The Traditional Bond Outing
Nov. 14th, 2008 08:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
przedJust got back from seeing the new Bond with a friend from uni. (We've been going to see the new Bond together on opening day since at least Goldeneye.) I've been watching every trailer I could find multiple times, have put a Bond wallpaper up on my work computer (which probably confuses the twentysomethings I work with less than my usual Pros wallpaper) and in general have been dying to see the darn thing for weeks, if not months.
Yes, my expectations were high.
Were those expectations realized? Well, Quantum of Solace (yeah, yeah, it's a sort of goofy title, but it's growing on me) isn't nearly as genius as Casino Royale, but it didn't disappoint.
The opening half hour or so is almost wall to wall action scenes, some of them quite spectacular, and yet it was as if they hadn't given the film enough room to breath here. They were clearly trying to live up to the amazing parkour chase through the construction site in the start of Casino Royale, and it's one heck of a scene to live up to. But at the start they seem to have forgotten that what made CR so fab was the character stuff mixed in with the action. That the first scene we get is not the parkour set piece, but Bond in a room with a man he's been sent to kill intercut with a gritty, stripped down, nasty fight scene: character married to action.
Fortunately as the whole thing starts humming along, we get more of the character stuff as we go, and a bit more plot. More hints of Bond's struggle to compartmentalize his relationship with Vesper, more clues as to his loyalty to M (played to perfection, as always, by Dame Judi Dench). The only thing I could have wish for was more of Jeffrey Wright as Felix Leiter. He's not in it nearly enough.
The action scenes use the fast cut style I, quite frankly, usually hate (Hollywood seems to have taken all the wrong lessons from HK cinema of the '80s and '90s), but it does it well. And there are little fillips of filmmaking style (a chase in the sewers of Siena, Italy crosscut with a brutal hoserace taking place on the streets above, a big plot reveal set during an avant-garde production of Tosca) that seem to owe more to art cinema than blockbusters, which I very much appreciate.
As for Craig, he's well on his way to being my favourite Bond ever. He's both thuggish and sophisticated with a closely hidden streak of vulnerability, and that is far closer to book Bond than any actor has ever managed before. Yes, any actor; I'm including Connery in that statement. Plus, he's darn hot, in an icy British sort of way, even if he does only take off his shirt once this time.
So, all in all, big thumbs up for me.
Yes, my expectations were high.
Were those expectations realized? Well, Quantum of Solace (yeah, yeah, it's a sort of goofy title, but it's growing on me) isn't nearly as genius as Casino Royale, but it didn't disappoint.
The opening half hour or so is almost wall to wall action scenes, some of them quite spectacular, and yet it was as if they hadn't given the film enough room to breath here. They were clearly trying to live up to the amazing parkour chase through the construction site in the start of Casino Royale, and it's one heck of a scene to live up to. But at the start they seem to have forgotten that what made CR so fab was the character stuff mixed in with the action. That the first scene we get is not the parkour set piece, but Bond in a room with a man he's been sent to kill intercut with a gritty, stripped down, nasty fight scene: character married to action.
Fortunately as the whole thing starts humming along, we get more of the character stuff as we go, and a bit more plot. More hints of Bond's struggle to compartmentalize his relationship with Vesper, more clues as to his loyalty to M (played to perfection, as always, by Dame Judi Dench). The only thing I could have wish for was more of Jeffrey Wright as Felix Leiter. He's not in it nearly enough.
The action scenes use the fast cut style I, quite frankly, usually hate (Hollywood seems to have taken all the wrong lessons from HK cinema of the '80s and '90s), but it does it well. And there are little fillips of filmmaking style (a chase in the sewers of Siena, Italy crosscut with a brutal hoserace taking place on the streets above, a big plot reveal set during an avant-garde production of Tosca) that seem to owe more to art cinema than blockbusters, which I very much appreciate.
As for Craig, he's well on his way to being my favourite Bond ever. He's both thuggish and sophisticated with a closely hidden streak of vulnerability, and that is far closer to book Bond than any actor has ever managed before. Yes, any actor; I'm including Connery in that statement. Plus, he's darn hot, in an icy British sort of way, even if he does only take off his shirt once this time.
So, all in all, big thumbs up for me.
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no subject
Date: 2008-11-15 02:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-15 04:27 am (UTC)If you see it, I'll be interested in hearing your take.
For the next one, I have to admit I'm hoping they strip it down again, and don't start building back up to the ridiculousness they had near the end of Brosnan's run. (Invisible cars, bah.)