James Bond Franchise (1962-∞)

[Matt]

I'll be able to tolerate it a lot better if they bring back the naked lady silhouettes in the credits instead of sticking with, uh, playing cards like in the last film. I know they're trying to "reboot" the franchise, but there are such things as tradition, you know.

Screw Madonna, bring back Shirley Bassey.

[mfunk9786]

There'll be floating Coke bottles in this one.

[Antoine Doinel]

I'll be able to tolerate it a lot better if they bring back the naked lady silhouettes in the credits instead of sticking with, uh, playing cards like in the last film.

Naked lady silhouettes aren't really necessary when you have Eva Green spending a good portion of Casino Royale looking like this:

[domino harvey]

Asleep?

[Cde.]

The same backlash happens every time the new Bond song is first heard.

I think it's pretty good. Of course it's no Nobody Does It Better or Live and Let Die and in the end it's a pretty ordinary White Stripes song with a Bond theme, but that's much better than a You Know My Name.

I'd say this is probably the best Bond song in decades.

[dr. calamari]

The same backlash happens every time the new Bond song is first heard.

I think it's pretty good. Of course it's no Nobody Does It Better or Live and Let Die and in the end it's a pretty ordinary White Stripes song with a Bond theme, but that's much better than a You Know My Name.

I'd say this is probably the best Bond song in decades.

Too bad the You Know My Name from Casino Royale wasn't the infamous Beatles' You Know My Name (Look Up The Number)...

[Antoine Doinel]

This time around, Bond is not going to introduce himself or tell you how he likes his martini.

[karmajuice]

The Bond movies can be rather silly. And not just in the campy way everyone associates with Bond, but some of the movies are downright surreal. In fact the success of the series often baffles me, because the movies are so frequently bizarre and absurd. Diamonds Are Forever stands out as particularly odd, but nearly all of the movies have at least some inexplicable quality (a dead woman painted gold, a dragon machine on the beach, a hall of mirrors climax, a dude with metal teeth who can BITE POLES IN HALF). The exception being the most recent ones with Daniel Craig, which are about as realistic and gritty as one can expect a fanciful spy thriller to be (making some assumptions about this upcoming one, of course).

I'm not sure which style I prefer. I like both for entirely different reasons. Would there be pre-existing thread to discuss the more bizarre elements in Bond films, and does the topic mystify or provoke anyone enough to discuss it besides me?

[Fletch F. Fletch]

"Another Way to Die" music video.

[King Prendergast]

I never realized out thick Keys' legs are. Looks like she could squat 450.

[Antoine Doinel]

A brief, behind the scenes look at shooting the title credit sequence.

[Matt]

I watched it with the sound off, so I don't know what those two hobos were talking about, but naked ladies are back!

[Antoine Doinel]

China will get to see naked ladies first.

[John Cope]

Early reviews from both The Telegraph and The Times. They're both positive but particularly so for Craig's performance. For instance, from The Times:

But it’s the amount of heartache and punishment that Craig’s new Bond absorbs that makes him look so right for our times.

Bond is no longer a work in progress. He is now the cruel, finished article.

Oh, and this from The Guardian:

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; he carries the film: it's an indefinably difficult task for an actor. Craig measures up.

[Richard--W]

I'll be able to tolerate it a lot better if they bring back the naked lady silhouettes in the credits instead of sticking with, uh, playing cards like in the last film.

Naked lady silhouettes aren't really necessary when you have Eva Green spending a good portion of Casino Royale looking like this:

Naked ladies are always necessary.
Always.
Or perhaps I should say artistic nudes. The appreciation of female beauty in the nude is one of the great pleasures of life -- even for women. The last several Bond films are downright chaste, if not prudish. I say, let's allow female sexuality to bloom again in the Bond films as in the original novels, and let's be more adult about it, too, as in the novels. The novels achieved an eroticism that was never condescending or pornographic; compared to what best-selling authors are publishing today, Fleming's eroticism was mild. Let the films grow up in their depiction of sexual relationships between Bond and women. What we've seen in the last few films, and especially in Casino Royale, is a kind of regression, and a hypocritical regression at that.

The Bond movies can be rather silly. And not just in the campy way everyone associates with Bond, but some of the movies are downright surreal. In fact the success of the series often baffles me, because the movies are so frequently bizarre and absurd. Diamonds Are Forever stands out as particularly odd, but nearly all of the movies have at least some inexplicable quality (a dead woman painted gold, a dragon machine on the beach, a hall of mirrors climax, a dude with metal teeth who can BITE POLES IN HALF). The exception being the most recent ones with Daniel Craig, which are about as realistic and gritty as one can expect a fanciful spy thriller to be (making some assumptions about this upcoming one, of course).

I'm not sure which style I prefer. I like both for entirely different reasons. Would there be pre-existing thread to discuss the more bizarre elements in Bond films, and does the topic mystify or provoke anyone enough to discuss it besides me?

It provokes me, and I know which style I prefer.

Ian Fleming didn't write juvenile, silly sci-fi fantasies about cars with ejector seats, underwater jet packs, sports cars that turn into submarines and jet planes, space shuttles engaging in laser battles, gondolas that turn into secret weapons, and subterranean ocean lairs for mad scientists. Nor did he write about giants with superhuman strength and steel teeth, nasty midgets who fit into suitcases, or caricatures of southern sheriffs for comedy relief. The producers imposed these elements on the script writers and directors. The Bond films are producer's films. Their creative control is inflexible, and putting across their agendas is a pre-requisite to employment. This is why directors like Steven Spielberg and Ridley Scott are turned down. They won't be controlled.

Ian Fleming wrote internalized thrillers. Noirs. Feverish noirs. His James Bond may be a blunt instrument, but he is a thinking, reasoning blunt instrument even during his first mission in which he allows the femme fatale to get under his skin. Bond is also a moral compass; he operates on honorable motives and does the right thing for the right reasons. The most engaging parts of the novels are when Bond thinks, and Fleming puts the character's voice into our heads as he reasons through a problem or a challenge and steels himself to face an ordeal. Fleming's writing was very pungent, an appeal to our senses. The relationships are sophisticated, the sexuality is adult, and there is no shying away from giving the female characters equal measure and equal exposure.

There is an element of surrealism in the novels, but not in the campy, farcical, sci-fi way of the films. Let's not misconstrue the chapter-serial structure of Diamonds Are Forever or the fun-house shooting gallery of The Man With Golden Gun with Ian Fleming's novels. What you describe as surrealism in the films is more of an attempt at farce. Bad comedy. Tongue-in-cheek turned pedantic. Fleming's surrealism was dark, deep, and dangerous; like the nude girl who suffocates from being covered in gold paint. Often, the surrealism is connected to the eroticism. I believe Ben MacIntyre and James Chapman deal very well with the issue of Fleming's surrealism in their respective books.

I would like to see the austere minimalism and emotional intelligence of the novels brought to the cinematic James Bond. Dr. No, From Russia With Love, and On Her Majesty's Secret Service struck just the right balance between the size of the production and the tone of the story without resorting to farce or caricature. The latter film develops the character of Bond and gives him an arc, as did the novel, which audiences appreciated at the time, and which approach was promptly discarded along with Peter Hunt. There are bits and pieces in the latter films that do something interesting or something in the spirit of Fleming, particularly Licence to Kill, but Bond deteriorated mainly into a one-dimensional work horse in expensive clothes in most of the films.

Casino Royale and, judging from the first reviews, Quantum of Solace is much closer to what Fleming intended, but there are significant problems with the former that noone seems willing to confront. Casino Royale is a barely literate adaptation and a profoundly bad film. What was needed here was a skilled dramatist who knows how to convert character into action without writing reams of expository and redundant cell-phone chit-chat that add up to over an hour of screen time. Worse, the militant feminism of Casino Royale repudiates both the morality and the internal workings of Fleming's character in subtle ways, and threatens to turn into a new kind of camp. I don't think anyone has really analyzed what's up there on screen.

Richard

[manicsounds]

IGN has a review of the new BD, but they don't specify if it's the uncut version or not.

[Richard--W]

A gun barrel wavers across the screen. Judi Dench struts smartly across the white background from left to right. Suddenly she turns on one high-heel and whips a Walther PPK from under her blazer and snaps off a round at the camera. The gun barrel shakes, blood pours, and we are into the pre-title chase sequence of Quantum of Solace, the 22nd James Bond adventure. Dench speeds down a narrow winding mountain road in her Aston Martin, hot on the trail of an awol 007. Seems Bond is stirring up a rebellion against female authority in South America which threatens to spread all over the world, and she is going to put a stop to it even if it means turning him over her knee ...

Just kidding, of course. Sorry if there's duplication of any previous post. Be advised there are spoilers galore in these first reviews:

The Telegraph
The Independent
The Guardian
The Shiznit
London Times
The Mirror
Sky
BBC
Total Film
Empire
Radio Times
BBC Radio 1
Daily Mail
Express & Star
Screen Jabber

Ajay Chowdhury, president of The International James Bond Fanclub and editor and publisher Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang Magazine, published what he calls a "spoiler free" review . It is the most detailed review thus far, but actually every word of it is a spoiler, so be warned.

The biggest disappointment for me is the return of Judi Dench as M. She has become the Cruella DeVille of the series, a shrieking hysteric who hates men to the point of psychosis. In ten years or less her performances will be recognized as high camp. It really is past time to change the subtext and lower the pitch, or better yet, get rid of the dreadful old cow.

Richard

[Barmy]

Is this the one where Dumbledore dies?

[Richard--W]

Is this the one where Dumbledore dies?

No, this is the one where M takes over spying duties to show the developmentally challenged 007 how to do things right for a change. The big secret that's out all over the internet is that M will appear in the gun barrel sequence from now on, only it comes at the end instead of the beginning. Everybody knows that by now. It's just common knowledge. Shifting the series more toward a strong female lead who will be a good role model for young women is Barbara Broccoli's way of keeping her promise in interviews to make Bond films with more responsibility.

This rebellion against female authority has to be stopped, or there will be a widespread knashing of the teeth, lions will lay down with lambs, boys and girls will start sleeping together, and there'll be anarchy all over the world!

[colinr0380]

The BBFC report on the film mentions that they were approached for advice on how to play the action scenes for a 12A certificate.

[Finch]

Enjoyed the film but felt slightly disappointed nonetheless: this is one of the shortest Bonds and yet it didn't feel significantly pacier than the earlier films, Casino Royale included. This is damning because Casino Royale was a very good if overlong film and it is especially in comparison with the previous film that Quantum of Solace comes up short. CR had a few clumsy or outright bad lines between Bond and Vesper in the second half but overall the film really drew me in all the way through and made me care about the characters. It may have been a bit sentimental and too long, but it resonated with me. Quantum of Solace is about half an hour shorter but I honestly couldn't say I felt the difference: I was entertained and sometimes gripped but the film didn't make me care. The action scenes are well put together (I particularly liked a POV shot in the opening chase scene where one of the cars on Bond's trail collides head-on with a truck) but even the setpiece that I liked best (Bond chasing White over Italian rooftops) lacks the clarity and elegance of the action scenes in Casino Royale (Martin Campbell can be a dull hack but if he puts his heart to it he is one of the best action directors around). The Guardian's Peter Bradshaw summed it up best when he said that Daniel Craig ultimately carries the film although I thought that Olga Kurylenko made for a decent Bond girl (Gemma Arterton was terrible and Jeffrey Wright wasted). Overall, the film felt workman-like (not that I'd rate Marc Forster highly anyway) with few flourishes except for the close of the extended opera sequence: there, Forster cross-cuts between the performance and a kitchen shoot-out with the Opera playing over the soundtrack instead of David Arnold's score. The weaker sibling of Casino Royale but still a passable Bond - the series has seen much worse in the past.

Oh, and I second the calls for recasting M. I normally like Judi Dench but her performance was grating and borderline hysterical.

[Len]

A huge disappointment. Enjoyable but ultimately just another dumb actioner.

The script is weak and overly concerned with just setting up the next action scene. Character motivations are vague and Bond seems to stumble thru the film on pure dumb luck, with very few scenes of him really being a spy. Every time the film slows down for a while it almost seems to find a voice of it's own, but then a few minutes later everything turns into a beatdown or a shootout once again. There are some genuinely good scenes here and some fantastic performances, but all that gets drowned out by the relentless parade of action scenes.

Also, I must disagree with Finch's opinion on the action scenes. With few exceptions (mainly in the form of some great shots and cuts), Marc Foster doesn't have any clue as to how to direct an action scene. Films like these make one appreciate the Martin Campbells of the industry all the more. Good, solid action direction had a part in why CR worked so well. Not shooting all over the place, then editing the footage together like someone who's riding on a cocaine binge. In numerous action scenes I didn't have the slightest clue as to what was going on.

The film has little of the charm of Casino Royale, partially because of all the wasted opportunities and performances. Matthieu Almaric was interesting as Dominic Greene, but he shares almost no scenes with Bond so ultimately he feels very underused and not very menacing at all. I would've loved to see what he could've done had he been given a couple of good scenes with Craig. Most other actors do very good work as well, with David Harbour's smarmy CIA chief being one of the standouts, along with Giancarlo Giannini, who is fantastic once again.

Indeed the series has seen much worse, but after Casino Royale this is just a huge letdown. Still, for all it's faults, it is pretty entertaining.

And I liked the opening titles.

[foggy eyes]

Enjoyed the film but felt slightly disappointed nonetheless: this is one of the shortest Bonds and yet it didn't feel significantly pacier than the earlier films, Casino Royale included.

Really? Casino Royale is like Tarr in comparison to this. It wasn't cut to shit, and (in terms of contemporary mainstream fluff) devoted far more time to steady narrative accumulation and (what people like to call) character development.

Quantum of Solace is about half an hour shorter but I honestly couldn't say I felt the difference: I was entertained and sometimes gripped but the film didn't make me care.

I imagine that's because it doesn't care if you care. It's indifferent to any mode of spectatorship other than passive consumption.

The action scenes are well put together (I particularly liked a POV shot in the opening chase scene where one of the cars on Bond's trail collides head-on with a truck) .

I find this hard to believe. They're cut to ribbons, and the detail of events is almost completely obscured: pure abstraction of speed. Virtually no sensitivity to space or motion (of figures and objects) whatsoever. As Len in the post below points out:

Not shooting all over the place, then editing the footage together like someone who's riding on a cocaine binge. In numerous action scenes I didn't have the slightest clue as to what was going on.

Couldn't agree more. If you actually give a shit, it's a very frustrating viewing experience.

The script is weak and overly concerned with just setting up the next action scene. Character motivations are vague and Bond seems to stumble thru the film on pure dumb luck, with very few scenes of him really being a spy.

Have to disagree, I'm afraid. I liked the fact that the film was driven almost entirely by its central conflict (revenge) without much padding. It's quite pared down, and dialogue and exposition (the really boring bits) are kept to a minimum (quite a relief).

Can't say that I enjoyed it, but it fascinates me that mass-market action movies are being shot and cut like this now.

[John Cope]

What I want to know is, where is the solace? I suppose there's just a quantum of it.

In that sense let's give them credit and assume they were trying to be ironic with that title.

[Finch]

Just to reiterate what I said in the last post: Quantum of Solace was 30 mins shorter than Casino Royale but to me felt at least as long if not longer. Since the film is "edited to shit" as you say, it's all the more noticable that the film feels drawn out, and I did make the point ("it feels workmanlike") that Forster doesn't engage the viewer as much as he ought to have. You make a good point about the filmmakers not caring if you don't do: in Casino Royale one doesn't doubt that they clearly felt they had to engage their audience, not least because there was so much at stake with this reboot. Watching Quantum of Solace, I got the sense they were for much of it riding on the goodwill earned by Casino Royale and I hope that the next film reverses this downward trend. I wonder whether you feel that I'm too easy on the film but then my attachment to the Bond series simply isn't that great (which doesn't mean that I watched QoS or any Bond for that matter passively). Yes, Casino Royale was a very pleasant surprise for me and I had hoped that Quantum of Solace would carry on the good work, and it does disappoint me not just as a Bond film but as an action film/spy thriller in general. Equally though, it is not a complete disaster, thanks mainly due to Daniel Craig and a few good supporting turns.

Regarding the choreography of the action scenes I still stand by what I said about liking individual shots but having seen the film a second time now, I agree that the framing in many scenes is too tight and that the editing is too hurried (although I feel that the last two Bourne films are similarly intolerable, perhaps more so).