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Comments
I think it's Craig's best and most Bondian performance.
One of the major issues with the Craig era is that the films are too long. All apart from QOS. I tried to watch CR recently and frankly got bored. The Miami airport action is pointless padding. I Sincerely don't understand why people think Campbell is so amazing - give me John Glen any day.
I quite enjoyed SP but have no burning desire to go back and watch it again. SF is the worst for me. As others Have noted, after the Island a rather promising start just evaporated into incohetent tedium.
Plenty of Other Bond films flag in the final act, but SF goes on for so long it feels like an eternity. Endless chasing around a boringly shot and dreary looking London (looks like a dull TV cop show for large parts of the film) and then the terminally unexciting finale in dreary looking Scotland.
i think the visual qualities of this film, along with the soundtrack, are grossly overrated.
Not for me. Some of the compositions in QoS are great, but SF is on another level. Deakins' lighting is outstanding.
I would agree.
I would take Ted Moore's Istanbul over Deakins' any day.
Quite frankly, I find Istanbul very dull looking in Skyfall.
1) The killing of Camille's parents
2) Greene being a smart and menacing character
3) Quantum doing stuff instead of talking about stuff they had done.
4) The conversation between Bond and Greene in the end. There is no real encounter between the two.
5) No visualisation of the water controll plot.
It's funny, but when I first watched SF, I was blown away by the cinematography. What a step up from QoS, I thought. However, with time and more watches, I realize that QoS is as good if not better in many cases (particularly the day time work, which has a real old school panavision technicolour look to it).
So it wasn't the cinematography that initially turned me off of QoS, but something else. I just can't put my finger on what it was. Perhaps it's because it just wasn't CR (there was a lack of romance and class to the dialogue).
PS re cinematography, whilst appreciating it, in terms of priorities, its pretty meaningless if you have no emotional connection with the characters and their situation. It just sinks to the level of a classic pop video .
You need a trip to the opticians, mate. On a technical level it isn't even close.
Just saying it isn't better.
I do personally prefer the day time scenes (particularly in Bolivia/Haiti/Italy or wherever they filmed it) in QoS to any daytime scenes in SF, which seem a bit monotone and washed out (in that SP way) in some instances, particularly in Istanbul and on the boat to Silva's island. When the bloody camera stays still, QoS is visually impressive to me.
That night sequence during the Greene Planet fundraiser is superb as well, again imho.
That's not taking anything away from SF or Deakins, who did magnificent work.
Spot on.
Yes, you are one after my own heart.
Deakins is great, nobody will deny that, but I don't think SF is such an easy winner. I like QoS because it doesn't strive to be a blockbuster looking feature; it's got a 70s feeling of rough and tumble that fits with the journey Bond is on. The frames are very introspective and melancholic at times, like when Bond is on the plane or holding Mathis when he dies. The shots really hold on these characters as they face hell, and the performances allow you to feel it too. The visuals help to support the performances in this way, and make QoS an ever stronger character piece.
Very well said, couldn't agree more with that assessment.
- Aston vs Alfa chase
- Palio scene
- "teachers on sabbatical"
- Tosca scene
- visiting Mathis
- Mathis and Bond about what is keeping them awake
- final scene in Kazan
I would add the Greene/Beam/Elvis/Felix on the plane scene...i love that scene,the performances and the atmosphere,discussing their plans and Bond....
With the exception of SP I'd say the cinematography of the Craig films has been exquisite. The grittiness of CR, the sheen of QOS and the nightmare hellish inferno of the Skyfall lodge ablaze and Craig's run across the lake. I agree though that the Instanbul PTS looks incredibly dull and washed out.
I was always impressed by the QOS cinematography from the first cinema showing. There's such a sharp clarity to the film. I like the Kubrik like framing of the brief shot in which Greene and his men stand off against Bond in the opera house and the overexposed and yet ominous desert shots. The panning shot of Camille swinging off from the roof to the veranda of Hotel Perla De Las Dunas is a great little shot.
QOS can be watched as a stand-alone quite easily,and the rookie gunbarrel at the start of CR and the gunbarrel at the end of QOS brings that story to a close,if you view it as a 2-parter.
SF to me,wil ALWAYS be a stand-alone film,there is NO link per se,to Silva and the other 2 films...i enjoy it so much more if i see it as a stand-alone as i did originally.
SP is the only dodgy entry and now leaves EON with a hell of a lot of hard work to do re BOND25 ...personally for me we need a stand-alone before Blofeld comes back.
If Waltz doesnt want to wait then so be it ,Blofeld,on screen ,has always been played by different actor in each film in the past so thats not a problem,and he should be put on ice until BOND26.
Whether its Craig having a last film (personally i think he should go now ,use the DB5 and Madeleine as his swann-song ,pardon the pun he he ),or BOND7 arrives,a new stand-alone film is in order.
Yeah, I love that scene too.