Quantum of Solace (my belated thoughts)

A few years back I was a reader and occasional contributor to the James Bond newsgroup. (Anyone remember newsgroups?) Anyway, when a new Bond movie came out I would put up my initial thoughts. I've not done that for many years so I thought I would do something similar here.

To be honest I was not getting my hopes up about Quantum of Solace. Casino Royale was the best Bond movie in many years and I couldn't not see how the next one could match it. plus all the talk of it being action-packed the whole way thorough didn't bode well.

However, on balance, I was pleasantly surprised. While it is nowhere near as good as Casino Royale it is nowhere near as poor as it might have been. At the very least it is superior to the Brosnan era's entries.

The opening car chase appears to be exciting. If only the makers had opted for less frenetic editing so I could actually see what was happening! When I see clips of it on TV it looks a bit clearer what is going on, so hopefully I'll enjoy that more on DVD.

I didn't like the song when I first heard it and I've not changed my mind since. At least it's not as bad as Madonna's.

The chase through the tunnels and rooftops was fine. There was some nice arty inter-cutting with the horse race.

I enjoyed the scene where M surmises that Dominic Greene is indeed a "person of interest".

Bond's fight with the "geologist" was good but seemed very... well, Bourne. The meeting with Camille was good. Olga Kurylenko really grew on me as the movie progressed. (Put it this way, I'm probably going to track down her other DVDs.) The following boat chase was unnecessary.

My favourite sequence of the movie was the opera segment. Bond's method of identifying the members of Quantum was ingenious and amusing. The following gun battle was inter-cut with the opera in a very arty and entertaining way.

After that there was more action, some action and a bit of action. It was nice to see Mathis again and Bond's drinking binge on the plane.

I did think that Gemma Arterton was very good value as agent Fields. As expected she didn't last for too much of the movie's running time, but she made an impression when she did.

After the emotionally devastating ending of Casino Royale it was a pity that QoS ended up with traditional explosions. At least Bond's farewell "gift" to Greene (the can of oil in the desert) gave a glimpse of his cruelty. Daniel Craig continues to play the role perfectly.

Lots of M in this movie. I would have liked to see more of Felix.

Finally I liked how the location names came up in unusual but suitable "fonts". Also the choice of locations provided some of the most visually stunning seen in a Bond movie for a long time. The deserts were particularly memorable.

In summary the movie is disappointing when compared to the excellence of Casino Royale but still far better than a lot of the post-1960s entries.

Quantum of Solace posters

Although I am in two minds about the Quantum of Solace movie (better than I thought it would be, but not as good as Casino Royale) I would quite like to get my hands on some of the posters.

So far I have only seen the grey "teaser" poster in the shops. I've been doing a little bit of research on play.com, ebay.co.uk and pyramidposters.com and I've "discovered" three poster designs that hopefully be available in the shops soon.

The first design is the standard poster art with Daniel Craig and Olga Kurylenko.



The second design is a "quartet" featuring Daniel Craig, Olga Kurylenko, Gemma Arterton and Mathieu Amalric.



Finally we have one with just Olga Kurylenko, who, I must add, is looking suitable sultry.



If they release one of Gemma Arterton I will be uber-happy, but I'll be pleased enough if I can find the three above!

Quantum of Solace poster

Another post on Quantum of Solace. I was doing some absent-minded searching and I discovered the following poster image. It appears to be the real deal, and if so I love it.

It's nice and simple, goes straight to the point: Daniel, Olga, plume of smoke, desert.

Casino Royale had a very gray colour pallet. This time we're getting desert browns. I like!

Gemma Arterton in Vanity Fair

Here's a scan that I made of Gemma Arterton in the new issue of Vanity Fair. Gemma is one of the new Bond ladies in Quantum of Solace.

Gemma has been busy. Tonight she's on BBC1 in the final episode of Tess of the D'Urbervilles (which is sure to have a happy ending!) and recently she was also in ITV's surprisingly enjoyable Lost in Austen.

Anyways, here's the scan. Click to get the big version.



PS Thanks oh so very much Mail on Sunday for giving away her fate in Quantum of Solace!

Quantum of Solace books

The new Bond movie comes out soon and as you probably know it's named Quantum of Solace. This was a title of one of five Ian Fleming short stories that appeared back in 1960 in a collection called For Your Eyes Only. Later on after his death some other stories were published under the title Octopussy and The Living Daylights.

To tie-in with the movie release it appears that Penguin, the current publishers of the Bond books, have decided to bring out a new book with the title of the movie. This book features all the Fleming short stories collected togeather.

Interestingly it seems they are not going with a Daniel Craig illustration. The two covers shown here are the UK hardback and paperback covers and I think they are very much in keeping with some of the fleming covers from the 1960s. In any case, I'm sure I'll ending up buying at least one of them!