Quantum of Solace


A not-too-spoilery review

Okay, Hubs and I went to see it last night. The shortest Bond film ever (if the statistics I read were correct) and well, that's probably a good thing. I hate to say I agree with a Pajiba review (warning, way more spoilery than this) because they're just so snarky, but I pretty much agreed with their assessment of this one.

The bad stuffs:

* There is no plot to speak of. Bond's chasing the head of this evil organization that's responsible for the death of his girl from Casino Royale, and about 10 minutes before the film's over we find out just exactly what evil thing the organization is trying to do.

* The bad guy is seriously nondescript. Yeah, he's a slimy little greedy, homocidal, sociopathic git. But he has absolutely no distinguishing features in either looks or personality. I kept waiting for his big bad boss to show up, but nope, he really was The Baddie. Seriously, when he first shows up on the screen, you'll mistake him for some middleman that'll be killed in the first half hour. Alas, no.

* The camera shots during the action sequences -- and because this film is plotless, it's almost all action sequences -- are the currently-fashionable shaky, cross-cut shots. Remember the brilliant multi-level foot chase at the beginning of Casino Royale? There's another suchlike here, but you ain't gonna get a good look at it until you buy the DVD and can freeze each shot or slow the whole damn thing down. I will be so bloody pleased when that genre of shooting goes out of style. I was sitting there muttering, "Oh, Just. Hold. Still!" at the screen.

* Although the main Bond girl kicks butt, they still insisted on having one pretty female for Bond to bed and then find dead by some gruesome method. The rest of the script has gone way beyond that stage, and I was pretty disappointed that it was felt necessary. *eyeroll, with heavy sigh*

* OMG, has Tim Piggot-Smith put on the pounds! I knew he was in the film, and still didn't recognize him until he started talking. (But then, I barely recognized Geraldine James in State of Play, either. They'll both be forever stuck in their Jewel in the Crown ages in my brain, I guess.)

* Hey, where was Q? Seriously, it looks like no Q in the Craig-era Bonds. *pouts* I want my John Cleese fix.

The good stuffs:

* The main Bond girl kicks butt, and to the best of my recollection doesn't get laid by Bond. She's gorgeous, but has physical flaws. And she's willing to risk her life to get what she wants.

* Although the dead girl's name is a typical Bond girl name, they don't use the whole thing on screen. You have to wait until the credits to find it out.

* Daniel Craig. Inna tux. Or shirtless. Beat up. Those eyes.

* Dame Judi. Whom wardrobe likes to see in white. Cold-creaming her face to take her makeup off at night. Her character is seriously snarky and snippy and still very, very human. Dench turned M from just background noise into a person.

* Stuff blows up. And there's a boat chase. It's still a Bond movie.

* Tosca!

* We see how Felix Lighter got to be Bond's contact in the CIA.

* Gooney Bird! (/airplane geek and former McDonnell-Douglas employee)

* The trailer for the new Star Trek film was shown.

In short, not as good as the last one. Unless you're a Bond-film fan, you might want to wait for the DVD.

Posted: Wed - November 19, 2008 at 08:47 AM   Home         | | View Technorati reactions

©