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Strangely to me he feels much more Bondian than he did in CR. Probably because he is dressed tasteful throughout the movie and also displays manners ( two aspects that can't be said about CR)
of course the Tosca sequence is fantastic, it's the only thing in the film that really works and Craig is Bond there
overall I think Craig only felt like Bond (compared to the other five actors) in SPECTRE. There are hints of Bond in CR (Montenegro) and SF (the Macau sequence).
Let's just hope that Bond Begins nonsense will never again materialise in the series.
You pretty much knocked it out of the park there. Craig's first two Bond films don't receive nearly enough criticism. I think it's because a darker emotional Bond has been tried before twice, and both times failed. So when Craig came along and made a gritty Bond film that was a success, a lot of people became instant disciples. In their minds, Craig is a grand leader who finally ushered in this type of Bond that we have all been yearning for. I have seen people try and downplay any criticisms of Craig as "nitpicking", which is of course done to interpretation. Anything to obscure or distract, or muddy the waters. I've also witnessed some shifting of blame away from the producers and Craig, to unforeseen circumstances like the writers strike. It's all an attempt to maintain a halo above Craig's head as the chosen one. Now, I have no problems with Craig. He is decent, but it's the messiah image that has been built around him, as the second coming of Connery that becomes tiresome. He's just another Bond actor like the other's, with upsides and downsides. But for some, that's insufficient. Like I say, I think Craig holds a special emotional grip on some people because he is the first one to make a realistic Bond work. How can they be critical of someone who has delivered what they have been waiting for for so long? They feel indebted in some way, and I think that's where all this mental gymnastics come from.
The score saves QoS.
True, the score is the most Bondian thing in the film. David Arnold is a genius anyway, I watched TWINE, DAD, CR, QOS (and SF) this week, and I realised once more how incredibly, almost grotesquely awful Newman's bloody score is.
Skyfall could have been helped greatly with a David Arnold score, but then maybe not. Even Arnold couldn't have saved everything that comes after Silva's introdruction 70 minutes into the film.
Sounds reasonably to me. You know, I think I very much happen to agree with you.
They've basically been trying to sprinkle stardust from that initial film throughout the Craig era, in an attempt to retain the credibility that they rediscovered then. SF was admittedly different & owed its roaring blockbuster success as much to Nolan's groundbreaking TDK as it did to Mendes, who saw an opportunity to craft a grand melodramatic soap opera vision with M's death.
CR was the origin story. They should have moved on from it, rather than trying to make the entire Craig era one big self contained origin effort (which it is now, 11 years later).
Well said. With the exception of SF, Eon has not had the confidence of its own CR storytelling (which was largely Fleming, with a big assist from Haggis and Campbell), so instead, we are being subjected to an endless origin storyline with the characters who worked so well in CR (Vesper, Mathis, Leiter, White).
Eon has yet to create a major character in QoS-SF as memorable as any of the major characters in CR.
Agreed. In fact I'd add that it's very pretentious. People complain that the formula is a tired cliche, but nothing is more tired than the same soap-opera-esque emotional tropes over and over again. We get it. Craig-Bond is an emotionally damaged individual. Move on already EON.
I don't get the QoS revisionism, it's simply not up to scratch in my book. Craig, however, is probably the best thing about it.
CR on the other hand, is a top three Bond film on every level. Style, panache, energy, excitement, intrigue... it delivers everything you'd expect and more in a completely fresh way. Calling out Craig for being a rookie at 38 - I don't care, it's irrelevant. The film is a blast from start to finish. A jewel in the crown. An exceptional Bond film.
Not one I'd choose to go and rewatch.
My controversial opinion would be my low opinion of Licence to Kill. I know it's a fan favourite because it departs from the "camp", except it kind of doesn't. Not sure if it's John Glen or someone else who is responsible, but they were a few pointless Roger Moore scenes in the film — admittedly less than in The Living Daylights, but it still doesn't make much sense. Dalton just isn't meant for those scenes.
I get that it's meant to be dark in a revolutionary way, but couldn't they have stopped with all the blood and gore? For me it was completely unnecessary to see people being diced or blown up so much to get the fact that they were headed down a dark road. And sometimes I feel like the gory excess was there to compensate for the presence of the Roger Moore scenes... a double negative for me.
That aside, while I respect Timothy Dalton as an actor (even moreso now that I've seen Penny Dreadful) his take on Bond was just too dour for me. Too lacking in charisma, and he tried to play Bond like a romantic hero. The whole love triangle thing between Lupe and Pam didn't impress me. And it's been a while since I've seen it, but I recall a sub-plot with Wayne Newton's character that detracted from the revenge story.
Just overly drab and dreary for me; I simply felt like they were trying way too hard to be different. And I just don't need that from Bond.
On the other hand, the whole "going rogue" thing was at least fresh back in '89. I feel that there's too much rogueness in Bond now, and it's not necessary. Again, part of the whole "not being able to let go" miasma.
My own controversial opinion: LTK's personal angle is no less commonplace as in the later installments and a very common trope at that time (drug dealer hurting the hero who goes in a personal vendetta). Other controversial opinion: I always felt it was a non-Bond movie where Bond stumbles upon and must go beyond cameo appearance to complete it.
Excellent post!
Yeah I just can't see QoS as anything other than a missed opportunity. It's just a mess imo. I genuinely think that Forster is the worst thing to happen to the franchise. At least Tamahori was coming from a place of love with DAD (watch it with the commentary on, gave me a newfound respect for the man). Forster deliberately tried to shy away from almost anything that makes a Bond film a Bond film (some of that wasn't his fault though, like the melody-less theme song). And to top it all of it wasn't even a good film in its own right. Could have been if he'd developed the million sub plots past a couple of scenes, picked one main plot thread to focus on, given the film time to breath, actually allowed us to see what was going on in the action scenes (maybe he was trying to disguise the fact that there's no variety and that it's just chase scene after chase scene), etc.
QoS is the only Bond film that makes me legimately angry. I can find something to enjoy in most of them but I really properly despise this one. My least favourite by far.
Thank you, kind sir!
Forgot another opinion of mine that's bound to be controversial: FYEO is the worst of the Moore films, by a noticeable margin.
I disagree (TMWTGG and MR are much worse imo) but I'm not a fan at all and I do think it might be the most overrated Bond film. Gets so much praise for being gritty and serious (except it isn't at all) that people seem to forget how flawed it is. The plot and the villain are so, so, so forgettable, it's as if the writers thought the slight change in direction was enough and they needn't bother coming up with a compelling story. I also think that Conti was just the wrong choice to score a Bond film, and the PTS is one of the worst in the series. I do like the whole sequence at the mansion and the escape in the citeron, the scenes with the smugglers and the climbing sequence. Moore also does a brilliant job. Other than that it's the definition of mediocrity.
Genuinely will never understand why some fans think it's Moore's best just because it's sort of grittier (but again really isn't thst dark and serious at all) when TSWLM and OP are amazing films, two of the very best in the series. I think LALD, flawed as it is, is also a lot better than FYEO, and even AVTAK is a lot more memorable and entertaining.
I think the scenes with Mathis were great too.
We do kind of agree here. I think it's a solid film in terms of raw production quality, but it's the most tonally inconsistent of Moore's films (Moore's films in general have varying tones throughout them, but this one is the most inconsistent). It's seemingly afraid to devolve into camp and looks to head into a grittier and more realistic realm, only it abandons that whenever it wants to and we get back to the silliness on a whim. Plus it's book-ended with terrible scenes (the Blofeld and Thatcher ones), and the score's probably the worst of any of Moore's films.
There's a couple of nice scenes, but nothing that Moore hasn't done before. Cold kills? Stromberg in TSWLM may well have been worse than Locque. Underwater scenes, car chases, high altitude stunts, etc. we've all had. I agree with you that the ATAC plot is highly reminiscent of the solar energy device in TMWTGG and the microfilm in TSWLM, so that part definitely lacked originality. Kristatos' nature as a villain was unprecedented, though, but I agree that he was otherwise worse than all of the villains we had from LALD to MR.
My main problem is that they're not even committed enough to the "dark and gritty" approach to call the film that. They bounce between cold kills and realism to cars with self-destruct anti-theft features, Margaret Thatcher carrying on a phone conversation with a parrot and Blofeld offering Bond a delicatessen in stainless steel. Worse intro and outro to any of Moore's Bonds, possibly to any Bond ever (and given that we've got things like "Christmas only comes once a year", that's saying something).
I agree wholeheartedly. QOS was only the third Bond film I had ever seen when I first watched it, and it nearly killed my interest in the franchise (I'm so glad I pressed onward into the good Bond films). I just recently re-watched "Everything Wrong With Quantum of Solace" on YouTube (If anyone is unfamiliar with the series I'd highly recommend looking it up) and it really is amazing what a mess the film is. Someone in the comments mentioned that, apparently, each shot averages out to only two seconds. I believe it, considering what a choppy, unpleasant experience it is to watch.
A very shallow attempt at following CR's footsteps, indeed.
Fair enough on the science-fiction. I suppose one could say it was perhaps the only one of Moore's films to not be blatantly influenced by the times (AVTAK and TSWLM are also somewhat less guilty of it than the others), which can be considered a mark in its favour as well.
Regarding espionage, Bond does exactly that in the preceding film Moonraker, so I'm not sure what you're talking about there.
More reasons to drag the film down. :P
The last third, perhaps. But up to and including Venice, I found it suitably spy-like. But I have to concede that it feels more inspired by Star Wars than the Cold War.
But in my opinion, that's more than made up for by the fact that MR is more tonally consistent than FYEO.