I thought it was entertaining and well done. Bond is totally awesome in this film (and the last)... definitely showing off his sweet military special service skills. While I loved the cheesy, sexy old Bond, I think that this has been a great new direction for Bond that makes him more relevant to the 21st century.

However, there were 2 things that I didn't care for in Quantum of Solace:
1) There were several action sequences that, in my opinion, were lessened by the frenetic cinematography. When the cuts are so frequent and the camera movements are so quick, I feel that they are just hiding sub-par effects and slopping movie making. It's hard to follow, hard to see and just too much. Luckily, this only happened a few times in the movie and I thought the rest of it was directed/shot very well.
2) The overall design. I didn't love the opening sequence...it didn't introduce the women quickly enough, and I thought it could have been much more dramatic with the use of the sand. I also didn't care for the different typography of the location titles throughout the film. But, I'm a designer, so there you go. :)

All that being said, I really enjoyed the movie. Daniel Craig is awesome. Go see it. The end.

I obviously liked it despite a few flaws. I didn't notice the typography...I'm going to have to pay better attention to that stuff. :)

I do have one gripe with some of the other reviews of this movie. I keep hearing that this "new" Bond is not funny. What? I think it is very dry and very smart in its delivery of humor. I like it a LOT better than the old cheesy, corny, almost slapstick comedy that pervaded the old Bond movies. Its one of the main reasons why I like the new direction of the series. Anyway, I just had to say that I think the new Bond is quite cleverly funny. And for the record I think he's plenty sexy too. I don't really find Daniel Craig attractive, but as Bond, he's hot...so he must be doing something right. The slightly less "polished" Bond is great to me!

I loved 90% of this movie and will probably see it again.

From what I heard they got the guy who did the Bourne movies fight scenes to direct this movies fight scenes which is why there is so much more shakeyness (.... not stirred - sorry, had to) in this movie than in Casino Royale. I think that style of action filming worked in the bourned franchise but they should have stuck to what worked in the first Casino Royale. I also had a huge problem with Bond being made our of Asbestos in this movie.

I agree with Red about the humor of this Bond. He's British so he's going to be dry, but unlike most other Bond's he's not Punny and doesn't have a sexual innuendo on hand for every situation. The line about being "Teachers on sabatical .... who just won the lottery" was hilarious to me.

BTW did anyone catch the not so subtle nod to Goldfinger?

I agree with the fight scene cinematography.
Disagree on the typography.
I was uninterested during the opening credits - even though I was trying to work out how they were going to rhyme or scan "Quantum of Solace" with another line. The song lacked the singable punch of the last one and the visuals were just dull - where's the nipple game? (Don't tell me you haven't tried to spot if the models are naked or not in other bond films).

Just me, oh. Moving on swiftly.....

This Bond is a lot drier than the others (Moore and Brosnan were practically a Carry On film), not only does he have fewer, more subtle lines, but he is so deadpan in delivery you do kinda have to do a double take to get them. We may have taken the mickey out of Roger Moore and his amazing acting eyebrow, but at times you do wonder who is the more animated.

My only gripe beyond the fight scene direction was, who tries to rip off Bolivia (no offence to Bolivians)? They could make more money and be almost as evil setting up a PFI hospital scheme in the UK. You don't have to go to some three goat country (no offence) and take such dramatic measures to run rings round a government and milk them for money. Hell, our government tax offices are owned by a company based in.. a tax haven!

Personally, I think this Bond has the good looks of Connery and the sheer bastardness of Dalton and I'm really enjoying the grittier direction they are taking that they tried with Dalton on a smaller budget. I hope they keep more grounded this time (invisible cars, tsk tsk) - and the the iPhone/iDesk plays a smaller part in future episodes. Microsoft can barely get their iDesk to work and they must have several times the budget of MI6.

I think, picking up on Caps' comments that this was a sort of Return of the Jedi. Jedi had to resolve the last film and do it's own thing with the remaining half of the film. A tall order that resulted in a lesser, but still important, film.

PS Goldfinger? Now you mention it I know exactly what you mean, but didn't catch it at the time. I totally missed that she was called Strawberry Fields too.

PPS Why is Bond over the review for Max Payne?

Jamesbloke wrote:

PPS Why is Bond over the review for Max Payne?

I don't know what you mean by this? Are you asking why I gave it more stars?

That's interesting what you said about Bolivia. I didn't really think about that. But it does kind of make Mr. Greene even less threatening, and I already thought he came across as woefully unchallenging.

Quote:

BTW did anyone catch the not so subtle nod to Goldfinger?

Yeah, I did catch that. **SPOILER ALERT**
I found it to be a nice nod, but Fields character left me wishing there was more. I understand she was the "throwaway" bond girl character, but at least let me see that she was threatened so that I'm more frightened by the bad guy. And like Jamesbloke says, they don't even say her fabulous name out loud in the movie. ;) Although maybe that would be a little cheesy.

I really didn't think about this until I read the last post by red, but wasn't it almost insulting how little effort bond put into bedding Ms Fields. He didn't even use any sexual inuendo or puns. "Can you help me find the stationary" That "line" would never work for me. Maybe they were just trying to convey the point that Bond is so Bad Ass that he doesn't even need to try to get laid. Asking for sex and asking for an espresso at starbucks are on the same level of difficulty for bond and both have them same level of sucess.

That's how I took it, BigLazy. I actually loved that. :) I was thinking...uh oh! She's done for! And then, I saw Bond with no shirt and I started chuckling to myself. HA!

I'm so glad you guys told me about Fields. That is too awesome! I feel like a goon for not figuring it out myself, but I haven't seen Goldfinger in a hundred years.

Little Red Death wrote:

Jamesbloke wrote:

PPS Why is Bond over the review for Max Payne?

I don't know what you mean by this? Are you asking why I gave it more stars?

Noo.... I swear there was the QoS photo of Bond & Fruity Fields on the home page with the Max Payne review underneath. Whatever it was, there is now a QoS review to go with it, which I am just about to read.....

Biglazy - some people have it, some people don't......and I... I have the reverse effect. Especially with Bolivians. Drat.

Hee hee. Its possible you looked at the homepage in the middle of an update? Who knows...weirder things have happened with internet updates. :)

I always wondered if part of double O spy training if they teach the spys how to pick up women. Do they teach them to only go after chicks with weird/sexual sounding names? And when he fills out his report on the mission after it's over does he list the women he slept with as part of the completed mission goals?

Do you reckon they had the funny names before or after Miss Moneypenny typed up the report?

I think it may be possible that James learnt his womanising skills at the school of lazy book writing....

I hate the way the style of the new bond films, they're all trying to be jason borne. Bond was its own franchise it didn't need to copy others. I just hate that we haven't gotten a descent bond film since Goldeneye. I hated casino royal but this movie I hated even more. They make bond too weak and he has no gadgets. Bond is supposed to be like a batman with out a mask but a really good sense of style and taste. He is a super hero spy that saves the world from mad scientist and other mad men. These movies are trying to make him seem more realistic and human, its like taking away superman's power so more people could identify with him. Like lets take away his invulnerability to bullets so more people can identify with him. Its stupid cause the whole reason people like him is because he is untouchable he's larger than life and has fun cheesy lines to spout while he's doing in baddies' henchmen. Then there was that whole ending where they not only made bond more human they actually made him weaker than he is in the rest of the film when he takes a beating from a small french dude half his size. I was like wait wait wait, bond is some sort of expert fighter in this series and he gets pummeled by this whinny french girly man? In the other films Bond relied more on his wit and candor than his fighting skills, and when he did get pummeled it was by someone twice his size and strength or at least had some edge on him like Jaws. Then tying in the villain to oil and profiting from 911 was too far. Plus I was really confused to their objective these criminals went through extraordinarily troublesome, expensive, time consuming task of setting up a fake eco-organization, overthrowing a government, constructing underground damns and engineering them to have distribution centers, engineering a hotel that runs solely on hydrogen, simply so they could sell water to a poor third world nation? I'm sorry but couldn't they just sell their inventions and make incredible legal profits? Oh but no we had to make some stupid comment on oil and greed. So because the plot says so these rich, intelligent, and famous scientists say screw you Bolivia we're gonna take all your water and sell it to you. I'm sorry this movie asked way to much of me and I hated it. Also Bolivia's desert isn't as bad as the movie makes it out to be. It averages 80 degrees F in summer time. Try living in Arizona in September or heck even as late as October some years its over 100 still. Its not like its the Sahara or Death Vally, it wouldn't drive someone to drink motor oil. Finally yes I don't expect to get much in terms of reality when it comes to a bond film but the villain's motivation seems like they just want to be evil simply for the sake of being evil, when there are a lot more ways they could make money, either legally or illegally. Like inventing some type of super weapon and holding the world hostage for large amounts of money (I thought that was a bond staple). But I guess in post cold war era Bond the only villains are crazy media tycoons, crazy North Koreans, and the French.And the fact that they got rid of Q's character is inexcusable. I don't care if they got a different actor or kept John but they should've had a Q. All the former Bond references really rubbed me the wrong way in this film. Like the girl in oil instead of gold. I don't think Bond needs to have homages to the old films when its constantly been evolving and reinventing itself. But the biggest flaw in the new bonds are no gadgets. I'm sorry its not a bond film with out the gadgets.

this movie was stupid. an hour and a half of a dull bond movie, if that is even possible. the terrorist plot was transferring water underground? what??? what type of plot is that???? it would've been ok if they made the movie watchable without falling asleep every 5 minutes. i had to rewind it twice because i couldn't focus on the screen. i thought looking at a piece of lint was more interesting. the first bond (casino royal) was amazing, but i guess they let it go on this one.