond movie look like tidly winks, like movies for teenagers, save License To Kill.

[Ravenstone]

I remember seeing interviews with Daniel Craig before the film came out where he was saying it wasn't about revenge, and how Bond hadn't gone rogue, but that people thought he had. Except a lot of the time the comments seemed to be ignored by the person(s) doing the interview. So maybe it was a little too vague in the publicity?

Still, good review! Glad you liked it.

[001carus]

Great review Hildebrand. I guess you could say the marketing campaign was almost as misleading as your thread title. It's good to see QoS has finally hit Australia, and it's also good to see us Australians are loving it.

I agree with everything you said except ONE point. I think it would have been better with the gunbarrel at the start. It felt rushed at the end - it goes for around 5 seconds, as though the film is telling everyone to get the hell out of the cinema. The gunbarrel should be used to instantly throw the crowd into the film, and while the subsequent seconds did that, we could have been treated to a Bond moment without sacrificing anything.

If we had the gunbarrel, then instead of the circle revealing the lake, we simply had it cut to black, then wait four or five seconds to build the tension, then fade into the lake in the same way we already had, I think that would have only strengthened the intro.

[Skudor]

Glad to see you liked it!

[Doctor Shatterhand]

I think it would have been better with the gunbarrel at the start. It felt rushed at the end - it goes for around 5 seconds, as though the film is telling everyone to get the hell out of the cinema. The gunbarrel should be used to instantly throw the crowd into the film, and while the subsequent seconds did that, we could have been treated to a Bond moment without sacrificing anything.

If we had the gunbarrel, then instead of the circle revealing the lake, we simply had it cut to black, then wait four or five seconds to build the tension, then fade into the lake in the same way we already had, I think that would have only strengthened the intro.

Although it is great to see the gunbarrel at the beginning of any Bond film, artistically this makes sense to end with it now that this man has grown into a secret agent.

He leaves the past behind in the covered snow and walks into the night and out of the shadows; knowing full well that duty is first in his life. There is no normal life for him as in marriage and children, though we all know that later in his career he will face that tragedy again. He is the blunt instrument of Her Majesty's government and he has taken that step as he walks across the screen and shoots the offscreen nemesis in the famed gunbarrel of the closing credits.

Brilliantly done!

[mario007]

I just got back from my third viewing ... I have to say this is a brilliant film! You can watch it over and over again and still get something out of it for the zillionth time! This film will be hailed along side OHMSS as an all time bond classic (my top 5 for sure) Marc Forester did an excellent job ... the pacing is just perfect! Nothing outstays its welcome!

From the amazing start over the lake with gilnts of the aston to the perfect final line 'I never left' this movie delivers! I would be very sad it this movie does not break through $200 mil in the US! I guess if it doesn't Americans don't deserve such a nuanced and magnificant film! If Marc and crew did this with a script that was in flux ... what would they have done with a completed script? Bring Marc back for bond 23!

[NecroVMX]

I loved your review and agreed fully. I read a lot of the negative nonsense before seeing it and throughout the film found myself wondering just what movie they were watching.

[001carus]

I think it would have been better with the gunbarrel at the start. It felt rushed at the end - it goes for around 5 seconds, as though the film is telling everyone to get the hell out of the cinema. The gunbarrel should be used to instantly throw the crowd into the film, and while the subsequent seconds did that, we could have been treated to a Bond moment without sacrificing anything.

If we had the gunbarrel, then instead of the circle revealing the lake, we simply had it cut to black, then wait four or five seconds to build the tension, then fade into the lake in the same way we already had, I think that would have only strengthened the intro.

Although it is great to see the gunbarrel at the beginning of any Bond film, artistically this makes sense to end with it now that this man has grown into a secret agent.

He leaves the past behind in the covered snow and walks into the night and out of the shadows; knowing full well that duty is first in his life. There is no normal life for him as in marriage and children, though we all know that later in his career he will face that tragedy again. He is the blunt instrument of Her Majesty's government and he has taken that step as he walks across the screen and shoots the offscreen nemesis in the famed gunbarrel of the closing credits.

Brilliantly done!

Hmmm... I think this works in theory. But once again it felt too rushed for the gunbarrel to hold any major significance. If they slowed it down to be the same tempo as the others (maybe even slower) we would have felt that "this is Bond and now he truly is the cold, ruthless 007!" But instead, it felt like more of an after thought.

Sorry to cut into your review Captain Tightpants, and I mean in no way to dampen the positive thread - I really, really loved the movie. The gunbarrel was just a minor irk of mine, but I don't dislike it, I just think it could have been executed better.

Edited by 001carus, 22 November 2008 - 06:14 AM.

[Blofeld's Cat]

I think it would have been better with the gunbarrel at the start. It felt rushed at the end - it goes for around 5 seconds, as though the film is telling everyone to get the hell out of the cinema. The gunbarrel should be used to instantly throw the crowd into the film, and while the subsequent seconds did that, we could have been treated to a Bond moment without sacrificing anything.

If we had the gunbarrel, then instead of the circle revealing the lake, we simply had it cut to black, then wait four or five seconds to build the tension, then fade into the lake in the same way we already had, I think that would have only strengthened the intro.

Although it is great to see the gunbarrel at the beginning of any Bond film, artistically this makes sense to end with it now that this man has grown into a secret agent.

He leaves the past behind in the covered snow and walks into the night and out of the shadows; knowing full well that duty is first in his life. There is no normal life for him as in marriage and children, though we all know that later in his career he will face that tragedy again. He is the blunt instrument of Her Majesty's government and he has taken that step as he walks across the screen and shoots the offscreen nemesis in the famed gunbarrel of the closing credits.

Brilliantly done!

Totally agree.

And we have already seen the first few seconds of Bond 23 right there folks.