Quantum of Solace

[Endie]

I thought the Tosca scene was a by-the-numbers and somewhat botched attempt to recreate the Diva scene from 5th Element.

As you can tell by what I was saying, the best scene for me still doesn't make it great.  The only attempt made to tie the action on stage to what was happening elsewhere was the bit of the opera they didn't actually show (the window scene, in Tosca).

[Riggswolfe]

I loved Casino Royale. I will not see this movie under any circumstances. Take that shaky cam shit back to Bourne. Bond is not about that shit and it makes me steaming mad that they did this. I won't even rent this fucking movie. Fuck you lazy ass directors and editors. Fuck you all.

[justdave]

I also try and pretend that all the Brosnan bond films after Goldeneye didn't happen.

This.

[DraconianOne]

Fuck you lazy ass directors and editors. Fuck you all.

The only thing that I can think of that can possibly any justification for it is that Marc Foster is not an action director. I liked Finding Neverland and Stranger Than Fiction and I hear that The Kite Runner is really worth watching but none of those are action films.

Basically, he was the wrong director for a Bond film and the shaky-cam quick-cut shooting of action scenes was probably installed to cover the fact that he can't direct action.

This does not make it any better.

[Riggswolfe]

Fuck you lazy ass directors and editors. Fuck you all.

The only thing that I can think of that can possibly any justification for it is that Marc Foster is not an action director. I liked Finding Neverland and Stranger Than Fiction and I hear that The Kite Runner is really worth watching but none of those are action films.

Basically, he was the wrong director for a Bond film and the shaky-cam quick-cut shooting of action scenes was probably installed to cover the fact that he can't direct action.

This does not make it any better.

That's not an excuse. You just hire a fight choreographer and take his advice. You do not ruin a fucking movie with this shaky cam bullshit.

[Nerf]

You can bitch about the minutiae all day long, but it still doesn't fix the fundamental flaw in both this and Casino Royale.  Craig just isn't fucking smug enough.  He *almost* pulled it off in a few scenes, but when he really needed to be smug and charming in the face of certain death, he failed miserably.   Bond can be gritty, but he still needs to be the smuggest bastard on the planet.

[DraconianOne]

You can bitch about the minutiae all day long, but it still doesn't fix the fundamental flaw in both this and Casino Royale.  Craig just isn't fucking smug enough.  He *almost* pulled it off in a few scenes, but when he really needed to be smug and charming in the face of certain death, he failed miserably.   Bond can be gritty, but he still needs to be the smuggest bastard on the planet.

That's only a fundamental flaw if that's how you think the character should be. Personally I like this take on Bond and think he's got it right.  It's not as if he isn't smug and arrogant - the "I'm not staying in here, let's go spend lots of money on a posh hotel" scene in QoS being one of the better examples.  There's a difference between being smug arrogant and smug cheesy and I think Craig gets it right.

[Khaldun]

Yes, but I'm hoping that if they're going to continue a sense of narrative connection between the Craig Bond films, that we see an arc that develops the character a bit towards cosmopolitan hedonism. If Bond is just a glum, grim avenger, well, there are enough of those. This was one of the many many things wrong with Timothy Dalton's second Bond flick: Bond on a Death-Wish killing spree wiping out drug dealers was so not-Bond, whomever they cast to do it. I really, really liked Craig's take on Bond in Casino Royale, but the key to the character is mixing up the ruthlessness with the devil-may-care, the playboy and the killer, the soft and the brutal. Casino Royale, like a lot of revisitations of genre character's "origins", lets you come away with a new understanding of what's driving the character--so for example, the Connery Bond's characterization as misogynistic seducer now has a great new twist to it. But they've got to consistently do something with that revisitation that keeps Bond coming back to something distinctive, keep the character from just being another grim assassin-spy.

[Johny Cee]

You can bitch about the minutiae all day long, but it still doesn't fix the fundamental flaw in both this and Casino Royale.  Craig just isn't fucking smug enough.  He *almost* pulled it off in a few scenes, but when he really needed to be smug and charming in the face of certain death, he failed miserably.  Bond can be gritty, but he still needs to be the smuggest bastard on the planet.

That's why the Goldfinger "No Mr. Bond, I expect you to die!" scene is so great, because it follows a smug, sneering Connery asking if Goldfinger expects him to talk.

Bond realizes he's going to fucking die,  not pussyfooting around and keeping him under mild guard.  He almost frantically has to convince Goldfinger that the villain is better off keeping him alive.

[Numtini]

I haven't seen QoS yet, but I'm definitely in favor of a hard edged Bond and really like Craig.

But to toss in a semi-related tidbit, if you've been looking to pick up the older movies, amazon has the boxed set of all 21 films, Dr. No through Casino on sale for $89.

[Samwise]

Wow, that sounds really goddamn reasonable.  Investigating.

(edit) This one?  I think I missed the sale.

[ahoythematey]

Ehhhhh, I enjoyed it.

[Khaldun]

It was ok. But that's one of those "OK because the stuff they fucked up in serious ways was balanced out by stuff that was pretty good and a few bits that were really good". The action cinematography in this film was, with one and a half exceptions, shit. Shit shitty shit. The Tosca scene and the hotel scene at the end were pretty decent. Maybe the airplane thing, though that was pretty by-the-numbers. The opening car chase and far worse, the chase scene on foot that follows just after that weren't just average shaky-cam stuff, they were worse than that.

Also, I very much like Craig's Bond, but next film, he's got to shake off the gloomies just a bit.

[Nebu]

Saw this movie last night.  Reactions:

Positive: Fun.  It was a fun and action-filled movie meant for the big screen.  I like this guy as Bond and I don't know why.  Another very beautiful Bond woman.

Negative: Shaky camera stuff made me insane... almost get_up_and_leave insane.  Story was weak if not non-existent. When I left, I felt like I had watched a two hour ad for Maxim magazine.   

I was entertained but left the theater empty.  I guess that's supposed to be the value of a Bond film, but I seem to remember better writing in the older films.  I give it a 6 out of 10.  See it at a good theater, it won't be as good at home.

[shiznitz]

This is the first Bond movie without any Albert Broccoli involvement so I am not surprised to read here that the story is weak. Mrs. Broccoli was involved though!

[DraconianOne]

This is the first Bond movie without any Albert Broccoli involvement so I am not surprised to read here that the story is weak. Mrs. Broccoli was involved though!

Seeing as Albert Broccoli died in 1996, it's a fair bet that he hasn't been involved in any Bond film released since Goldeneye.  It was still produced by EON Productions which was set up by Broccoli and has produced every Bond film since Dr No. with the exception of "Never Say Never Again".

[Murgos]

I liked it.  I thought the plot progression was reasonably intuitive, for the most part I wasn't scratching my head wondering why they were doing something.

The action scenes could have done with less shaky but, whatever.

The scene with the hotel when M comes to get Bond is worth the price of admission with the scene at the Opera being pure gravy.

[Khaldun]

Here's one other thing that was frosting my nipples a little: I could do without M whining at Bond about how he fucks the ladeez and then they end up dead. This totally does not work in a Bond movie. I don't mind Bond himself getting momentarily grim or even guilt-ridden that some woman he's had a fling with ends up dead in some baroque way. That adds emotional weight to what he'll eventually do to the villain of the film. In Casino Royale, without Bond seducing the woman in the middle of the film, Le Chiffre's scheme would have worked and M would be up shit creek. In this flick, it's not even Bond being cynical, really: she's a pretty woman, she's attracted to him, and about the only thing he gets out of his seduction is that she doesn't call in the MI.6 hounds on him that night. In both cases, M and MI.6 benefit because Bond seduces women, and M knows it. (In real-life espionage, getting scruples about luring people with sex is about as laughable as getting scruples about luring people with money.) So listening to M tut-tutting Bond is really fucking annoying, and not in a good way.

[Rishathra]

On a side note, what was the deal with the coat and boots combo Fields was wearing?  I kept waiting for her to say "Oh, I don't actually work for MI6, M just sent you a strip-o-gram!"

[Le0]

Did not watch this one yet. Guess I'll be going because its a long time I haven't seen a Bond film and I need some entertainment, this should fullfill these two requirements

[Endie]

I liked it.  I thought the plot progression was reasonably intuitive, for the most part I wasn't scratching my head wondering why they were doing something.

Really.  You didn't wonder why they were doing things?

[K9]

The plot is there pretty much solely to set up the action sequences, it's really nothing more.

[Nebu]

The plot is there pretty much solely to set up the action sequences, it's really nothing more.

That's pretty much the recipe for a Bond flick. Mike Myers exaggerates this in his movies.  The plot only has to explain the existence of sharks with lasers or overly elaborate ways to kill Bond. 

[Murgos]

I liked it.  I thought the plot progression was reasonably intuitive, for the most part I wasn't scratching my head wondering why they were doing something.

Really.  You didn't wonder why they were doing things?

I gave up trying to figure out the motives & thinking of the baddies in movies a LONG time ago.  As far as the motives of high ranking career CIA, government or military people with stars on their collars are concerned, if you follow the Hollywood train of thought you would just naturally assume none of them had IQ's above 60 or enough foresight to wonder why they should tie their shoes so trying to ascribe reason or motive to characters like that is simply a waste of time.

So, I'll restate: for a recent mainstream movie, it had a fairly unambiguous and direct plot that if you start from the point that their stated goals are, somehow, sane to them in their frame of reference then their actions, mostly, logically followed.

[Johny Cee]

I liked it.  I thought the plot progression was reasonably intuitive, for the most part I wasn't scratching my head wondering why they were doing something.

Really.  You didn't wonder why they were doing things?

As far as Bond films go, though,  that DID make more sense:

- Breaking into Fort Knox to explode a nuclear bomb and irradiate the US gold supply?  (In actuality, a small portion of the gold supply...) 

- Plotting to start a nuclear war so that your minions could live happily Under the Sea?

- Ditto, except live happily In Space?

- Rather than sell your uranium and top secret knowledge of nuclear physics to the highest bidder, you attempt to destabilize US rocket launches?

- Intricate plan to infiltrate NATO at the highest levels so that you can steal a helicopter to steal a top secret Russian EMP device?

- Instigate war in Asia so that you can make big money covering it?  (I think this was the grand plan....  that really wasn't much plot in that one)

etc.

[Rishathra]

Really.  You didn't wonder why they were doing things?

I think the silly things you mentioned make more sense when you realize that they are part of a potentially bigger picture.

 

Edit:  It's a minor thing, but I really liked the way they introduced each of the cities, by working the name into the scenery and things like that.

[Johny Cee]

Really.  You didn't wonder why they were doing things?

I think the silly things you mentioned make more sense when you realize that they are part of a potentially bigger picture.

 

Edit:  It's a minor thing, but I really liked the way they introduced each of the cities, by working the name into the scenery and things like that.

[Rishathra]

[Endie]

Yes Rishathra, no spoiler is needed for that, since it's been publically announced and openly discussed that this is the second of three movies about Quantum, and that sure, it'll all make wonderful sense when you see the three together.  Hmm.  Taking the much-lauded Star Wars 1-3 route?  The fact that the last movie was great fun (probably my favourite Bond movie) and stood alone perfectly well means that there is no suxh excuse for this one being dumb until you watch the next one in a couple of years, until which time it's nonsensical bollocks.

[Rishathra]

It really didn't seem that stupid to me, though.  Just incomplete, and deliberately so, but not so incomplete that it took me out of the story.

[Grimwell]

It's been a week, I declare the spoilers dead. 

Just saw this today and enjoyed it. The camera was annoying but I lived. The one thing I think people missed is that 95% of the movie is table dressing. This isn't a movie about some idiot villain with a genius plan... it's about Bond's relationship to M and how far it can be stretched -- and if there can be redemption after stretching.

There weren't many words used to tell it, but that was the actual story we watched. Would Bond go apeshit crazy and do bad things forcing M to walk away from him, or would he get the job done and stay a "good agent" despite his crazy methods?

[Ironwood]

Bad film was Bad.


Thin and nonsensical plot.  Bad acting from everyone not British or Felix (and on that note, so many fucking accents it made things even harder to follow) and a sex scene that was thrown in there last minute because they wrapped the whole thing up and then realised that Bond hadn't FUCKED ANYONE YET.  And, really, the rape in the hotel.  Let's throw that in because the mustache twirling bad guy wasn't EVIL ENOUGH YET.

Total, total bollocks, though I still think he's the best Bond yet.  Don't ask.

Fuck stupid without the appeal of the first film.  Further, I would like to see a Bond film, not an episodic zomg you must wait and see the next 5 films shite.

Not a fan.

[Aez]

Amazing new theme song for the trailer

[Bunk]

Saw it yesterday. Enjoyed Craig and the relationship he has with M. Enjoyed the stuff with Felix. The action was good, when it wasn't overshakeycammed, which meant about 40% of good. Liked both girls, though neither will make my all time list. Theme song was meh, and worst of all, the bad guys were meh. Greene was way to wuss, even went he went nuts with the fire axe, too really ever seem a threat. The general was justa complete characature.

I'll give it around 6.5 out of 10.

[Samwise]

I think the lame bad guys are the main thing that made this movie feel incomplete. I mean, laugh all you want about irradiating Fort Knox, but that at least has the ring of a Nefarious Plan to it and is fantastical enough to be memorable.  Overcharging llama herders for water is like something a really lame Captain Planet villain might do.  Heck, it's something a real-life corporation would do if there was money in it, and it probably wouldn't even make front page news.