LUGASHI ENTERTAINMENT NETWORK

Quantum Of Solace and i got off on the wrong foot right from the beginning, when the film started without being preceded with the white circle coming across the screen as james bond walks and turns and shoots at the audience.  however, i took a deep breath and decided to forgive them and keep an open mind, which eventually turned into a 'bored' mind and then a 'going home thinking how crappy the movie was' mind.

as far as james bond fans go, i would put myself somewhere in the middle.  i have seen most of them (i went through a stage a few years back where i started from the beginning and went chronologically through many of them) but except for a few, i find that they kind of blend into each other and if you asked me what happened in certain ones, i wouldn't always be able to tell ya.

ok, so back to Quantum Of Solace.  there is so much i want to say, but it is a little jumbled in my head so lets go at this in point form...

no white circle opening: we have already established that this was disappointing.

opening scene: this is always the most anticipated part of a bond film (remember that awesome opening in Goldeneye, to name one of my favorites).  here it was pretty good.  the film opens right up in the middle os a car chase and this was cool.  the problem is that director marc forster is not an action director (which is a way the bond franchise likes to go sometimes) and so i didn't think it was that well filmed... the Bourne movies have made this quick edit, close-up, hand-held action filming style popular, but it isn't easy to pull off.  greengrass, the director of the last two Bourne films, does it well.  forster doesn't.  i had no sense of space or of the cars' relations to each other and it didn't provide as much visceral appreciation as it could have.  it was also hard on the eyes - and i was sitting near the back of the theater (i can't imagine those in the front row).

the song:  Another Way To Die by jack white and alicia keys.  this was awesome and probably one of the best bond songs ever.  the opening credit sequence was also pretty good, but there have been many better.

the lack of bond stuff:  Q isn't in the film at all.  there are no gadgets.  there are only maybe one or two bondisms/witty lines.  no money penny.  only one bond sexual encounter.  very little flirting.  no james bond theme music expect softly in the score in the background a few times.

the film: maybe i am being too old school, but i think there are some aspects of bond that just need to always be there.  they have played with the character a little in the past, but when i go see a bond film there are certain things i expect and i don't think that it is wrong of me to expect them.  i mean, if you want to take out all the indicators of a bond movie, then why bother calling it a james bond film?  and that is really how it felt.  it felt like this was a revenge-action movie they had lying around and that they just adjusted a few things to turn it into a bond film.

however, i do realize that maybe my expectations are unfair to put on the film and so i put them aside and tried to enjoy the movie as a movie in its own right.  but i couldn't.  not because of the missing bond stuff, but because it just kind of sucked...  the film felt like it had been about 20-30 minutes longer but the producers had made forster chop it up to get it to around an hour and 45 minutes.  the story jumped around, certain scenes felt like they ended abruptly and then cut to another scene without some part in between that should have been there.  the storyline was so superficial and any kind of development felt totally lost.

i think marc forster is a good director. i have really liked a few of his films (Finding Neverland and Stay to name a couple) and there were some moments in Quantum Of Solace that had me perk up and pay attention hoping it was the beginning of something good.  but, it never was.  it would go from a dramatic scene with some actual depth and interest (and not all of them were even that) to some poorly directed, not all that exciting, action sequence.

to end on a positive note: i like daniel craig as bond.  he was a bit dry and angry in this film, but given that he was on a revenge quest after the death of the woman he loved i can see it in the character.  also, dame judi dench is great as always and their relationship is the one bright note here (along with the awesome song).