James Bond is no fun anymore

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John Drake
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James Bond is no fun anymore

Post by John Drake »

http://efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie ... viewer=416

Quantum of Solace

The best parts of "Quantum of Solace," the new James Bond film, are the stylized-as-usual opening credits, which promise a lush and explosive evening, and the familiar gun-barrel bit with the classic 007 theme at the end.

These are the only parts that feel like a James Bond film. The rest is filler, which means the entire actual movie is filler. It is incomprehensible, blandly motivated, and flat-out dull. I’m one of those moviegoers who don’t have a great emotional stake in 007 but believe that if a Bond flick isn’t going to be awesomely ridiculous or ridiculously awesome, there’s little point to it.

The series had in recent years gotten bloated and decadent, though that was more a reflection on the weak scripts than on the traditional Bond style. So, with 2006’s Casino Royale and now Quantum of Solace, which is more like Casino Royale Vol. 2, we get a grim, stripped-down Bond (Daniel Craig). As many have pointed out, the Bond series has rebooted by imitating one of its own imitators, the Bourne series with Matt Damon. Where’s the fun in that? Where’s the escapism, the ludicrous plots, the stunts that prompt gasps and laughter? Recasting Bond as a gritty football hooligan in a suit is like performing Wagner with a symphony of kazoos.

This Bond kills assassins by stabbing them in the leg, then shuffling away with a scowl; Sean Connery was no less brutal, but somehow added suavity and humor to the violence. It doesn’t help that the carnage’s orchestrator is hack director Marc Forster, who skips from genre to genre (Finding Neverland, Stranger Than Fiction, The Kite Runner) without offering any particular point of view. Here, Forster splinters the action into so many unreadable shards. When I don’t care about what’s happening, that’s one thing. When I can’t see what’s happening, that’s another thing. When I don’t care that I can’t see what’s happening, that’s movie death.

Bond’s mission here is to crack the terrorist organization Quantum and avenge the previous Bond girl (Eva Green) who died in Casino Royale. Sounds simple, but the Bond movies aren’t happy unless they complicate things unnecessarily, so there are double-crosses and globe-hopping, all of which plays as padding. In other Bond movies, we at least had absurd set pieces or eye candy to pass the time. But the Bond girls have gotten duller along with their surroundings, as have their names (“Strawberry Fields” is the best the writers can come up with here). And who doesn’t miss those glorious Ken Adam sets, instead of the grunting fisticuffs played out in squalid hotel rooms that we get here?

Despite its promisingly oblique title, Quantum of Solace is all on the surface, and those who honk on about Bond’s complex emotional progress in this movie are delusional; Daniel Craig is a stiff in a suit here, and it occurred to me that, between these new straight-faced 007 films and anguished epics like The Dark Knight and the upcoming Watchmen, fanboys increasingly prefer their thrills somber and “realistic.” A fanciful throwback like Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, with its much-derided nuke-the-fridge gag, doesn’t fit well in this clenched new environment, and neither would the old James Bond.

But if "Quantum of Solace" refuses to offer style, vision, or excitement, why is it there? Why, other than a big paycheck for Columbia and MGM every few years and a regular fix for 007 die-hards, is this series still going?
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Kristatos
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Re: James Bond is no fun anymore

Post by Kristatos »

John Drake wrote:A fanciful throwback like Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, with its much-derided nuke-the-fridge gag, doesn’t fit well in this clenched new environment
So how did it become the second biggest grossing film of last year?
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Re: James Bond is no fun anymore

Post by The Sweeney »

Kristatos wrote:
John Drake wrote:A fanciful throwback like Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, with its much-derided nuke-the-fridge gag, doesn’t fit well in this clenched new environment
So how did it become the second biggest grossing film of last year?
Because it said `Indiana Jones' on the tin...
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Re: James Bond is no fun anymore

Post by carl stromberg »

Recasting Bond as a gritty football hooligan in a suit is like performing Wagner with a symphony of kazoos.
That's a tremendous insult to all football hooligans that is, comparing them with Daniel Craig's James Bond.
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Re: James Bond is no fun anymore

Post by Felix Leiter »

John Drake wrote:Despite its promisingly oblique title, Quantum of Solace is all on the surface, and those who honk on about Bond’s complex emotional progress in this movie are delusional...if "Quantum of Solace" refuses to offer style, vision, or excitement, why is it there?
:cheers:
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Re: James Bond is no fun anymore

Post by oscartheman »

The Sweeney wrote:
Because it said `Indiana Jones' on the tin...
YEP!Except there are movies series that make Jones look out of touch.No more keeping up with the Joneses.Or 007.
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Re: James Bond is no fun anymore

Post by Kristatos »

oscartheman wrote:
The Sweeney wrote:
Because it said `Indiana Jones' on the tin...
YEP!Except there are movies series that make Jones look out of touch.No more keeping up with the Joneses.Or 007.
Yes, if Indy is so out of touch with the zeitgeist, I'd have thought his name would be a liability rather than an asset. You'd expect the film to do Rocky Balboa numbers at the box office, not come second only to The Dark Knight in the annual chart.
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Re: James Bond is no fun anymore

Post by The Sweeney »

Kristatos wrote: Yes, if Indy is so out of touch with the zeitgeist, I'd have thought his name would be a liability rather than an asset. You'd expect the film to do Rocky Balboa numbers at the box office, not come second only to The Dark Knight in the annual chart.
Not really. Indy as a franchise is as big as Star Wars, especially with Spielberg and Lucas associated with it. The Rocky franchise doesn't compare.
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Re: James Bond is no fun anymore

Post by oscartheman »

I meant out of touch with the old Jones and new action adventures filling the void better.
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John Drake
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Re: James Bond is no fun anymore

Post by John Drake »

I quite liked Indy 4 myself.
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Re: James Bond is no fun anymore

Post by katied »

Indy took a bit of suspension belief. But some of the stuff in that was no worse than Bond surviving a jump from a plane with Camille with only one parachute and the two of them only getting a few bumps and bruises :wink:
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Re: James Bond is no fun anymore

Post by Dr. No »

John Drake wrote:http://efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie ... viewer=416

The series had in recent years gotten bloated and decadent, though that was more a reflection on the weak scripts than on the traditional Bond style. So, with 2006’s Casino Royale and now Quantum of Solace, which is more like Casino Royale Vol. 2, we get a grim, stripped-down Bond (Daniel Craig). As many have pointed out, the Bond series has rebooted by imitating one of its own imitators, the Bourne series with Matt Damon. Where’s the fun in that? Where’s the escapism, the ludicrous plots, the stunts that prompt gasps and laughter? Recasting Bond as a gritty football hooligan in a suit is like performing Wagner with a symphony of kazoos.
SNAP! :o :lol:

I do remember think after Cr that Bond was no fun any more. Depressing in fact.
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Chief of Staff, 007's gone round the bend. Says someone's been trying to feed him a poisoned banana. Fellow's lost his nerve. Been in the hospital too long. Better call him home.
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