October
30Still Fond of Bond?
I don’t want to sound retro, but I miss the old James Bond. The Bond of “Quantum of Solace” is a cold-eyed stiff who can’t suppress his homicidal tendencies. Gone is the sophistication and swagger, the glam surroundings and the glitzy girls, not to mention the martinis.Marc Forster is a good director, but for some reason he decided to turn Bond into a video game, all action and no style. Variety presented two critiques of the new film this week. Derek Elley, our London-based film critic, called it “Cold and mechanical.” Anne Thompson, however, found the picture “Arty, tasteful and elegant, a lyrical homage to Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘The Man Who Knew too Much’.”
I think I would have preferred to see her movie.
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Does anyone have a suspicion that they hacked together a short all action and explosions cut from a much longer version that felt too slow? The editing - as it said in the Variety review - is all over the place. And there''s way too much plot exposition over non lip sync shots. It has the hallmarks of a project gone wrong and no time for reshoots... It is a real shame because I think it''s one of the best looking Bonds that''s ever been shot and Forsters strong point should be the character and story... but that''s exactly what barely exists in this. But then again... it''ll still take plenty of cash. So what do I know?
Posted by: David | 10/31/2008 4:30:30 PM
I'm really surprised that the common thread running through almost all criticism of this film is its lack of formulaic "Bond" elements which we've all come to expect. In recent interviews Craig has explained that what they've tried to do in this film is earn the right to have the one-liners and martinis by going back and studying Bond's transition into this character which is more in line with Flemming's vision of the character. It may not be what the average movie-goer expects, but intellectually I applaud them for taking the Bond franchise somewhere new!
Posted by: pmd | 10/31/2008 9:58:44 AM
I''m very glad you wrote about this, Mr. Bart.
While I appreciate the fact that this new Bond representation is trying to portray his beginnings - before he was, and perhaps how he came to be, suave, charming, and sophisticated, it clearly does not seem to be showing us a Bond at all.
I can only hope the next movie in this series will make an attempt to do so. To the filmmakers'' credit, at least they haven''t been putting out terrible films.
Posted by: Anirudh | 10/31/2008 8:17:01 AM
the obvious charm of James Bond is gone simply because the generation that buys movie tickets isn't interested in nuance, or style, or martinis. They want crash and bash style action for 100 minutes.
Posted by: mlpi | 10/31/2008 7:13:42 AM
Great film, great acting, great direction but not a Bond film. Utterly charmless, watching Quantum is like sprinting through the most beautiful place on the planet... but if you don't stop to look around and appreciate it, you might as well be anywhere.
Posted by: Raymond | 10/31/2008 2:57:33 AM
Old Bond was an adventurer, new Bond is a depressive hit man
Posted by: mkaven | 10/31/2008 2:46:08 AM