posted
There is a "Quantum of Solace" movie review on the internet that is really tawdry, catty and shallow, maybe even arrogant. No, definitely arrogant.
And I'm writing it!
As they say, "A broken clock may topple over and crush a kitten at least twice per day". So, for posterity, here are my thoughts after viewing the 22nd James Bond movie, "Quantum of Solace" ("QoS").
My main points will be the action, Bond's emotional "progress", M:s new erratic and frighteningly schizophrenic behavior, and assorted tidbits that are now forever burned into my cornea.
I will try to handle this responsibly and avoid lapsing into cheap "stream-of-consciousness" writing, but instead remain prosaic and factual throughout the article, professional, never letting the guard down, a true worker ant...a good egg. French fries.
Disclaimer: If I sometimes have one or two plot-facts or scene details wrong, or if I seem to lack even basic understanding of biology, politics, sex or grooming...well, bear with me.
You may feel a slight nausea from time to time, or get severe disassociative tendencies like from a bad acid trip (solipsy? solipctzsism? A word like that), but it's ok. Look, just remember that it would be impossible for me to injure* a human being, or through inaction, let a human being come to harm bla bla bla.
Registered: Aug 1999
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Detached Opening Bond Scene: The favorite Bond Element for many people, the outrageous and usually unrelated opening scene, is gone for now. The movie picks up directly where "Casino Royale" ended, though it's only apparent five minutes into the scene.
The story opens with THE most jarring, erratic, zoomed-in, eye-raping and brutally speed-edited car chase in movie history, leaving "Die Hard 3" and the "Fast but also Furious"-film franchise miles behind. The crisp and professional cinematography/editing team from "Casino Royale", Phil Meheux and Stuart Baird, has for "QoS" been replaced by ocular molestors Bob Schaefer and Matt Chesse. The latter is oscar-nominated for his "Finding Neverland" camera work, making the Schaefer/Chesse team function like Hyde/Jekyll, visually. Throughout the whole movie, every bit of scene which has the slightest minimum (or quantum, if you will, hahahaha) of action-ness in it will go into this mode described below;
Movie Example: Bond crossing a street in downtown Bolivia (shaky hand-camera zoomed up into Daniel Craig's left nostril, followed by 1/500 Second jump-cut of old russian cargo truck swerving wildly to avoid Bond, slideshot over to cursing truck-driver, zoom-in of meowing cat on sidewalk, then woman shaking bedsheet on balcony overlooking street, vertical alley-pan of two farting mules, and back to Bond who throws a newspaper on the sidewalk and uncocks his stolen sidearm, smoldering with icy, homicidal rage...all of this shown in the time that it took you to speak this following word: "Peskajumba".
All these action-scenes, car chases, hotel room fights, rooftop fights and no less than three different "scaffolding" fights, all consist of such "Bourne Identity"-esque closeups, speed-editing and shaky framing that I literally (this is true) had to lower my gaze onto the back of the seat in front of me, from time to time, and try to watch the fight through peripheral vision, because my eyes where stinging from trying to keep up with the camera (and I've watched anime, I've seen things you people wouldn't believe).
I had a 6th row seat out of 16, the best row in that theater, but if I ever watch this picture on the silver screen again, it'll be from the projection booth.
As for the actual content of the movie's numerous chases and segues, they can be described with one word: "Parkour". Yes, not satisfied to remain in the opening action sequence of "Casino Royale" (where it had a perfect motivation and setting), this rule-free actionsport dictates all James Bond's operational record from now on, even when chasing a bad guy through embassy office rooms. I swear to god, Bond comes after people like a fucking freight train, and if they try to run away it only eggs him on further! Heeelp! This new style of locomotion, coupled with CraigBond's herculean dexterity and constitution, lands him way above Jackie Chan, Chuck Norris and Tony Jaa (from "Ong Bak: Knee-Through-Ribcage" fame). This Bond is a one-man Kristallnacht.
Bond's fighting is also much different from his level-headed and focused fisticuffs of "Casino Royale". There he was rough but professional. In "QoS", Bond brawls so frenetically, brutally and viciously that I couldn't call it "Krav Maga" in good conscience, because even Israeli "battlefield-condition last-ditch close-quarters murderfighting" is much more graceful than Daniel Craig's Bond. Yes, Bond leaves no cartilage uncrushed, not even against a score of agents from his own agency that TRIES TO BRING HIM HOME, at midpoint of the film. And he doesn't so much fight like Wolverine in "X-Men 2", which is feral and straightforward, it's more like you're trapped with Hannibal Lecter inside a cramped toolshed rolling down a hill.
Like 30 minutes into QoS, when Bond wrestles a hacker-nerd agent to the floor and sticks long shards of window-glass into him until the guy bleeds out (Bond's pulse doesn't rise above 85 even as he's field-dressing his mutilated bicep, his eyes staring at a point just behind the Horsehead Nebula.
(Ed.note: It might've been that both combatants got shards stabbed into them, or even that it was just Bond got stabbed, it was impossible to discern as they where both blond, dressed in black and THE EDITING WAS SO FUCKING JUMBLED.)
In fact, every man, woman and beast that Bond encounters when he's not wearing a Tuxedo (Note to self: Investigate tuxedo effects on male hormones) he slaughters either immediately or inadvertently, except for one (1) person, which he only kept himself from killing because he was going through a hard time emotionally (thank fuck for that!), as he FINALLY finds leverage that allows him to get pushed out the other side of the "emotional sphincter" that sums up his relationship with dead former lover Vesper Lynd. Oh, the pacifying counterbalance of Pinksocks, how we Bluesocks need you. :'-(
EDIT: Sorry, just remembered, he does strangle and maim about five guys even WITH the tuxedo, like he's afraid he'll lose his edge. So yeah, there goes that theory down the drain.
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Still reading? Well your loss! Because I'm going to delve into the sick, warped existence of The Queen's First Directorate Manager (also known as M!), played by the furious Dame Judy Dench (I think Dame has a personal assistant that follows her around 24/7 and pinches her hard in the thighs every five minutes, to keep her in the zone, where she needs to be).
Exploring deeper in the "mother"-aspect of M to Bond, she makes more field-visits to him in this movie than any other Bond-movie, and almost exclusively to point out his latest shortcomings, like french fries in the wind. (Ed.Note: stop it).
In "Quantum of Solace", this goes as far as posturing for a good long while next to the naked, sprawled body of a recently murdered Bond-girl and musing, philosophizing even, to Bond about HIS sick relationship to women, and his total disregard for the dignity of same. Aye, like a greek godess she appears there to curse him, his carefree ways and what they lead to, while the silent frame of a super-perfect female body, drenched in crude oil, rests next to her. It's actually a bit sexy in a totally freakish way.
Dench is of course a solid performer in the movie, if hampered a bit by M:s small width of character. In Dame's defense, she really tried to lend a bit more humanity to M in this movie, and she got a whole scene of her own, where Bond contacts M while she's preparing for bed, doing all that "girl-stuff" that we guys don't have a clue about, involving creams and little puffs and swabs and towels and mirrors.
Anyway, the unintentional hilarity of the "M Goes To Bed" scene is that while she is frenetically dousing and wiping her face with pieces of fabric for about 40 solid seconds, she's instructing Bond to carry out a bunch of nasty mission directives, while also chastising him for a bunch of things, terrible things, that he committed "in the field" that day (which Bond seems to have no recollection of, being back in his comfy tuxedo again). Anyway, the result is that Judy Dench talks in a monotonous tone while staring into the camera and clawing her face with sanitary products and discussing "subject terminations". This is prime entertainment, but not the kind I think they where going for.
Oh, and running the risk of sounding like a complete shallow pig, but with her makeup removed like that, Judy Dench isn't exactly the same "60-year old sexy spring chicken" she was in her 1995 "Goldeneye" Bond-debut. She carries it well, though. Like a seasoned mommy. Mommy Lecter.
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Oh shit, look at the clock. Better wrap this up, eh. General observations time.
Suspension of Disbelief: For me personally, the SOD was weaker in this movie than in other Bond-movies. Certain actions and events, like chasing after a MI6 office worker girl that Bond snogged, killing her and drenching her in crude oil, then returning her to Bond's room and not leave a trace to or from the bed, is an enormous undertaking that the seemingly professional and business-oriented "Quantum"-organization shouldn't have time to dick around with. Also, oil had no plot function whatsoever in this movie, there is no "Oily the Oilerbaron" stooge with a signature move, the producers just wanted to have an excuse for recreating the famous "Golden girl murder" in "Goldfinger", but used crude oil to make it a complete reverse of the classic. (Well, a complete gold opposite would be a light blue, it seems, but they couldn't very well drown her in molten lapis lazuli now could they, this isn't David Lynch)
Which brings us to "Quantum of Solace":s Bond Scene "plagiarisms". Of course they can do whatever the hell they want with their own franchise, but I wish they hadn't. The "Oil girl" Goldfinger steal is the most obvious one, just inserted for the boys, but there's also the "Bond and his girl trekking through desert while wearing ballroom tuxedo and frock", which Roger Moore and Barbara Bach does in Egypt in "The Spy Who Loved Me" (God I miss the Cold War), and then there's a third one, which ties into the female protagonist of the movie, "Camille", played by actress Olga Kurylenko.
Olga plays a wronged and tragic character put in harm's way, just like most other acting roles she's played in Hollywood so far, including run-and-gun damsel in distress in "Hitman: The Movie", and "Max Payne". I got no beef with that, you take what you have and run with it. In fact, running from point A: to point B: is what she does most, but she does look nice in sooty canyon grime, natural Bondgirl material.
In "QoS", though, she plays a daughter of a murdered family, on a mission to kill the man who ruined her life, and runs into Bond just as she's about to get blasted by the baddies. Yep, just like Melina Havelock in "For Your Eyes Only", although that girl gets her grisly deed done ten minutes into the movie, unlike Olga, who needs training and education to kill, education which Bond happily gives in an extremely professional and detached discussion about combat stress and adrenaline and "keeping eye on the ball". Good advice to be found here for all homicidal victimized people in the audience. :.)
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Blech, this is disgusting. Well, to summarize, I don't think at all it was a wasted time, just a very different, yet at the same time a clichéd reversion to type, for Bond. Maybe some bullet points of pros and cons will freshen up your faces.
Some Pros: - No dingy Bondgirl names like "Pussy Galore" or "Breasty McFoppish", the two main skirts where called "Fields" and "Camille", short and sweet. (Okay I'll come clean, Fields' first name is "Strawberry", but it's only in the credits! Scout's honor!)
- No stupid slapstick jokes, fat highway patrolmen, fat sumo wrestlers or fat russians, just a few tongue-in-cheek jibes and a few "blink-and-you-miss-it" references. Actually less humorous than even "Casino Royale", I blame the lack of obese characters.
- No goddamn political/environmental/culturally imperialistic messages or agendas, like in the last few Brosnan-flicks. Phew! Just a series of absurdly violent deaths and mental anguish. That's fun, right? Right?
A Few Cons:
- Desmond Llewelyn, how we miss your sardonic wit! Where is "Herbert West - Reanimator" when you need him... Nope, no Q whatsoever, except a clever visual item at one point.
- No Moneypenny yet. Well, actually that's just as well, I always felt so guilty for her poor, neglected self, and her unfulfilled thirst for...um...getting to iron Bond's shirts in the morning. Because she's a lady, you see.
- Not sure it's a "Con" but the one sex scene in the movie is totally panned away, only evidence of it is some post-coital back- and shoulder-kissing that quickly turns into agent-related angst. Perhaps pointing to Craig's Bond being a more "21st Century" womanizer than the manhandling, arm-locking Bond from "Goldfinger". (Warning explicit Connery content, Don't Try This At Home)
- No doomsday device, science-fictional invention or even a damn plot device, instead the producers opt for a much more 21st century "Global organization buys rights to natural resources in order to exercise terrorist-like blackmailing scams. So, like, World Bank. (Zing!) No but seriously they are going to steal people's drinking water.
- No Bond Villain. Unless you count a hunched, asthmatic and croaking Mathieu Amalric as a villain. He's a fucking pussy all the time, makes threats like a pussy and dies like a pussy and boxes while screaming in falsetto, like a...berk (professional academic opinion). Where's some of that proud french Savate now, huh??
- No "miniboss" Right-hand Henchman With Clever Disability! No Jaws or Onatopp or Voodoo Priest Pimp, not even a meaty Samoan (ref. "Die Some Other Goddamn Day" 2002), just a scrawny, six-foot-two gay boss's secretary with a Jim Carrey Haircut, who goes out like a chump. For shame! Effeminate Bond villains should always go out in properly gay ways, so say the "Diamonds Are Forever"-clause. (2 mins 40 second mark. I'll wait.)
Summary of summary:
It was hard to work through an action movie when the action sequences themselves made my eyes hurt, and the scary, wanton "snap neck first, ask questions later" behavior of Bond was a bit disconcerting, even for a purported "revenge"-flick.
Daniel Craig is a good actor by my standards (even better in "Munich", where he stole Eric Bana's thunder) but his bouts of "emotional anxiety" which where fresh and alarming for a Bond in "Casino Royale" (after his first licensed kill and later after the death of his sweetheart), turn more into expressions of kidney stone ejection pains here, the way he breathes, his eyes watering up and starting to bulge out of their sockets, the veins on his forehead standing out like spaghetti used as a poetic simile.
We do get a fast, zippy Aston Martin, though! And some suggestive, symbolical background shapes in the opening credits that showed what I can only assume was tits.
This is the "Nimhawk", on KJCM, 98.3, and good night piglets... wherever you are. French fries.
[ November 09, 2008, 11:56 PM: Message edited by: Nim ]
Registered: Aug 1999
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Da_bang80
A few sectors short of an Empire
Member # 528
posted
Have you been getting into my stash again?
Nice review but I probably won't go see the movie in the theatre, I'm just afraid I'll fall asleep like in Casino Royale.
Honestly, Daniel Craig just doesn't do anything for me in Bond's role, sure he's a good actor but he just didn't have the presence that Connery or Brosnan did.
-------------------- Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. The courage to change the things I cannot accept. And the wisdom to hide the bodies of all the people I had to kill today because they pissed me off.
posted
Loved Craig. The car chase was cool. But the movie overall left me feeling pretty "meh." I think if I had only one criticism it would be that I never really understood anyones motivation to do anything with the notable and ham-fisted exception of Olga. The revenge element/angle was potentially amazing, but that never really took for me. The water-thieving, hand-wringing über villian never really got to menacing and nefarious, mostly hanging out around creepy and mean. The action sequences were completely baffling and not in a "Oh man, I wish I could follow this, that Bond is so fast!" sort of way, more "Wait, is that the waiter, no, bell-hop, oh, he's dead. Err, so is there gonna be a bad-guy in here anytime soon?"
Yeah, Nim, what was with all the scaffold fighting? The parkour chase out from under Sienna was (IMHO) the coolest sequence in the damned movie. Two agents chasing each other through this city, people baffled by this epic battle, not knowing if 'M' is going to be alright--great stuff. But then there's the scaffold. And like diamonds, scaffolds are forever. An unecessarily long coda, that just drained all the life out of the sequence sure as a glass shard to the brachial artery of another anonymous victim.
At no point did I feel I had any idea what or who had anything to do with anything world threatening or diabolical, and the introduction to Quantum despite being so highly cool, left me wanting. (How did he know which guy to jack in the bathroom again?) The thin motivation for the climactic fuel-cell hotel just left me bewildered in a movie where I stopped giving a shit forty minutes ago.
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posted
He just swept the room and picked the guy with the most expensive-looking designer glasses, eurotrashiest mullet and the most perfectly symmetrical beard. It was a win-win situation.
I also loved that scene because Craig-Bond shows off his new mutant-level strength, twisting off the metal doorhandle to the bathroom he stashed the broken goon in. Please, everyone, try to break off a doorhandle somewhere in your house or office. Go ahead, try it. If you succeed in the first attepmt, like Bond, then congrats! You can now officially not be incarcerated by anyone ever. Enjoy!
I didn't realize that Quantum was actually the name of the new evull organization, the tiny french bad guy only referred to it as that ecology-friendly project, was so confusing.
Ah, just noticed a fourth scene steal from an older Bond movie: Bond is standing on the opera roof with a goon (who is actually his ally), and goon is leaning over the edge, hanging from Bond's arm or something, and after a scuffle the goon falls. "The spy who loved ME", Cairo chapter. Moore was nastier though, slapping his tie like he did.
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quote:I was more "Err, so is there gonna be a bad-guy in here anytime soon?"
Heard of the phrase "Can't see the forest for all the trees"?
Which character in this movie shoots and neck-cracks friendlies and enemies alike? Who is it that picks up his unconscious, severely-beaten but still very much alive friend, uses him for a human shield, then empties his wallet and throws him in a dumpster?
Things have gone far when the director of the most powerful british secret police pretty much begs Bond to "please, stop killing everything". It almost seemed as if they where going for that trite old "Bond's biggest enemy is actually within him!"-angle.
Speaking of "within him", it was weird that they didn't go deeper into how Quantum managed to turn agents in M's personal staff into their loyal, scaffold-swinging pawns. It can't be simply money, and that's the best thing (the only thing) that snivelling Greene could use as leverage, and MI6 guys should be above that.
Maybe it's some radio-wave or chemical thing, that would be a nice return to old 1960's plot devices, "Maxwell Smart" style.
Bond: "They have laced our british baby powder reserves with the mind juice! Quick, lads, wash your armpits!"
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