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UNEQUAL SEQUEL
by Ed Werner
Grade: B-
Quantum of Solace, the 22nd installment of the James Bond film canon, will be the source of discussions and arguments for many years to come. The first thing that will hit you in this film is the fight/action scenes. And there are many of them, maybe more than any other previous Bond movie (or maybe it just seemed that way). The Bond films of the 60’s and specifically those cut by Peter Hunt, are pretty much universally credited as pioneering quick cuts in the editing process as to increase the urgency and excitement of the action scenes. The technique started to get a little out of control in the ”Lethal Weapon“ series and most recently, the Bourne films. Now, the producers, or the director, or the editor, or whoever, have decided that they are going to once again, jump on the bandwagon and copy something that is seemingly all the rage in action movies… the hyper edit. Something is wrong when a scene is cut in such a frantic fashion that you can’t tell who is doing what to whom and why. There seems to be more cuts in the first four minutes of Quantum of Solace, than the first half hour of Dr. No. If that weren’t bad enough, the decision to use a hand held camera or shakey cam also came into the mix. Time to reach for the Dramamine! There is no place for this kind of editing in a Bond picture. Before I get too far into this, I would like to make a quick suggestion to Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli. Get back Daniel Klienman. After the tour-de-force that was the Casino Royale titles, the title sequence graphics of QOS are sophomoric at best and looked like they were done on somebody’s desk top. And don’t even get me going about the theme song. If this was better than the competition, can you image what the proposed song from Amy Winehouse must have sounded like? I never thought I would ever hear a Bond theme song that was worse than ”All Time Highlrdquo;. Then along came this abortion. And by the way, what’s with the gun barrel scene at the end of the film? It’s almost like director Marc Forster thought this little gimmick up so it would be the last thing people thought of as they departed the theater instead of some of the film’s deficiencies. At this point you probably think that I must have hated the whole film. Far from it. Many things in it were done incredibly well. Daniel Craig is the finest actor to step into Bond’s shoes since Sean Connery. At first glance, he may not look like what you think James Bond should be, but after watching him in the last two movies he has become James Bond. That is something that Lazenby, Moore, Dalton and Brosnan did not, or could not, do. In QOS, like his literary counterpart, Bond gets the hell beaten out of him again. It’s refreshing to see this side of the character as opposed to “Super-Human Bond” who can walk through anything and not disturb the part in his hair. Indeed, in the last two films, I think Bond has lost more blood than in all the previous films combined. René Mathis is without a doubt the best written, most fleshed out Bond ally since Kerim Bey in From Russia with Love, and provides one of the most heart-shredding scenes in a Bond film since On Her Majesty's Secret Service. Giancarlo Giannini plays the part so well and the chemistry between him and Craig is so strong that I wished there were more scenes of them together. His character, or rather his character’s demise and Bond’s reaction to it, is the biggest problem I have with this movie. What does Bond do after Rene asks him if they are still friends and he dies in his arms? Bond lifts up Rene’s body and tosses it in a dumpster. Camille comments on this, and Bond replies that Mathis wouldn’t care. Bond’s actions and comments here do not ring true to me. Think back to how Bond reacted over Kerim Bey’s body in FRWL. There is no way Bond would have done and said that, and this is in a pivotal scene of the film! I understand the whole let’s make Bond a ruthless bastard thing, but whoever wrote this scene, doesn’t know the character and it offended me. I also have a problem with the villains in this film. As I’ve mentioned in some of my other Bond film reviews, the villain should be Bond’s physical equal or the final confrontation between the two will hold no tension. Dominic Greene is an oily little worm. If you don’t have a physically imposing villain, then he must have a henchman that looks like he could beat the hell out of Bond (think Auric Goldfinger and Oddjob). Greene’s henchman looks like a pedophile Monk. Hell, the one time he is ordered to go after Bond, he is tripped by Strawberry Fields (a clerk for MI6 no less) and falls down a flight of stairs. The rest of the movie, he’s seen in a neck brace! No drama, no tension. When we see the final confrontation between Bond and Greene, he drives him out to the middle of the desert and leaves him there to die (Sound familiar? If you’ve seen The Eiger Sanction, it should.). The plot leaves a little to be desired also. Instead of QUANTUM (are they the new SPECTRE?) maneuvering to control the water supply of the country, the writers should have just centered on them toppling the government. Does anybody even remember the whole water angle when the move is over? No. Unlike knocking off Fort Knox, or stealing atomic bombs and holding them for ransom… nobody cares about the water after it’s introduced! Nor did I care about Bond girl Camille until the end of the movie, when she finally showed some honest acting chops as the character contemplated a horrible death by fire. The Strawberry Fields character was totally wasted, surprising, considering how much press Gemma Arterton has garnered. She is only on screen for a few very short scenes and I guess she could be called the sacrificial lamb of this film (although I think that title really belongs to Mathis). The scene of her death could have really meant a lot more to the film if her character meant more to the audience. Unlike Jill Masterson and her gilded demise, the audience doesn’t really get to know Fields. You would think that the director could have figured this out, as the death scene was almost a carbon copy of Jill Masterson’s, down to the angle the body was laid out on the bed, to her arm hanging to the floor, to the telephone on the ground next to the bed. Marc Forster tried to emulate a Bond icon but fell a little short, as did his film. It’s a great action movie, but is it a great Bond film? Hmmmmm…..
Contact the Author: Ed Werner |
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