Quantum of Rubbish
[spoilers follow]
Why is it so hard to love Quantum of Solace? Daniel Craig is excellent throughout, there are hot girls, there's tons of action, it's gritty (almost beyond bearing). Surely these ingredients can be boiled into a good film?
Well, the problem is, you notice how good Craig is because of the rubbish he's involved in. The other actors are terribad -- what the hell is that villain? And my god, the Bolivian colonel is a parody of a stereotype -- the very thing I thought the new Bond was trying to avoid. The women actors are unwatchable. Olga Kurylenko is hot, sure, but there's something really unattractive about her and she can't act at all -- the best Bond girls are great actors, as we'll discuss when we get into Pussy Galore 
Gemma Arterton is also atrocious. And bad acting is not the whole of it. The story is bad, delivered with a script that for once in a Bond film doesn't have enough words. It's just a trail of cliches banging into each other.
Gemma Arterton is also atrocious. And bad acting is not the whole of it. The story is bad, delivered with a script that for once in a Bond film doesn't have enough words. It's just a trail of cliches banging into each other.
And even the action isn't all that. Look, I love the Greengrass style of frantic jump cutting but it has to be placed in the right context and this isn't it (contrast with the brutal fight in the cold open of Casino Royale, where long cuts are intermixed with closeups of Bond to really create deep action -- *that* is how you do it). From the bewildering cold open through fights that make little or no sense, it's all too frantic and ultimately too boring. Why make Bond into Bourne? And why make him into Bourne with not even the backing of a Bourne-level story (which isn't much)?
Worse, the director doesn't even bother trying to establish any chemistry between Bond and the women (or anyone else -- there's often a sort of homoerotic attraction between the villain and Bond -- Le Chiffre gets Bond naked and indulges in some ball torture; Souza clearly wants Bond to be his boyfriend; Blofeld has some childhood masturbation issues to work through). He barely gets a decent line to drop and they have no character at all. You have to feel a bit sorry for Kurylenko, lumbered with a terrible revenge arc that doesn't make sense as a plot motivator to say the least. Except that she should never had the role. She just isn't an actress the way Eva Green, excellent in Casino Royale, is.
The theme music also sucks, which is usually a bad sign. It's lazy and boring just like most of the White Stripes' output. The sound design on the whole is a bit meh. I remember watching this in the cinema and it didn't have that visceral feel that a good action film brings.
Okay, so this is at best C/D and that's only because Craig is an effective Bond if not necessarily a convincing action star. I'm glad they stepped it up for Skyfall though. I mean, I'm not exaggerating when I say that in its best moments this touches mediocre.
posted by Dr Zen @ 8:16 pm
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