Entertainment Today and Beyond

Never Met a Zombi I Didn’t Like…

QUANTUM OF SOLACE opens HUGE - my feelings on the film and franchise

quantum7Quantum of Solace, the 22ND James Bond film, had the biggest opening in the series history this weekend, pulling in a whopping $70.4 million dollars here in the States. This far out-paced the previous record holder, Die Another Day, which opened with $47 million in 2002. 

After seeing Quantum over the weekend I’m now convinced that this is a film and franchise that will divide moviegoers for quite some time. Fans of the Jason Bourne movies, which Quantum of Solace gladly apes, will like the gritty humorless Craig who plays Bond like an indestructible killing machine with little to no personality or much morality. The other side of the fence will harkin back to the days of Connery, Moore and even Pierce Bronson, who gave moviegoers a much more fun, sometimes over the top escapism. While watching Quantum of Solace I felt somewhat detached as director Marc Foster, taking over for Martin Campbell (Casino Royale), stages the action sequences in such an aggressive, quick-cut, hyper-kinetic fashion that it’s hard to tell what’s going on at times. The story, where Bond seeks revenge for the death of Vesper (Eva Green), the woman he loved, is somewhat thin and slightly confusing as the film jumps from one location to another.

Still it was serviceable enough if all the films other problems weren’t there. Mathieu Amalric plays the villain, Dominic Greene, a ruthless businessman who is part of a mysterious organization. While far from the best Bond baddie he was effective enough for me to have a rooting interest in his demise. Craig is no doubt the most physically oriented actor to play 007, but the producers decision to make the character void of much emotion, with no sense of humor and a man of very little dialogue, really started to grow tiresome this time around for me. The Bond character with Craig is more of an anti-hero who is hard to root for since we, the audience, barely know him, other than acknowledging he’s one angry guy. There’s also no Q or any nifty gadgets, just a pretty raw Bond that’s being sold to a new generation. At a running time of 1hour and 46 minutes, the movie feels long because it’s never an absorbing affair. On the plus side, Judi Dench is once again terrific as M. She continues to gives the proceedings a classiness that is always appreciated. It will be interesting to see what the brain trust behind the franchise will have in store next time around. You can only go joyless for so long before that huge audience starts to erode and pretty quickly! I give Quantum of Solace 2 zombies out of 4.

November 17, 2008 - Posted by chuckcurry | Reviews | | No Comments

No comments yet.

Leave a comment

You must be logged in to post a comment.

« Previous | Next »