James Bond Franchise (1962-∞)

[knives]

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.

Craig has said that the title is nothing and they were just having fun.

[Forrest Taft]

There are some genuinely good scenes here and some fantastic performances, but all that gets drowned out by the relentless parade of action scenes.

Can´t say that I agree that there were som genuinely good scenes in this one. A nice shot of a car falling of a cliff, and a funny moment when Bond checked in to the Grand Hotel were the only memorable moments in this one. The film wasn´t boring, I found reasonably entertaining, but it all felt very lazy and uninspired to me. Much more so than any of the Brosnan Bonds. Mathieu Amalric was pretty good, and the naked ladies are back in the opening titles. Yay. Even with the short running time and emphasis on action, the few "character" moments of the film was as terrible as the shower scene in Casino Royale. I´m pretty certain this is Paul Haggis´contribution to the franchise. By the way, where was Al Pacino? Wasn´t he supposed to play a bit part in this?

[Antoine Doinel]

I´m pretty certain this is Paul Haggis´contribution to the franchise?

If Paul Haggis had his way, Bond would've been a daddy.

[John Cope]

Anthony Lane's excellent and typically wry assessment.

[RTy]

I'm looking forward to seeing this, as Casino Royale was so good. The reviews aren't as good for this one, and it's currently only got 7.3/10 on the IMDB, but it still looks pretty entertaining.

How many more films with DC do as Bond?

[tavernier]

Bad news: Armond kinda likes it.

[jojo]

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.

This style started to get popular with the Bourne movies. The first Bourne movie was one of the most economically shot mainstream action movies of that time period of bloated blockbusters. The subsequent movies were even more pared down with the addition of Paul Greengrass as director (unfortunately, while the first Bourne movie featured coherently shot action scenes, Greengrass' devotedness to shaky cam didn't helping matters in Supremacy and Ultimatum)

In fact, I found it amusing just how much Bond has started to borrow on the "style" of the Bourne movies since Casino Royale. That gritty, non-glossy look. I'm not against it, but I do feel that what set apart the best Bond movies from the rest of the pack was the sense of style and character they oozed. If you take away those elements Bond is just another generic action series.

[foggy eyes]

This style started to get popular with the Bourne movies. The first Bourne movie was one of the most economically shot mainstream action movies of that time period of bloated blockbusters. The subsequent movies were even more pared down with the addition of Paul Greengrass as director (unfortunately, while the first Bourne movie featured coherently shot action scenes, Greengrass' devotedness to shaky cam didn't helping matters in Supremacy and Ultimatum)

Indeed. I did say elsewhere (in the Birdsong thread of all places, I think) that Quantum is deeply indebted to the Bourne school of hyper-intensified continuity. There are critical differences though: whereas the fractured shakycam style in Supremacy & Ultimatum can be interpreted as reflecting Bourne's psychological disorientation (amnesia--loss of identity--need to reclaim sense of self), in Quantum the relationship between style and character motivation (or whatever) doesn't carry nearly as much baggage. Bond is pissed off and wants revenge, and that's about it! There's no faux-serious existential crisis going on, which is why I found it refreshingly 'pared down' by comparison. Quantum also doesn't have the washed-out blue-grey 'gritty' colour scheme of Ultimatum, which suggests that those behind it have merely borrowed the fast cutting & accelerated presentation of Bourne at the expense of everything else. All that's left is a forceful (yet superficial) illusion of speed.

[broadwayrock]

...which suggests that those behind it have merely borrowed the fast cutting & accelerated presentation of Bourne at the expense of everything else. All that's left is a forceful (yet superficial) illusion of speed.

Quantum of Solace has in its credits the Bourne second unit director Dan Bradley and the Bourne editor Richard Pearson. It also has Forster's regular editor credited, which makes me think was the Bourne editor brought in to try and speed up the pace?

[foggy eyes]

Quantum of Solace has in its credits the Bourne second unit director Dan Bradley and the Bourne editor Richard Pearson. It also has Forster's regular editor credited, which makes me think was the Bourne editor brought in to try and speed up the pace?

Very interesting - thanks for that!

I really hope Bordwell blogs about it soon (given past form, it's very unlikely that he won't).

[filmnoir1]

I saw this last night and I have to say that I was underwhelmed by the film. The acting is fairly solid, the plot is interesting and relevant but the film drifts because it seems as if Forster is never really comfortable with directing an action film. Thus he is reduced to using set-ups and scenes from previous Bond films like Goldfinger. The large flaw with this film is the editing which is too quick and does not allow the eye to even have a chance to piece together the information.

[flyonthewall2983]

The editing was a tad bit quick, though not a complete chop-shop (IE, your average Bruckheimer/Bay/Tony Scott fare). The acting is solid, and some of the action sequences were spot-on. I also loved the opening title sequence, and David Arnold's exotic score. Take it for what it's worth, but I have liked the direction the franchise has gone despite not being a big fan at all before.

[karmajuice]

I mostly enjoyed this. The climax felt a bit rushed and some of the action scenes were just ludicrous (whereas Casino Royale had this wonderful balancing act between ludicrous and "okay, well maybe. . ."), but it had a lot of strengths and the action scenes -- though ludicrous -- were still pretty fun. It may have helped that I had a generally great day leading up to my viewing.

The thing that annoyed me most was totally unnecessary cutting between action and other random crap going on. Oh hey, horses. Or people wanting water. Who cares? It especially annoyed me when they cut back to the racetrack after Bond had already left. Otherwise the editing in the action scenes wasn't nearly as bad as I was expecting, based on what I had read here. Not great, but acceptable.

[foggy eyes]

Jason Sperb has a great post on the film over at his blog, Jamais Vu. His thoughts on the abstraction of incident during action sequences are particularly valuable (and more eloquent than mine):

The reader may also note that none of the best moments had anything to do with the action scenes--and for a 1:44 film which is 75% action, far more than any previous Bond, that is not good. The action sequences are terrible. The opening car chase scene is a case in point--in addition to be a very lame, predictable conceit for Bond's pre-credit sequence (the filmmakers are not even trying to be original or interesting), there is no clear establishing of spatial contexts, no respect for the classic Hollywood style of continuity editing (sorry this is a Hollywood action film, not French New Wave avant-garde), and I feel like I was watching a series of random images with little point of reference.

Let me give you one specific example--at the climax of the chase scene in the beginning, Bond forces the last car chasing him through a guard rail and off a steep cliff. Its potentially spectacular, but its very jarring to watch. When I first watched that scene online a couple of times, I couldn't put my finger on why it didn't work. Then I realized that right in the middle of this spectacular crash, it cuts (the first mistake--don't disrupt your money shot), and looks now like the car is suddenly spinning in the wrong direction--a continuity error. But then I looked again and realized that the car isn't spinning in a different direction--its that the cut violated the 180-degree rule! We move suddenly from one side of the car to the other, and thus it feels like two juxtaposed crashes, rather than one breath-taking one.

Another example, when Bond and the main villian, Greene, first confront each other in a hallway near an opera house, there's a great moment, shot/reverse-shot, where they look at one another. But they Greene nods in the opposite direction of Bond as Bond leaves to his right. Greene's nod should indicate the next cut and the next scene, but he seems to indicate "let's go the other direction." But suddenly, his henchmen have not only followed Bond into the next room--but we've jumped into that room without any continuity of how either Bond or the henchmen following him got in there. And to make it even more jarring, everybody's shooting at each other in seemingly random directions, with a large group of innocent bystanders every which way--and the film is now in a blurry, almost slo-mo style, being made even more disarming when the film cuts back and forth with the opera. (say what you will about the rest of the film, but Godfather III did the same thing but much, much better, because it had a clear sense of pacing and diegetic space).

That kind of sloppiness with both cutting and framing (lay off all the close-ups, J.J. Abrams--they don't work in an action scene!) abounds and ruins action sequences which are not particularly clever or exciting to begin with. There is no way to make slow boats running around in circles on a lake, banging into each other, exciting, even if I could follow what the hell was happening. How does an anchor (if that's what it was) make a boat automatically flip over? I'm not saying there's no way. I'm just saying its not at all indicated in the sequence.

[Matt]

This was actually better than I was expecting, and the action sequences are not all bad or incomprehensible. Yes, the opening car chase is a total mess, as is the foot chase/horse race sequence (it literally makes no sense). However, there is a short hand-to-hand fight scene that is exceptionally well-filmed and the "Tosca" sequence, though it's still a random slide show of images, somehow works precisely because of the "abstraction of incident." It's yet another foot chase/shoot-out/etc., but instead of wasting a bunch of time on it, it's just chopped up into a flurry of moving feet, guns firing, stuff exploding. It's almost as if the filmmakers had decided that, instead of filming a 15-minute bravura action sequence at a massive outdoor stadium (or wherever the hell they are), they just figured they'd tell the audience "oh yes, some things happened, but you know Bond got out okay. Here are some selected images from that event." But it works, probably because it significantly compresses the time frame and the space of the action. The same technique, applied to more linear events like a car chase or to one person chasing another on foot, results in a complete visual disaster.

It does make one wonder, though, if Forster had actually tried to do a 15-minute bravura action sequence and totally failed, resulting in the Bourne editor coming in and turning the sequence into a 2-minute "impression" of an action scene.

[flyonthewall2983]

Do the Bond movies always open in November? I remember as far back as Goldeneye being released around this time of year. You'd think MGM (well, Sony now) would put all the chips on the table and release them in the summer.

[Antoine Doinel]

Why compete with every other blockbuster action film in the summer, when you can open with virtually no competition in the winter? I doubt they could have pulled off a $70 million dollar weekend in the summer.

[foggy eyes]

It's almost as if the filmmakers had decided that, instead of filming a 15-minute bravura action sequence at a massive outdoor stadium (or wherever the hell they are), they just figured they'd tell the audience "oh yes, some things happened, but you know Bond got out okay. Here are some selected images from that event." But it works, probably because it significantly compresses the time frame and the space of the action. The same technique, applied to more linear events like a car chase or to one person chasing another on foot, results in a complete visual disaster.

I see where you're coming from, and agree that it is very effective at times. The fight in the hotel lift is perhaps another good example, as the sequence is reduced to a burst of violence that's over in about four seconds (no fannying about: Bond wins, let's move on). I guess the problem only arises, as you say, when the technique is applied to everything. This reminds me of a comment by Van Sant (in Filmmaker magazine about a year or so ago) where he expressed exasperation with the fact that the 'hosing down' style of the Bourne films was being applied not just to action set-pieces but, say, dialogue scenes in conference rooms, thus turning fairly innocuous sequences into Guerrilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst...

[Richard--W]

Quantum of Solace strikes me as a more sophisticated film than Casino Royale or any of the Moore and Brosnan entries. Quantum of Solace is a noir about grief, revenge, and a gradual realization of a looming threat, and as a noir, it has the dark look and somber tone that Casino Royale should have had. I wish Marc Foster and Martin "the dissembler" Campbell had exchanged movies. The novel Casino Royale is an espionage noir and romantic tragedy and will always be Ian Fleming's best story, but the film version is diseased, like a computer filled with viruses. I enjoy Quantum of Solace more, despite its flaws, because it strikes the tone and captures some of the mood of that first Bond novel. It should have been a better film, but there's a keen intelligence at work here. Plot and character are defined in terms of action, so there is less expository dialog than ever before in a Bond film.

Widespread complaints about the hyper-fast editing are valid. I can't remember the last film I saw that was so utterly destroyed by editing. Even the straighforward dramatic scenes are badly edited. Watching this movie is like directing TV news. Multiple feeds must be watched simultaneously as they fly past you in bits and pieces while you assemble them live on the air without time to plan or reconsider. Film makers need to remember that audiences are not editors or directors. The untrained human eye needs several seconds to register a shot and take it all in. When shots are four seconds or less audiences can't acclimate for a prolonged period of time as in half a minute. Sometimes the shots don't match, and that's intentional, as if the director wants to jar us out of our comfort zone along with the characters who are being banged up and thrown around. Mis-matched shots and hyper cutting are at odds with the director's emphasis on the human dimension. Forster needed to linger on Craig's close-ups, take the time to lead us into the frame, hold on the emotional and pictorial moments to sweep us along with the feel of the piece, and to ease us out of one transition and into another. I understand the aesthetic he's reaching for, a kind of ephemeral grief and escalating paranoia, and mainly he achieves it, but he pushes the hyper cutting so hard he undermines some of the best Bondian moments in decades. Judging by the final result, Forster's raw footage must look exceptionally good. Everything an action scene needs -- the composition, the choreography, the coverage, the momentum, and some very fine mood lighting -- is there. This movie could be rescued if the raw footage were recut.

Daniel Craig's performance is alert, subtle, and intensely felt. That doesn't mean he's the right actor for the part, but let's face it, he really delivers the emotional life of this character, and invests Bond with a physicality that is absolutely believable. His performance may not be Fleming's Bond, but his Bond is less further away from Fleming, in spirit, than it has been in a long time, since perhaps Timothy Dalton's efforts.

Judi Dench is less abrasive this time but still as obnoxious as ever. The way she keeps popping up at the most inconvenient moments to level judgment on beastly James Bond and in the most unlikely places to interrupt the narrative with an irrelevant subplot about the political heat back in London. After six films, her schtick has grown old, tired, predictable, and unintentionally funny. Enough already!

Next time I hope the producers will hire a professional script writer to continue in the noir mode instead of a committee of syncophants. Somebody with talent like David Koepp, Tom Stoppard, or David Mamet, all of whom are bright enough to know what to do without being micro-managed and second-guessed.

I keep thinking about that raw footage .... Replace the opening title sequence with a new sequence offering the same nude dirt motif sans Craig's features. That's the only reshooting that needs to be done. Or just replace the risible song with the classic James Bond theme and maybe the opening title sequence will seem better. Put the gun barrel logo back where it should be. Then recut from the ground up, and Quantum of Solace might be one of the top five Bond films despite minor shortcomings like the obnoxious den mother.

Richard

[Highway 61]

I share Matt's sentiments in enjoying this much more than expected. Casino Royale is admittedly superior in the ways that matter most: better Craig performance, better script, better action, better villain, and better Bond Girl. The latter is key because the moments that elevated Royale above other Bond films were the two diner scenes between Craig and Green. They were both genuinely funny and sexy, and the producers were stupid not to highlight Craig's charm in a similar way here. Yet Quantum still has a lot of smart, little touches that count:

A) David Arnold's score is miles ahead of his previous four. It's easily the best Bond score since John Barry's swan song, The Living Daylights. Also, the song and title sequence are better than Royale's, which sucked.
B) Dench doesn't ham it up so much
C) Quantum made better use of locations. As dorky as it to say, I quite enjoyed the location-specific fonts.
D) The ending trumps Royale's, which was the weak point of that film. Quantum's ending can actually be called restrained (for a Bond film anyway).
E) The opera set-piece stands out as one of the best of the series. Like the brief face-off at the Body Worlds exhibit in Royale, these quiet moments bring out Craig's intensity best.

That said, the analogy between these two movies and Goldeneye and Tomorrow Never Dies can't be ignored, right down to the follow-up's dumb title. I hope EON doesn't blow Craig's potential and give us a TWINE for his third outing.

[Barmy]

In the opening machine gun car chase thang, why didn't they shoot out JaBo's tires, thus ending the film within minutes?

[fiddlesticks]

I have a voucher good for two tickets to see this flick (up to $10.50 per ticket) which is available for $10 Paypal. Drop me a PM if interested. Good in the US only, expires 12/31. Thanks.

[Richard--W]

In the opening machine gun car chase thang, why didn't they shoot out JaBo's tires, thus ending the film within minutes?

That's how John Ford responded to someone who asked him why didn't the Indians just shoot the horses in Stagecoach ? Because it would have ended the film within minutes. Actually the bad guys do try to shoot out Jimbo's tires. Machine guns firing out of windows in that car chase zip by so fast, only shown for a few frames under a second, so it's hard to notice ....

The human eye sends images to the brain, but the whole process takes four seconds or longer to register on the brain. Most people need more than four seconds. You see it but you don't know that you've seen it.

Richard

[BrianInAtlanta]

Caught it this weekend.

I kept thinking of that old (probably apocryphal) story about Cecil B. DeMille deciding to make a comedy and when the studio looked at the rushes it was just people running. "But that's what people do in comedies," claimed DeMille.

Did anyone else look at Mathieu Amalric's villain and think Roman Polanski? How many readers here feel they could have bested him in hand-to-hand combat?

[Antoine Doinel]

Saw this tonight, and while I enjoyed it, it ultimately felt like little more than an extended addendum to Casino Royale. What I particularly liked about that film was that it really took the time to get into the head of Bond, develop the relationships and create a plot that had a real arc. As my friend commented, the plot here was fairly thin and not particularly compelling (big surprise, world governments care more about their own end than dealing with ethical people -- yawn). There were also some elements of the story that felt completely abandoned (did they really have that little in the script for Strawberry Fields? the CIA story with Jeffrey Wright felt like it was hacked to bits too). I have a feeling the studio pushed for a running time under two hours to guarantee more screenings and Forster was left cutting more than he probably wanted too. All that said, it is enjoyable, the action sequences are not as bad as people are making them out to be (the opera sequence is particularly great), and Almaric is a great villain (and his sidekick with the Jim Carrey circa Dumb & Dumber haircut is delightfully odd).

Oh yeah, and the title sequence is great, though it reminded me of this: