Bond On A Budget

[James]

http://www.marksimpson.com/blog/2008/11 ... nty-cheap/

Bond On A Budget: Quantum Of Solace Is Plenty Cheap

Mark Simpson straps Mr Bond into a rim-chair and aims a knotted rope at his nuts

‘I’d rather stay in a morgue!’

So sniffs Daniel Craig in the latest Bond vehicle Quantum of Solace when presented with less than salubrious accommodation in La Paz, Bolivia. Instead of checking in, he sweeps off to a flash five star Wallpaper magazine hotel even more preposterous than his new movie’s title.

The audience at my local cinema seemed to mistake this sniffiness for quippiness and giggled nervously - perhaps out of desperation for any gags or relief at all in this morgue-like movie that I for one was very sorry I’d checked into: a couple of deathly hours that felt like a very long dark night of the soul indeed.

I quite enjoyed, in a slutty kind of way, my one-night stand with the new 007 a couple of years ago in Casino Royale, especially the way that Craig’s glistening tits announced that Bond had finally become his own Bond Girl, but this was a rematch that made me want to lose his number big time. In fact, by the end of it I desperately needed his BMW defibrillator from Casino.

So yes, I’m feeling a little bitter and jaded, not to mention used and abused - and not in a good way. So bear with me while I get pedantic on Mr Bond’s perky ass, strap him into a rim-chair and aim a knotted rope at his nuts.

For starters, ‘morgue’ is an Americanism, and Bond is meant to be a very British kind of action hero in a very British franchise. 007 resorting to such lazy transatlantic tics is tantamount to the Queen greeting heads of state with WASSSSUP! and a fist-bump. Adding hypocrisy to inaccuracy, this film has some very creaky anti-Americanism in it - tempered, equally creakily/cynically, by a ‘good guy’ CIA man with dark skin who is clearly meant to be Obama in a trenchcoat.

Worse, the ritzy hotel Craig checks into instead of the dowdy down-market one he’d been presented with has a cold, impassive, glossy Wallpaper magazine black and white décor that looks much more like a mortuary than the one he sniffed at. And in fact it ends up one: a dead body is placed on his swanky bed later in the film (dipped in oil, a jarring, ill-conceived visual reference to a much superior, gloriously trashy film from another century, another civilisation: Goldfinger - black gold, geddit?).

I’d like to think that the deathly boutique hotel was a deliberate commentary on the morbidity of consumer culture, but given the murderous lack of wit on evidence in this undead movie I suspect it was rather unintentional. Likewise, the way that the cancellation of an AWOL Mr Bond’s credit card by his MI6 Sugar Mummy Judi Dench is presented as one of the worst chastisements possible, almost on a par with losing his girlfriend in the last movie.

Perhaps the most unforgiveable thing about a film as expensive as Quantum is its cheapness - a cheapness it thinks is ’seriousness’. If Quantum is a hotel, then it’s one of those fashionable ones that charges you the earth but doesn’t bother to change the bedding. The destruction of the villain’s lair sequence at the end, which should look orgasmically expensive, instead looks like something papier-mache exploding in a sub-par episode of Thunderbirds (come to think of it, Craig does walk like a Thunderbird…). Cheaper still is the use of Sony product placement instead of Q’s gadgets: show us something we can’t buy, please.

Cheapest of all is the quick-cut editing used during ‘action’ sequences, such as the car chase which opens the film. Instead of extensively storyboarded, carefully choreographed and laboriously shot fights and chases presented for your lazy, scopophiliac enjoyment, you get a blur of bad editing that is literally unwatchable on a big screen unless you enjoy the sensation of your eyeballs bleeding. An episode of Top Gear is much better shot than Quantum. Actually, even the made-for-TV ads that appeared before the film, crudely blown up for cinema, are better edited. Because you can see bugger all, this kind of editing could make John Sergeant look like an action hero.

Tellingly, the last Bourne had the same infuriating jump-cut mania. And while Casino made a superannuated Bond franchise look like he’d got his mojo back from the less stuffy American Bond rip-offs like Bourne, Quantum just looks like a more tedious, lower budget - more ‘morgue-like’ - Bourne Identity.

At least Craig gets his tits out again - though only once, during the film’s only sex scene (and of course, this being the new out-and-proud metro-Bond we see much more of his tits than his lady friend’s). But the scene is spoilt by his terrible chat-up line: ‘I can’t find the stationery. Perhaps you can help me?’ A chat-down line almost as resistible as this movie.

Though maybe he was being serious. Maybe Craig, who can act when given the chance, had decided - since no one else had bothered - to write himself some lines and a plot.

By far the best and most luxurious scene from Quantum doesn’t appear in the film at all. It’s the Sony HD ad that has been running on heavy rotation on telly for the last few weeks which portrays a well-tailored, well-groomed, cheek-sucked Craig as a kind of CGI Saint Sebastiane, lacerated by slo-mo explosions. He doesn’t say anything, just shares his pale blue masochism with us.

At under a minute and free of charge it’s the better Bond not by a quantum but by a country mile.

[Kristatos]

To be fair, it's not the first time Americanisms have crept into Bond's dialogue. Remember the line "time for a station break" in TND? I've lived in the States for 5 years now and I still have no idea what that means.

[stockslivevan]

To be fair, it's not the first time Americanisms have crept into Bond's dialogue. Remember the line "time for a station break" in TND? I've lived in the States for 5 years now and I still have no idea what that means.

Don't forget "next time I'll take the elevator".

[James]

Interestingly, someone tries to defend the film and DC on the blog in response and ends up saying Craig is too 'proletarian' and rough looking to be believable as Bond!


...I for one loved QOS. I think it is the best Bond film in years. Daniel Craig portrays Bond as being cold, cynical and suspicious, which is how spies realistically probably are. As for the anti-Americanism, it is a very common feeling in Latin America: it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that a very significant percentage of Latin-Americans hate Americans. Latin Americans blame the U.S for lots of problems which are not really Americans’ fault, like poverty. The main reason why Latin America is poor is due to the incompetence of Latin Americans in producing welath, and not due to American exploitation like many populists here claim. However, there is some truth that the CIA has manipulated coup d’états in Latin-America to place regimes in power that suit their interests and got bargains where they got lots of oil, emeralds and gold in exchange for nothing. But I digress…

The main criticism I have for Daniel Craig as Bond is his physical type and face. Bond is described by Fleming as a beautiful man possesed of superbly pleasing features and aristocratic manners. In fact, Fleming envisioned David Niven as his ideal Bond, and Niven remains to this day the epitome of male class, sophistication and finesse as well as an icon of beauty. The quintessential gentleman. Craig’s facial features are too harsh and his manners too brusque and proletarian for him to be believable as Bond. His face and physique suit him more to be a hardcore action star than the gentleman spy. The other criticism I have for this film is the villain. He is simply too effete and charicatural to be taken seriously as a villain. That last fight where he is swinging that axe and yelling in a high pitched voice like a little girl was more comical than cathartic. Besides this, I have no further criticisms. The action scenes were fantastic and clearly very expensive, although it is simply not believable that anyone would survive a fall on the ground at that speed - the scene where the parachute opens only a few seconds before Bond and the girl hitting the floor -, as well as it is not believable that anyone could kill two armed men by while holding a body and using it as shield. Mr.Simpson is spot on about the “Goldeneye” reference and he is the only one besides myself to have noticed this thus far. Other references to previous Bond films are the musics, which recall that of “Satanic Dr.No” with Connery as well as many late 70s, early 80s Bond films - Roger Moore era.

[Blowfeld]

http://www.marksimpson.com/blog/2008/11 ... nty-cheap/

Bond On A Budget: Quantum Of Solace Is Plenty Cheap



Cheapest of all is the quick-cut editing used during ‘action’ sequences, such as the car chase which opens the film. Instead of extensively storyboarded, carefully choreographed and laboriously shot fights and chases presented for your lazy, scopophiliac enjoyment, you get a blur of bad editing that is literally unwatchable on a big screen unless you enjoy the sensation of your eyeballs bleeding. An episode of Top Gear is much better shot than Quantum. Actually, even the made-for-TV ads that appeared before the film, crudely blown up for cinema, are better edited. Because you can see bugger all, this kind of editing could make John Sergeant look like an action hero.

Top Gear does have better editing As well as the same bloke daring the stunts.

[Terry]

...the murderous lack of wit on evidence in this undead movie...

I don't know if I'm going mad but I'm sure James Bond films used to have amusing lines and moments. It's a shame that was outlawed.

[John Drake]

Worse, the ritzy hotel Craig checks into instead of the dowdy down-market one he’d been presented with has a cold, impassive, glossy Wallpaper magazine black and white décor that looks much more like a mortuary than the one he sniffed at.

I noticed that. I think there was a deleted scene where Craig's Bond checks himself into Fawlty Towers.

[Kristatos]

I noticed that. I think there was a deleted scene where Craig's Bond checks himself into Fawlty Towers.

The missing Q scene?

[The Sweeney]

The main criticism I have for Daniel Craig as Bond is his physical type and face. Bond is described by Fleming as a beautiful man possesed of superbly pleasing features and aristocratic manners. In fact, Fleming envisioned David Niven as his ideal Bond, and Niven remains to this day the epitome of male class, sophistication and finesse as well as an icon of beauty. The quintessential gentleman. Craig’s facial features are too harsh and his manners too brusque and proletarian for him to be believable as Bond. His face and physique suit him more to be a hardcore action star than the gentleman spy.

Here is the contradictary, misguided belief that Bond was described as `beautiful' in the novels. SMERSH describe him as a nasty looking customer when studying his photo, and in TSWLM, the heroine immediately thinks Bond is another villain on first sight of him. His looks were more often referred to as `cruel'.

Yet Fleming would contradict this by occassionally referring to Bond as having handsome, movie star good looks. Again this is ambiguous. Craig has movie star good looks, in the mould of Steve McQueen.

[James]

Worse, the ritzy hotel Craig checks into instead of the dowdy down-market one he’d been presented with has a cold, impassive, glossy Wallpaper magazine black and white décor that looks much more like a mortuary than the one he sniffed at.

I noticed that. I think there was a deleted scene where Craig's Bond checks himself into Fawlty Towers.

"Trifle anyone?"

[James]

The main criticism I have for Daniel Craig as Bond is his physical type and face. Bond is described by Fleming as a beautiful man possesed of superbly pleasing features and aristocratic manners. In fact, Fleming envisioned David Niven as his ideal Bond, and Niven remains to this day the epitome of male class, sophistication and finesse as well as an icon of beauty. The quintessential gentleman. Craig’s facial features are too harsh and his manners too brusque and proletarian for him to be believable as Bond. His face and physique suit him more to be a hardcore action star than the gentleman spy.

Here is the contradictary, misguided belief that Bond was described as `beautiful' in the novels. SMERSH describe him as a nasty looking customer when studying his photo, and in TSWLM, the heroine immediately thinks Bond is another villain on first sight of him. His looks were more often referred to as `cruel'.

Yet Fleming would contradict this by occassionally referring to Bond as having handsome, movie star good looks. Again this is ambiguous. Craig has movie star good looks, in the mould of Steve McQueen.

I'm not trying to be funny here but one of my problems with DC is his droopy mouth. It tends to make him look a bit gormless.

[John Drake]

[Kristatos]

"007, you're a waste of space"

[katied]

I'm not trying to be funny here but one of my problems with DC is his droopy mouth. It tends to make him look a bit gormless.

Cro Magnon Bond

[Mr. Big]

People tell me they think Craig is tough because he is is ugly. They are bored with the barbie model bond. I think James Bond is handsome personally.

[007]

Papers in yet Fawlty?