New James Bond movie Quantum Of Solace faces an almost impossible task – could it be more well-received than Casino Royale?
It’s a tough job – because, as we all know, films don’t get any better than overlong Bourne rip-offs about a man who cries blood when he’s losing at cards – and it seems like it might have been too much of a tough job for Quantum Of Solace.
Early reviews for Quantum of Solace are starting to trickle in, and they’re all fairly scathing. But James Bond movies always tend to be a direct reaction against the previous one, so we can all relax. The follow-up to the emotionally bleak Quantum Of Solace – provisionally entitled Daniel Craig Punches A Laser-Shark In His Little Knickers – is sure to be a belter.
The omens for Quantum Of Solace weren’t great from the outset. Following a success as big as Casino Royale was always going to be tough, but following it with a movie with the world’s worst name directed by a man whose last film was about kites, written by a bald Scientologist, featuring a theme-tune that sounds like an angry wasp smacking against the inside of an upturned metal dustbin and starring a 12-fingered woman doing an impression of a Torrey Canyon gannet probably wasn’t going to help very much either, to be honest.
Having said that, though, nobody thought that Casino Royale was going to be any good either, so maybe Quantum Of Solace could pull off the impossible and end up halfway decent too, couldn’t it?
Well, no. Not if the early stream of Quantum Of Solace reviews are anything to go by. Here’s the best of what we’ve seen so far…
Kim Newman from Empire says that “while it’s exciting, it’s not exactly anyone’s idea of fun. To keep in the game, perhaps the next movie could let the hero enjoy himself a bit more.”
Richard Brookes from The Times was especially unimpressed. “Bond is a boorish oaf who simply rushes from country to country with the manic speed of Jason Bourne, including sequences shot in Panama, Chile, Italy, Mexico and Austria, in a plot about holding a country to ransom over its water supply. Quantum of Solace lacks any wit, ironic or otherwise, which has been a strength of so many 007 films.”
The Guardian‘s Peter Bradshaw claims “I was disappointed there was so little dialogue, flirtation and characterisation in this Bond: Forster and his writers Paul Haggis, Neal Purvis and Robert Wade clearly thought this sort of sissy nonsense has to be cut out in favour of explosions… I was also baffled that relatively little was made of the deliciously villainous Amalric: especially the final encounter.”
The Mirror‘s Dave Edwards thinks that Quantum Of Solace “doesn’t feel like a Bond film at all. Not once does Craig say: ‘The name’s Bond. James Bond.’ There’s no Q or his gadgets. Heck, we even see Bond in a cardigan.”
A cardigan? Well eff that. Anyway, it was always fairly obvious that Quantum Of Solace wasn’t going to be particularly amazing, because of the well-worn ‘one good, one bad’ James Bond formula. Casino Royale was good, so Quantum Of Solace has to be bad. Then the movie after Quantum Of Solace will be good, and the one after that will be about a man with a dream machine trying to saw the world in half with a space laser that only an invisible car can stop. That’s just how it works. Don’t shoot the messenger.
Anyway, just because the Quantum Of Solace reviews are bad, it doesn’t mean that you can’t have fun watching it. Why not do what we plan to do – every time you see a piece of jarring product placement in Quantum Of Solace, shout the name of the offending brand as loudly as possible. You’ll be thrown out by the twelfth “SONY!”, promise.
Ilyse Landsman says
There’s an preview of Quantum of Solace in Baltimore at the Landmark Theater on November 12th (before the movie comes out). It’s a charity event to benefit Johns Hopkins. Go to http://www.baltimore.org/bond for the details and to get tickets.
JD says
That Scientologist writer, is Paul Haggis who won 2 Oscars, 30 other awards and 27 nominations. He also wrote “Casino Royale” which introduced actor Daniel Craig as the new James Bond and has become arguably the biggest Bond ever with $167 million in the U.S. and Canada and another $426 million internationally for a global total near $594 million. Your screws are a bit loose, mate.