First reviews are out -- and they're quite mixed, but both agree it's lean, mean, bleak and humorless. Sounds like it's going further into BOURNE territory, doesn't it. The second review questions the selection of Marc Forster as director, which I basically have as well (he's even said he'd rather not helm an action movie again!).
I did trim plot-specific elements of the reviews out so as not to bore everyone with a plot synopsis. Movie opens in just a few weeks.
BBC Review:
Clocking in at one and three-quarter hours, it's a good half hour shorter than 007's previous outing. And its reduced running time results in a leaner, tauter experience...what this film does differently is to focus closely on an emotionally battered Bond, his mission and his motivation.
There are odd moments of uncertainty when the film tries to juggle Bond's personal story with the ambitious plans being pursued by Greene.
But for the most part the villainy rightly takes a back seat to Bond's emotional journey.
007's mission may be what drives the film's plot, but the real interest lies in how Bond deals with the individuals and situations he meets along the way.
That's not to say that the film jettisons all the things that have characterised the previous stories. There are broad nods to Goldfinger especially, but this film manages the difficult task of moving the franchise into interesting new areas.
The raw nature of the film may put off some who yearn for the days of gizmos, gadgets and Bond quips as he dispenses with faceless opponents."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/7676637.stm
Also an Aint It Cool respondent (FWIW) had a reaction also...decidedly negative:
"The James Bond of Quantum Of Solace goes precisely nowhere. At times, you feel you can see the character – and by proxy the writers – actually thinking, "So what now?"
Bond's arc here ought to be revenge; the death of Vesper Lynd the
righteous cause. But Craig's emotionless visage is so blank, the
script so bereft of character, Quantum Of Solace feels like just
another day at the office for 007. Sure, he kills a few people he
shouldn't. He breaks the rules. He goes off the grid. But what kind of
Bond would he be if he didn't? It isn't until the final scene that
you'll actually remember Bond's motivations, so meaningless are his
exploits up until that point.
The issues are with the studio's choice of director in Marc
Forster. This is a man who knows how to put dramatic audiences through
the wringer (Monster's Ball, Finding Neverland, The Kite Runner) but
he's completely out of his depth handling a franchise this large.
High-tempo sequences, like the opening car chase and an extremely
Bournian rooftop pursuit, are disorientating in the extreme: too fast,
too sloppy and too ruthlessly edited. Often, things change in the
blink of an eye – one second Bond is lying on his back, the next he's
jumping out a window, the next he's swinging from a rope. It's often
impossible to keep up.
Fight scenes often seem practised and stagey (Bond smashes an opponent
through a wall with ridiculous ease), while one shot sees 007 riding a
motorbike... at about 25mph. These are all hallmarks of a director
unfamiliar with action; perhaps former Paul Greengrass protege Dan
Bradley should be held responsible.
Make no mistake, Quantum Of Solace is a crushing disappointment.
Try as you might, you'll be unable to invest in any of the characters
– now Bond's heart has been broken, it's like nothing ever changed and
the character exists simply to get to the next location and car chase
and gun fight. It's a perfectly average action film, certainly better
than the last few Brosnan outings. But when Casino Royale set the bar
so high, it's not acceptable for a follow-up to simply stroll under
it. Once again, Bond finds himself at a cross-roads, standing still,
without direction. So... what now?
http://www.aintitcool.com/node/38784
QUANTUM OF SOLACE Thread
"But for the most part the villainy rightly takes a back seat to Bond's emotional journey."
God knows that's what I want to see in a Bond movie...
I wish fans and makers of this kind of movie didn't find the need to make it 'grownup' when it simply is NOT grownup stuff. Let action movies BE action movies--you can still put plenty of emotional weight into a terrific adventure story (MAN WHO WOULD BE KING) and you can get hooked into the characters of even the slightest action story (48 HOURS).
God knows that's what I want to see in a Bond movie...
I wish fans and makers of this kind of movie didn't find the need to make it 'grownup' when it simply is NOT grownup stuff. Let action movies BE action movies--you can still put plenty of emotional weight into a terrific adventure story (MAN WHO WOULD BE KING) and you can get hooked into the characters of even the slightest action story (48 HOURS).
John
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AndyDursin
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More negative reviews for the 105-minute (!) Bond film are trickling in...
Variety:
The shortest and certainly the most action-dense Bond ever, "Quantum of Solace" plays like an extended footnote to "Casino Royale" rather than a fully realized stand-alone movie.
Producers Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli, possibly knowing they couldn't immediately top the previous pic's sheer stylishness, have radically reshuffled the series' traditional elements, but also allowed incoming helmer Marc Forster to almost throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Played with a cold, mechanical efficiency that recalls the "Bourne" movies, with almost no downtime or emotional hooks, "Quantum" will find some solace in beefy initial returns but looks unlikely to find a royale spot in Bond history or fans' hearts.
Craig, physically fine as a human killing machine but stripped here of any humor or warmth, doesn't generate any onscreen heat with his putative femme lead, Kurylenko, who most of the time looks as if she's wandered onto the set of the wrong film.
http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117938 ... id=31&cs=1
Slightly more positive from the Hollywood Reporter but...
There is a danger in this version of Ian Fleming's hero, however. A killer in the movies needs something redeeming about him. Bourne had presumed innocence, and Sean Connery's Bond, while nasty, had ironic wit. Craig's humorless Bond is in danger of becoming simply a very well-dressed but murderous thug.
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/fil ... ?rid=11864
Sounds like they've gone too far from "Bond", doesn't it?
Variety:
The shortest and certainly the most action-dense Bond ever, "Quantum of Solace" plays like an extended footnote to "Casino Royale" rather than a fully realized stand-alone movie.
Producers Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli, possibly knowing they couldn't immediately top the previous pic's sheer stylishness, have radically reshuffled the series' traditional elements, but also allowed incoming helmer Marc Forster to almost throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Played with a cold, mechanical efficiency that recalls the "Bourne" movies, with almost no downtime or emotional hooks, "Quantum" will find some solace in beefy initial returns but looks unlikely to find a royale spot in Bond history or fans' hearts.
Craig, physically fine as a human killing machine but stripped here of any humor or warmth, doesn't generate any onscreen heat with his putative femme lead, Kurylenko, who most of the time looks as if she's wandered onto the set of the wrong film.
http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117938 ... id=31&cs=1
Slightly more positive from the Hollywood Reporter but...
There is a danger in this version of Ian Fleming's hero, however. A killer in the movies needs something redeeming about him. Bourne had presumed innocence, and Sean Connery's Bond, while nasty, had ironic wit. Craig's humorless Bond is in danger of becoming simply a very well-dressed but murderous thug.
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/fil ... ?rid=11864
Sounds like they've gone too far from "Bond", doesn't it?
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Eric Paddon
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AndyDursin
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And yet LICENCE TO KILL actually had some character development going for it. This movie apparently has none at 100 minutes minus credits.Eric Paddon wrote:Sounds like the whole franchise has become "Licence To Kill" redux. No thank you! I have seen my last Bond movie with "Die Another Day".
The way I look at it -- CASINO was impressive yet flawed in some areas. It abandoned, to me, too many of the things that make the James Bond franchise what it is. With this movie, they could've gone either way, and that's either start to include a LITTLE humor and bring it back a bit from "Bourne" territory, or just go further into the Bond-as-killing-machine mode with glum and humorless atmosphere. Sadly it sounds like they made the latter choice, but made the additional mistake of throwing character development out along with it.
And I still don't understand why they hired a director best known for dramatic "interior" movies to helm what's basically an action-only affair with the shortest run time of all 20+ films!
As time has gone on I've come to appreciate LTK more.AndyDursin wrote: And yet LICENCE TO KILL actually had some character development going for it. This movie apparently has none at 100 minutes minus credits.
I agree with you on that even though I really like CR overall.
The way I look at it -- CASINO was impressive yet flawed in some areas. It abandoned, to me, too many of the things that make the James Bond franchise what it is. With this movie, they could've gone either way, and that's either start to include a LITTLE humor and bring it back a bit from "Bourne" territory, or just go further into the Bond-as-killing-machine mode with glum and humorless atmosphere. Sadly it sounds like they made the latter choice, but made the additional mistake of throwing character development out along with it.
Obviously I haven't seen Quantum yet but the consensus seems to more or less match what you're saying here and if that's truly the case then they're making a mistake. That's not what Bond is supposed to be about.
No idea.
And I still don't understand why they hired a director best known for dramatic "interior" movies to helm what's basically an action-only affair with the shortest run time of all 20+ films!
The Bond franchise is an interesting case study of how TONE is so important in a movie--something that seems to be a matter of course, but which people don't often talk about because we don't have many long-running series to examine for shifts of tone. (The Star Trek movie franchise is another example.)
For me, a non-Bond fan, it's interesting to see how the producers keep trying to get the perfect mix. With Dalton on, they seem to have tried to go for a seriousness of tone because that would take the franchise away from the silliness of the Moore films. Yet the fans seem to enjoy these as romps, not serious examinations of the psyche of a secret agent.
Not having read the books, I can only rely on a friend's opinion, and he tells me no movie has ever gotten it just right. What movie could?
For me, a non-Bond fan, it's interesting to see how the producers keep trying to get the perfect mix. With Dalton on, they seem to have tried to go for a seriousness of tone because that would take the franchise away from the silliness of the Moore films. Yet the fans seem to enjoy these as romps, not serious examinations of the psyche of a secret agent.
Not having read the books, I can only rely on a friend's opinion, and he tells me no movie has ever gotten it just right. What movie could?
John
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Eric Paddon
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The thing that should be understood is that no movie SHOULD try to do the books "perfect". "Licence To Kill" was the one that did try to be just like the books in tone and it was awful. Fleming "purists" are the kind of people I have little respect for because so often they think their instincts are better than anything that's been done in the movies, and this will cause them to nitpick over the silliest things like saying that every Felix Leiter in the Connery Bonds is a failure in casting because they won't show Leiter with a steel hook and wooden leg as a result of his maiming in the novel version of "Live And Let Die" ("Licence To Kill" finally dramatized this moment and all that did was kill off any chance of using a good supporting character again).
Richard Maibaum, in his screenplays for the early Bond films, was the one who really made Bond accessible to an American audience by adding the right element of humor and style to the stories that were often lacking in Fleming's stories where things could come off as humorless and outright sadistic. If you can keep a good Fleming storyline intact, like many of the Connery films do, then fine, but enhance it with the right "Tone" as you say, which was lacking in the books and which the films created.
Richard Maibaum, in his screenplays for the early Bond films, was the one who really made Bond accessible to an American audience by adding the right element of humor and style to the stories that were often lacking in Fleming's stories where things could come off as humorless and outright sadistic. If you can keep a good Fleming storyline intact, like many of the Connery films do, then fine, but enhance it with the right "Tone" as you say, which was lacking in the books and which the films created.
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AndyDursin
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Excellent points Eric. What will be interesting is whether or not the Bond fans speak out this time in terms of their support for the picture -- as I was reading earlier today, there's no Q, there are no gadgets, there's no humor, there's very little resemblance to any of the earlier Bond films in CASINO and apparently this movie goes even further in that direction. Very obviously they're emulating the BOURNE films, but fans are becoming increasingly hesitant over what appears to be a push to turn this franchise into a violent, cold, and action-only direction.
They will ultimately lose their audience if they do that -- maybe not in the immediate revenues this movie turns out, but if the film fails, they'll see a decline in future installments if they continue down this path.
That's just my two cents, assuming what we've heard about this film turns out to be accurate of course. Though the irony is that you could tell the film "turned out this way" based on what Craig and the director said in interviews last month, before anyone had seen it -- if you read inbetween the lines, it was clear the film was violent and had little character development.
They will ultimately lose their audience if they do that -- maybe not in the immediate revenues this movie turns out, but if the film fails, they'll see a decline in future installments if they continue down this path.
That's just my two cents, assuming what we've heard about this film turns out to be accurate of course. Though the irony is that you could tell the film "turned out this way" based on what Craig and the director said in interviews last month, before anyone had seen it -- if you read inbetween the lines, it was clear the film was violent and had little character development.
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Monterey Jack
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Considering what a tragic waste the campy DAF was following the gripping, emotionally-charged OHMSS, I'm glad they're sticking to a more "hard-edged" film...at this this time out. I just hope they definitively close the plotline running through CR at the end of QOS and gradually, tastefully, start adding back some of the "classic" elements (Q, Moneypenny, moderately-believable gadgets, the gunbarrel in it's proper place, ect.).
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AndyDursin
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AndyDursin
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AndyDursin wrote:Doug Fake's thoughts on the score over at Intrada are dead-on accurate.
And it's not just David Arnold and this score he's talking about -- it's MOST modern film music today that he's condemning.
Couldn't agree more, we're in a really bad place right now, no doubt about it.
That's why even though I'm not super big on some of the liner notes and a few other oddities...I just can't find it in myself to even begin to quibble about anything on releases like that Indy set or the rest of it.