Over the last few weeks AICN readers have seen quite a few positive reviews of QUANTUM OF SOLACE (Mastidon's HERE & Massawyrm's HERE, for example). We have about five other positive-to-glowing QUANTUM reviews (from readers) sitting in the AICN inbox this very moment.
However, in the interest of fair play, it's time for a few dissenting opinions. I wholeheartedly disagree with both of these perspectives - I personally think the film's pretty great. Nonetheless, these opinions are worth sharing, and will undoubtedly be held by (at least a few) other Bond fans.
First up, this feedback from Lee...
Firstly, Im not knocking this movie for the hell of it, I am British, I love Bond, he is a national institution! Ive enjoyed every 007 outing so far, yes some are better than others and yes the invisible car wasnt the best idea in the world, still I love 007 movies. I was so looking forward to QoS after being so blown away by CR, but like Indy Jones 4, I was very dissapointed. Daniel Craig is now my favourite Bond but QoS just fell way below par, which compelled me to actually submit this review to AICN.
Quantum of Solace - after Casino Royale, which I personally think is the best 007 movie ever, where do you go? Well not to Quantum of Solace, this could have been nearly as good but falls very flat, this isnt down to the actors they do the best they can with what they are given. The problem is they have wrote bond in this one as a terminator, no emotion at all. The whole idea of him saying he isnt out for revenge etc just doesnt work as his inner turmoil that should be delved into is never truley shown, due to a confused action movie script.
The film is quite short too and feels like they missed or edited out the whole charactisation, it feels like theres 30 - 45 minutes missing. The whole Bond and M relationship is only scraped upon and doesnt have the tension and growing respect as in CR, it only briefly scrapes the whole Bond killing all his leads and is really only in there as a plot McGuffin. Bonds connection with the latest Bond girl (I cant remember her name, which shows how much this film didnt draw me in) couldve been delved into more, it seemed their connection in regards to revenge was blown over briefly, it was a wasted opppertunity to bring the humanity to Bond like CR did.
The second problem is the action, the director hasnt a clue how to shoot and edited Bond action or action of any kind at all. It down via shakey cameras and MTV style edits and very fast cuts which make it near impossible for these action set pieces to come across as spectacular as they should do and do Bond justice. The whole free running chase in CR was an amazing set piece and you felt you were right there in the middle of it, not one of the action sequences made me feel like that at all, they just left me thinking what happened there? Blink and you miss it!
I also expected more character development and emotion from Mark Forester as his earlier films do have this, in which case I may have been able to forgive his awful attempt at cutting and putting together action sequences.
Then to add insult to injury, one of the worst bond themes ever which is basically white stripes try to do shirley bassey tops of the 2nd biggest dissapointment of the year after indy jones 4. Overall its ok but after raising the bar so high with Casino Royale, more time, care and getting the right director was needed. The big end finale was also very week and tried to mimic CR, very poorly I may add.
Daniel Craig is a great Bond, in fact I do think he is the best, but he and the other actors deserved better material, direction and vision. I pray they put the right director and writers together for 007's next outing. Probabley not bad to watch on DVD but dont waste your hard earned money going to the cinema.
And, here's The Northlander with his take on the film. Northlander's done quite a bit of work for us before...
Hey guys, The Northlander here.
I went to see the new BOND movie the other day and thought I'd send in my thoughts on it.
Personally, I'm not really what you would call a BOND fan. I don't have any feelings in particular towards this franchise, if it's good it's good if it's bad I don't want it. But I don't hate it. When I go see a Bond movie I expect it to hold up to at least your standard action movie level of fun, and I expect it to work even if it hadn't been a BOND movie.
So last time, when CASINO ROYALE came out, that was a pleasant surprise for me. That, I liked.
Unfortunately, I had some problems with QUANTUM OF SOLACE, and the more I've thought about it since I saw it, the more I realize I didn't really like it that much.
See, here's the thing. A lot of people draw parallells between this movie and the BOURNE movies. I'd like to offer a different view if I may. To me, this reminded me more than anything of LIVE FREE AND DIE HARD.
Not so much in style, but it had all the big problems LFADH had. The Bond villain this time - Dominic Greene, is evil enough with his plans to control the water supply in Bolivia. You also see the poor starving people who don't get their water from the tank and you feel bad for them. It's good that he also feels very human and realistic, they've really made an effort here to ground him, and they even say (I think twice) that he may be a villain but what player on this level isn't?
Anyone who makes deals with anyone - be it MI6 or some large corporation or the CIA - has to deal with bad people. So that's good that you feel the guy is a real human who could really exist, but here's the problem: Bond. James Bond in this movie is John McClane from DIE HARD 4. From frame one, where there's a huge car chase shootout action set piece to where he's fighting some henchman while they're both falling through a scaffold (a scene that somehow kind of reminded me of the one from moonraker where Moore is fighting for the parashute, just because it goes on and on and never stops...) to the scene where he actually falls out of an airplane... This guy just won't die. Or get hurt. Or flinch. He's got that Zoolander face throughout the whole thing. He's cut once in one scene, but he just ties a piece of clothing over the wound and it's never brought up again. I don't think he even has a scar later when you see him without shirt.
The big fight towards the end is in a blazing inferno, and after he and camille gets out there's not so much as a cough, from either of them. You try to fight for your life while the building is going up in flames all around you with black smoke everywhere, and see how long you make it without coughing.
Never once in this film does he stop and say to himself - 'I'm fucked. What the hell am I going to do now?'. The hero is only as powerful as the villain is, and in this case there's just no match. It's like JASON vs ZAC EFRON here - if Jason was the hero. You know he's gonna find him and kill him and there's never any sense of jeopardy.
What happened to the realistic feeling of CASINO ROYALE?? The Bond in this movie wouldn't so much as flinch if someone tied him naked to a chair and beat his nutsack with an oversized rope. He'd just smoke you with laser beams from his eyes or something.
I mean... Imagine this guy fighting a realistic approach villain. I actually feel sorry for the bad guy here because he stands no chance in hell to win. Ever. Bond just doesn't stop.
If you've seen the trailer you know M decides to pull his credit cards and passport, right? You wanna know how he solves that? He just gets some new ones. Easy. There's a scene where he goes back to M even though he's wanted and there are security men everywhere and he escapes not unlike he was Nicolas Cage in that NEXT movie. It's that bad.
I mean, look. The action is fun and well choreographed. There's a cool knife fight, a fun car chase, the action never stops. Everything (except some CGI shots) looks really, really good. Olga Kurylenko should really get something to eat, and some acting lessons though, but that's besides the point maybe.
And if that's all you ask from this movie you will like it I'm sure. If you like BOND for what it is, they you'll enjoy this.
But that's it. BOURNE is way better than this. CASINO ROYALE is too.
Next time they'd better take a cue from THE DARK KNIGHT because for the first time BATMAN feels more realistic than BOND. Two days after seeing this I think I liked GOLDENEYE better, but I haven't seen that one for a really long time so I could be wrong I suppose.
QUANTUM OF SOLACE is not bad. It's just a very less than average film that's saved by production value, franchise name and the memory of its predecessor.
That makes it worthwhile to watch I guess, if you're going to the cinema anyway, because there's not much else going on there at the moment. But it'll be forgotten soon enough. You can catch this on Blu-Ray some other time.
