Quantum Of Solace vs. November Man

chrisisall

I was curious which small-ish fast-paced spy flick people on here liked better.

QOS is my favourite Bond film of this Century- lots of intensity & character.
November Man is fresh & terribly brutal at times.
Both feature Olga as the leading lady, and her characters in both are remarkably similar.
QOS had a budget of like 200 mil.
November Man's was about 15 mil.
I think it's pretty gorram remarkable that two films I personally rate SO close together in terms of entertainment value are SO widely separated in production budget.

Bottom line: both rock my spy world. Which is better? That's close.
Too close for comfort. ;)

Murdock

November Man is better of the two. Sorry Daniel. :P
No contest.

bondjames

I much prefered QoS.

Firstly, it's Bond, only Bond. Secondly, it's all up there on the screen, of course because of the mammoth difference in budget.

They were both very gritty, but QoS has that glamour element to a degree that defines Bond. November Man was just gritty, but it lacked glamour to me, despite excellent locations. Again, this could have been due to the budget difference.

I also preferred Arnold's score in QoS, and music is very important to setting the mood for me.

I really liked the female assassin in November Man though. Much better than Elvis in QoS

Olga was the same in both to me. Which is to say, neither here nor there.

I also prefer wound up, intense, coiled Daniel Craig to wound up, intense, coiled Pierce Brosnan, so that sealed it. I much prefer Brosnan when he's playing cool, smooth, suave. Having said that, I think he did do a very good job in November Man..

Kerim

November Man is what Pierce should have been as Bond.

QOS was all a blur.

Olga wins in NM.

LicencedToKilt69007

"The November Man".

SaintMark

The November Man easily.

valentinzukovsky

November Man even though I've come to realize that QOS isn't actually that bad, it was just a badly executed good idea.

RogueAgent

Have not seen November Man yet so unable to say?

thelivingroyale

Not a huge fan of either, I didn't think either were very good so idk which is better.

Both have great central performances. Daniel Craig is a fantastic Bond and he's great in QoS (although I think his best performance is still CR because he had more challenging material). However this is nothing new for him. It's still the same Bond we saw in CR. Pierce Brosnan was a fantastic Bond (I actually prefer him to Craig), and he's great in November Man. What's great about Brosnan's performance though is that it's different to the characters he normally plays. Even in films like The Matador (amazing film btw and another brilliant performance by Brosnan) he's normally charismatic and charming. In November Man he was a cold, brutal anti hero. His performance was a big fuck you to the people who said he didn't have the talent to play a darker Bond. So while both actors did a great job, I have to give the edge to Brosnan here for going outside his comfort zone and knocking it out of the park.

I think QoS is a better film overall though. The supporting cast were better, the cinematography was better (QoS has some really gorgeous shots and was full of colour while November Man looked pretty bland) and the action was better (as bad as the editing was at times, there was more variety and inventiveness than November Man, mainly because of the bigger budget).

I will say this though, seeing the two films names put against each other like that has made me realise what a great title The November Man is. It sounds cool and mysterious. It would have made a good Bond title. QoS just sounds terrible. I know it's a Fleming title but it's still shite imo.

I'm looking forward to the November Man sequel, I'm excited to see more of Brosnan as this character and I'm hoping they can improve on the original. But I have to take QoS over The November Man.

chrisisall

@thelivingroyale, thanks, very interesting, very detailed! :)>-