The Times: Quantum of Solace 1 Star

[Goldeneye]

The Times
November 1, 2008
Kevin Maher

Quantum of Solace

Director: Marc Forster, 12A, 106min

Stars: Daniel Craig, Mathieu Amalric, Judi Dench

On general release

Following Casino Royale - a film that managed to be supremely enjoyable while boldly rebooting Bond for the 21st century - was never going to be easy. Yet it's hard to describe the level of disappointment that Quantum of Solace has managed to engender (in this viewer, at least). Squandering all the former film's energy, charm and complex character work, director Forster and his three screenwriters, as well as an agonisingly dull turn from star Craig, have mistaken motion for action, convolution for intrigue and pouty intransigence for mood.

The mess begins with a meaningless car-chase opener. All jagged jump-cuts, it conveys nothing more than the fact that Bond can drive fast (note: the action throughout the movie is particularly uninvolving, like a poor episode of The A-Team that has been tarted up with a $200 million production budget). Soon, and via a single laundered banknote from Casino Royale's Le Chiffre (note: also, the film presumes one has a photographic recall of all Casino Royale's minor plot machinations), Bond is off to Haiti, Austria and Bolivia, hot on the trail of the pseudo environmentalist cum global megalomaniac Dominic Greene (Amalric). The latter, all uninterested Parisian mien, must surely go down as the most ineffective villain in Bond history. Greene plans to take control of Bolivia's water supply, to run their water companies and, get this, to charge very high prices! Which is, of course, all very Austin Powers, and certainly not worthy of a franchise that, at its best, never confuses the fantastical with the credible.

And this is perhaps the fatal flaw of Quantum of Solace - it presumes that injecting Bond with reality is good enough in itself. And that having a glum, gadget-less and humourless hero (Craig barely speaks a line of dialogue, let alone cracks a smile) who faces up to duplicitous governments can create a frisson of contemporary excitement to compensate for the fact that the entire franchise, in one egregious film, has gone completely off the rails.

[carl stromberg]

Always been one of my favourite newspapers, The Times.

[katied]

This:

like a poor episode of The A-Team that has been tarted up with a $200 million production budget)

and this:

Which is, of course, all very Austin Powers, and certainly not worthy of a franchise that, at its best, never confuses the fantastical with the credible

Made me LOL.

[FormerBondFan]

The Times
November 1, 2008
Kevin Maher

Quantum of Solace

Director: Marc Forster, 12A, 106min

Stars: Daniel Craig, Mathieu Amalric, Judi Dench

On general release

Following Casino Royale - a film that managed to be supremely enjoyable while boldly rebooting Bond for the 21st century - was never going to be easy. Yet it's hard to describe the level of disappointment that Quantum of Solace has managed to engender (in this viewer, at least). Squandering all the former film's energy, charm and complex character work, director Forster and his three screenwriters, as well as an agonisingly dull turn from star Craig, have mistaken motion for action, convolution for intrigue and pouty intransigence for mood.

The mess begins with a meaningless car-chase opener. All jagged jump-cuts, it conveys nothing more than the fact that Bond can drive fast (note: the action throughout the movie is particularly uninvolving, like a poor episode of The A-Team that has been tarted up with a $200 million production budget). Soon, and via a single laundered banknote from Casino Royale's Le Chiffre (note: also, the film presumes one has a photographic recall of all Casino Royale's minor plot machinations), Bond is off to Haiti, Austria and Bolivia, hot on the trail of the pseudo environmentalist cum global megalomaniac Dominic Greene (Amalric). The latter, all uninterested Parisian mien, must surely go down as the most ineffective villain in Bond history. Greene plans to take control of Bolivia's water supply, to run their water companies and, get this, to charge very high prices! Which is, of course, all very Austin Powers, and certainly not worthy of a franchise that, at its best, never confuses the fantastical with the credible.

And this is perhaps the fatal flaw of Quantum of Solace - it presumes that injecting Bond with reality is good enough in itself. And that having a glum, gadget-less and humourless hero (Craig barely speaks a line of dialogue, let alone cracks a smile) who faces up to duplicitous governments can create a frisson of contemporary excitement to compensate for the fact that the entire franchise, in one egregious film, has gone completely off the rails.

[The Sweeney]

Always been one of my favourite newspapers, The Times.

I agree....

The Times review - 4/5
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/ ... 965892.ece

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 c**k-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.

[carl stromberg]

Always been one of my favourite newspapers, The Times.

I agree....

The Times review - 4/5
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/ ... 965892.ece

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 c**k-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.

Ooohh you are awful! How come each of the newspapers have had about 10 reviews each?

[The Sweeney]

Ooohh you are awful! How come each of the newspapers have had about 10 reviews each?

I'm not sure, bizaare isn't it. I've seen more duplicate reviews (usually being the opposite of one another) coming out of newspapers for QOS than any other movie.

[Kristatos]

Ooohh you are awful! How come each of the newspapers have had about 10 reviews each?

I'm not sure, bizaare isn't it. I've seen more duplicate reviews (usually being the opposite of one another) coming out of newspapers for QOS than any other movie.

Call me an old cynic (or, even better, a youthful-for-his-age cynic), but I have a theory about that. Given how negative the early reviews were, could it be that each paper was told in no uncertain terms that it was expected to "balance" them with reviews that toed the party line if it didn't want to lose valuable advertising revenue from Sony, Omega, Heineken, Ford...?

[katied]

Call me an old cynic (or, even better, a youthful-for-his-age cynic), but I have a theory about that. Given how negative the early reviews were, could it be that each paper was told in no uncertain terms that it was expected to "balance" them with reviews that toed the party line if it didn't want to lose valuable advertising revenue from Sony, Omega, Heineken, Ford...?

I have a hard time believing that Sony(or whoever) can throw their weight around that much but who knows?If I had to write a review for a paper I would be honest.I wouldn't write a bad review,then a good one,just to please people.

[Milton Krest]

I give it a 0 out of ten, i feel for poor peopl about to see it, i rather listen to endless replays of the theme song than watch this again. Even the bad reviews of this are being generous

[katied]

I give it a 0 out of ten, i feel for poor peopl about to see it, i rather listen to endless replays of the theme song than watch this again. Even the bad reviews of this are being generous

I barely even want to listen to AWTD *once*,but alright