Quantam of Solace - any good?

Bond has a bit of Bourne, a bit less brawn and a bit more of the wrong stuff (and Olga knows it)

NVDL: It's worse than WANTED and better than DECEPTION. But then WANTED is a pretty good goofy movie and DECEPTION is a shoddy classy movie. Quantum is well done, but in today's flick world, that's not nearly enough, and I'm not sure if it's 007.

Elements of Quantum reminded me of those close very physical mano-e-mano scuffles from the Bourne movies. This Bond is also more brooding and mysterious, which I kind've liked. [It may also mean he is gay, which I'm not sure I like.] Since I'm on the subject of what I liked...er...what else did I like? There's a great interaction with Q 3/4 through the film in the wedding cake white innards of an exotic hotel. Also, the twist at the end, also with Q, is quite nifty, but it does leave you - if you think about it - wondering what all the brooding fuss was about then... So it doesn't really have quite enough to lift the film out of average territory - 6/10? 6.5?

What I didn't like was how far this film has departed from Ian Flemming's franchise. This film wasn't written by Flemming, and I think they took their license to write too far. Here's a tip for future scriptwriters - if you didn't orginate a franchise, don't try to change or start your own. Work within the franchise. What's wrong with Quantum?

There's no Q.
No Moneypenny.
There's no 'shaken, not stirred'.
There's no 'Bond, James Bond'.
There's one gadget - a nifty cellphone.
Dr. Evil is - get this - a nerdy Environmentalist - Ooooh, I am so afraid!
The setting for the climax also looked fake to me. Can you explain how a beehive made with cement is so flammable in a desert environment? I mean, this is a water treatment plant, so er...what's with all the flammable stuff?

The dialogue was written by a Nobel Laureate:

James Bond: How long have I got?
Felix Leiter: Thirty seconds.
James Bond: That doesn't give us a lot of time...

You don't say.

M: I thought I could trust you. You said you weren't motivated by revenge.
James Bond: I am motivated by my duty.
M: I think you're so blinded by inconsolable rage that you don't care who you hurt. When you can't tell your friends from your enemies, it's time to go.
James Bond: You don't have to worry about me.

Right.
Ok this is better:

M: It'd be a pretty cold bastard who didn't want revenge for the death of someone he loved.
James Bond: I don't think the dead care about vengeance.

But we are in movieland, where people want to see some frikkin' vegeance. And if you are gonna be darkly philosophical about it, Mr Bond, later in the flick, you could have Part 2'd this quote with something like:

"The dead may not care, but the living do, and maybe if anything, they owe it to themselves."
If you're human enough to get laid, then you're human enough to give a crap about a dead girlfriend.

The filmmakers also owe it to us to show us where (you're not gonna believe this) Bolivia is on the map. I know it's in South America, but where? And also then to explain to us why we are in Bolivia. Why not Lesotho, or Burkina Faso? Couldn't we have had somewhere interesting, like Iceland, or Finland, or South Africa, or Tibet? Bolivia is boring. I don't know anything about Bolivia. [Actually some of those desert shots were pretty good...but why Bolivia..?]

Want Milk?

You'll notice (see the clippings below) that no one but Mr. McKay was blown away by this Bond. McKay saying how 'super hot' one of the actresses is a bit like me saying how gorgeous Daniel Craig is. That said, my money is on Gemma in this incarnation. Olga was holding back, and understandably so. Craig has offered - very generously - to take Bond further and do a gay scene in the next instalment. Not sure if there are any takers so far, but some - very few - are likely to find this 'super-hot' too. Nes pa?

Miss Fields is the sexierand more fetching of the two, and no man in the audience can blame Bond for taking a timeout from his angst. The partnership between Bond and what's-her-name - Olga - is intriguing, but not very. The way they meet is far too contrived, and her story is also a bit thin. Bond asking her if she is from Bolivian Intelligence is also pretty absurd.

Like Ronge I also felt somewhat irritated. For starters Bond keeps getting cuts on his face, but he must carry around a magic healing balm, a fantastic skin treatener because only hours after being badly ruffled, he's pristine once more in a pinstripe. In the beginning, it's really not clear where the story is going, and I don't know about you but my memory of Casino Royale isn't that good. Vespa (or Vesper) I take it isn't a motorbike, and isn't a man - am I close? Nes pa?

I'm also with Silkour: standard is definitely a word to describe Quantum. It doesn't blow you away; and it's not sub par. It's okay. It's so so. But it's not Bond.

That said, it's not bad. It's worth watching just to be able to join the conversation on whether it's any good or not, so I suppose it's good for that ;-)

clipped from www.thetimes.co.za THE latest James Bond movie, Quantum of Solace, has everyone talking — about whether it was any good, or not. And, it seems, nobody can agree. Film critic Barry Ronge said in his review that he did not expect to be “bored and irritated by an overblown, mechanical movie that is sometimes hard to follow”. The Times’ film critic, Robert McKay, however , was blown away. He said the crew “proved there is life in the old franchise yet again”. McKay added that Bond Girl Olga Kurylenko was “super hot and a great actress”. Slikour said: “It was so predictable and standard for something that was hyped up all year. It was so not Bond style.” Socialite Khanyisile Mbau agreed that the movie lacked substance .