McBain
Player Valuation: £80m
I wrote a huge review on the weekend then accidentally erased it.
So here goes again.
I give this film 7 martini's out of ten.
Intro:
The gun barrel sequence has been dropped from the opening, and stuck on the end. Its like Star Wars without the intro. Its cinematic salivation to see the wandering target get blasted by the Bond. I don't get it. The opening sequence is a good action chase. Good, not great. In fact, its a bit average when you sit it along its predecessors. The theme song is good, and I was really impressed with the opening graphics. They were done really well.
The Story:
Environmental themed story with a pretty weak bad guy. Where you used to have Smersh members sitting around plotting and getting bumped off by Blofeld for screwing up, now they are faceless tuxedoed business types. Boring. The bad guy is a pretty good actor, just not really used well. So Bond goes rogue and kills a few people, which seems to piss M off, even though the guy has a licence to kill. There's minimal one liners, a sub plot with the Bond Girl that hardly rates a mention (Kill Bill did it so much better).
Bond:
Is back and he does a good job. Is it me or is his face really big? And the clothes. He wears the same clothes for half the movie. Those white pants get annoying after a while. He runs around and fights and chases and drives and does all the stuff Bond does. He beats up four trained agents in a lift with his hands tied and then has trouble beating up the nerdy Bad Guy.
The Direction:
Marc Foster has a pretty good pedigree, but I think he's just thought it out too much. Everything's a deep meaning reflection of the inner character, the symbolism and the intercutting of the horse race/opera and blah blah blah. Its a James Bond movie. We want to see hot mammas and awesome locations. Death defying stunts and bad guys who want to take over the world, not just plump it for some cash. There's no gadgets, as close as you can get is the 'minority report' style computer at MI5. There's no Q, or Moneypenny which they say 'arent in the books so why should they be in the film?' Well I dont thing they read 'Quantum of Solace' properly because its set at a dinner party in Nassau and the only thing that makes the book to the film is James Bond himself. Lame excuse.
Forgettable, somewhere at the back of the Bonds best of. Whats your take if youve seen it?
And now I think of it I wanted to comment about a bizzare commercial at the begining of the film. Its show Bond in slow motion getting blown up a few times, walking toward the camera in slow mo. Its for HD or something and its like the final scene of the film but done for an AD. Anyone else see it? Weird.
So here goes again.
I give this film 7 martini's out of ten.
Intro:
The gun barrel sequence has been dropped from the opening, and stuck on the end. Its like Star Wars without the intro. Its cinematic salivation to see the wandering target get blasted by the Bond. I don't get it. The opening sequence is a good action chase. Good, not great. In fact, its a bit average when you sit it along its predecessors. The theme song is good, and I was really impressed with the opening graphics. They were done really well.
The Story:
Environmental themed story with a pretty weak bad guy. Where you used to have Smersh members sitting around plotting and getting bumped off by Blofeld for screwing up, now they are faceless tuxedoed business types. Boring. The bad guy is a pretty good actor, just not really used well. So Bond goes rogue and kills a few people, which seems to piss M off, even though the guy has a licence to kill. There's minimal one liners, a sub plot with the Bond Girl that hardly rates a mention (Kill Bill did it so much better).
Bond:
Is back and he does a good job. Is it me or is his face really big? And the clothes. He wears the same clothes for half the movie. Those white pants get annoying after a while. He runs around and fights and chases and drives and does all the stuff Bond does. He beats up four trained agents in a lift with his hands tied and then has trouble beating up the nerdy Bad Guy.
The Direction:
Marc Foster has a pretty good pedigree, but I think he's just thought it out too much. Everything's a deep meaning reflection of the inner character, the symbolism and the intercutting of the horse race/opera and blah blah blah. Its a James Bond movie. We want to see hot mammas and awesome locations. Death defying stunts and bad guys who want to take over the world, not just plump it for some cash. There's no gadgets, as close as you can get is the 'minority report' style computer at MI5. There's no Q, or Moneypenny which they say 'arent in the books so why should they be in the film?' Well I dont thing they read 'Quantum of Solace' properly because its set at a dinner party in Nassau and the only thing that makes the book to the film is James Bond himself. Lame excuse.
Forgettable, somewhere at the back of the Bonds best of. Whats your take if youve seen it?
And now I think of it I wanted to comment about a bizzare commercial at the begining of the film. Its show Bond in slow motion getting blown up a few times, walking toward the camera in slow mo. Its for HD or something and its like the final scene of the film but done for an AD. Anyone else see it? Weird.
Last edited:
