Monday, November 24, 2008

Quantum of Solace - 65/100

Quantum of Solace (Marc Forster)
Daniel Craig, Olga Kurylenko, Judi Dench

65/100

I hadn’t been to the movies in a while, and had been eagerly anticipating spending the ridiculous $8.50 on the newest Bond film, Quantum of Solace. The trailers were quite promising; explosions, car chases, and beautiful women, the general makeup of any Bond film. However, Quantum of Solace had a legacy to live up to, the former film in the series, Casino Royale, my favorite Bond film thus far.

Unfortunately, Marc Forster’s Quantum of Solace was just another Bond film. Nothing special.

While Daniel Craig is James Bond in name, many felt he did not fit the suave, debonair mold of former 007 agents. Several comments have been made on how “angry” he is. In his defense, this is a new Bond. Every actor who has played Bond has played him a different way, some similar, and some entirely different. While Craig’s performance in Casino Royale was quite different than that of Quantum of Solace. To the audience, it should be apparent that Bond mourns the loss of his love, Vesper (wouldn’t you be angry too?).

The story was lost amidst the action and was, at times, too much for my mind to wrap itself around. At times during the movie, the camera was too shaky or too fast to follow, resulting in periodic confusion. The movie is essentially a 106 minute chase scene, which begins in cars, progresses on foot, boat, and ends by plane... resulting in many bad guy deaths, giant explosions, and general destruction of property.

Bottom Line:
After leaving the theater, I did not regret spending money on the ticket. It was certainly a “big screen experience.” However, the lack of engaging story and excessive amount of chase scenes overrides the action aspects of the film. I probably wouldn’t buy the DVD or see the movie again in theaters.

A Quick Disclaimer...

As a general rule of thumb, I won't be writing personal entries here. Nothing about how "my socks are too tight," "I didn't have my coffee this morning," or "my cat chewed my power cord."

No no. I will attempt to keep my complaints elsewhere, unless, of course, it is a complaint about a particular movie...Which brings us to the purpose of this blog.

I love movies. I love watching them, talking about them, and now, I want to write about them.

While I haven't decided what I want to do after my five plus years getting a degree in Journalism, I have given considerable thought to working as a critic. From time to time I may review TV shows, or other media, but, I hope to keep mainly to films.

So, let's give this a shot, shall we?




I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship - Casablanca