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Haha, no worries. Credit to both of ya on keeping that up.
We know.
- Alright. Here's Camille Montes and how I see her:
A competent agent, but not overly, knowing how to handle herself in cornered areas for the most part. But, her arrogance and self-confidence sometimes really comes off as highlighted and obvious sometimes, particularly during the boat chase in Quantum of Solace, where she thought the anonymous man (Bond) who earlier pretended to be that geologist informant whom Slate was supposed to impersonate, just botched her plans to kill Medrano on the boat and is a clumsy idiot, dictating Bond what to do during the chase and take the wheel as if he doesn't know how to handle it. I mean, calm down, the man saved your life in the first place.
So, suppose you say you shot Medrano, what then? Her armed guards would've killed you on sight. Instead of being thankful in a way, she blames Bond with an insufficient amount and no limits to that.
I know, she waited long for that shot. And her hatred of Medrano might've blinded her logical senses, but being a trained agent, she could've recovered rather quickly from that and realized what she was up against.
- A similar issue, but more so than the other one, I have is with Madeleine Swann. One of my least favourite Bond Girls as characters (which isn't down to the actress but the chopped off livers of the script that left her undeveloped). Anyway...
Dr. Swann thinks that she's smart enough she could simply have evaded anyone after her tail, and not only her arrogance but incompetence also showcases it. From her viewpoint, I understand that she was frustrated to kick Bond out of her office upon learning of the demise of her father. That, I understand. But, with Bond "leading" Spectre to her by coming to the clinic? Lecturing him about "losing his mind" as well as being rude to the man who just saved her life from those thugs by going to the farthest lengths to achieve that? Her arrogance in that scene made her ungrateful to say the least. She keeps saying "I can take care of myself" more than once, only to end up being saved by Bond three times at least.
In Morocco, Bond tells her that he may be heading towards a suicide mission by going there with no backup and she insists she wants to come. Nothing left to live for at all of sudden? Why hide before, then? It's like throughout the entire film she was trying to prove everyone she's the only one who can achieve things. You didn't see that with Lucia. It's that sort of arrogance in characters that really make me cringe, and it's not just Maddie who suffers from that. I can name a few, like Anya Amasova, Pam Bouvier, Jinx and sometimes even Vesper (but her loveliness makes me overlook that attitude in her).
That's what I can offer off-hand right now. Looking forward to expanding my thoughts on it after further insight from my fellow members.
Camille:
The way I see it, Camille was going to wait for a quiet moment with Medrano to kill him, possibly acting as a love interest to get him alone. She doesn't know that Greene has sold her up the river yet, mind, so in her mind the plan would work and she could find a way to exit it alive, or she has a death wish and wants her final act to be one of revenge for her family. The latter could be argued even though it's not implied, as the search for Medrano had taken over her life.
When Bond storms the boat, then, and ruins the chance of killing a man she had taken forever to locate-with no promise of seeing him again-she's understandably pissed. Bond isn't in the right or the wrong, but all Camille sees is a man who sabotaged the only thing she ever truly wanted in life (a dead Medrano).
As for her desire to control the boat and how she talks back to Bond... On the first count she still doesn't know who he is or what his skill set is (and he was driving like nuts and nearly hitting a lot of things) so she felt that she was a more sailorr and probably trained to drive all kinds of transport vehicles on water, land and air for her job. She knows she's skilled, but she can't yet trust Bond as he literally collided out of nowhere into her life without any notice. On the second count, again, she just sees Bond as a random man who ruined her chance to kill Medrano, so she's not thinking straight and is reacting with understandable anger at how he acted.
And Madeleine:
The salient thing to understand about Madeleine's character is that she is all about escape. Whereas Lucia was resigned to her fate and literally walked into death's shadow, giving up entirely, Madeleine fought hard to escape the kind of life her father lived, and the consequences that threatened her and her mother by sticking by him for so long. After his actions proved too much to bear and a man entered their home to try and kill White when Madeleine was a child (endangering them all), it was time for her and her mother to get out while they still had their lives. Their home no longer felt like a safe space, and White's criminal dealings were tearing them apart and threatening their lives.
Madeleine is driven to hiding away, hoping her father never finds her true location. She's a brilliant and astute doctor who studied with some of the greatest in her field as a young woman, yet she had to sacrifice the true opportunity of working as a high-class medical professional anywhere she could've wanted just so she could keep under the radar and avoid detection. When we find her in the film, Madeline has a practice set up far away where White and others are unaware of her, but she is clearly not happy and is working well below her proficiency to an embarrassing degree, evidenced by her class-A degree and certifications. Because of White, she has had to settle for mediocrity in employment and can't follow her dreams without being traced, which affects her income, safety and ultimately, her happiness. Her life, basically, is not her own.
So when Bond leads Hinx and the rest of the SPECTRE brigade to the clinic following his taped visit with White, Madeleine is understandably irate. She is already unhappy doing what she is doing, but she was at least safe where she was. Though Bond didn't mean to, he shattered the little comfort/privacy she had that she worked so hard to keep. Even worse is that it was her own father that sent him to get her, which proved to her that even in death her father was ruining her life (that's how she sees it at this point, anyway).
When Madeleine gets captured by Hinx and co. and Bond could've nearly killed her while he rammed the plane into the convoy (a calculated risk, but still a risk), she is again understandably pissed off. It's one thing to blow her cover, but another to bring hell to her doorstep and then risk killing her in a fiery chase. Again, her reaction here is perfectly understandable. She's almost too nice to Bond.
It's only when Madeleine has the full picture of what is going on that she feels motivated to join up with Bond and accept him as a reluctant partner in Morocco. She wants to meet the man face to face who engineered her father's death, in a complex desire to avenge the man she wanted to hate, but realizes really cared for her. Everything she does is predicated on White: first she acted to do anything to escape him, but in the end she chose to face danger itself to find out what lead to his death and who organized it. She's a complex woman, as layered as her clinic patients to the tenth degree.
Because I fully get why Camille and Madeleine act like they do when I see who they are, how they live and what the value, I don't dare attach an arrogance to how they behave when Bond comes into the picture. Their reactions to Bond's invasive assaults on their plans in life (for Camille, the murder of Medrano and Madeleine the small but safe life she had created away from her father's watch) are understandable, and I'd be set off too. I don't disagree with how Bond acts in these scenes, as he ultimately see things neither woman could at the time, like the fact that Camille was betrayed by Greene and that Madeleine was the next victim of SPECTRE following White's arranged "assassination." It's important to understand, however, that neither woman knows why Bond is acting the way he is toward them, meaning they are unable to wrap their heads around the fact that he's on their side. He just enters their lives and, from their perspective, ruins their delicately laid plans they worked so hard to keep in place. Through their anger and confusion at the mysterious figure of Bond, whose motives they can't be sure of, their very human response is to react badly in acts of self-preservation and pure anger at how he's brought a bad outcome to their plans. For all this and more, I can't judge how either Camille or Madeleine act in response to Bond, and even if I did, none of these behaviors come off as arrogant when one considers the context of their lives that the spy shatters to pieces.
That's in part why she's dumbstruck on her successful assassination in the exploding hotel in the desert. Surviving wasn't part of her plan--she wasn't prepared first for getting out alive, and no less for dealing emotionally with the consequences of killing someone however bad the man was. And the fire didn't help, reliving her childhood horror.
Harsh. But Brozza made the worst films. So that does actually equal the worst Bond. The worst of a good bunch.
@RichardTheBruce, wow. I think about this film so often, but I've never made that subtle connection between her story in the sink hole and the finale. That gives whole new meaning to how she acts there. Nice catch!
Yes, as a mercy kill. He would then likely do the same to himself.
I don't know why that's never clicked with me before. The sink hole story is always the bit that goes by so quickly, as we get a little peek at what drives Camille. When we get to the hotel I just saw another sign that Forster was playing with the elements by using the fire. I'd missed the subtext of the rest entirely, and I'm usually really good with that.
I already loved Camille and how she was used, but now I really love her. It's also interesting to me that Bond faced his tragedy through water, Vesper's drowning, whereas Camille's trauma comes through fire and returns at the very moment she thought she was free of revenge's grasp. Again, the use of elements being what connects Bond and her beyond the tragedy.
Christ I love these movies.
The good stuff
The end underwater sequence: incredible
Fiona volpe is a great "henchwoman"
SPECTRE is pretty good
Locations are used well and especially the first act is very entertaining and the pts is great
The bad stuff:
The action is terrible and way worse than all the films before it which is surprising
The end fight on the boat is terrible and leaves a bad taste
The story is really crap and makes little sense
Largo isn't that great or character defining
In the end , not the worst bond film anymore, it's entertaining and a lot of the scenes are pretty good even if the reason they are happening are convoluted and thin probably sits around the 20 mark for me
I love the fight too. The editing is a bit nuts and the screen projection not great, but it's the biggest fight Sean's Bond has where he truly feels in danger of dying (no offense to the great YOLT roof fight). He's forced to switch from enemy to enemy without being overwhelmed, all while the boat is going nuts on the open sea, nearly crashing into every passing bit of land.
I also love the ending and Sean's, "You're glad!" Such a perfect, human performance for his Bond as he takes a moment to appreciate surviving.
Weird, I know, but it has stuck with me, even as I recently watched all the Bond films. I just cringe every time.
@peter, has watching Moore's films in Blu-ray quality brought your old nightmares about his hands to the forefront of your mind, rendered in crisp 1080p visuals?
I'm normally the opposite, in that I miss these connecting themes most often. However, in this case I noticed it almost immediately, because of the childlike way she cowers in the corner of the room. It was almost like all the repressed memories had come back suddenly and she had regressed to her childlike self in fear as a defense mechanism.
agree... even though I meanwhile really enjoy TSWLM but this part just drags... and there is little to no suspense or any kind plot development.