House of Eratosthenes

Warning, you might regard some of what follows as a spoiler. There are some big spoilers I will not reveal, but I understand this wouldn’t excuse things if I blew open the little ones. So forewarned is forearmed.

1. The Double-Oh-Seven Milagro Beanfield War. Moonraker remains, in one shallow respect, the greatest James Bond movie of all time. The bad guy was going to destroy everything. It doesn’t seem to matter much when a mediocre-to-awful Bond movie is made, in which the catastrophe threatened is global. But it matters a lot when the catastrophe threatened is local. In fact, I’m coming up empty on why exactly it was any official concern at all to Her Majesty’s government, let alone to the CIA.

2. He Didn’t Shag. Okay, the “doomed girl” got a shagging. He was platonic with his closing-credits girl. That’s not Bond. It’s a hideous mistake. Memo to Wilson and Broccoli: Don’t…do that…ever…again.

3. That Goddamned Shaking Camera. Of all my complaints, this is the one I have the greatest confidence will reasonate, because I’m not in the minority on this one. An action sequence can be wonderful if you know where things are. Indiana Jones going under the truck, is art, because I know that’s where he is in relation to the truck. If I don’t know who’s chasing who, it’s just so many minutes of dreck. And some of these stunts are horribly dangerous, so that’s a shame.

4. Goofy Villains. Le Chiffre was a model here. His physical form was puny and diminutive and there was very little intimidating about his person, but he was horrifying because of his connections. Ditto for the two Big-Bads in QoS, but you made the mistake of putting them in fist fights. I’m not afraid of what might happen to Daniel Craig, post-workout, when Mathieu Amalric is coming after him, even if Almaric is holding an axe. I’m still waiting for Mr. Craig to kick his ass. Checking my watch while I’m doing it. That’s your point of failure. I shouldn’t be looking at my watch. Weapons or no, nobody under seven feet tall should be getting in a fist fight with Daniel Craig.

5. Parachute. This is like a newbie mistake with cliffhangers. A parachute needs about five seconds, give or take, to slow you down before you land. The jumping out of the plane was cool, though.

6. The Organization. Frankly, I find this quite unforgivable. We were wondering throughout all of Casino Royale what this “organization” was. Yeah, the questions were answered. Kinda. Why I should give a rat’s rear end, is something I’m not quite clear on.

7. The Human Rights Scrub. There really is no controversy left about this in intelligence circles. Actually I don’t really know that. It’s probably not true; but it should be. If you want to find out filthy information about what’s going on, you have to deal with filthy people, and that’s just the way the business works. Some Hollywood movie about that being a bad thing, isn’t going to make it any less true. Besides, the quibbling about this makes for a rather pointless, distracting and monotonous subplot. Should’ve left that one alone.

8. The Ending. Who the hell is this guy, the one James Bond is pointing his gun at? Oh, that’s the guy James Bond has been chasing ever since the last movie. Why am I only seeing him in the last five minutes? What does he have to do with Dominic Greene and Quantum? What clue led James Bond to this apartment? Maybe I can update this after multiple repeat viewings when some connection jumps out at me; maybe I’ll have to update this. But I don’t recall anything. And it’s not appropriate for that to be a multiple-viewing subtlety either. Santino Corleone getting lectured by his wife at his sister’s wedding reception, that’s something you want the audience to pick up after multiple viewings. This should’ve been something blatantly obvious from the very first get-go, slapping the audience right in the kisser, over a bag of popcorn. Hey, I saw the movie, and this looks just sloppily tacked-on. This was supposed to be the point of the whole movie.

9. James Bond is Framed. James Bond was at this opera house. This other guy ended up shot. The head of MI-6 is convinced that this means James Bond shot the guy. Wow, M, don’t hurt yourself jumping to conclusions. I can’t speak for Jason Bourne, but since this isn’t a Bourne movie, it should probably be pointed out that James Bond uses an exceptionally distinct caliber in his firearm. All together now: Walther PPK with Browning 7.65 mm. (Actually it’s been updated to a P99 with 9mm, but since M never even asked about the forensics, the point stands.)

10. Mathis. That was pretty lame. If you’re going to do that to poor Mathis, wait until there’s a movie that has no Leiter. Also, I can’t quite get over the thing with the dumpster. I know you were trying to say something about how well Bond and Mathis knew each other…the problem is, they didn’t really know each other that well.

All in all, it was an okay movie. But it wasn’t a Bond movie. You’ve got me looking forward to #23, which is good, but I’m looking forward to it hoping you’ve learned a lot of lessons from this one. Which isn’t good.

I won’t go.

Curmudgeonly comment as to why: There hasn’t been a GOOD Bond movie since “From Russia With Love.” Anyone who loves Ian Fleming’s books cringes at the mere thought of how Bond made the transition to the screen. Techo-Crap, and not far removed from your garden-variety shoot-em-up video game. YM (most certainly) MV.
- Buck | 12/06/2008 @ 15:42
[…] not terribly pleased with Bond 22, Quantum of Solace, I’m afraid. It remains the one single installment we have […]
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[…] As regular readers may already know. […]
- House of Eratosthenes | 09/11/2009 @ 18:33

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Why Quantum of Solace Disappointed MeSaturday, December 6th, 2008

Why Quantum of Solace Disappointed Me
Saturday, December 6th, 2008