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Quantum of Solace - Grading & Discussion

Grade the movie...

  • Total voters
    139
[I'll admit I haven't read everyone else's thoughts yet, I'm just spilling thoughts out as they happen]

I wasn't sure what to make of it to be honest. I didn't really understand why some things were happening (granted I haven't seen Casino Royale since its release two years ago). Does the opening scene actually relate to the rest of the film? :p Do most of the scenes relate to the film? Didn't they go from an aiport to a party to an opera house in the space of a minute?!

The only thing that kept running through my head was a certain quote: "I fail to see why everything must inevitably explode..." Let's be honest, practically everything exploded. Even the explosions.

I will say that table at MI6 was pretty cool, but then it got to be a bit overkill when entire walls were doing the whole convulted 2D graphics thing.

The actress who played Fields strcuk me as being fairly terrible considering how high profile this movie was.

This thing of directors and cameramen having a seizure every time there's an action scene is starting to wear thin. I WANT TO SEE WHAT'S HAPPENING!

Another thing is, it reminded me a bit of Moonraker, which seems like a good excuse for Bond to have a barney in every country in the world, and even some fisticuffs in space, but this film lacks any of the tongue in cheek and it just comes off as a bit repetitive (eg another rooftop chase?!).

I'll get to the main point: I miss old school Bond, with the camp/kitschy villains and the off the wall humour, I miss a Bond that isn't bent on revenge and so dark inside that even MI6 considers him to be almost rogue. I miss the Bond that enjoys a cigarette and a drink, between casually dispatching enemies and seducing the inordinate amount of beautiful women he happens to meet. It's got to get out of this wannabe Bourne frame of mind.

I understand this had to wrap up the story from Casino Royale and establish Daniel Craig as Bond, and as someone else mentioned, this film wasn't as sucky as Die Another Day, but I hope the next one returns to the franchise's golden era with a more Connery-era-like way of storytelling.

Overall, good, but not great, I doubt I'd watch it again.

[Just gone back and read everyone else's... glad to know I'm not alone in my opinions :). By the way, that poster: BEST... THING... EVER!]
 
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I liked the film, it was enjoyable enough, some action, Bond doing his Bond-stuff, hot girls, pretty much (apart from maybe some gadgets) all I look for in a Bond film. probably an 8/10 range. The theme song was great.
 
Saw it today, it was ok, a little disappointing after Casino Royal.

The fights and action scenes are good, although they look like they were edited by a kid with ADHD with no access to ritlin.

I guess the two main problems are its too grim, most of the characters seem like they are depressed, and anyone who is actually cheerful will be killed off shortly, and the other being, instead of a mad man trying to take over the world, or some usual stolen nuke shenanigans, its about having a monopoly over water distribution rights in Bolivia.

I know the main story is just meant to be a back drop to Bond's personal mission of vengeance, but even then we are shortchanged, when after spending all of this film looking for payback against the man who set up Vespa, we don't see any of it, we don't even get a Bond, James Bond, line.

I just hope the next one is a little lighter in tone, and actually has a story that grips you.
 
Just got back from seeing it tonight.
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I liked Casino Royale a lot, but this?... I don't know what it was. It was just shite. If one just smeared some dog shit on a roll of film, put it into a projector and pressed play, this is what you'd get.
Boring as hell, I've seen about 20 films at the cinema so far this year, and this is easily the worst


Mark Kermode had it spot on
 
Ethros said:
Just got back from seeing it tonight.
Shite
Shite
Shite

I liked Casino Royale a lot, but this?... I don't know what it was. It was just shite. If one just smeared some dog shit on a roll of film, put it into a projector and pressed play, this is what you'd get.
Boring as hell, I've seen about 20 films at the cinema so far this year, and this is easily the worst
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You know what, when I got roped in to taking my nieces to see High School Musical 3 I expected that to be the worst movie I saw at the cinema this year, but it was at least on par with this.
 
I havent seen it yet, but I am looking at this film, not on it's own, but as Casino Royale Pt. II. I can't wait till it comes out on DVD so I can watch them back to back.
 
Some of Mark Kermode's opinions are valid, like the rubbish "Another Way to Die" and Marc Foster being out of his depth somewhat in comparison to Martin Campbell and Roger Spottiswoode, especially with the action scenes, but I do not understand the hypobolic, mostly uninformed rantings directed at the otherwise solid Quantum of Solace, a competent sequel that succeeds in carrying on the storyline introduced in Casino Royale.

I liked the animated title sequence done by MK12, even though it it is unfairly lumped in with Alicia Keys' inane warbling, the most misguided choice for a Bond film's acoustics since Éric Serra. Honestly, Alicia Keys was so terrible she makes you long for Sheryl Crow.
 
^ Well the plot for one. What was it? Where was it?

Like Kermode asks, you can't describe it. There's something about a secret group of bad guys, so secret no one's ever heard of them. What are their aims? er... What happened with that plot element? er...
Then there's some rubbish villian who's doing something with oil, but it turns out to be about water. Or something.
Fact is I only saw it two days ago and can barely remember a thing about it. It was just a mammoth mess.


Oh yes, that song. Gods. At least when it came on the radio or TV I could turn it off, but it the cinema I was forced to be subjected to its horrendous screeching and wailings at loud volumes for what seemed an eternity.
Thing is you can tell there's a barely half-decent song perhaps buried in their somewhere, but it's so deeply covered by the above mentioned awfulness
 
I saw this in Sunday... while not as good as Casino Royale, it was still a very entertaining movie.
 
(B-) So Average Grade...

The movie is not a bad movie on its own merit but coming after Casino Royale, it didn't live up to expectations. Once again I like M getting more screen time than where used to in the older Bond movies and also Daniel Craig was once again fantastic in the role. The Bond girls had a smaller role though both did fine, infact I liked Camille and her backstory though I prefer the Vesper character due to just being fleshed out more but look forward if Camille ever returned. Also glad Felix returned too and hope he stays in the franchise as long as Craig does, which rumor has it 2 more movies with a possible 3rd (5 total for Criag by then). The action was very good and I thought the 1st half was strong but the 2nd half is the problem.

I don't think the main villian was built up enough, I didn't really care for his plan and we should of learned more about Quantum, like the ending refering to another name like SPECTRE or some hint of more to come, we know nothing of what Bond got from his time alone with Vesper's ex lover. The film needed 5 minutes more at the end to explain better though I get it now with what Vesper's B/F does and that is seduce high ranking people in certian governments and then use that with a fake kidnapping plot to get what they want.

Overall a slightly dissapointing sequel to CR but am still hopeful of the new look Bond franchise and overall it will was a good BOND movie.

PS - Martin Campbell needs to return.
 
TedShatner10 said:
Some of Mark Kermode's opinions are valid, like the rubbish "Another Way to Die" and Marc Foster being out of his depth somewhat in comparison to Martin Campbell and Roger Spottiswoode, especially with the action scenes, but I do not understand the hypobolic, mostly uninformed rantings directed at the otherwise solid Quantum of Solace, a competent sequel that succeeds in carrying on the storyline introduced in Casino Royale.
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I agree, QOS is a good solid Bond film, and I wonder if, with time, it'll be Daniel Craig's Tomorrow Never Dies which seems to get better press these days for being what it is, good solid Bond.

There was a plot in there, although perhaps it wasn't explained enough using small words? Maybe MAthis could have repeated his Poker for Dummies dialague from the last film??

Does it matter that we still don't know much about Quantum? Did we know much about SPECTRE to begin with? Heck did we ever know much about SPECTRE?

And I don't ned to know what Bond did with Vesper's b/f, at the end of the day he's a nobody, a minor cog in a larger wheel. What matters is the fact that 007 didn't kill him, showing the development of his character over the two films. Here's a man who only ever saw the small picture, killing off the little fish, except this time he left the one guy alive who he had most reason to want dead. What an ending. And I like the symmetry. Casino Royale started in snowy eastern europe and ended in Italy, QOS reversed this.

And frankly I prefer the idea of the bad guys having a somewhat fantastical goal rather than Le Chiffre's boring 'I want to be rich' plot which never made sense (esepcially after Bond kindly killed the man he owed his money too anyway!)

Honestly I think the problem here is that people lauded CR far too much and, as a result, set expectations QOS wasn't able to meet.

Is QOS flawed? Yes, but in truth so was Casiono Royale. Are they both enjoyable, yes, and that's all that matters to me.
 
I think I will have a greater love for QoS when I rewatch it and also probably after a 3rd movie goes more into the group's dealings.
 
And frankly I prefer the idea of the bad guys having a somewhat fantastical goal rather than Le Chiffre's boring 'I want to be rich' plot which never made sense (esepcially after Bond kindly killed the man he owed his money too anyway!)
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Le Chiffre owed Quantum their money as well, which is why they killed him.
 
I don't want to sound stupid, but there were a few times that I was wondering why things were happening and why people were going where they were.
Why exactly did Bond go to Haiti? There was something about tagged bills on the first dead guy or something.
why did the bad guy let the woman hang around with him? I didn't get that.
Why did that hotel thingy place (what the hell was that?!?) blow up so frickin' much?
Was Vesper's boyfriend part of Quantum?

Jeez man, I think I have a good layman's understanding of Relativity...this movie baffles me.
 
Meh... After the excellent Casino Royale this comes as a bit of a disappointment. A decent Bourne-like action movie, but lacking in atmosphere and the spy angle. What was up with the editing of this film by the way? I couldn't make heads or tails of some of the action sequences. Unfortunately this director subscribes to the idea that the more cuts and shaky cam shots you add to action scenes, the more spectacular they get. While Daniel Craig was ok and Judi Dench a pleasure as always, Quantum of Solace could have used a striking Bond-villain!

Feels like an entertaining but fairly shallow epilogue to Casino Royale, and I hope they make a better effort next time. Terrible theme song.
 
Nardpuncher said:
I don't want to sound stupid, but there were a few times that I was wondering why things were happening and why people were going where they were.
Why exactly did Bond go to Haiti? There was something about tagged bills on the first dead guy or something.
why did the bad guy let the woman hang around with him? I didn't get that.
Why did that hotel thingy place (what the hell was that?!?) blow up so frickin' much?
Was Vesper's boyfriend part of Quantum?

Jeez man, I think I have a good layman's understanding of Relativity...this movie baffles me.
Click to expand...

Bond went to Haiti because of the tagged bills yes.

Greene tried to kill Camile several times, he didn't let her hang around with him. They were together once and he was handing her over to the General to kill.

The hotel had some kind of crazy power system that relied on hydrogen batteries or something!

Vesper's b/f was part of quantum, yes.

Personally I found the contrivences of QOS a bit easier to believe than those in CR, certainly the trail from Haiti to Austria made more sense than how Bond trakced down Demitrious in CR.

I do wonder if perhaps CR was just better at explaining things rather than letting people pick stuff up from the dialogue? Maybe that's why CR had to be 16 hours long :lol:
 
Starkers said:
Maybe MAthis could have repeated his Poker for Dummies dialague from the last film??
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I fucking hate bits of that. Sure explain to her about poker, but the bits with him telling her how much is in the pott...she's from the bloody treasury for gods sakes! She can count!
 
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