I just got back. The film got a bad review in the Washington Post, but it is a slow day here, so I went.
Lots of blood, lots of violence, some explosions, not a lot of plot. I did enjoy Colon, Panama doing duty as Haiti. I did like the opening chase, and the opening credits, but the song was forgettable. I even like Bond as a cold-blooded killer, more like the books.
Still, there was a shortage of the semi-nudity I have cone to expect from the franchise. All in all, it was worth a ticket, but I would not buy the DVD.
I went to the midnight screening last night and enjoyed it quite a bit. I always try to see Big Movies opening night; the crowds are happy and energetic and the movies always feel more like an “experience.” I find I always like the movie a lot more than I might otherwise.
Quantum’s plot was needlessly complicated, but the action sequences were plentiful and adrenaline-filled. I really enjoy Daniel Craig and Judy Dench as Bond and M; they have an interesting relationship.
The action sequences were just too annoying to be enjoyable. The longest cut during action scenes was about 800 milliseconds. I hate that style of directing. I have to wonder - do they do it solely because it’s easier (you don’t have to have quality action direction if you can just throw disjointed short clips from multiple takes) or because people actually like that sort of thing? Is our collective attention span so short that we don’t like action sequences where the camera and perspective stay still for an entire second?
It’s just easy. Watch the climax to Killer’s Kiss (1955) - an action sequence shot on less-than-shoestring budget, and 50+ later is still really tense and harrowing.
The quick cutting annoys the hell out of me. In the opening sequence they showed 0.05 seconds of the gas pedal. Yeah, real thrilling. I almost expect to see some footage from Batman Begins spliced in there.
All in all it was a decent film, but I thought it was a pretty big drop in quality from Casino Royale.
I saw the midnight showing. It was a worthy follow-up to Casino Royale. I enjoyed the homage to Goldfinger, and also picked up a bit of Thunderball, License to Kill, and some others that escape me at the moment. As a spy movie, this one involved a satisfying amount of actual SPYING, which I loved. For example:
Listening in on Quantum’s conversation during the opera and then flushing them out so he could get pictures was awesome.
But the action scenes sucked. During the chase through Siena and the fight in Haiti, I just couldn’t keep track of who was punching who. No sequence in Quantum matched the Parkour/free-running chase from Casino.
The body count didn’t bother me, and made me actually think, “wow, he just totally killed that guy,” instead of, “dude’s slumped over with his eyes closed. Guess he’s dead.” It did, however, get old how…
…Bond got “framed” in that everyone who he let live/did not shoot ended up getting executed by Quantum. Oooooh, sinister!
Lastly, while the duet during the opening credits was cacophonous, the visuals were solid. The color and text gave it a retro feel that reminded me of what was considered futuristic in the late 70’s, early 80’s.
I loved ‘Casino Royale’ but was totally underwhelmed by this new one. First of all, the shaky-cam editing style drove me crazy. The movie starts off with what is probably a great chase scene, but you won’t be able to see it; it’s been edited so that each individual shot lasts no more than a micro-second. I honestly had no clue who was chasing whom, or what was going on. Every single action scene in the movie is like that. And the plot is very boring. Except for one great scene set at an opera, there is no sense of fun watching Bond as he tries to put the pieces together and solve the mystery. (And by “fun” I don’t mean the campiness of the Roger Moore flicks; I’m talking about the very effective and very subtle humor used throughout “Casino Royale”). I guess I’d give this new movie 2-and-a-half stars, maybe.
We just saw it today. It actually opened in Thailand on November 6, which I think was a week before in the US? But just saw it today. Liked it okay, better than Ebert did; he gave it only two stars. I agree it was looking a little Jason Bourne-ish, but Daniel Craig is a great Bond.
The Bond girl was the girl in Hit Man. She looked much better in that than in Quantum of Solace. It looked like they must have smeared Coppertone all over her to give her some sort of Bolivian look; she’s actually Ukrainian.
I had the same thought about the Bond girl, whose name I can’t recall at the moment. She was forgettable, and I had read that she was Russian / Ukranian so I was expecting a pale brunette type. The actress that played her came across as Spanish or Latin American. She was very beautiful (of course) and not terribly annoying.
I thought the movie lacked intrigue and spying and included lots of what was basically murder; the best scene was, as mentioned above,
at the opera, spying from the scenery, and ensuing chase scene.
Part of this is just me, because I hadn’t seen Casino Royale. I know, I know, should have watched the previous movie before going to see this one; but I thought that I’d at least be able to enjoy the movie for what it was without having to know all the background. Still, I found the plot difficult to follow because as mentioned above, good guys and bad guys were unclear, and due to the quick-cuts scene editing style in the fight scenes, who was punching who at any given time?
More plot, less killing!!
The whole fun of the Bond franchise is that Bond apparently never sleeps, never has to shave yet never gets stubbly, and never sweats even while running around the desert in blazing sun. You just love watching him, for how smooth he is all the time; the suspension of disbelief is a lot of fun. I think Daniel Craig makes a great 007.
Anyone else notice how unfair it was that the Bond girl had to walk miles in the freezing cold of the desert at night barefoot in a tiny little dress, while Bond gets to wear sensible shoes? Bond’s extremely expensive and well-tailored suits transition much better from a black-tie party to an impromptu stranding in the middle of the desert.
We liked the film.
Afterwards, we talked about how the older Bond films got a little carried away with all the wink-wink humor and obligatory models du jour hopping into bed.
We agreed we missed some of the high-tech toys they used to wheel out for Bond to use later.
Still, this “new Bond” is far better than the direction the older Bonds were beginning to be doomed to follow.
Glad they have shaken, but not stirred, the basic formula.
Already looking forward to the next film in the series, and I believe Daniel Craig has signed on for four, so at least two more films with him. Good!
The guy Bond drags out of the trunk of his car after the first chase scene is Mr. White. The film actually directly continues from the previous one, where Bond is standing over a (crippled?) Mr. White who asks him “Who are you?” (Cue tagline).
They actually hired the guy who did Bourne. May his rotting carcass be spliced as thinly as his montages.
Didn’t see the movie, just wanted to comment that the title seems to have come from a dictionary dartboard. “Quantum of Solace! No, Equinox of Patagonia! That’s no good, how about Paradigm of Mozzarella? Melange of Phlebotomy! Ideogram of Xanthophyll! Sarcophagus of Pentacostalism!”
Heck, I thought it was a good title. Octopussy? Moonraker? You Only Live Twice? Tomorrow Never Dies? Die Another Day? A Quantum of Solace - or, in other words, an infinitely small amount of comfort - actually feels right for the current Bond incarnation.
I liked it, but also think the cuts were too tight. You saw bond pick up the
anchor
see the
boat flip
But I musta blinked because I didn’t see how one actually did the other.
And I swear, M must
Take the redshirts, er, secretaries that are underperforming in the steno pool and throw them out there, knowing they’ll meet with an unfortunate incident around Bond. The ‘you kill all these innocents’ line didn’t work as well this time around.
Ian Fleming published a collection of short stories in a book called For Your Eyes Only, and Quantum of Solace was one of those short stories. The book is now available in an expanded version called Quantum of Solace that contains nine short stories rather than the original five.
Quantum of Solace (the short story itself) is an interesting read and not what you’d expect of a James Bond story. It also puts the phrase into its proper context and it doesn’t seem so odd once you know what it means. I’d suggest you read it.