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Comments
It does not have to start fast either. The slow moments of FRWL are parts of its strengths.
Anyway. Back on topic, is SF overrated? Maybe, like many quality movies recently released. But the most overrated movie of all time? Certainly not. Mendes' American Beauty is far more overrated.
May be Mendes is a little bit overrated?
I actually thought American Beauty was pretty good. And his little known Away We Go is quite entertaining. But apart from that I haven't been that impressed. I thought Road to Perdition was soulless.
A bit harsh I think. The Insider from the same year was a better movie. But I think American Beauty was as deserving as most others. I mean, who really thinks The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King deserved a best picture Oscar? It's a total bore fest. The King's Speech was another dubious winner IMO. A perfectly solid movie, but nothing spectacular at all. The Social Network is superior on practically every level, but lost out to the Brit period drama plodder.
Loath GF and its likes all that you want, but at the end of the day it is because of films like GF and TSWLM that we still have Bond movies in the 21st-century.
Okay, maybe I was a bit harsh, but I still think it was a student movie that was praised for its moral(istic) message more than its intrinsic artistic values. And I loved the LOTR trilogy, but yes, other than technical achievements I don't think they deserved all the Oscars they got.
Anyway, back on topic, overrated movies are relative and many movies are at the time of their release or soon after overrated due to circumstances. Is SF overrated? Probably. But is it THE most overrated movie of all time? There are many, many more deserving contenders.
Thinking about it, Titanic is not in the list of this critic, which makes it very suspect in my eyes. If there is an overrated movie in the history of cinema, it is this one.
The only Bond film I loathe is DAD and it looks like Bond has survived despite that abomination of a film. GF was the right film for the right time. It struck a cultural nerve and boosted Bond to unheard of heights of popularity. I still don't rate it in the top 10, though, let alone Best in Show.
Hence the overrating. I guess now it is not anymore. Still, there are far more overrated movies than SF. Heck, there are far more overrated Bond movies than SF.
Fair point - it was definitely overrated by the Oscars. I think audiences went into it eyes wide open though and new what they were getting. Few if any I think were looking for or expecting a masterpiece. The reviews for SF though led me to believe I was about to witness some previously unimagineable pinnacle in movie making when I went into the cinema. Or at the very least, a Bond film to rival the early Connery films. This is something I think it frankly didn't deliver on. Hence why I think it was overrated.
I can see why for some people it was an improvement on QoS (although I actually think QoS is underrated and quite like it). But SF is so clearly inferior to CR, I just don't understand why it was bigged up in the way it was. As the author of the article says, there are some good scenes (the first few with Silva, for instance), but the plot and script is often all over the place. Sadly, it has the dead hand of Purvis and Wade all over it. CR avoided this by being based on Fleming and presumably some heavy rewriting from Haggis. QoS I actually think was better off for the writer's strike, as Purvis and Wade had to stand back and as a result it has a terse, stripped back quality that works quite well. To me the story and plot of SF has that lumbering, lurching stupidity that was the trademark of the Brosnan era.
Just because one person has DAD in his top five, it does not follow that DAD is not clearly inferior to OHMSS. In a large enough statistical sample, there will always be outliers, but they do nothing to vitiate the findings of a study based upon the sample.
I would add to this that popularity is not evidence of quality. If it was the case, Pamela Anderson was the greatest actress of the 90s.
Both these statements exemplify why I don't rank the films. They're not necessarily comparable IMO and that's why I find the Bond canon the most intriguing in cinema. Other than the name, 'James Bond', they each represent a personal time capsule of varying ideas, concepts, motivations, aesthetics, limitations, indulgences, talent, the list is endless. They do not warrant the same level of comparison as say, the original Star Wars trilogy. They are ultimately 23 separate entities, each bringing a cocktail of ingredients that may delight, baffle, annoy, intrigue, etc. On any given day I may feel like watching one of the 23 above all others. Does that mean I find it better? No, I contemplate the ingredients that comprise the Bond cocktail I require and I choose accordingly. Overrated, underrated, best, worst, all irrelevances in the world of Bond to me.
True. But popularity over time is a much stronger proof. And that is why FRWL, OHMSS, and as much as I hate to admit it, GF can safely be regarded as great Bond films, while the jury is still necessarily out on GE, SF and CR. I think at least one generation, say 25 years, must elapse, before we can even begin to form conclusive judgments.
That's certainly one way to approach it. Personally, I do not view each Bond film as constituting a Foucaldian episteme. Rather, I see a fair measure of commonality, overlap and idees fixe that run through the films. To my mind, Bond films are a genre unto themselves. And while MR and QOS are wildly different films, they are both identifiably Bond films.
As for ranking, I think the tendency to rank--or not--is a personality trait as much as anything. As for myself, I'm a ranker. Always have been.
I agree. 25 years is a decent stretch of time to elapse and if the films are still regarded as great by then, it's fair to say that they are reasonably likely to retain their reputation.
It is the writers list, so I can not really care about it.
My list is much better. ;)
Probably not the most overrated ever, but one of the most glaringly overrated in recent movie history.
Yes, that's a good point. The significance of lapsed time applies to overrating/underrating as much as it does to overall quality. Let's see where SF stands in 2037--I hope I can see! Then again, we can't really expect journalists to respect strict logic any more than we can expect Internet posters to do so. All in all, no real reason to get fussed here, although I often fail to observe that dictum myself.
He gives quite a fair review of QoS I think and has a view of the film that I share. For me also it was the most straightforwadly, unselfconsiously enjoyable Bond movie since TLD. A breath of fresh air after the awful Brosnan era and the almost overly serious CR. 4 stars is perhaps overgenerous though.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/filmreviews/10540055/James-Bond-Quantum-of-Solace-review.html
Not saying QOS doesn't have some strong elements but its a messy film that left me somewhat disappointed back in 2008.
I felt the complete opposite. It's far from perfect, but it felt to me like the first time in a long while a Bond movie was having fun while still demonstrating a bit of class. Don't get me wrong, CR is a good film, but it has just never carried me along in the same way as QoS. It's that experience of being carried along on an enjoyable thrill ride for a couple of hours (or less!) that marks out a good Bond movie for me.
As much as I wanted to I've never felt "carried along" by Quantum other than appreciating the odd set or shot. The performances are good and I can see what Foster is trying to do but as a piece of escapist entertainment it just doesn't quite work for me.
I'd rather go back and watch Moonraker in all honesty.
Without a doubt CR is a better film than QoS although I personally prefer QoS and have praised it multiple times. The biggest problem is that QoS is an unfinished product, I think it's part of it's charm but it doesn't help it's overall quality as a film!
I agree with @Sandy. On paper CR is the better film, but in terms of my own personal enjoyment, I prefer to watch QoS.