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Comment RSSQuantum Of Solace Reviews
19.10.08 # Review # 25 Comments
The early Quantum Of Solace movie reviews have landed online, and the general consensus is that it’s good, but falls short of Casino Royale. And one of the first bloggers to see it trashes it completely.
According to the Ian Fleming short story it takes its title from, a ‘Quantum Of Solace’ is “a precise figure defining the comfort/humanity/fellow feeling required between any pair of people for love to survive. If the Quantum of Solace is 0, then love is dead.” So I hope that’s cleared up any confusion…… The last line actually sounds like it’s from a maths exam.
Here’s what the movie critics are saying -
Guardian (UK) -
“…the villain is especially underpowered… I was disappointed there was so little dialogue, flirtation and characterisation in this Bond. …Quantum of Solace isn’t as good as Casino Royale: the smart elegance of Craig’s Bond debut has been toned down in favour of conventional action. But the man himself powers this movie… Craig measures up. (3/5)”
Telegraph (UK) -
“In this much darker film, picking up from where Casino Royale left off, 007 actually finds himself after two people: …if Quantum of Solace lacks Casino Royale’s narrative drive, and is less than the sum of its parts, those parts are often terrific. …see it for Craig’s fully-formed Bond: angry, icily unsentimental, and fleetingly borderline psychotic at the close.”
Empire -
“A pacy, visually imaginative follow-up… there’s still a sense at the end that Bond’s mission has barely begun and he’ll need a few more movies to work his way up to destroying the apparently undefeatable Quantum organisation. …perhaps the next movie could let the hero enjoy himself a bit more. (4/5)”
ShizNiz (UK Blog) -
“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?”. …Has all hallmarks of a director unfamiliar with action.. Quantum Of Solace is a crushing disappointment.”
Quantum Of Solace doesn’t have enough reviews yet for a rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
Leave your own Quantum Of Solace movie review in the comments.
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This was really bad – so dissappointed with it. Daniel Craig is a good actor but as Bond, story line boring and dated, special effects so so, no gadgets, so quick, so dissappointing……
Borne films are much much much better – which is a shame as do love a Bond movie. Just not the last two or Timothy Dalton – yuck.
James Bond 1962 – 2002
Firstly, let me stress that I am a huge Bond fan.
Secondly, let me say that Quantum of Solace actually makes me angry to think about.
The film picks up minutes after Casino Royale limped to its climax – finally, a sequel to a story. Fleming wrote each novel as a direct sequel to the one before – it’s just taken over forty years for the films to catch on to this trick.
The problems become obvious mere seconds into the film – the directing and editing are both awful and conspire to produce the most migraine-inducing, poorly viewed car chase ever filmed. But by the end, Bond has escaped (somehow – it’s difficult to tell) and presented Mr White to M.
Then, in the most obvious see-it-coming twist ever, one of the Mi6 agents turns rogue and goes gun happy before fleeing, leaving it up to Bond to do more bloody free running and chase him down.
He does, eventually. Then things go all CGI as they fall through a glass roof and somehow get tangled up in a rope pulley system (that’s how it appears anyway – the camera’s refusal to show us what’s happening leaves it all up in the air as to what’s actually going on.)
The core of the film sees Bond tracking down the mysterious Quantum group, who have managed to infiltrate every major organisation across the world, somehow. Ignoring the fact that overthrowing governments from within is the CIA’s job, Bond tasks himself with finding out what they’re up to.
Unfortunately, as everyone around keeps CONSTANTLY reminding us, Bond is still in love with Vesper and really pissed off that she died. Is anyone else? No? Huh.
This is the main crux of whether or not you’ll like Quantum. If you truly believed that Bond fell in love with Vesper in Royale, then you will have no problem believing that he’d want vengeance for her death. If, however, you thought that their romance was the most contrived out of all the Bond films to date, it’s a bitter pill to swallow.
This is where the film truly begins, as Bond trots the globe and kills people and gets into lots of barely-visible scraps with various goons, gradually getting closer to Dominic Green, who has A Very Evil Plan ™ involving stealing water. Yes – it’s sunk that low.
One of the worst parts about this ‘new’ Bond is how little both movies feel like a Bond film. This one is especially awful on the action stakes – each chase scene feels forced into place just for the sake of it. And at no point do they feel breathtakingly original, like good Bond action ought to feel. There’s a strange sense that we’ve seen it all before – sometimes, we have. Many moments are cribbed right out of other Bond movies, with a few borrowed from other, better action movies.
Crashing cargo plane. The Living Daylights. Bond throwing bad guy off roof. The Spy Who Loved Me. Aerial fight between planes. Tomorrow Never Dies. Bond out for revenge. Licence To Kill. Bond fighting enemy armed with fire axe. A View To A Kill. Girl dead on bed covered in something. Goldfinger. Bond takes out two cops with no trouble. The Bourne Identity. Bond fights his way out of arrest in a lift. Mission: Impossible III.
It doesn’t even visually look like a Bond movie. At one point, when Bond is sitting on a boat in an exotic location – the constant title cards tell all here, for no good reason – it is impossible to not think what a smug shit he really is. Everything is either slightly too luxurious, slightly too clinical or slightly too gritty. Part of this can be blamed on Dan Bradley, former stunt co-ordinator and second unit director for the Bourne movies.
And here we have to raise to issue of the other super spy with initials ‘JB’. If anything, it feels like a rejected Bourne movie. Bond has an arc that feels completely contrived beyond all reason, while the incredibly bad editing feel like outtakes from The Bourne Supremacy (the one where you can’t see anything). Hell, the ending is basically the finale of Supremacy, right down to the Russian apartment it takes place in. Bond has basically become Bourne in a tuxedo, and in doing so, he’s shed everything that made him so unique for so long.
Gone are the double entendres, the humour, the smirks, the stiff upper lip, the quintessential Englishness. This Bond fucks shit up, and that’s about it. There is no character here – he was fully formed in the first five minutes of Royale. All the supporting characters are just as blank. Camille is basically Bond in a dress, except she gets knocked out within fifteen minutes from her introduction (score one for advancement of the sexes), while M is little more than a mother figure, appearing more times on screen here than ALL THE M’S IN EVERY BOND FILM PUT TOGETHER. Seriously, what was so hard about her giving Bond his mission and disappearing until the end?
Dominic Green is destined to be forgotten as a villain. With no motivation (he wants money! MY GOD WHAT A BASTARD!) and nothing distinctive, he will vanish into the ether of forgotten Bond villains, alongside Stromberg and Largo. He randomly changes archetypes as well – going from insane cackling villain to really strong (he breaks a stone balcony!) to really shit fighter, who manages to get one over Bond because it was contrived.
Worst offender is Agent Strawberry Fields (no, really) – she’s appalling. Not only is Gemma Arterton a terrible actress, but Bond manages to shag her with the line “I can’t find the stationary. Care to help me?”
And while we’re on the subject of Agent Fields, what in the name of fuck happened to her? She was drowned in oil. And placed back on the bed.
Just think how in the hell this was achieved. Did they take the barrel of oil to her room? Did they take her to the barrel of oil? How is the room so pristine given the nature of her death? She’s covered in OIL for god’s sake!
Here, Bond breaks the first rule. “Men want to be him, women want to be with him.” Sure, women want to be with him, but who the fuck would want to be him? He’s stroppy, sulky, moody, unable to sleep and constantly has the shit beaten out of him.
The main blame for this apparent travesty can be laid in several directions.
Firstly, to producers Michael G Wilson and Barbara Broccoli.
Their apparent lust to drive the franchise in new directions has seemingly forgotten what it is that makes him such a memorable character.
This is the third time they’ve tried to kick-start the franchise, with Licence To Kill and GoldenEye coming before. Licence To Kill is phenomenal, probably the best of all the Bond films. You know what? It adheres to the formula and still works.
In spite of this reboot, though, it is utterly bizarre that they would keep the two writers who drove the franchise into the ground.
Secondly, to director Marc Forster.
It is incredibly obvious that he cannot handle the kind of action required by Bond – why else would there be so many edits?
His style feels stale, overdone and lame. Bond needs a better director than this man.
Thirdly, to writer Paul Haggis.
Mr Haggis gave us painfully awful Oscar winning bullshit in the shape of Crash, and as a result, his festering hand is all over the final product this time. The forced emotion, the bolted-on ‘depth’ to characters – hell, even the ending. It doesn’t make sense.
Purvis and Wade can clearly write Bond and can write action – they wrote all of the Brosnan Bonds – hence why all the emotional bollocks feels so tacked on.
Fourth, to Daniel Craig.
Even though the writers have given Bond absolutely nothing to go on, there is no excuse for his flat portrayal of the character. He pouts, looks moody and punches men. That’s it. Even when he’s asked to be charming, he can’t muster it up. It always seems like women do favours for him purely out of fear. His character is completely inconsistent – “I’m so upset about Vesper… fancy a shag?” His is a very weak Bond – Dalton still reigns supreme.
Finally, I blame myself.
I went into this expecting a Bond film. What I got was a generic action movie about a broken man out for revenge. I should have seen it coming – that Casino Royale was that start of something new.
Now Bond doesn’t get the girl, the movie doesn’t end with the base exploding and Bond never wins. What we have is a series of action scenes with Bond twisting and turning in between them. Had I been more prepared for the shift, maybe I would be more receptive to this film. Next time, perhaps.
I just miss the old days. The puns, the jokes, the humour, hell, even the gadgets.
But the way these things work is very simple – they go in cycles. Soon enough the world will grow tired of hyper-realism and aggression and Bond will once again have to change to keep up with the times. And that will take us full circle.
For now, Bond is dead. All hail Jason Bourne in a tuxedo.
No stars.
-Adam Mason
tl:dr? Film shit.
Can you flesh that out a bit more.
Don’t make me come over there.
Empire called it “the Dark Knight of James Bond films”.
Empire also gave it the same score as “Casino Royale” and “Diary of the Dead”. Go figure.
Anyone who thinks License To Kill is the best Bond movie ever needs to be shot. You have no right to comment on the Bond Franchise with such a retarded view. Let me guess, Batman and Robin was your favorite out of the Batman movies. Also, Goldeneye came after License to Kill and it was The Living Daylights that was the first revamp you refer to, not License to Kill. Get your facts straight before you comment on the Bond Franchise.
The Living Daylights was a Roger Moore film with a different Bond. Timothy Dalton’s ruthless edge was what made the producers want to reinvent the formula. Unfortuantely, it was not as much of a financial success as they were hoping for, hence why the Brosnan years went back to basics.
Yes, I know GoldenEye came after Licence To Kill. When did I say otherwise?
I have not seen the early Batman films. I am not stupid.
Licence To Kill is the best. I stand firmly behind it and Mr Dalton.
Perhaps you have some aggression issues to work through. Might I suggest an evening watching the “Saw” franchise?
What is everyone expecting. It’s a Bond film, not Shakespeare.
It’s an action film. The cold war is long gone and Bond can’t constantly be chasing the KGB.
I thought the villain was actually very good. His acting was understated which actually made him a bit more menacing to me. Think of the over the topness of some of the baddies like Jaws and Elliot Carver – totally non-believeable.
But thats the whole point of a Bond film – none of it is believable, you go to be entertained by the action and the one liners, which I think Daniel Craig is working his way into nicely.
And if he asked me to help me look for the stationery – I would!
Get a life everyone, if you dont like it, it’s easy, dont go to the pictures next time.
I think the picture delivers on all fronts.
Constantly chasing the KGB? I assume you’re refering to the henchman in “The Living Daylights”, the only KGB agent ever chased by Bond. (Agent XXX in Spy Who Loved Me doesn’t count – she wasnt chased.)
I would be entertained by the action and one-liners. Unfortunately, I couldn’t see the action and the one-liners weren’t funny.
While I have my reservations about Timothy Daltom, I agree with Adam in most other respects. Title song? Disjointed rubbish. Action scenes? Incomprehensible. Plot? Missing in action.
I think Daniel Craig could be an excellent Bond, given the chance. But with a director who seems to think he’s making a video game and a writer who works from the Boys Own Book of Cliches, he has no opportunity to impress us. I have never been so disappointed in the cinema. This is a Jason Bourne pastiche, and fails to match up in any single respect.
If you’re like me, you’ll go and see this film anyway. It’s the new Bond, after all. But the next one …?
I agree with everything the reviewer said. A great disappointment.
I don’t know, Adam, that’s all a bit reactionary; do you like Jeremy Clarkson? You write like he talks. Maybe it’s because I’m half way through an English lit. course but I thought both Casino Royale and the Quantum of Solace have saved Bond from becoming its own dead metaphor- just a genre to lampoon. The way I see it the new Bonds have to systematically go through everything the old Bonds, particularly the last two or three, did and do it ‘properly’. There’s a whole load of imagery in both films to do with rennovation; the Venetian house under repairs where Vesper dies; the old church where Bond and Mitchell swing about in; the amount of construction sites and quarries etc. By The World is Not Enough the plot seemed to me literally formulaic; car, watch, boat, ski, girl, villain with interesting physical deformity or anomaly. In Quantum you get a car chase; for me, the cutting in of things like gear changing, of the truck drivers, of the police does for made what I think made Spooks so popular (a BBC series), which, you’re right, is what Bourne does too- acquaints us with the mental/conceptual framework of a man trained to be elusive and to take advantage of their situation. What I love about Craig’s Bond is that you can almost picture the history Vesper hinted at on that train in Casino; smart boarding school, rugby, Oxford, army, SAS (the brutally precise fight-scenes help with that last one) and finally MI6. He’s human, more so than Brosnan; just exhaustively trained. As to depth, I think it is subtle, but definitely there; as I said, he’s highly trained, but when he tells Camille how to kill someone, it shows that he had to deal with the same thing. It humanises him.
I’m not sure Strawberry Fields is worse than Pussy Galore; she’s a posh, precocious public schoolgirl with influential parents! Every heard of Peaches Geldoff?! And the reason she sleeps with Bond isn’t because he ‘chats her up’; it’s because he’s James Bond, someone important enough to be ordered detained by M, and she “works in an office collating reports” and because he’s capable and smoothe as hell!
Coming back to ‘doing things properly’ the reason M appears so frequently is precisely because she never has before! I’m not sure what’s so difficult to grasp about that! Why have her as a throw away character- ‘where the missions come from’? I don’t know if you’re English or not, but ‘Englishness’ if there is such a thing is, politically, wanting to do something but not being able to ie. wanting to stop Greene but being told by a Home Secretary who perhaps goes on holiday once a year to Aquitaine with his mother and the Earl of Charlbury that you have to turn a blind eye because a) your allies are and b) you are a political and economic nonentity and need to do what rich countries say. Britain could do with losing the ridiculous stereotypes that, if you consider it, have nothing at all to do with reality. That Craig’s clearly Anglo-Saxon (blue eyes blond hair) speaks more of Englishness to me, of a country made up of hundreds of years of invasion, cultural assimilation, international ascendancy, war for unity- mud and rain.
Also, with regard to the water thing, it’s not so much that is IS water, it’s more that it ISN’T oil, as everyone thinks it is, which brilliantly, I think, makes all the political maneuvering (the CIA, the Home Office) irrelevant and laughable. And I don’t know about you, but I just paid £518 for half a year’s water supply; if you were sole supplier to an entire country, that’s a hell of a lot of money! I do agree with you about Greene and his organisation; how the hell did they get so big, but mostly why? How did he get into it? Did he go to an open day after university and take it from there?! His personal motivation’s not a problem for me; he’s just an unpleasant bloke who feels small and wants to feel bigger. It’s like the new Batman- it’s more chilling to imagine somebody’s just evil for no reason, and I think in Quantum it’s done believably enough. As to the organisation’s motivation, maybe the next film will explain. How to cover someone in oil? Who cares?! that was one of the most striking images I’ve ever seen in cinema! Suffice it to say it’s a hell of a lot easier to cover someone in oil than it is to coat them in gold! Suspension of disbelief; get over it!
There’s a whole lot more I thought I could say about it, but I can’t think how to write it eloquently enough that anyone would care.
Mr Lovett,
That’s a damn good rebuff, sir.
I want to stress that I’m not deliberately trying to start arguements – maybe you’re right, it could have been an extreme reaction to an experience I wasn’t expecting.
I personally like the formula – there’s something about Bond that’s pleasantly predictable and maybe I am a fool for being more than willing to fork over cash for another twenty films that are exactly the same, but that just says a lot about me.
Perhaps I need to see the film again, and not write a review under the influence of alcohol (this may be why you detect some Clarkson in there.)
Please do go on, I thoroughly enjoyed reading that.
(By the way, I like the gold more than the oil – it’s more believable that there was a pot of paint to hand than a barrel of the black stuff.)
After Casino Royale, my expectations were really high – I blame the writer for the poor storyline, missing plot and everything uttered between the car chase to the finale.. the director concentrated on the adrenaline rush of the action sequence.. jam packed it with speed boat chase, car chase, the plane chase, roof top chase, he left out the story!!