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Quantum of Solace - first UK press reviews

SalvorHardin

SalvorHardin

Rear Admiral
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Didn't read too much, fearing for spoilers

From Dark Horizons http://www.darkhorizons.com/news08/081020a.php
There are more reviews at the site

The first press screening of the new Bond film took place on Friday night in the UK and already over a half dozen reviews have popped up online with a seemingly consistent consensus - "Good, Not Great".

"Quantum of Solace may be a sequel to Casino Royale but it lacks that movie's panache and brio. Bond is a boorish oaf who simply rushes from country to country with the manic speed of Jason Bourne. 'Solace' lacks any wit, ironic or otherwise, which has been a strength of so many 007 films. This Bond is shorter than most, somehow it felt longer..." (The Times Online)

"Craig plays him with a gimlet-eyed intensity that makes his first turn in the role in Casino Royale seem lightweight. Quantum Of Solace doesn't seem like a major entry in the Bond canon. Well under two hours long, it's shorter and more frenetic than most of its predecessors, and an often-jolting experience to watch. Loose ends about. What it does have, though, above all, is vigour..." (The Independent)

"Owes much to the quick-fire editing of the Bourne thrillers. One wonders if director Marc Forster and screenwriters Paul Haggis and Neal Purvis haven't tried a little too hard to distance the film from traditional Bond plots. The expository dialogue scenes can be dull, and cram in so many machinations and double-crossings that it's easy to lose track of who's duping whom..." (The Telegraph)

"Everything in this movie is edited as if it were an action sequence, which means that when the set-pieces come they have to go into overdrive to stay ahead of the game...while it's exciting, it's not exactly anyone's idea of fun. To keep in the game, perhaps the next movie could let the hero enjoy himself a bit more..." (Empire Magazine)

"The action is loud and proud, but the story feels disjointed and muddled, with some uneven flecks of comedy. Still, Craig's presence keeps the edges from fraying too far and Forster just about nails the extra levels or artsiness and melancholy..." (Total Film)

"Forster has followed the standard sequel route of blowing up bigger stuff...This film is not as groundbreaking as Casino Royale. But it will kick the living daylights out of any rival action-hero franchise..." (The Metro)
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Really strange, all I can figure is that the post was so rushed that somebody seriously overcut the film. They wanted to make the antiBourne, that's what I got out of interviews with the director and dp and vfx suprevisor, they really don't like that overcut badly framed/staged look.

I'm thinking (if all this negativity is true) this might be the first Bond movie with a director's cut on DVD ... one that adds 20 minutes back in, all the slow beats and character stuff that is theoretically what this movie is about.

I friggin' hate CASINO ROYALE, but was really thinking that except for Craig, I was gonna like everything about QOS, that it might be this century's LTK, or FRWL lite. Now I dunno ...
 
I am surprised about all the quick edit stuff, but I am not surprised at the "Good, not great" stuff. As someone who liked CR, in addition to how well CR was critically viewed, a direct follow-up to match up to that would be incredibly difficult.
 
Maybe all the reviewers were accidentally sent to a screening of Beverly Hills Chihuahua?
 
The reviews don't sound that negative, even though they don't get as stoked around it as they did around Casino Royale. Quantum of Solace sounds like an unpretentious, enjoyable enough action-spy romp along the lines of Tomorrow Never Dies, and perhaps the fast editing and relatively shorter running time was the producton crew overcompensating the correction of the pacing issues complained about in Casino Royale.
 
I also think many people reviewed "Casino Royale" with a skeptical eye or with a sigh of relief that it didn't plain suck. I get a feeling "Quantum" is being held to a slightly higher standard now, which is a good thing. I generally never agree with critics in print anyhow, so I get a feeling I'm going to like this film. :)
 
I'll make my own mind up, but the comments that this is very Bourne like worry me as I'm no fan of the Bourne films (aside from the first one). I said before CR came out, if I want to see Bourne I'll watch Bourne, I want something different from Bond. Guess I'll see in a few weeks time...
 
I was at Friday's screening (see post in the thread on the difference UK and US release dates), and would support the tone of those reviews (the lone positive one seems to have been in The Times, whereas the Times online one quoted above comes from The Sunday Times), though I'd tend to 'OK, but not good' rather than 'Good but not great'.
It just jumps from one action sequence to the next without enough in between to actually give them context, as if the director overshot in his shift from the more thoughtful stuff he's done in the past.
 
diankra said:
I was at Friday's screening (see post in the thread on the difference UK and US release dates), and would support the tone of those reviews (the lone positive one seems to have been in The Times, whereas the Times online one quoted above comes from The Sunday Times), though I'd tend to 'OK, but not good' rather than 'Good but not great'.
It just jumps from one action sequence to the next without enough in between to actually give them context, as if the director overshot in his shift from the more thoughtful stuff he's done in the past.
Click to expand...

Be honest with me, does it have Bourne style shaky camera work?
 
Stalkers said:
diankra said:
I was at Friday's screening (see post in the thread on the difference UK and US release dates), and would support the tone of those reviews (the lone positive one seems to have been in The Times, whereas the Times online one quoted above comes from The Sunday Times), though I'd tend to 'OK, but not good' rather than 'Good but not great'.
It just jumps from one action sequence to the next without enough in between to actually give them context, as if the director overshot in his shift from the more thoughtful stuff he's done in the past.
Click to expand...

Be honest with me, does it have Bourne style shaky camera work?
Click to expand...

The camerawork is shaky, yes. So much so that in one early sequence I thought they'd pulled a real shocker on us, but it was just that the camerawork was so shaky you couldn't see what had happend to someone.
 
Outhouse4 said:
Bah - who cares about the movie's reviews?

What did they think about the Star Trek trailer? :p ;)
Click to expand...

Not shown! Guess they want us critics to come back and pay to see it on the actual release!

Edit; Sorry, that should have been done with multi-quote.
 
diankra said:
Stalkers said:
diankra said:
I was at Friday's screening (see post in the thread on the difference UK and US release dates), and would support the tone of those reviews (the lone positive one seems to have been in The Times, whereas the Times online one quoted above comes from The Sunday Times), though I'd tend to 'OK, but not good' rather than 'Good but not great'.
It just jumps from one action sequence to the next without enough in between to actually give them context, as if the director overshot in his shift from the more thoughtful stuff he's done in the past.
Click to expand...

Be honest with me, does it have Bourne style shaky camera work?
Click to expand...

The camerawork is shaky, yes. So much so that in one early sequence I thought they'd pulled a real shocker on us, but it was just that the camerawork was so shaky you couldn't see what had happend to someone.
Click to expand...

Oh dear...
 
diankra said:
Stalkers said:
diankra said:
I was at Friday's screening (see post in the thread on the difference UK and US release dates), and would support the tone of those reviews (the lone positive one seems to have been in The Times, whereas the Times online one quoted above comes from The Sunday Times), though I'd tend to 'OK, but not good' rather than 'Good but not great'.
It just jumps from one action sequence to the next without enough in between to actually give them context, as if the director overshot in his shift from the more thoughtful stuff he's done in the past.
Click to expand...

Be honest with me, does it have Bourne style shaky camera work?
Click to expand...

The camerawork is shaky, yes. So much so that in one early sequence I thought they'd pulled a real shocker on us, but it was just that the camerawork was so shaky you couldn't see what had happend to someone.
Click to expand...

Oh god not another one, i thought this was used far too much in the last Borne movie, it really did ruin the movie for me at times, that alone is enough for me now just to wait for the DVD release of the movie, i really do hate that over the top shaky cam nonsense.
 
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