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URGA MOTW
Quantum of Solace
After a few weeks of nothing worth watching, we headed back to the cinema for the new James Bond film.... Quantum of Solace. An obscure title, which seems to have very little to do with the movie, but it's one I've got used to over the many months of people discussing it.
So, is the film full of action, car chases, explosions, and an intriguing plot with lots of espionage? You bet. The action hardly even stops, and the exposition scenes aren't at all boring, they give you a bit of a breather. But there's just something missing... something that makes this not quite a James Bond film. I mean, Daniel Craig does well, but he's always stone-faced and stoic, and ever so serious. There's no suavity, no quips, very few gadgets (GPS tracker on his phone is about the limit, and some fancy computers at MI6 HQ), and the villain (Dominic Greene) is sinister, but it's all business, he's no madman... and they're always fun to watch. I do hope that the producers read the reviews for this movie and decide to go back and do some more traditional Bond stuff in their next movie... you know, make it fun
Another annoying thing was the way this was shot - shaky camera work, up close to the action, and way too many quick intercuts during different parts of the action sequences - it was all very stressful on my eyes. The cut cross between Tosca on stage and Bond fighting off henchmen backstage/in the foyer could have been done so much better, had the cuts not been so quick and jarring and frequent. Marc Forster, please learn to shoot a movie so it doesn't make the audience's eyes water.
The seriousness of the acting coupled with the shaky camera work makes me thing this would have been better titled "The Bond Identity" as it seems to be trying to emulate the Jason Bourne films. And although that's all well and good for an action/spy movie, it's just not James Bond.
Let's see a quip-making, gadget-using, mad-villain-fighting Bond next up. Go back to the weird and wonderful ideas used by all the previous Bond actors, updated for the 21st Century. And bring back Q, even if he's not played by John Cleese.
Overall, a rather average effort.
6/10
Quantum of Solace
After a few weeks of nothing worth watching, we headed back to the cinema for the new James Bond film.... Quantum of Solace. An obscure title, which seems to have very little to do with the movie, but it's one I've got used to over the many months of people discussing it.
So, is the film full of action, car chases, explosions, and an intriguing plot with lots of espionage? You bet. The action hardly even stops, and the exposition scenes aren't at all boring, they give you a bit of a breather. But there's just something missing... something that makes this not quite a James Bond film. I mean, Daniel Craig does well, but he's always stone-faced and stoic, and ever so serious. There's no suavity, no quips, very few gadgets (GPS tracker on his phone is about the limit, and some fancy computers at MI6 HQ), and the villain (Dominic Greene) is sinister, but it's all business, he's no madman... and they're always fun to watch. I do hope that the producers read the reviews for this movie and decide to go back and do some more traditional Bond stuff in their next movie... you know, make it fun
Another annoying thing was the way this was shot - shaky camera work, up close to the action, and way too many quick intercuts during different parts of the action sequences - it was all very stressful on my eyes. The cut cross between Tosca on stage and Bond fighting off henchmen backstage/in the foyer could have been done so much better, had the cuts not been so quick and jarring and frequent. Marc Forster, please learn to shoot a movie so it doesn't make the audience's eyes water.
The seriousness of the acting coupled with the shaky camera work makes me thing this would have been better titled "The Bond Identity" as it seems to be trying to emulate the Jason Bourne films. And although that's all well and good for an action/spy movie, it's just not James Bond.
Let's see a quip-making, gadget-using, mad-villain-fighting Bond next up. Go back to the weird and wonderful ideas used by all the previous Bond actors, updated for the 21st Century. And bring back Q, even if he's not played by John Cleese.
Overall, a rather average effort.
6/10