Quantum of Solace acts as a sequel (a first in the franchise) to Casino Royale and picks up within hours of where we left off with Bond having just acquired the dangerous yet vague Mr. White. In the last film, we learned that Bond's doomed ladylove, Vesper Lynd was actually being blackmailed by a mysterious group that neither MI6 nor the CIA has even heard of. And the audience? Well, we won't get an exact idea of what that group is either. Nor will we really get a firm grasp on anything else.
The MacGuffin in this particular Bond flick is the control of water as a natural resource. Now whether it was power over the stock markets à la Casino Royale or the world's gold supply in Goldfinger, the design of a Bond film is as such: there is a problem and with wit, a nice suit, fancy gadgets, and the help of his friends at MI:6 he'll save the day. That's what a Bond film does. What Casino Royale did so perfectly was to trim all of the horrific camp and tackiness that the Pierce Brosnan franchise sank to and made it smart, slick, gritty and pragmatic. As a result, you found yourself unknowingly more invested in Daniel Craig's version of the character, not just satisfied with some projection of a tired cliché Bond who you just wait for forty-five minutes to say "shaken not stirred" and smirk in your seat. In short, the franchise grew up, up and away from its Peter Pan Syndrome.
For the most part, the film did what it was supposed to do:
Boat chase? Check. Rooftop chase? Check. Plane chase? Check. Car chase? Check. Check. Check.
The problem that I had with Quantum was that although the film kept that slick, gritty framework, something else got lost. At the beginning of the film we may have hit the ground running, but we never really knew what we were running towards. We dove headfirst into an action-filled flick with only brief gasps of air for any hint at the story. The proper care really wasn't spent on developing either the mysterious group of men with colors for last names or the master plan to control different countries' water supply. I suppose you could argue that the vagueness surrounding the group was intentional for future purposes blah, blah, bah… but I'm going to go out on a limb to say that it wasn't. Why? Because I wasn't interested enough to really care about them. I was just bothered. I was bothered because I didn't care.
Please don't misunderstand and think that I didn't like the movie. It was good. I'd give it a B- and it was definitely one of the better-made films as of late and I definitely want to give mad props to the opera scene. That was hands down the most memorable cinematic moment for me. I'm just saying that we've seen what it could be...
The MacGuffin in this particular Bond flick is the control of water as a natural resource. Now whether it was power over the stock markets à la Casino Royale or the world's gold supply in Goldfinger, the design of a Bond film is as such: there is a problem and with wit, a nice suit, fancy gadgets, and the help of his friends at MI:6 he'll save the day. That's what a Bond film does. What Casino Royale did so perfectly was to trim all of the horrific camp and tackiness that the Pierce Brosnan franchise sank to and made it smart, slick, gritty and pragmatic. As a result, you found yourself unknowingly more invested in Daniel Craig's version of the character, not just satisfied with some projection of a tired cliché Bond who you just wait for forty-five minutes to say "shaken not stirred" and smirk in your seat. In short, the franchise grew up, up and away from its Peter Pan Syndrome.
For the most part, the film did what it was supposed to do:
Boat chase? Check. Rooftop chase? Check. Plane chase? Check. Car chase? Check. Check. Check.
The problem that I had with Quantum was that although the film kept that slick, gritty framework, something else got lost. At the beginning of the film we may have hit the ground running, but we never really knew what we were running towards. We dove headfirst into an action-filled flick with only brief gasps of air for any hint at the story. The proper care really wasn't spent on developing either the mysterious group of men with colors for last names or the master plan to control different countries' water supply. I suppose you could argue that the vagueness surrounding the group was intentional for future purposes blah, blah, bah… but I'm going to go out on a limb to say that it wasn't. Why? Because I wasn't interested enough to really care about them. I was just bothered. I was bothered because I didn't care.
Please don't misunderstand and think that I didn't like the movie. It was good. I'd give it a B- and it was definitely one of the better-made films as of late and I definitely want to give mad props to the opera scene. That was hands down the most memorable cinematic moment for me. I'm just saying that we've seen what it could be...
0 comments:
Post a Comment