11-23-2008, 01:01 AM
Quote:Hi,
How about a different division: those who like the Bond films and those who like the Bond books. The two groups are not mutually exclusive. Some, like me, enjoy both even though the Bond films rapidly diverged from the books. Casino Royale was a welcome return (sort of) to the original book. The last part of the movie was almost straight out of the book. I've yet to see QoS, but I hope they're continuing in that style. If they are, they can pretty well tell all the stories again. They might even be able to make the post On Her Majesty's Secret Service stories palatable to the saccharine craving audiences.
--Pete
I was a big fan of Casino Royale and the one thing that was abundantly clear from watching QoS was that Solace was seriously hurt from the writers strike. There was all the ground work to continue everything that was good about Casino Royale but it really needed some more time in the pipe. instead it was rushed so they could finish the script before the strike and start filming.
The second thing that hurt the film was the director. The whole bourne-frantic-as-all-hell action scenes are lazy. The director either doesn't trust their own abilities to film an action scene, or they don't trust the fight choreographers to stage a good scene, or they don't trust their acters to make it believable. whatever it is it's the directors fault and they shouldn't be at the helm. when you can't tell which character is punching and which is getting punched there is a problem. Much of the first 20 minutes of QoS was so disjointed from editing and fast camera movement i just started getting pissed off. Casino Royale was great because the director was comfortable enough staging the action that you got a lot of long shots and the shots were often held for more than half a second.
The scene in the QoS trailer that really had me amped for the movie was when bond was driving the car down a tunnel and everything was flying past him while he sat there focused and still. Totally cool. That scene never appears in the movie except for a split second at the beginning and it is totally mischaracterized in the trailer.
Casino Royale did a great job of setting bond up in a reboot. It did so because it was comfortable letting it's characters exist and taking all the time it wanted to to develop them. It wasn't rushed. They were fine telling a three act story and letting it run 2.5+ hours. And the movie was better for it. QoS is a movie totally lacking in self confidence, in the story and the filming. I will say the Actors do a wonderful job with what they were given however. Many times during the movie i found myself wishing more time was given to develop them. Mathieu Amalric is such a unique actor and he plays a wonderful villain, I hate having the feeling they wasted him on this bond film. For the next sequel they really need to put in the effort and return to the comfort level they obviously had for Casino Royale. If they can do that QoS won't be such a let down.