Why is "Quantum Of Solace" considered disappointing?
DTReinsma
Orlando, FL, USAPosts: 81MI6 Agent
It is actually an extension of Casino Royale. I watch them together as one long movie and enjoy it very much. I don't get all the negativity.
Comments
- the script is weak. Very little plot, the whole film feels like an extended denouement to Casino Royale. CR had the great advantage of being based on a great Fleming novel, while QoS was not, and the development of the screenplay was also interfered with by the writers strike.
- the style of shooting and editing lacked a Bond feel in my opinion. The shaky, fast-cut style might work in a Bourne film, but Bond should stand apart. I thought the action scenes in CR felt Bondian in the way that they were shot and cut. QoS didn't. The one sequence that I did really love was the pre-titles car chase. I thought this style worked in this case, due to the particularly brutal nature of the car chase.
- I never felt like the main characters were developed enough. I never really cared for Camille, and her relationship with Bond didn't really go anywhere. Also, Greene was not developed enough for me to take him seriously as a villain.
- Some dodgy effects in the freefall sequence. To be honest, these almost rival the wind-surfing sequence in DAD for looking fake. Compare to the great freefall sequence in MR. Also that whole airborne action sequence was weak in my opinion.
These are a few of my reasons for considering QoS weak in comparison to Casino Royale. It has strengths as well. I like the general look of the film in terms of the cinematography and colour grading. I think the score was very good. Craig cemented his status as a great Bond in my opinion. I hope SkyFall learns from QoS' mistakes and we return to the greatness of Casino Royale this year.
Nothing to add really except the terrible cheese factor of the Fields covered in Oil scene.
- I HATED the theme song being a duet. Remove Jack White and the song is a million times better.
- Bond can fly airplanes now? That part was needless. So was the parachute scene, which was awful!
- The editing was bad.
- Killing off a certain important character was fu**ing stupid when they could've done more with that person in future films.
- Quantum's plot in this movie was lame. What happened to the good old days when the bad guys would smuggle drugs?
- The worst offender: The scenes with Bond carrying that big ass gun in the trailer weren't actually in the movie! X-(
So overall, QOS is a good / decent movie, but compared to Casino Royale, its nothing, but disappointing.
I have heard this arguement before, and it strikes me as odd if to be appreciated it has to be watched in a certain way. If that was the case they should have been honest and called it 'part two' What next? a film that whose virtues only become apparent if you wear special trousers, or view on a particular day of the week? QOS is a mess, most people know it, EON have come as close as they can to saying it, as has Daniel.
Really looking forward to Skyfall though.
I do feel that the pacing of the movie felt very rushed, and that it needed more establishing/mood scenes, to let the viewer take in the scenery or get to know the characters a little bit more. Still, I'll take it over your typical Brosnan or Moore flick (no slight against those actors).
Agree... and I don't think it's too light on plot. It suffers from subtlety... and the small nuances that - to me - make it an exceptional Bond movie....although their are a few lines I don't get... and I'm still unclear why M seemed to change her mind about Bond, in the space of 5 minutes... but what Bond film hasn't suffered from artistic license... I mean Moonraker, nuff said
I didn't like QoS AT ALL, but it had pretty much nothing to do with Daniel Craig or even his performance. And on its own merits, I actually do not place it at or even near the bottom of my list. FWIW, Daniel Craig did a spectacular follow-on to CR. It's easy now to see why the writers' strike hurt a little bit, but for the most part, he carried his own weight (although taking the cash out of Mathis' wallet was a flawed moment; even allowing for him to be thrown into a dumpster, it seems to jump out of character for a moment, and then fall right back in line). My problem is with most of the other characters.
Judi Dench for the most part did a great job with the material she was given...but the problem was that I think she was quite frankly given a little too much of that material. Likewise, in the opening, how did Mr. White escape while M is perfectly fine? The more times I've watched QoS, the less sense this makes. Seeing as this film was only 106 minutes long (I'm going to get back to this), would it really have been too much to ask for Dame Judi to have Mr. White crack her head (or that of a stunt double) against the C-pillar and then just disappear off camera after opening the car door?
Camille is also way too two-dimensional for me. For those that think I'm out of touch with modern Bond films, I thought Eva Green as Vesper Lynd was terrific. She was an extremely well-developed character that the film got us care about. The film didn't seem to have to try and foist her on us. We just accepted her as the Bond girl and it worked. This film TRIED to get us to care about Camille, but I just couldn't. Any time a film intentionally makes me try and care about a character (I realize this is sort of an intangible) to the point of bonking me over the head with it, it usually means that the character is lacking in something, be it acting ability, backstory, screentime, or an attempt to divert the plot. In Camille's case, what was lacking (big time) was backstory and character depth.
They even had her raped and I had difficulty caring about the character. As opposed to some film critics saying this was just shocking the audience, I've often wondered if this was a ploy to make the audience care more about Camille. A rape victim HAS to be cared about, right? In the real world, yes. But on screen? It depends on the way in which it's presented...in this case, it doesn't work for me personally. But to be honest, even this can be overlooked.
However, I've not yet addressed the three big problems of Quantum of Solace: the editing/camerawork, the weak villain, and (and I've not seen this one mentioned yet) the running time that SHOULD have been about 10-15 minutes longer. Why? I'll get back to it in a minute.
The editing and camerawork of QoS was probably its weakest point. Perhaps they should have fixed the wonky wheel on the dolly, do fewer hand-held shots, or invested in a camera tripod that cost more than $25 USD? The thing is, if this movie WERE a great film with a great plot, you could overlook this.
Believe it or not, my number one favorite James Bond film, From Russia With Love, had TERRIBLE editing. Seriously. Go back and watch the film and start counting the continutity errors. Since I'm best-known for my car-related posts, I'll gladly post some pretty egregious examples for cars alone: a '58 Dodge pickup turns into a '61 Chevy 1-Ton Stakebed Truck. A '61 Ford Ranch Wagon sprouts two extra doors and then loses them. The Citroen Traction 11BL is obviously three different cars (the one seen out the rear window in black with creme colored hubcaps, the one seen at the airport in midnight blue with no hubcaps, and the one Red Grant is driving in black with black hubcaps; you can also see differences in the grille designs). The Dodge Royal taxi that magically appears at both the airport and outside the Soviet Embassy (same license number). Heck, TWO Bonds were on screen for a split second! But none of that actually wrecked the film for me. The plot was just too strong. In QoS, the plot isn't strong enough to support that type of problem, which brings me to severe problem number two.
We often speak of films like (especially) The Man With the Golden Gun or License to Kill as being either made or broken by the characters around Bond, no matter who plays him. I'm convinced that the only reason a plurality of people really like TMWTGG is because of Moore vs. Christopher Lee. Face it: the film would have been horribly bad sans Lee's Francisco Scaramanga character.
Likewise, an already-good Bond film like LTK can be made even better with the addition of a good villian. Robert Davi's Franz Sanchez winds up more than making up for some rather serious gaps that Dalton (as much as I like his Bond) I don't think was capable of filling himself. LTK's plot was basically that of a generic '80's action flick and you really have to ask yourself "what would this film have been like if it hadn't been for a villain like Davi's Franz Sanchez?"
Instead, imagine Truman-Lodge...yep, Sanchez's annoying-as-heck accountant...as the main bad guy who occassionally gets orders from an unseen Sanchez. I give you Dominic Greene. As with Camille, the film tells us what Greene's doing more than it shows us. Except unlike Camille, you CAN illustrate what Greene's doing on-screen and give us a reason to really dislike him. Why would it be too hard, especially with all those special effects, to show some of Greene's goons suppressing rioting in the streets using automatic weapons because the people don't want to have to pay an outrageous sum of money for their water? How about more or less casually asking an accountant how much money he'll lose from the expected casualties? That would make him pretty sinister, especially showing him on the phone and ordering it.
But then again, it's also clear that Greene is a lackey. Yeah, I know, he belongs to Quantum and is by definition a lackey, but so were Dr. No, Kronsteen, Rosa Klebb, Red Grant, Emilio Largo, Fiona Volpe, Le Chiffre, etc. These villains were intimidating despite being lackeys for either SPECTRE or Quantum. Greene was...well...not. At best, he was Osato from YOLT. If this is what Marc Forster meant by giving the character a "pitiful" quality, then yes, he succeeded. His henchman Elvis is also pretty useless/at times seems like a sort of a knock-off of Vlad, the guy from Die Another Day (and when you seem to be re-using a character from one of the worst Bond films ever you, you know you've got problems).
Now onto the other villain: General Medrano. The guy seems directly out of central casting and somehow manages to hit every South American tinpot dictator stereotype in the book to the point of resembling the Cuban General from Red Dawn (who WAS, according to screenwriter John Milius, just that, a stereotype). Why not make him a little different? He rapes Camille, which is really more of a "shock" than an actual sinister character trait. Why not make the guy somewhat rebellious against Greene/make it obvious that once Greene gets him in power, he has his own ideas about Greene. Give him ambition as opposed to pure power lust. Make him capable of thinking outside the box. You combine this with the rape scene, and you have a terrifying villain as opposed to an un-funny, rape-capable version of Esposito from Woody Allen's Bananas.
And then there is my biggest criticism for this film: its running time. Wait, what, I just trashed everything else and the worst thing was the running time? Yes, and I'll explain why. Say this film was 120 minutes long. Just fourteen extra minutes. In that span of fourteen extra minutes, think of how much development could have gone into Greene's character or Camille's character. Think of how much easier the scenes could have transitioned. Think of what might have been. That was a big problem for me personally. The aspect of "what might have been".
There were also scenes like the aerial dogfight that, despite being a huge fan of vintage prop-driven aircraft, really didn't add much. Instead of having the DC-3 shot to bits (it's not as if the film would be short on action without it!), why not use the time to develop Camille as someone we can sympathize with, Greene as exponentially more sinister, or Medrano as something more than what Henry Rowland was to Germans in WWII more? Now combine this with my proposed fourteen extra minutes of footage. I reiterate, although this time as a question: what might have been?
I tend to be pretty harsh and demanding as reviewers go, although as mentioned, I do believe that Craig showed up enough to avoid making the film a total write-off. However, it's still in the lower-middle tier of Bond film for me. Your mileage may vary, of course, but I saw this as a regression from the true cinematic wonder that was Casino Royale. I'm hoping that with everyone's knowledge of a lackluster script and a Bond villain I know literally NO ONE outside of this message board liked or felt was sinister enough (something that is probably not lost on the writers), that we really get a proper film to complement CR in Skyfall.
Again, just my two cents and offering my perspective, which is that the film essentially did not go far enough in areas where we expect Bond films to go. You can of course take it or leave it.
Bad plot - increasing water prices in Bolivia. Water companies the world over do that every year without a military coup, and just how much can the average Bolivian pay.
Mathieu Amalric totally wasted as Dominic Greene. Underwritten part that gave us a petulent schoolboy as a Bond villian. The less said about the fight between Bond and Greene at the end the better.
No chemistry between Bond and Camille. In fact Camille was totally superfluous to the story entirely. Her presence did nothing to further the plot and Bond didn't even get to bed her. If he had been abstaining out of repsect for Vesper I could have understood it but he had agent Fields knickers of faster than you could say trenchcoat.
Totally unnecessary death of Mathis. Mathis was a great character (better written than Felix) and would have been good to have around for future movies. And also I just cannot see Bond leaving the body of a friend in a dumpster.
No henchman. Elvis was a joke. When Greene employed him he robbed some village of a good idiot. Elvis had all the latent menace of Winnie the Pooh. The scene where Greene has the position him pointing the gun was ludicrious. Its just as well he died when the fuel cell exploded. If Bond had killed him it would have been like kicking a puppy.
The whole CIA conspiracy bit. This is Bourne not Bond.
The attempted rape scene. No place for that in a Bond movie.
Too much collateral damage. This is something that has crept into the last two Bond movies. Innocent civilains getting killed. In CR it was the construction worker in Madagascar, in QOS it was the Itallian policemen during the opening chase and then the women in the crowd in Sienna. I think this is out of place in a Bond movie.
Crap theme song. There is a rejected theme song on You Tube which is 10 times better and sounds like a Bond theme.
Bad CGI. The CGI during the parachute jump is better than DAD but not much.
CR was Bond reborn, QOS was Bond re-Bourne.
Too much ? Stay away from Skyfall then
If you have great actors - USE THEM !
How would Mr White crack M's head exactly ? He had been shot in the leg and had to be carried by Bond to sit in the chair...can't really see him making a mad dash for M just to clonk her on the head...that would be ridiculous...and M was pretty quick on her toes...and surely White just wanted to escape whilst Bond was busy...
But Camille DID have a backstory...it is told...and was she raped ? I can't recall that at all...whom raped her and when ? She was WAY too young when Medrano attacked, raped and killed, her family...so it wasn't then...as he left her to die in her house that he set fire too...hence the scars on her back...
The editing and camera work are not a problem for me...in fact, I honestly think it helps in the chase scenes...it gives a sense of 'being in the chase'....and I can't believe that people are too stupid to see what is happening...
Greene is a weak villian though...he's just a cog in a machine...but a pretty important cog...
As for the running time....I completely agree with you...although I think an extra 15-20 mins is needed to flesh this film out better...
Elvis isn't a henchman in the terms of Bond-henchman...ie...he's NOT a bodyguard/enforcer type...more of a guy whom gets the paperwork done
If that's your take on the film...fine...you are entitled to your opinion...and a couple of points we probably agree on... -{
He seemed able to fly the planes in Goledeye 8-)
Reboot or not...Bond can fly planes.
DC's Bond films have a much 'harder edge' to them...and people do die as a result of certain actions taken...
I suppose you have forgotten about the innocent workers that Zorin kills with a machine gun in AVTAK ? So it's nothing new in the Bond world is it ?
Many people mention Bond taking his cash as 'out of character'...or 'not something you would do'....but think about it, seriously...you are in the middle of a hostile country, with the Police chasing you...you need to escape...the credit cards you have can be traced or blocked (even the fake ones supplied by Mathis)...so you need CASH...seems the obvious thing to do to me.
as they'd hoped.
To quote the eurythmics
"Who am I to disagree"
I love Bond doing a bit of "Robbing the Dead", He really is "BadASS" these days. B-)
and an extra forty quid always comes in handy. He also mugged a Big issue seller,Robbed
the dead police men, stripped them of their watches etc to sell on the way. But
it never made it on screen.
In another deleted scene Both He and Camille Busked for cash doing some Interpretive
Dance routines based on the story of Disney's "The little Mermaid ".
A modern agent has to be able to do whatever it takes.
I hope there is more grave robbing in Skyfall, Made the film for Me. As suggested by another
Member perhaps even the introduction of a Zombie character, Mathis Back from the Dead but
still willing to help out. ( what a trooper he is ).
After forgiving Bond and Vesper, then Himself and Getting Bond to forgive him, He asks for the cash
Bond stole, " No hurry, just as soon as you can , I need it for air freshener ". :007)
At least QOS was not as Bad as NSNA.
This actually begs an interesting question unrelated to the film quality: if Bond literally had to take money off Mathis' corpse (and honestly, I can't remember how much he took off said corpse) to get by on cash, was he genuinely unprepared or did Mathis just have a HUGE wad of cash on him?
Didn't Medrano try and rape Camille instead of the hotel servant when Camille broke it up?
Honestly, that's better than my idea. The more development spent on a film's characters (and judging from your lack of objection to my criticism of Greene, I'm guessing you'd like to see a bit more on him/having him portrayed as being more powerful...not necessarily in terms of personality, but in terms of controlling the resources he has at his disposal), the better they can get.
Regarding M...I think you misunderstand. It wasn't for lack of material so much as it was the actual quality of the material Dame Judi Dench was working with AND the time spent on it.
Regarding the latter, watch closely. Mr. White may be injured, but his injuries are to his legs and torso, not his arms. He also has to be "playing dead" to a certain degree. He DOES escape, after all. If he really were in such bad shape, he flat out couldn't escape. Likewise, it's just him and M in the back seat of the car. All he needs to do is summon the strength to bash an unsuspecting person's head into a metal object, then limp away. Otherwise, how DOES he get away? As you point out, Bond was busy, but M, who as you also point out is quick on her toes, was not. Even Bond can be and has been surprised by enemies feigning weakness. Therefore, I don't think M being likewise fooled is outside the realm of possibility. Because otherwise...does M literally let him out the door? Really, how does he escape with M there?
We'll agree to disagree on Camille. Also, I do agree with you that Bond can indeed fly a plane. I just don't think this particular sequence was needed and could have allocated resources elsewhere toward the plot (or if they really wanted to keep it in, then do so in abbreviate form, like have the DC-3 go down in flames with a quick but exciting escape [that can be done, it doesn't have to be drawn out] rather then having Bond starting to take evasive action and then try and get off the plane while it's stalling), but we have known since YOLT that Bond was capable of flying.
I always hated this scene. It was so tacky. Putting a scene like that in DAD or a similar anniversary type film I get but in QoS it just looked like they had run out if ideas.
I've posted here many times about my problems with Quantum of Solace. There are many good reviews too which I agree with that do a good job of expressing the many problems. In short the two big problems are:
1. Licence to Kill is a better Bond revenge type movie.
2. Quantum of Solace forgets what made Casino Royale so good. Quantum even ignores many events and the flow of Casino Royale.
I still think that the opening of Quantum of Solace has one of the top 5 or even 3 Bond chase sequences. But forgetting the opening gun barrel really is the start of all the problems.
PS - I just read the American Cinematographer on Quantum of Solace. It's amazing that they spent so much time and effort on that skydiving sequence when it's one of the worse parts of the movie. Many striking things are in the article.
Other gripes:
-- Rendering Felix as a bitter pawn. Totally out of character.
-- Fields. Completely unnecessary. Hate the oil scene, and most of all hate the fact that Bond, so driven by revenge that he barely notices that Camille is a woman, suddenly beds Fields in a moment of lightness that makes no sense at all.
-- Waaaaaaay too much M. I realize this started with GE so it's not new, but it reached it's peak in QOS. I hate to say this, but Dame Judy is starting to weigh down the films, not through any fault of her own, but because the writers feel compelled to give her significant screen time. M should be portrayed by a character actor.
-- Greene and Medrano are weak...although to be fair, they are far from the worst villains the series has seen.
On the plus side:
-- Craig is fantastic. I love his physicality in the role.
-- I actually liked Camille. I liked that she was subtly played and didn't hop into bed with Bond. Most of all, I love that they put a nasty scar on her back but never directly referred to it. That is filmmaking that gives the audience some credit for figuring out things for themselves.
-- The scene in the opera house was truly Bondian. Absolutely brilliant.
Bond had nothing to prepare for...he thought that everything was okay as far as the Police were concerned because Mathis had sorted it...so he thought he had no need to carry around vast ammounts of cash....
No. And you stated that Camille HAD been raped....not attempted rape....
M and White in the backseat of which car exactly ?:)
M does a runner as soon as the shooting starts...her priority is to get herself to safety and then try and get assistance to both help Bond and try and get White...
As for White's escape..?...I suggest that Mitchell had set something up...after all, he was thinking he would kill Bond and probably take M hostage...it would make sense to plan an escape route, no ?
I was okay with Bond not hooking up Camille because, unlike Fields, he actually respected her.
Bad error in judgement on the part of Bond, then. Also, the more I think about this, why didn't Bond continue to take the cash off the corpses of the corrupt police officers and generic thugs? Even if Mathis' wallet contained a huge wad of cash, Bond has to be spending some of it. By this logic, he goes through everyone's wallet if he has the chance (and with the police officers, he DOES have time, as well). Why not at least imply it a second time (maybe have Bond open his wallet to reveal one of the police identity cards) to show that it wasn't personal to Mathis (I know it wasn't, but a whole lot of people I know who AREN'T idiots thought it was)? I just think this could have been done a lot better.
Firstly, there's a PRETTY thin line between "rape" and "attempted rape". Victims often experience similar traumas. We also hear Medrano tell Camille during the TUSSLE between the two of them how he's going to do this and that and everything related to rape...in my mind, that's attempted rape or at the very least assault with intent to commit rape (under US law, anyway).
I'll believe this one next time I watch to make the film better, so long as it doesn't involve White escaping purely by chance.
I wouldn't say it was a 'bad error in judgement' per se....perhaps Bond had a stack of cash back at the hotel ? No point taking it with him - it was a fund raiser and he may have had to part with it
I don't understand how some people would have thought this action was personal against Mathis ?:) Bond even says..."he wouldn't have cared"...that seems pretty obvious to me.
Where was the attempted rape of Camille ? I don't think Medrano does imply a rape to Camille either...
I can't see how White COULD escape by chance ? Bond was being chased - so Quantum knew Bond had White...it would make sense to have a back-up plan if they didn't stop Bond before he got to M...that is where Mitchell comes in...
The only error Bond makes is in chasing Mitchell...his priority is to safeguard M and White...let Mitchell escape, they can always pick him up later...they know where he lives for a start
Regarding this whole scene, I think we're starting to enter into "ultra-nitpick" territory. I personally think Bond would carry large amounts of cash on him simply because he at least seems to do so with regularity as per Ian Fleming, but who knows, maybe he didn't look at the number on the bill he tipped the doorman with.
HOWEVER, as to this particular argument, I'm actually on your side and know immediately WHY Bond had to throw Mathis' body into the dumpster (especially). Bond obviously had nothing personal against Mathis and he really wouldn't have cared. But remember, despite the continuity reboot, most people (not really ajb'ers, I mean more like your average movie-goer) are having "adjustment issues" with what is probably the closest thing we've seen to Fleming's vision of Bond.
Fleming's Bond never cracked jokes, but he could be a bit of a deadpan snarker at times, sometimes to justify something to himself. Face it: unless you've read Ian Fleming, then Craig might come across as sarcastic, and that, in my experience talking about this film with friends, surfaced as a problem. Please note that I LIKED THIS LINE, but I don't see it as being a particularly good choice to market to a broad audience unfamiliar with Fleming. Simply put, it's a Flemingesque line, but it's not really a Flemingesque line you want to use until your character is a bit more established.
I should note, by the way, that my Dad had no problem with this entire scene AT ALL, money and all, despite his general dislike of QoS, as well.
When they were tussling, I thought it was REALLY heavily implied although never directly said that if he won the fight, he would rape her.
To quote from Cool Hand Luke, "what we have here is a failure to communicate". What I meant was that yes, I agree that Mitchell was the obvious backup plan (something I've no problem with), but when things went awry, there had to be someone more than Mitchell, then. In other words, a Plan C, if we count on Mr. White escaping with help.
Pretty good point, actually. But then Mr. White would still be in custody and much less mysterious and we might have some problems with the plot later on.