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No I don’t because those are all staples of the franchise, and arguably the reason why it’s lasted so long. In fact I’d argue one of the reasons Quantum of Solace still gets looked down upon is because it lacks all of those elements. There is nothing wrong with desiring Bond films that are a little more down to earth and serious, but even the best examples of those types of thrillers like From Russia With Love or The Living Daylights still have those elements in tact. Without them, you’re left with just another generic action film, and in the case of QOS, one that feels too much like Jason Bourne, and not enough like James Bond.
But wasn't the series making Bond seen as too much of an action HERO when PB had the role? From TND onward the films were criticized by critics for that. CR also lacked a lot of humor with it strategically placed in the script to come off as smarter than quip-y and one linerish.
Bond has always been seen as an over the top action hero well before the Pierce Brosnan films, so I don’t think the issue with those movies is down purely to the humor and fantastical elements, more the writing and directing decisions made within those films, and I say this as one of the defenders of both TND (a film that I believe I previously described on this thread as generic and bland), and TWINE. I wouldn’t say Casino Royale lacked humor, it was much more subtle and witty than the humor found in the previous films. That scene in the car with Bond and Vesper where he states her cover name is “Tiffany Broadchest” is a perfect example. Heck even in the torture scene we have Bond joking about how he got Le Chiffre to “scratch his balls.” Humor has always been a component of Bond. Using QOS as an example, the scene where that basket of fruit was dropped and you have the old lady disappointed is almost something out of a Roger Moore film.
But I honestly don't think there's anything generic about QOS at all. Thinking about it, a lot of the criticisms were because it sidestepped the formula too much. Not enough boxes ticked or tropes rehashed, etc - which suggests that a lot of people wished that QOS had been a lot more generic. Me, I love it as it is.
I don’t think QOS received criticism because it didn’t adhere to the formula, because Casino Royale was universally praised and that deviated pretty far from the formula. QOS received criticism because from a technical standpoint, it’s not a well made film. It’s poorly edited, it has poor direction, and the script could’ve done with a hell of a lot more work on it. I’m glad that there is a huge following to the film, but I just always leave the movie whenever I watch it (and I don’t watch it often) feeling cold and empty. Perhaps audiences needed to curb their exceptions after Casino Royale, but honestly with a film as Masterful as that one was, you can’t blame critics and audiences for feeling disappointed.
Although, yes, it's true that the editing seems to be the main criticism. But look at it this way: Forster said he expected to get 12-13 weeks to edit QOS, but EON gave him just 6 weeks. That's bound to have affected the way the film looks. But some of the way QOS looks was a deliberate choice - it was EON who hired Dan Bradley from The Bourne Supremacy to direct the action sequences. Bradley said that he also wrote those sequences and that he deliberately set them up and filmed them in such a way that he didn't 'make everything feel perfectly staged. I’m always saying to my crew, I want to feel like we were lucky to catch a glimpse of some crazy piece of action. I don’t want it to feel like a movie, where everything is perfectly presented to the audience.' So it's not that it was badly directed or edited - EON wanted it done like that, quite deliberately. And they liked QOS so much that they asked Forster to direct what became SF, after all. They didn't throw him out of the house until the reviews came in - and I've often thought that the British critics, at least, would've given the follow-up to CR a savage kicking no matter what. CR was universally praised, so the next one had to get a hammering. It's the way critics work here.
You mean from FYEO where the olives spill? I'm trying to think of more examples it was like a scene from an RM film...the grapes weren't funny in QoS because the film had a melancholic tone.
No that scene where Bond is chasing Mitchel and he bumps into some old lady trying to carry her basket of fruit (was it grapes? I can’t remember) and causes her to drop it, afterwards you get like a quick 2-3 second reaction from her, which feels very much like something in the Roger Moore era. QOS does have a melancholic tone to the movie, but unfortunately I think it works to the detriment of the movie in the end.
Well there was plenty of comic relief in QOS from the dialogue and situations. Elvis' sole purpose was that. And pretty much Mr. Beam. Which I thought worked very well to move things along.
It was cherries. And yeah that was funny.
It is a funny scene I’ll give it that, it just surprises me when I take that scene in the context of the film that it’s in. The same goes for Elvis and Beam. It’s clear they are trying to have some sort of comedic value to them, but when compared to the rest of the film around them, it feels tonally off and not right for the film they’re trying to tell. In many ways, it’s like Wayne Newton, and the Key West Bar Fight in Licence to Kill. Both are attempts at some sort of humor, but just don’t work within the film they’re in.
To me it's a natural release and counterpart to more serious moments, rather than outright silliness. All the Craig films handled that well.
Herr Mendel is another example.
I appreciate that QOS at least recognizes that it needs humor and levity, but I think my issue is it doesn’t embrace it enough. By design, it’s supposed to be an emotional rollercoaster ride to follow Casino Royale, so what it needed was humor that felt natural and not out of place in the story. I mean using Elvis as an example, he’s ultimately a cheap silly character, used for cheap comic relief, there’s nothing subtle about it at all, which results in whatever attempts of humor surrounding his character falling flat I’m afraid. It’s that outright silliness you’re referring and in a film where Bond is trying to grieve Vesper’s death, just feels tonally jarring. It’s why I don’t think the humor and levity in this film works the way did in Casino Royale and some of the preceding and following films, that and it’s lack of “Bondian” Identity.
This is cherry picking.
My friends call me Dominic
I'm sure they do
Not at all, just of all the attempts at humor that fall through, that one stands out the most as tonally jarring. Hence why I mentioned that it’s like something out of a Roger Moore film.
But none of those attempts at Humor manage to land at all. When the entire film surrounding the humor is bleak and depressing, what few attempts at humor they do try isn’t going to work, and I say the same about Licence to Kill.
The fact is there needs to be balance between serious, emotional circumstances and light hearted humor, and this is something all of the other Craig films (even SPECTRE) managed to execute well, whereas QOS doesn’t really succeed in that aspect.
That’s a nice way of looking at it. If I do have something positive to say about QOS, which I always walk away from that movie at least liking one element more than previous, it’s that opening chase at the start, and the fact that there swinging on the ropes while punching each other, it’s a unique action set piece that just screams Bond to me.
Agreed. That whole opening is so frenetic and fun to me - one of the best car chases in the series, simple yet effective, then segues into a really thrilling parkour chase and a unique setpiece at the end of it. I love it a lot.
'When someone says we have people everywhere, you expect it to be hyperbole. Florists use that expression!' That landed pretty well, didn't it? As did the 'lottery' quip.
Ok, 'I can't find the stationary' fell a bit flat - it didn't quite get over the point that Bond already knew that Fields was up for it, so he couldn't even be bothered to think of a good quip to lure her into the bedroom. So, yeah, fair enough on that one.
But the black humour of 'Slate was a dead end' was pretty good and coming out with 'I'm not dwelling on the past' when he's ostensibly on a revenge mission was great - as was the follow up 'and she shouldn't either' when M's griping about Slate's death.
I particularly liked the later Bond and M exchange:
'You killed a man in Bregenz.'
'I did my best not to.'
'You shot him at pointblank range and threw him off a roof!'
Classic. Exactly the kind of deadpan, dark humour that CraigBond needed. IMO, obvs - because humour's subjective, after all. I mean, I laughed at the absurdity of it when Camille pulled up, said 'Get in' and Bond (having no idea who she was at that point) just looked around and went 'All right'. Reminded me of the Monty Python skit where a bloke goes up to a copper on Westminster Bridge at night, says 'Pssst - want to come back to my place?' and the copper looks around and goes 'All right' and off they go. Fair enough, though - I expect a lot of people didn't make that connection in QOS, so wouldn't've found it as amusing as I did!
Great lines. And I agree. Haggis wrote good stuff. Left to themselves, P&W have never been able to produce material that's good enough, in my opinion at least.
I’ll say that what little humor I do find in the film mostly comes from how dry Craig is. That response after Slate’s Death reminded me of how casually sadistic some of the quips Connery’s Bond had in Dr. No, and FRWL. Craig really excels at selling that dark humor wonderfully.