Quantum of Solace

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Germangirl
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Post by Germangirl »

Real bad

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/38784

The BBC just posted their first review of the new James Bond film, QUANTUM OF SOLACE!!!

Hey folks, Harry here - just got a ring from the BBC's Lizo Mzimba, who just got out of QUANTUM OF SOLACE, just typed up his thoughts, just posted them to the BBC - and then picked up the phone excitedly to tell me - THEY"RE UP! You can read his full review at the BBC - link below - but on the phone, he essentially told me the below, which is from the review, as the key thing that stuck out in his mind about the film. SOUNDS LIKE WHAT I WANT!

It's a film that feels like the second part of a trilogy, with this being the bleaker second act.

For a lot of the movie Bond is a particularly unsympathetic character, and often it's only Craig's performance along with the shifting morality of Bond's legion of enemies that forces the audience to root for him.
Olga Kurylenko, who plays a refreshingly different kind of female companion, does well with a part that has far more depth than most Bond girls.

READ THE WHOLE REVIEW AT THE BBC!!!

Meanwhile - Ali from London & TheShizNit sent us this:

QUANTUM OF SOLACE
Where does a character go once he's been reinvented? Stripped down to
the bare essentials, the James Bond of Casino Royale – the 007 that
Ian Fleming would have approved of – proved extremely popular with
audiences and critics alike, enough for them wipe the slate clean and
agree to start afresh. Bond now rebooted, battered physically and
emotionally, therefore comes into this sequel a fully-formed, grounded
character with places to go: a man with drive, reason, purpose. But
despite his passport getting a workout thanks to a jet-setting
narrative that takes him half way across the globe, the James Bond of
Quantum Of Solace goes precisely nowhere. At times, you feel you can
see the character – and by proxy the writers – actually thinking, "So
what now?"

We pick up with Bond, James Bond, mere minutes after the finale of
Casino Royale – in Italy with the sinister Mr. White (Jesper
Christensen) in the boot of his car, nursing a painful looking leg
injury. But perhaps British intelligence isn't what it used to be. "We
used to be so paranoid," laughs White, "looking over our shoulders,
thinking you were listening to our conversations. But you didn't even
know we exist!" White claims his organisation Quantum – think SPECTRE
but without the awesome lairs – has men everywhere, and he's not
wrong. Bond travels to Haiti, London, Bolivia and Russia chasing
Quantum goons, principally the weasely Dominic Greene; a smarmy
eco-crusader in public, but facilitator of evil deeds behind closed
doors. Think Al Gore gone insane with power.

Bond's arc here ought to be revenge; the death of Vesper Lynd the
righteous cause. But Craig's emotionless visage is so blank, the
script so bereft of character, Quantum Of Solace feels like just
another day at the office for 007. Sure, he kills a few people he
shouldn't. He breaks the rules. He goes off the grid. But what kind of
Bond would he be if he didn't? It isn't until the final scene that
you'll actually remember Bond's motivations, so meaningless are his
exploits up until that point.

Craig, it must be said, is excellent. Any doubt he could inhabit the
role must surely now evaporate. His Bond is a real bruiser: smacked,
cracked, bleeding and beaten from pillar to post, Craig looks like
hell in the best possible way. The problems with Quantum Of Solace
should not fall at his feet. This is the best Bond he could be given
the circumstances.

No, the issues are with the studio's choice of director in Marc
Forster. This is a man who knows how to put dramatic audiences through
the wringer (Monster's Ball, Finding Neverland, The Kite Runner) but
he's completely out of his depth handling a franchise this large.
High-tempo sequences, like the opening car chase and an extremely
Bournian rooftop pursuit, are disorientating in the extreme: too fast,
too sloppy and too ruthlessly edited. Often, things change in the
blink of an eye – one second Bond is lying on his back, the next he's
jumping out a window, the next he's swinging from a rope. It's often
impossible to keep up.

Fight scenes often seem practised and stagey (Bond smashes an opponent
through a wall with ridiculous ease), while one shot sees 007 riding a
motorbike... at about 25mph. These are all hallmarks of a director
unfamiliar with action; perhaps former Paul Greengrass protege Dan
Bradley should be held responsible (it would certainly explain the
feeling of deja vu – as Bond jumps through yet another window, you may
feel like yelling, Alan Partridge style, "STOP GETTING BOURNE
WRONG!").

What's more, the realistic tone struck by Martin Campbell in Casino
Royale has taken something of a leave of absence here. MI6 use flashy,
over-the-top Minority Report-style holo-computers, when anyone who
reads the papers knows that British intelligence can't even hop in a
taxi without leaving their laptop in the back. Bond, leaping on a bad
guy's bonnet, finds time to fire of a clunky quip before his bullet.
Amalric's bad guy lurches uncomfortably from believably slimy to
ridiculously evil, lunging at Bond with an axe in a final showdown.
Though I hesitate to compare it to Indy's infamous 'fridge' escape,
the scene where 007 jumps out of a plane without a parachute /and
survives/ seems a little too far-fetched even for a Bond movie. All we
ask is for some consistency – this isn't Crank, this is Bond.

This is not a disaster on par with Die Another Day. In fact, in parts
it's quite watchable – Craig is a magnetic lead, those piercing blue
eyes are quite the attention grabber. Judi Dench, meanwhile, is once
again magnificent; all British reserve, stiff upper lip and frosty
delivery (a low-key scene with M at home, removing her make-up while
issuing orders, is perhaps the most disarming in the entire movie).
The Bond girls look the part, too, even if Olga Kurylenko (ticking the
boxes marked 'feisty' and 'headstrong') lacks personality and Gemma
Arterton (Agent Shagwell) lacks any decent screen time. On a second
viewing, perhaps the topsy-turvy storyline settles a little – a
menagerie of accents does mean some important plot points will be
missed first time around.

But make no mistake, Quantum Of Solace is a crushing disappointment.
Try as you might, you'll be unable to invest in any of the characters
– now Bond's heart has been broken, it's like nothing ever changed and
the character exists simply to get to the next location and car chase
and gun fight. It's a perfectly average action film, certainly better
than the last few Brosnan outings. But when Casino Royale set the bar
so high, it's not acceptable for a follow-up to simply stroll under
it. Once again, Bond finds himself at a cross-roads, standing still,
without direction. So... what now?
The top notch acting in the Weisz/Craig/Spall 'Betrayal' is emotionally true, often v funny and its beautifully staged with filmic qualities..

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Germangirl
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Post by Germangirl »

The top notch acting in the Weisz/Craig/Spall 'Betrayal' is emotionally true, often v funny and its beautifully staged with filmic qualities..

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advicky
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Post by advicky »

I think average 3/5 isn't bad. And I always happy that I read this:
"But the man himself powers this movie; he carries the film: it's an indefinably difficult task for an actor. Craig measures up. "
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Post by Daskedusken »

All eyes on `Quantum of Solace` UK opening weekend
Quantum Of Solace - 18-10-08

Demonstrating the growing importance of the Russian marketplace, the "Quantum of Solace" worldwide promotional tour kicked off in Moscow last week. But outside the U.S., Blighty remains, without a doubt, the most important territory for the super-spy franchise - reports Variety.

To Marc Forster, the mild-mannered German-born Swiss helmer of "Quantum of Solace," all eyes are on the U.K. opening. "I think it's absolutely crucial that it starts off in a positive way, because it will affect the rest of the world." U.K. buzz for "Solace" has been steadily building on home turf, and is set to move into fifth gear as the opening looms. Not only does it get the full red carpet treatment at an Oct. 29 royal world premiere to be attended by Princes William and Harry, but later that same night the pic has its first public screening as a high-profile gala at the Times BFI London Film Festival. The combo of royal approval and fest exposure near-guarantees global media coverage. The U.K. release follows Oct. 31 with the U.S. launch set for Nov. 14.

While the buzz is hot for "Solace," it has a lot to live up to after the stunning U.K. success of "Casino Royale," which bagged a boffo $107.4 million in Blighty. But not only did it delight multiplex auds; "Royale" won warm approval from the Brit crix and landed Craig a Bafta best actor nom -- a first for James Bond.

Forster, the first non-Commonwealth director of a Bond pic, is quietly confident his 007 can deliver the goods. In conversation with Variety at a swanky London hotel, he explains that his approach to the well-loved franchise was not to obsess on the past -- "I had other Bond films in my mind, but I only looked at 'Casino Royale,' 'Dr. No,' 'Goldfinger,' 'On Her Majesty's Secret Service' " -- but to focus primarily on Craig and the locations.

Forster, who made his name directing highbrow fare like "Monster's Ball," "Finding Neverland" and "The Kite Runner," concedes he was initially hesitant to take over the franchise, but was won over by the prospect of working with Craig. "Because of Daniel, I agreed to make the movie," he says.

Bond producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson reportedly recruited Forster to inject a dose of arthouse sensibility into the blood of the action franchise. But while Forster talks about his approach in lofty terms of betrayal and vulnerability, the film seems to be true to Bond's traditional image. The 10-minute reel of "Solace" footage is high-octane, sexy stuff showing a confident 007 evading the baddies and getting the girl as auds have grown to love.Forster is known for his painstaking preparations, and "Solace" was no different. First up was scouring the globe for the perfect spots: "I think Bond locations are characters in themselves. … I discovered Chile and the desert. I always had an image of the desert and Bond, so I thought that would be a good match. I think he's sort of isolated and I think it felt right for Bond."

And after the recent box office success of femme-centric fare such as "Sex and the City" and "Mamma Mia!," there's a suggestion that Brit auds are craving a bit of testosterone-fuelled action.

http://www.mi6.co.uk/news/index.php?ite ... mi6&s=news
"Love anyway. Live anyway. Choose to part of this anyway”
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Post by advicky »

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Post by SmittenDramaKitten »

I happened to turn on the TV this morning just in time to see a short preview of QOS on the BBC News. They showed the extended trailer and interviewed this entertainment correspondent ... It would appear that they had a showing of the movie of some kind last night. A press preview?! And I thought I was going to be one of the first people to see it!!!! :roll: :lol:
advicky
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Post by advicky »

Germangirl
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Post by Germangirl »

That´s great, because the Empire critic is one to be taken serious :D
The top notch acting in the Weisz/Craig/Spall 'Betrayal' is emotionally true, often v funny and its beautifully staged with filmic qualities..

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Post by Daskedusken »

New 007 nemesis Simon Kassianides: I`m Bond to secrecy
Quantum Of Solace - 18-10-08

What will new Bond baddie Simon Kassianides reveal about his role? A correspondent for The Times tries tough questioning...

You hear the words and you think, Ernst Stavro Blofeld, you think Auric Goldfinger, and you even think Dr Kananga and Scaramanga. To this noble list we will soon be adding, er, Yusef. Or at least we will when we know exactly what he does; how he deals with Bond; and how he shapes the worldview of Quantum of Solace, the new and highly anticipated movie from the rebooted franchise of Bond reborn, Daniel Craig.

Read the rest of the article here:

http://www.mi6.co.uk/news/index.php?ite ... mi6&s=news
"Love anyway. Live anyway. Choose to part of this anyway”
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Post by Germangirl »

Another very good one :D

A Quantum of Solace, Or A Tiger By The Tail?

I went to the press screening the other night, and thought I’d share my review of Quantum of Solace. It is low on spoilers, so it will give a flavour of the movie without giving away too much plot.

Grabbing a tiger by the tail takes lots of guts. And guts is what Eon show in this reinvention of James Bond for the third millennium. We now get a complex three-dimensional Bond who is a far cry from his creator’s self-deprecatory “cardboard booby,” in that he now has emotional depth, lots of ballsy attitude and a fiercely intelligent brain that sneers at the thought of having to use all those gadgets that previous Bonds have used as cinematic crutches in the past. In Quantum of Solace, the twenty-second Bond outing, Eon have taken another daring step by presenting a direct sequel to the previous, critically acclaimed, Casino Royale, which blew all but hardened cynics away. This means that Quantum of Solace is largely meaningless without knowledge of Casino Royale, and this in itself offers the new movie up for direct comparison. As I said, those awfully nice chaps at Eon show lots of guts.

So, with Casino Royale suitably etched onto my cerebral cortex after repeated viewings over the last two years, I sat back to watch Quantum of Solace. I won’t say that my heart was in my mouth, but I will admit to being slightly nervous, since I had taken a dim view of the pre-released title song “Another Way to Die,” and had been completely underwhelmed by the movie’s advance posters. Third time lucky, I thought.

Quantum of Solace quite literally hits the ground running. With Mr. White in the boot of Bond’s Aston Martin DBS, our hero drives hell for leather dodging bullets and baddies through the Italian mountains. There’s no gun barrel sequence to set the mood, and likewise no let up in the action until the titles burst onto the screen to the accompaniment of Jack White and Alicia Keys’ song. I’m sad to say that my opinion of “Another Way To Die” didn’t change much after hearing it in Dolby surround sound, but the titles sequence did put the song in context and M12’s design showed flair and imagination. In this sense, the title sequence (which is now a vital part of the Bond movie experience) looked entertaining enough not to have to fast forward through it when the movie comes out on DVD. I think though, that if Eon had come up with a much better song than the lacklustre one they actually chose, this title sequence would have been even better than Casino Royale’s.

So, with my shirt collar firmly grabbed, I was whisked off into a taut, fast-paced thriller that often left me breathless, but rarely unexcited. The plot momentum developed in Casino Royale is never lost and we are constantly reminded of Bond’s inner motive, which is to get to the bottom of the organisation that destroyed his previous lover, Vesper Lynd. Bond is a man torn in two; and his main conflict is to reconcile those two halves, which are his duty to M., and his desire for revenge. The result is a cold, hard man, seething with rage that is kept in a tight crucible of icy-eyed steel, which often shows dangerous signs of seepage. This is a man at his full potential, whose only respite is gourmet food and drink and his casual relationships with women. The complex side of Bond’s character is enhanced by the fact that his anger is often directed at former allies as well as at his enemies. However, this side of Bond is balanced by a very tender side, and there are even some brief glimpses of the insecurities that he usually keeps very firmly in check. I have no doubt whatsoever that none of the previous actors to play Bond could have brought off a character like this half as well as Daniel Craig. His performance as Bond splices the movie into a tight weave of suspense and action that absolutely demands audience sympathy for Bond. Deserted by his friends and colleagues, Bond is a man left to fight the good fight alone. He does this using grit, determination and always believing not only in himself, but the fact that he is “doing the right thing.” The visual metaphor of Bond in the desert is used to great effect here, and it is gratifying to see that the attention to visual semiotics established in Casino Royale have been suitably developed along with the plot and characterisation.

No punches have been pulled with the visuals either. The cinematography is magnificent in every scene, and even if you didn’t speak English and had no idea what the film was about, the sheer visual spectacle would make this movie worth the price of admission. David Arnold is clearly suspended high on his toes to deliver a score that is at least as good as the score in Casino Royale, and in this he does not disappoint, although if he is to be worthy of following in the footsteps of the likes of John Barry, he really needs to raise the bar higher. Perhaps he needs less time at his synths and more time at a good old-fashioned piano where he can “feel” the music? Maybe if, like Barry, he did his own arranging and conducting, the music would be more “personal.” As it stands, I’m sure a lot is lost by having to rely upon another arranger, who may or may not have an insight into the emotion and feel needed for a particular piece. Don’t get me wrong though, there are lots of leitmotific touches of brilliance in this movie’s score, many of which bring back Casino Royale, and there are more than the fair share of hum-able melodies, but the music sometimes lacks drama and punch.

The men with their hands firmly on the tiger’s tail are scriptwriters Paul Haggis, Neil Purvis, Robert Wade and new kid on the block Joshua Zetumer. Following a terrific script such as that boasted by Casino Royale must have been a real stumper, and kudos to them, they deliver a taut, well-written affair that is not short of witty dialogue and is thankfully missing the picture postcard innuendoes of the pre-Casino Royale movies. The character of Rene Mathis is developed and put over extremely well by Giancarlo Giannini, to the point where Mathis becomes one of Bond’s most memorable and sympathetic allies. I’m also pleased to see that Felix Leiter (ably played once again by Jeffrey Wright) has more screen time and gets to er, bond a little more with Bond. The chemistry between the American Leiter and the British Bond, was always one of the things that stood out for me in Fleming’s work, and I’m pleased to see it reappearing in Quantum of Solace.

It would be more fitting to talk about Bond’s leading lady before his allies, but in this instance the character of Camille (played by Olga Kurylenko) comes over as a bit bland. Billed as “Bond’s equal” once again, she is the ubiquitous spunky lady with a chip on her shoulder the size of New Mexico, and I can’t help feeling that I’ve met this character before. Several times actually. At least the character of Vesper Lynd was a refreshing departure from this sort of “masculine woman” approach. Still, this notwithstanding, the character is not the worst femme fatale to appear in a Bond flick, but in my opinion, she is not the best. Similarly, the character of Greene, the main nemesis, is rather bland and lacking the chilling emotional detachment of Le Chiffre, or the flamboyant menace of previous villains such as Sanchez in Licence to Kill. Mathieu Almaric played the part adequately, but I sense that his character was rather neglected by the scriptwriters in favour of Bond, which I suppose is okay, but a bit more spice in the villain department would have been nice.

Series regulars, such as Judi Dench’s “hard as nails” M. return and cover themselves well. Bond’s relationship with M. is no less prickly than it was in Casino Royale, and the conflict between the two is almost a living entity. This conflict is not just antagonistic either, because the clash between boss and subordinate is undercut with a strong Oedipus theme that makes the scenes involving the two of them a joy to watch from a dramatic point of view, and gives the movie a depth of intelligence rarely explored in this canon.

Quantum of Solace delivers on its promise of being heavy on action. Delivers it in spades, as a matter of fact. So much so that I felt that there was just a little too much action; and I know that many bondophiles will consider this comment heresy punishable by death, but I do feel that this movie leans a little too far into the “action set piece montage” territory than it should. By contrast, Casino Royale was a lot more “talky” than previous Bond offerings, and this at least gave the characters room to breathe and grow – in Quantum of Solace, there is far less room, and this coupled with the movie’s short running time of 105 minutes lends a somewhat claustrophobic feel. Having said this, the fight scenes break new ground, much as the ones in Casino Royale did. Gone are the stagey choreographed squared-off fisticuffs of the Connery/Moore era and in their place are scenes where you really feel that the antagonists want to kill each other. Having witnessed a few “real” fights of this nature, I can say that full marks should go to director Marc Forster for recreating a “real” feel using clever camera angles and wonderfully executed stunts. Again, praise is due to Daniel Craig for having the acting chops to pull off such scenes with spectacular aplomb.

The movie ends with the familiar gun barrel motif with the simple promise that “James Bond will return…” and at this point it becomes necessary to unclench your fingers from the arm of the chair and wipe off the rictus “roller coaster” look from your face, feeling vaguely foolish for having let the movie carry you away like it did. The fact that Quantum of Solace has the ability to do this should probably speak for itself, although when this happens, it is easy to overlook its flaws. Because flaws it does have -- but do I care? No, not at all really!

8.5
MI6
The top notch acting in the Weisz/Craig/Spall 'Betrayal' is emotionally true, often v funny and its beautifully staged with filmic qualities..

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Daskedusken
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Post by Daskedusken »

The Midas touch of David Arnold and his influence on Bond
Quantum Of Solace - 18-10-08

He nearly worked in Blockbuster, but blockbusters are David Arnold’s forte - reports The Times.

“That mid-period Bond became so silly,” David Arnold chuckles in his refined movie nerd whine. “I think it was Octopussy where there’s a bomb in a circus tent and Bond has to dress up as a clown to get in. I’m thinking, hang on, why don’t you just say, ‘My name’s James Bond, I’m MI6, there’s a bomb in here, I need to go in and defuse it please?’ There are jumping-the-shark moments but then you get to Daniel Craig and you forget about all that.”

Arnold, a 46-year-old Bondophile from Luton, has had as much of an influence on 007’s swaggering 21st-century rebirth as Craig’s child-sized trunks. As the composer of the past five Bond scores (Tomorrow Never Dies to Quantum of Solace) his racy dub-metal sounds – part Portishead, part Audioslave – have gradually stripped Bonds of their camp Eighties orchestration and scrawled on a daring modern edge. He’s the man, after decades of Bassey, ballrooms and brass, who made Bond rock.

“I had the idea of bringing in rock’n’roll ideas, whether it’s Queen or Massive Attack – of making it contemporary without losing the essence,” he says, hunched over the mixing desk at Air Studios in Hampstead, looking not unlike a bearded Blofeld.

Born in the same year as the film Dr No, Arnold has found Bond a lifelong inspiration. As a child he would gaze from his bedroom window over the Electrolux factory and dream of flying over Japanese mountain-tops in Connery’s Little Nellie from You Only Live Twice. He was drawn to the gutsy fantasy of the themes: “John Barry did what a lot of great pop song-writers did. He made the point very succinctly and very elegantly. The opening bars of You Only Live Twice are utterly distinct. Within ten seconds you’re in that world.”

In 1993 his score for his Luton friend Danny Cannon’s lowbudget first film The Young Americans (showcased by the majestic Björk-sung Play Dead) earned him a call from Harvey Keitel’s office offering him a first-class flight to LA on the day he was due to swap his labouring job for working at Camden Blockbuster. But even as he began scoring Hollywood big-hitters, including Stargate and Independence Day, his eyes were on a golden-fingered prize.

“I went and saw the head of music [at MGM],” he recalls, “and told him I was a lifelong Bond fan and if ever John Barry didn’t want to do it please give me a call.” Arnold then recorded an album of Bond songs called Shaken and Stirred with singers including Jarvis Cocker and Iggy Pop. Barry got the hint; one listen to these wry modern twists on his classics and he recommended Arnold as his replacement.

Technically, scoring Bonds is unglamorous graft, repeatedly viewing scenes while composing strictly timed interludes, but the Solace director Marc Forster encouraged Arnold to write blind. “I was writing themes that weren’t driven by what I was seeing but by the script. It was a more impressionistic approach. Then they cut that music into certain scenes in the film, so there was music which I wouldn’t have written had I seen the picture.”

Did you change your style to suit Craig’s performances? “Definitely,” Arnold says. “The whole idea was following on from the way he plays it. He doesn’t look over his shoulder, he does it completely unafraid of what’s gone before. It’s more muscular, it’s less flowery, it’s more rhythmic, it’s darker, it’s dirtier. Though you’re still utilising the sound of an orchestra, the approach is punk-rock. We ask the players to hit their instruments hard and be aggressive and there are lots of dirty horrible guitars and drums. But if it doesn’t stick to the screen it’s useless.”

Arnold isn’t just on the big screen. He’s behind the soundtrack to Little Britain and its US offshoot, even making a cameo appearance in the first series of the former as a prime ministerial adviser.

He worked on string arrangements with Kaiser Chiefs and Paul McCartney at the Electric Proms last year and has penned Bond songs for Garbage and Chris Cornell (the Grammy-nominated You Know My Name). So you sense disappointment that he wasn’t more involved in the writing of the song by Jack White and Alicia Keys for Solace, Another Way to Die. “I had dialogue with Jack about what I thought the song should be about, basically taking him through story points . . . It was just Jack’s thing, he’s like Prince in that respect, he does everything.”

Didn’t Noel Gallagher submit a song for Solace? “I didn’t hear it,” Arnold shrugs. “A lot of prominent writers and great artists say, ‘I’ve written a song for the film’ and I always think, ‘I know you haven’t read the script, so how can you know if it’s right for the film?’ Perhaps what you’ve done is written a song that sounds like a Bond song so therefore it should be in a Bond film.”

Sorry Noel; when it comes to Bond’s melodic legacy, unlike Octopussy, Arnold doesn’t let any old clown in.

http://www.mi6.co.uk/news/index.php?ite ... mi6&s=news
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advicky
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Post by advicky »

Quantum of Solace: the Times review of the new James Bond
Wormy, arrogant villains, naked agents – latest film has it all

4/5

James Bond is back, and this time it’s mighty personal. Daniel Craig’s craggy agent picks up exactly where he left off in another bruising thriller that leaves you feeling both drained and exhilarated.

There are hand-to-hand fights that make your eyes water and old-school stunts involving motorbikes, speedboats, jet fighters and expensive cars that give you whiplash just looking at them. Really, nobody does it better than the new 007.

What makes Marc Forster’s film such an intriguing watch is that this is the first of the 22 Bond movies where the plot flows organically from the last instalment, and Quantum of Solace looks a far stronger picture for this rare continuity.

Needless to say the plot is as forbidding as the title. After the death of his girlfriend, Vesper Lynd, at the end of Casino Royale, Bond mixes revenge and duty dangerously as he hunts down the shadowy group that blackmailed Lynd to betray him.

A link to a bank account in Haiti puts Bond on the scent of Mathieu Amalric’s chief creep and ruthless businessman, Dominic Greene. All great Bond adversaries are generously blessed with kinks and quirks and Greene is no different. Amalric has a wonderfully wormy arrogance.

His sidekick, Elvis (Anatole Taubman), sports a monkish fringe, and Tarantino bad looks. But it’s the manner in which Amalric manages to poison all trust in Bond, even from his nearest and dearest, that makes him one of the classic arch-adversaries.

Cold rage threatens to derail Bond’s mission to crack Greene’s dastardly organisation known as Quantum, and I doubt that there’s a better actor at bottling rage than Daniel Craig.

All muscles, he has defined himself as a darker and more bare-knuckle Bond than any of his elegant predecessors.

The deadpan humour is still there. And despite the occasional blasts of visceral and grisly violence, Craig is threatening to become the most popular 007 yet, certainly with the younger generation.

Even the famous Bond babes seem to be getting tougher. Olga Kurylenko’s stunning, hard-as-nails beauty, Camille, has her own private vendetta that she wants to bring to a bloody conclusion, with or without Bond’s help. And Gemma Arterton’s effortlessly foxy Agent Field appeals to the better side of the wounded anti-romantic.

“Do you know how angry I am at myself,” says the naked, raven-haired M16 agent as Bond kisses his way up her spine. But Bond rarely lets a life-threatening difference of opinion get in the way of a decent flirt.

The familiar faces returning from Casino Royale pose a far more subtle, acidic test for Bond who has to tread carefully around treacherous old friends: Jeffrey Wright’s lugubrious CIA agent Felix Leiter; Giancarlo Giannini’s silky string-puller, René Mathis; Jesper Christensen’s duplicitous Mr White; and Judi Dench, of course, as his witheringly unimpressed boss, M.

“When you can’t tell your friends from your enemies it’s time to go,” growls Dench.

Of course, Bond is having none of it. There are new necks to break and toys to play with as the action rips across Austria, Italy, and South America.

The global stakes are as precarious as ever. Amalric’s masterplan to destabilise a South American regime, install a dodgy dictator, General Medrano (Joaquin Cosio), and take control of the biggest source of fresh water in the world is fabulously cock-eyed. But that’s one of the main reasons why we can’t get enough of the greatest franchise of them all.

The director, Marc Forster, has absorbed the lucrative lessons discovered in Martin Campbell’s Casino Royale. He has also managed to pace his sequel much better. Royale felt slightly wheel-clamped by one too many longeurs. If anything, the crunching chase sequences in Quantum of Solace are even more magnificently dangerous. And the daredevil leaps and tumbles through glass roofs are just as sensational as the splintering high-speed pyrotechnics.

But it’s the amount of heartache and punishment that Craig’s new Bond absorbs that makes him look so right for our times.

Bond is no longer a work in progress. He is now the cruel, finished article.

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/ ... 965892.ece


Quantum of Solace (12A) 4/5

Plot
Still angered by the death of Vesper Lynd, James Bond (Craig) goes after the shadowy international organisation he holds responsible, even when M (Dench) orders him to stand down. Bond clashes with Dominic Greene (Amalric), who is cornering Bolivia’s water supply, and teams with Camille (Kurylenko), who has her own mission of vengeance.

Review


Quantum Of Solace picks up moments after the credits rolled at the end of Casino Royale, with Daniel Craig’s bereaved and blooded Bond in Siena, wrecking his Aston Martin in a pre-credits car chase complicated by thick traffic, twisty mountain roads and emotional Italian drivers. In his car-boot, with a bullet in his leg, is Mr White (Jesper Christensen), a higher-up in the cartel (Quantum) which employed and then killed the baddie of the earlier film, and who Bond blames for the death of the girl he loved last time round. Mr White is taken to be grilled by M, just as the local horse race (the palio) is taking place (obviously, the filmmakers saw the documentary The Last Race too), only for the villain to sneer that MI6 and the CIA obviously know nothing about Quantum’s many well-placed agents, whereupon someone presumably trustworthy pulls a gun – and Bond is back in action, leaving wounded enemies and allies behind as he barges through crowds, runs up stairs, dangles from scaffolding and dodges swinging girders to get his man.

In an era marked by franchise bloat, it’s entirely admirable that Quantum of Solace is the shortest Bond movie to date – it drops a great many of the long-running series mannerisms (callous quips, expository lectures, travelogue padding, Q and Moneypenny) as it globe-trots urgently from Italy to Haiti to Austria to Italy again to Bolivia to Russia with stopovers in London and other interzones. The major gadget on offer is a neat trick with a mobile phone, which the film trusts us to follow without a pompous lecture on how it works, and there’s a nod to traditionally absurd Bond girl names in Gemma Arterton’s Agent Fields – she refuses to give her real, silly, embarrassing name which we only find out from the end credits (it’s not Gracie or London). 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, with Bourne veteran Dan Bradley staging more brutal, devastatingly fast fights and chases. We get striking locations (including primaeval caves and a South American desert) and absolutely gorgeous, stylised art direction – but there’s little lingering on the backdrops, since a brief establishing shot is usually enough to set up the nimble, nifty, explosive action that takes place against them.

Previously, the Bond films have been a series, but this is an actual sequel – an approach Ian Fleming used in his books, but which was dropped from the movies because the novels were filmed out of order. This makes for a film which hits the ground running, but also means we get less to latch onto emotionally since Daniel Craig became the complete 007 over the course of Casino Royale, and here just has to be set loose. The sparks struck between the wounded hero and scarred heroine Camille – whose revenge-driven sub-plot owes a lot to July Havelock, the girl from the story ‘For Your Eyes Only’ – don’t match those between Craig and Eva Green last time round because this Bond is human enough to start worrying about how regularly his girlfriends get killed. The slinky, sultry Olga Kurylenko is in fact so fixed on murdering her enemy that it’s possible she technically doesn’t even count as a Bond girl – she’s good, but doesn’t get the breakout showcase Green landed in Casino Royale. However, for the diehard romantics, Bond does tenderly hug a dying male friend before disposing of his corpse in a dumpster (‘he wouldn’t care’) and gives Camille handy tips on professionally assassinating the extremely unpleasant would-be dictator who slaughtered her family.

Casino Royale had one of Fleming’s best plots to stick to, but Quantum of Solace is on its own, taking only its title from the 1960 story. Extrapolating from hints dropped in the earlier film about who ran the late LeChiffre, it introduces Quantum, a SPECTRE-type organisation which ought to be good for a few more movies. The notion of an international alliance of high-stakes criminals with heavy political ties is Flemingesque, but gets a credible, cynical 21st Century spin in that the American and British governments (and security services), above criticism in Fleming’s day, are perfectly happy to get in bed with killers and megalomaniacs so long as the oil keeps flowing – which forces Bond out on his own, pursuing a crusade either for utterly altruistic (helping drought-blighted Bolivian peasants) or utterly selfish (getting his own back on the one small fish directly responsible for Vesper’s plight) motives. Quick jabs evoke highlights of the earlier films, as Craig’s sea-bathing in Casino Royale referenced Ursula Andress in Dr No; one major character’s fate is a stark black updating of one of the most famous early Bond images, and signals which commodity has become most prized in a world where Goldfinger or Blofeld would seem like jokes.

Daniel Craig continues to be his own man as Bond, though this instalment scarcely gives him breathing room between strenuous activity to show off his more stylish or snobbish aspects. When he chugs his signature martini (take notes as the bartender rattles off the recipe) even devoted allies worry that seven brain-numbing drinks in a row might not be good for the agent’s long-term mental state or ability in the field. Craig looks good in a tux, blending into the crowd at an opera first night where the villains have convened to mutter evilly through Tosca, and wears his bruises and scratches like badges of honour. He shows a certain expense account flair in turning down a modest La Paz pensione to check into the poshest hotel in the city by insisting that the ‘teacher on sabbatical’ he is pretending to be has won the lottery. But, presumably coached by Bradley, he is at his most elegant in tiny action moments – upending an idling motorbike to send a minor thug flying, casually stepping off balconies and walking along ledges, efficiently crippling a liftful of agents trying to arrest him.

With all the ills of the world down to Quantum, the baddies we see are – like those in Dr No, From Russia With Love and Thunderball – junior associates of archfiends who operate at such a high level we don’t even get to meet their cats. The French Mathieu Amalric makes the smarmy fake environmentalist Greene a suitably loathsome character, as much for his persistently cruel treatment of his mistress Camille as his complicated scheme to overthrow the government of Bolivia and grab the country’s natural resources; like Mads Mikkelsen’s LeChiffre, he’s young and fit enough to hold his own in a scrap, but has a nice line in craven delegation, posing a minion with a gun to face certain death as he tries to escape the climactic spectacular conflagration, and gets some of the smart, threatening, witty script patches we assume Paul Haggis dropped in. A nod also to the Mexican Joaquin Cosio, who plays a South American would-be dictator whose filthy foreign habits (like celebrating a big deal by raping a waitress) Fleming would have enjoyed despising.

Verdict
A pacy, visually imaginative follow-up. If it doesn’t even try to be bigger than Casino Royale, that’s perhaps a smart move in that there’s still a sense at the end that Bond’s mission has barely begun and he’ll need a few more movies to work his way up to destroying the apparently undefeatable Quantum organisation. The only real caveat is that 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.

http://www.empireonline.com/reviews/rev ... FID=134523
Daskedusken
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Post by Daskedusken »

That's two good reviews IMO
"Love anyway. Live anyway. Choose to part of this anyway”
Germangirl
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Post by Germangirl »

Interesting - could also be counted as some sort of review

Quantum of Solace: James Bond returns to Latin America

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/artsa ... erica.html
The top notch acting in the Weisz/Craig/Spall 'Betrayal' is emotionally true, often v funny and its beautifully staged with filmic qualities..

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advicky
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Post by advicky »

Review: Quantum Of Solace

Who's in it? Daniel Craig, Mathieu Amalric, Judi Dench, Gemma Arterton, Olga Kurylenko
What's it about? Seeking revenge for the death of his love, James Bond sets out to stop an environmentalist from taking control of a country's water supply.
What type of film is it? Action Drama
Is it any good? What you are really asking is ‘Is it as good as Casino Royale?’ – and the answer is no, but only just, and the reason is because this is a much simpler film. Whereas Casino rebooted the Bond franchise and was very much a reintroduction to the big screen’s best loved spy (with a new face) it had come of the back of the worst film of in the series, this one follows the best, which to be quite honest couldn’t be beat. Daniel Craig is again excellent, Mathieu Amalric is superbly slimy as baddie Dominic Greene and the Bond girls Gemma Arterton and Olga Kurylenko are great choices for the roles they play – Fields and Camille. However it is Judi Dench who comes out on top as just the coolest silver haired bombshell out there, M, and steals all the scenes she is in. Solace is a great looking film with great action scenes and some classic Bond dialogue which all in all make this a great addition to the franchise and it deserves to be a massive hit. Roll on Bond 23!
Marks out of 10/7

http://heart1062.co.uk/review-quantum-of-solace-6094
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