The first review of the blog, and it's an edited version of one I posted in a forum when QoS was initially released in cinema. I should add that there are a couple of minor spoilers in this review.
Quantum of Solace is Daniel Craig's second outing as James Bond, and I had high hopes for this after the excellent Casino Royale. It's been described as the first Bond movie that's a direct sequel to the previous movie, although that's not technically true. Diamonds Are Forever opens with Bond getting revenge on Blofeld for his wife's murder at the end of On Her Majesty's Secret Service.
So, it's supposed to be a direct sequel to CR, and I believe it begins the day after that movie ended. Frankly, I don't see the point. There're a couple of references to the dead girl from CR at the beginning of the movie, and then Bond gets to go off on his own after saving the day from the main villain to get the guy who killed her in a short epilogue. Everything else in QoS has nothing to do with the events in CR. I was expecting it to be much more of a direct sequel, a continuation of what happened in CR, but it's really it's own movie.
The plot itself is pretty lame. Some nonsense about a man called Dominic Greene (Mathieu Amalric) helping a dictator gain control of Bolivia in exchange for a chunk of land in said South American nation. The dicator assures Greene that there's no oil there, and that many have searched to no avail. But that's not what Greene wants the land for. Oh no, he has something far more dastardly.
My other big issue with the action is that nobody seems to get hurt during fight scenes. No matter how much somebody gets punched, kicked, thrown through doors or whatever, they just get back up and keep going. For example, Bond snaps a guys arm during one fight, and he just carries on regardless. Compared to Casino Royale, with it's hard hitting action and grim torture, it's a poor imitation of the action from the Bourne movies.
The Bond girl(s) - OK, so this Bond girl, Camille (Olga Kurylenko) is different from the others, according to all the interviews and other marketing stuff. She doesn't need Bond, she's got her own agenda and is hard as nails. Before I saw the film I thought "Cool, so a female Bond who's doing her own thing, sounds good". So what happens? Bond saves her life three times. Yeah, you don't need him, you need a coffin. Other than her being a scowling damsel in distress, she was fine, but nothing special. The other girl, Fields (Gemma Arterton), is in the movie for about five minutes, and yet she's the most likeable and interesting character in the whole movie. She does get her own little Goldfinger throwback, which I hated. Like when Halle Berry emerged from the ocean, I couldn't help but cringe. I hate it when they recycle classic Bond moments, (Halle Berry emerging from the waves anyone?) it's boring. Might as well strap him down to a table and point a laser at his nut sack.
The problem with Fields is where QoS really fails. It's just so lacking in humanity. There are so few characters that come across as real people, who you could genuinely care about. I can think of three characters that I liked, that I honestly cared about, and they got very little screen time. Everyone else, Bond included, is just so robotic and flat.
To me, it was to Casino Royale what Tomorrow Never Dies was to Goldeneye - a new Bond, a fresh start, and then a follow up is that seems to take the new Bond and strip it down to its bare bones formula without anything special to make it stand out. QoS is around 90 minutes long, and it's too short and action-packed for an interesting plot or characters to develop.
Quantum of Solace is Daniel Craig's second outing as James Bond, and I had high hopes for this after the excellent Casino Royale. It's been described as the first Bond movie that's a direct sequel to the previous movie, although that's not technically true. Diamonds Are Forever opens with Bond getting revenge on Blofeld for his wife's murder at the end of On Her Majesty's Secret Service.
So, it's supposed to be a direct sequel to CR, and I believe it begins the day after that movie ended. Frankly, I don't see the point. There're a couple of references to the dead girl from CR at the beginning of the movie, and then Bond gets to go off on his own after saving the day from the main villain to get the guy who killed her in a short epilogue. Everything else in QoS has nothing to do with the events in CR. I was expecting it to be much more of a direct sequel, a continuation of what happened in CR, but it's really it's own movie.
The plot itself is pretty lame. Some nonsense about a man called Dominic Greene (Mathieu Amalric) helping a dictator gain control of Bolivia in exchange for a chunk of land in said South American nation. The dicator assures Greene that there's no oil there, and that many have searched to no avail. But that's not what Greene wants the land for. Oh no, he has something far more dastardly.
Spoiler (highlight to read)Qos is very heavy on the action, and light on plot, especially in the first half. After around half an hour I couldn't help but think "God, not another action scene," and I love action movies! But this is just tedious. I'm also fairly bored with the so-close-and-fast-you-can't-see-a-thing style of directing actions scenes. How about you pull the camera back a bit so I can see what the Hell is happening? The opening car chsase epitomises this. It's fast, furious, and intensely boring.
His evil plan is to gain ownership of the main aquifer in Bolivia, so that he can extort money from the dictator he helped install. Brilliant! Forget world domination, forget killing Bond, let's raise the utility bills of Bolivia!
My other big issue with the action is that nobody seems to get hurt during fight scenes. No matter how much somebody gets punched, kicked, thrown through doors or whatever, they just get back up and keep going. For example, Bond snaps a guys arm during one fight, and he just carries on regardless. Compared to Casino Royale, with it's hard hitting action and grim torture, it's a poor imitation of the action from the Bourne movies.
The Bond girl(s) - OK, so this Bond girl, Camille (Olga Kurylenko) is different from the others, according to all the interviews and other marketing stuff. She doesn't need Bond, she's got her own agenda and is hard as nails. Before I saw the film I thought "Cool, so a female Bond who's doing her own thing, sounds good". So what happens? Bond saves her life three times. Yeah, you don't need him, you need a coffin. Other than her being a scowling damsel in distress, she was fine, but nothing special. The other girl, Fields (Gemma Arterton), is in the movie for about five minutes, and yet she's the most likeable and interesting character in the whole movie. She does get her own little Goldfinger throwback, which I hated. Like when Halle Berry emerged from the ocean, I couldn't help but cringe. I hate it when they recycle classic Bond moments, (Halle Berry emerging from the waves anyone?) it's boring. Might as well strap him down to a table and point a laser at his nut sack.
The problem with Fields is where QoS really fails. It's just so lacking in humanity. There are so few characters that come across as real people, who you could genuinely care about. I can think of three characters that I liked, that I honestly cared about, and they got very little screen time. Everyone else, Bond included, is just so robotic and flat.
To me, it was to Casino Royale what Tomorrow Never Dies was to Goldeneye - a new Bond, a fresh start, and then a follow up is that seems to take the new Bond and strip it down to its bare bones formula without anything special to make it stand out. QoS is around 90 minutes long, and it's too short and action-packed for an interesting plot or characters to develop.
No comments:
Post a Comment