Teletext Bigscreen: 2/5 - 'He has two facial looks'

[007]

Quantum Of Solace (12A) 106 mins

Review by Victor Olliver - Daniel Craig's Bond is Bourne (Again) in this sequel to the brilliant Casino Royale.

But whereas his 007 debut sculpted a freshly twisted temperament with a gritty heart - as Fleming conceived him - Quantum serves up a cold Robo-Bond.

His revenge mission (for the loss of soulmate Vesper) only makes emotional sense if you've seen Casino: what's left is a blue-eyed killing machine.

Quantum kicks off the way it means to go on with a thrilling, high-octane car chase from Italy's Lake Garda to Siena.

Fashionable fast-cut editing will play well to videogame fans. Anyone else may be left wondering who's doing what to whom in the carnage of Aston Martins.

His quarry is fake ecological cartel Quantum which wants to overthrow the Bolivian regime in league with the CIA - even darker motives can be assumed.

007 is not the only avenger. He joins forces with Bolivian counterpart Camille (Olga Kurylenko) who bears a grudge against a Quantum client.

The cartel's face is Mr Greene, a Jools Holland lookalike (Mathieu Amalric) and a charmless psycho who keeps failing to kill back-scarred ex-lover Camille.

MI6's M (Judi Dench) suspects Bond's off-message through grief: so he's up against Quantum, the CIA and the Dame.

If Quantum Of Solace were judged on production values alone it would get 5/5. It's sleek. A movie must work on many different levels, however.

Craig's Bond belongs more to Mount Rushmore than a movie. He has two facial looks: chiselled stony and gory Pizza Margarita (lotsa tomatoes).

And the gadgets and witty one-liners have been replaced by a succession of copycat fight scenes.

Bond may have recast himself in the light of Bourne and Matrix yet he turns to his own heritage for inspiration.

Remember the crocodile stepping-stone scene in Live And Let Die? Well, look for the boat stepping-stone scene here.

And Goldfinger's gold-smothered Shirley Eaton must have felt nostalgia when she saw pics of Quantum's Gemma Arterton painted in black oil. Nothing wrong in references, but is Bond getting tired?

One way to regard Casino and Quantum is as hers and his companion pieces. The girlies liked Casino's lurve; the boys, Quantum's lurveless, endless action.

And if that's sexist, Bond remains a sexist franchise. 007 is forever saving his leading laydeez from peril while they are forever driving up to him in cars and saying: "Get in Mr Bond".

Quantum will make a fortune and leave many fans feeling hollow. Verdict 2/5

http://www.teletext.co.uk/bigscreen/fil ... 0mins.aspx

[Kristatos]

Dunno why I did that, but the pro-Craigers are always toasting each other every time one of them posts a positive review of Pond of Wood, so I figured what's sauce for the goose....

[007]

The negative reviews must be in double-figures already. Barbara must be perplexed.

[katied]

Dunno why I did that, but the pro-Craigers are always toasting each other every time one of them posts a positive review of Pond of Wood, so I figured what's sauce for the goose....

And some are becoming more shrill with every BAD review that's posted.

[Gary Seven]

The negative reviews must be in double-figures already. Barbara must be perplexed.

Her new Bond formula seems to be out of fashion already.

[Kristatos]

The negative reviews must be in double-figures already. Barbara must be perplexed.

Her new Bond formula seems to be out of fashion already.

Nothing dates faster than that which is described as "cutting edge".

[katied]

Nothing dates faster than that which is described as "cutting edge".

Yup.

[Mazer Rackham]

The negative reviews must be in double-figures already. Barbara must be perplexed.

Her new Bond formula seems to be out of fashion already.

It was only in vogue temporally because it was such a violent departure from the Connery-Era. On a sustained basis the Bourne-Rambo-Bond doesn't have staying power.
There were movies such as these when Dr No was first released, what made the Bond so successful was becasue it was something uniquely different. Now it has tumble down in to the gutter to live amongst the mundane and ordinary.

What made Bond special was the interaction and relationships he had with M, Moneypenny, Q at home, and with Leiter and others as he was traveling the world on the job. He lived in fantasy world and in the most violent and dangerous of times and his world was a welcomed departure from the real wrold. All this stuff about how dangerous the 21 century is and how audiences need that reflected in Bond is BS.

Babs wanted to make serious art house films, because the click she wanted to hang with didn't care for Bond moives and openly dissed the series. Truth is the people who dissed the series wouldn't have liked Bond if each movie were a carbon copy of the books. The books were fantasy in and of themselves are escapists, written for the time when the British empire was crumbling around their ears.

Babs didn't have the ingenuity to starts a new film series she she retooled the Bond to make her friends happy.
Her fiends have the same mindset as Craig, first thing he told her is Bond has got to change. Well they got what they wanted and now they are not happy with it. Nobody is.

[Harvey Wallbanger]

I saw this in pos review -all i could think was -Jesus! Again!?!

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.

All I was afraid of -following CR by an hour- has come to pass
I'm out -wake me when the next Bond gets here

[The Sweeney]

Most of these negative reviews slamming QOS, also mention in the same breath how brilliant CR was. It now stands out as glaringly obvious how successful CR was critically (I'm not talking financially here). Even everyone here must see that.

Yet you all hated CR. These critics hate QOS, yet loved CR....could it end up that you lot end up liking this film a lot more? Stranger things have happened.

Just a random thought....

[carl stromberg]

Most of these negative reviews slamming QOS, also mention in the same breath how brilliant CR was. It now stands out as glaringly obvious how successful CR was critically (I'm not talking financially here). Even everyone here must see that.

Yet you all hated CR. These critics hate QOS, yet loved CR....could it end up that you lot end up liking this film a lot more? Stranger things have happened.

Just a random thought....

Casino Royale was a competent film. But it was not a very good Bond film. Craig was a poor Bond, and an especially poor "rookie" bond. One of the main problems I have with the "new" Bond is the miscasting of Craig and the character he is playing.

The critics are asking for Craig's Bond character to be changed so he is more like the old one. They also want Q, Moneypenny and the gadgets back. I moaned about the Craig Bond and the lack of "Bondness" in Casino Royale (the Bond film loved by people who were bored with Bond films). Even the critics are bored with the CR formula, and seem to agree with me that the tradional Bond elements should return, so the chances are I probably won't like Quantum of Solace which follows the same formula as CR.

It looks like it has $300 million worth of explosions, so it could be entertaining as an action film. But surely casting someone who looks like Bond, using the Bond character and the gunbarel, music etc, hiring a professional script writer and director, and making a film like GoldenEye or Licence To Kill would be better. It's not rocket science.

[The Sweeney]

making a film like GoldenEye or Licence To Kill would be better. It's not rocket science.

By the sounds of it, QOS is like LTK....

[katied]

^Sans someone getting attacked by a shark