Late to the party

[andrewducker]

We went to see Quantum of Solace. It was.....alright.

The worldbuilding was nice (as laserboy pointed out) - but the actual plot felt like it was on fast-forward, covering two movies worth of infodump in one movie, without any depth or real characterisation.

A lack of depth and characterisation would not, of course, have been a problem with any previous Bond movie, but this one seemed to be priding itself on being more 'real' - but sadly fell short of the Bourne movies in that respect, leaving it falling somewhat uncomfortably between two stools.

Not bad, by any means, but it felt like it could have done with someone taking a step back and looking at it from a distance, to make sure it actually worked as a movie, and not just as a series of scenes that followed a plot.

Comments

[i-ate-my-crusts.livejournal.com]

The biggest characterisation arc is between bond and M, and once I realised that, I no longer felt short-changed in the character department.

[andrewducker]

That was the good bit.

I've been percolating something in my head about how revenge is stopping either of the two leads from moving on and having character development - but I need to process it some more before I write about it.

I think I was also unimpressed by the action scenes, which didn't help.

[chuma.livejournal.com]

Personally I thought the bond girl in this one was another shift in focus. There wasn't the usual "bond gets his girl in the end" things going on, it was more 2 people on a mutual journey to get justice (unless you count the brief kiss). It was understated rather than underexplored. I liked it.

As for the action scenes, they were very different to previous bond films, and personally I loved the low key Casino Royale to the explosive Quantum of Solace, but still the opera scene was quite well done.

[themongkey.livejournal.com]

I was a bit distracted by the main bad guy's uncanny resemblance of Roman Polanski. Plus when someone says "it's just the fuel cells, they power the whole complex..." you know you're in trouble.